>I believe that individuals making death threats or rape threats on the internet are generally making individual choices with full knowledge of the repercussions. I do not believe they have any reasonable excuse justifying their actions. The responsibility for understanding and identifying how deeply they can damage another human is solely theirs.
Fine. What are you going to do about it?
Imprison them? Highly counterproductive. Complain about them on the internet? They live for that. Sit back and do nothing?
Grandparent proposed a positive course of action that they believe will effect change. Asking whose fault or responsibility the problem is is missing the point; what we should focus on is how to solve it.
OP believes society does not do enough to cause people to be creative. That kind of problem has one kind of solution. Perhaps the very grant that Phil Fish used to initially fund his development of Fez would qualify.
I believe people that make death threats are solely responsible for their actions. They need to be held accountable. There are tons of ways to hold them accountable.
One such internet community built solely around internet gaming is Lethalfrag's Twitch.tv channel. You can see for yourself the quality of commentary on his show. He has spoken at length about his methods for maintaining a solid community. He does not do it by providing people with a creative outlet.
But I shouldn't have to point out an example of a successful internet community to assert what the problem is. I think it is in the ways in which we hold people accountable for their actions. Maybe you do not believe that is the problem.
In any case, I cannot imagine you believe the problem is that we do not make it easy enough for people who make death threats to be creative. That's an awful lot of grace we give a person before expecting them to change their behavior.
No, the problem is people making death threats. Don't mistake one of any number of possible factors that lead to the problem for the problem itself.
You believe that "the ways in which we hold people accountable for their actions" is a contributing causal factor? Fine. But identifying a causal factor is pointless unless you have a plan for dealing with it.
OP was proposing a practical intervention. Is it the best possible practical intervention? I don't know, but your counterproposal should be another practical intervention, not just a theory about one of the causes of the problem.
Fine. What are you going to do about it?
Imprison them? Highly counterproductive. Complain about them on the internet? They live for that. Sit back and do nothing?
Grandparent proposed a positive course of action that they believe will effect change. Asking whose fault or responsibility the problem is is missing the point; what we should focus on is how to solve it.