Sad day in Aurora. I view this as an inevitable and rare consequence of an open society, which does not causes me to rethink my position on gun control or much else. Guns are banned in some places and not others without a significant effect on violence. Violence usually has a very different face than these high profile incidents, in any case, and it seems to have a lot more to do with fatherless children and demographics and a lack of willingness to lock up repeated bad actorse. Further, this guy seemed to have some other capabilities, like methodical planning and making bombs, that made him particularly dangerous in light of his intelligence and the time he had on his hands.
He does, however, seem to have something in common with the LA Fitness Shooter, the Va Tech Shooter, and the Psycho Navy Pilot Shooter: social awkwardness that led to a major lack of luck with women (and people in general) and culminated in unbearable frustration and loneliness. In a society that celebrates the self coupled with a dating market that is highly skewed to a handful of winners (at least on the male side of things), his life seemed meaningless and full of disappointment. He was further handicapped with an Aspergerish edge too, as were the others I mentioned. Perhaps, he was beginning to suffer from Schizophrenia, which commonly manifests in one’s early 20s. I suspect his interest in neuroscience and the like may have had something to do with his internal demons; lots of people who are borderline nutty or depressed or have other mental health issues seem to pursue psychology or related fields. But most of all we seem to have a person who turned his anger and frustration at his own life outward. He’s not crazy, strictly speaking, and certainly not as crazy as the schizoid Jared Loughner, just selfish and frustrated and lacking in a strong conscience. Thankfully, most guys in his position don’t cause too much harm to society through some anesthetic combination of video games, pornography, and alcohol. But there are legions of his kind, just as there an order of magnitude more people, mostly women, on antidepressants due to the unsustainable lack of social support and Darwinian currents of our highly individualistic society.
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I don’t know how to learn anything about this case, certainly not about what made the murderer the way he was. Most of what I read about just reëmphasizes that he was part-way through a doctoral program, and that he was quitting. It is mentioned repeatedly that he is white, and it’s speculated that he is a spooky “conservative” or something equally otherworldly and horrible.
In other words, reading articles in the race-Marxist press won’t reveal anything that wasn’t already revealed to me when I attended race-Marxist factory schools: namely, that I am supposed to feel guilty for existing.
That said, I think your analysis is as good as any. People can point and laugh at how eccentric white men fail with women, and then stuff like this happens and they stop laughing. It’s bad enough when nature tells you you are pretty much going to go extinct; jeering mobs don’t help.
We can’t rely on the hyper-eccentric loner’s self-interest to protect us–if he takes the long view he know his bloodline dies with him. If he’s a sociopath as well, we can’t rely on his conscience to stay his hand. If he’s capable of getting an advanced education, then we must assume he has the ability to plan and execute horrible actions as well. The only reason these crimes don’t happen more often is that that particular combination of personality treats–eccentric awkwardness, lack of conscience, planning skills, and follow-through– is pretty rare.
“Thankfully, most guys in his position don’t cause too much harm to society through some anesthetic combination of video games, pornography, and alcohol”
I am not sure these are really all that anesthetic. I think more likely that they feed the neuroses and amplify the frustration. There’s always been serial killers, but it does seem like we’ve had a rise in mass murderers in recent history, and I wonder whether there is a connection between this and the seductive nihilism of the modern world’s ubiquitous pornography, video games, and violent movies.
Could be. It could be like other things that are less-than-ideal outlets: most are left satisfied or their bad impulses are redirected, whereas some find a new appetite they never knew existed. Hard to say.