Will cruelty and horror become normalized?

There was one post on TLO by Coa that I frequently revisit. I will quote the relevant passage for this thread and bold the most pertinent sentence:

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It would be interesting to see some further discussion on cruelty on other mediums - like internet of course, in recent years great rise of popularity of Snuff genre which is getting more and more exposed, sites that contain videos of torture from some random war-zones across world, "leaked" mortuary video shows or blogs that mainly focus on pictures of car crash victims for example... There is whole scene now and its getting wider, for better or worse. There is some kinda of addiction behind all this when you just cant look away, those who know better speak speak of some kind of healing process behind all this, which is kinda hard to believe, but there is certainly something special behind all of that, not just dead-end pathology.

Are our notions of cruelty, good, and bad largely inborn, or do they fluctuate like most things in life? I have gone on such websites as what Coa referred, and after watching sadistic videos, I observed comments of people expressing arousal, satisfaction, and so forth. I do not think I am permitted to describe those videos in detail, but I am interested in people's own personal experiences or thoughts towards such a subculture.

We live in a time where the foundation of virtues are being destabilized by one thing or another, thanks to the loss of traditional cultures or growth of nihilism. Is it possible we will see more fetishizing of what we consider to be the darkness as pessimistic literature's popularity grows or nihilistic discourse becomes more commonplace? Will there be more people seeking the thrill of sadism, like this man here who left TLO a long time ago:

Nothing frightens me anymore - THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK

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Nothing frightens me anymore. I'm losing interest in films and books which once frightened me. Only real horrors frighten me, which aren't the same, because they are theoretical, and statistically only happen to other people. Sure, there are things that will gross me out, or subtly clever variations upon themes and ideas which once had me quaking under the covers, but in terms of sheer childish terror, I haven't been scared for twenty years. Fear, sex and death are the only things worth exciting over. Everything else is a less visceral emotional response. I want to feel the cold blade of a razor on my throat; the jaw-dropping horror of the flying bed in 'The Exorcist'; or the wild thrill of a hurried sexual liasion in the stationary cupboard with a married woman.

If such phenomena becomes more widespread, wouldn't what people perceive as 'dark' change roles into becoming what we, presently, consider more 'light'? It's a bizarre idea, but we see it all the time during times of war. The reactions of what certain phenomena elicit seems to be variable and impermanent across many individuals.

I think this is one (supposedly) negative consequence of pessimistic, nihilistic thought growing in popularity. Since virtues have been upended, there's nothing to stop people from exploring such cruel aspects of the mind, which they'd argue are fundamental facets of life and not necessarily bad. There is no 'ought' to stop people from delving into or molding such aspects of the psyches.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE