I think it's undeniable that the troubled teen industry will sometimes produce violent outcomes. What they do to children is unbelievable, it just ends in suicide more often than homicide.

Nick Reiner is not the principal victim of the Nick Reiner story.

I personally don't think we need to rank victims here. We don't know anything about what happened and why. All we know is that he was a troubled person growing up and that he was sent to a child abuse camp by his parents - though they almost certainly didn't know that's what it was. That's not enough information to really even be sure what happened, let alone why.

[–] Lussy@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I personally don't think we need to rank victims here.

That’s really hard to do when two people are dead and one isn’t.

[–] LeninWeave@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yeah, the people who are dead raised the one who isn't. It's possible - though that doesn't excuse it and doesn't mean they deserved it - that their actions, including sending him to be tortured as a child, contributed to this outcome.

Accordingly, and seeing that we have no real details about this whole situation (either further mitigating or non-mitigating context for anyone involved), I don't think we need to sit here coming up with a numerical ranking of who was the bigger victim.

Edit: It's possible (extreme example) that this had nothing to do with his upbringing. It's also possible (other extreme) that they abused him his whole life and this is the result. We don't know. I find it most likely that this is the tragic outcome of a situation which was allowed to happen by a completely broken society, and I don't think we gain anything from determining a "primary" victim, especially with the limited information available.

[–] gay_king_prince_charles@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

We don't need to numerically rank victims, I agree with you on that front. But Nick is the only party here who gets to defend himself from the allegations or spread more light on the issue. It's also worth mentioning that this entire thread is operating under the assumption that he did it, and that also isn't known.

[–] LeninWeave@hexbear.net 3 points 6 days ago

Agreed, both good points.