Yeah, but he talks about a War on Women. Not a War on Men. Though he wants to kill some of them too, in this case it manifests itself in misogyny.

You're right that he's just a nut job. If he'd been getting laid, he still would have snapped, for some other reason. Maybe he would have killed rich people or something.

I follow some high-voltage women, younger ones, on Twitter.

Who am I kidding? There aren't many older ones of any description.

Saturday: Woke up / rushed to work, and then finally had a moment to look over the Twitter feed. I saw this and this.

And I was all, like, What the fucq is "PUA"?'

Now, I like to think of myself as a very "hip" and "With-it!" kind of older person, one who's totally clued in to the hottest trends and important "happenings" in today's dynamic and electrified youth culture.

Eventually, through Google and other clues, I put it together: There'd been a mass shooting. Some (or many) media sources had described this guy as someone who had problems getting laid, someone who'd turned to the most pathetic methods for resolution.

I feel bad about the people who died in this attack. (OK? Post Office Box Where-I-Am, Seriousville, Ohio, 43512. Understand? Not kidding. Murder sucks.)

But mostly, I'm impressed to think that "pick-up artistry" is something to which a bright woman in her thirties (McArdle) and a bright woman in her twenties (Hill) would be so conversationally attuned... Acronyms!

I mean, I'm not attuned to it. And I have a penis, and girlfriends, and all that stuff! Sexual intercourse! Candlelight dinners, fucking, regret, the whole kit 'n kaboodle.

But the last depiction of a pick-up artist I've encountered was the (poorly-depicted) Tom Cruise character in that lesser Paul Anderson movie fifteen years ago. No men in my life have ever expressed enthusiasm for that stuff... Except for a few who enjoy Tiki bars, but even then, they always bring their wives, who enjoy playing along.

I contend that "pick up artists" basically ceased to exist in America after about 1968. Of course, PATHETIC men will always be with us. I would certainly expect any woman with a college degree (or a loving father) to live in comfortable immunity to men who say deceptively flattering things to new acquaintances over drinks.

But it's honestly kind of charming to think that women as sharp as those two have made enough study of these weasels to speak with proportionate condescension, as does our hostess on this blog.




So that's that.

The Monaco Grand Prix starts in four hours, and this may be the best race there in the last decade. You'll all be awake for it, won't you?

Of course you will.

As McArdle put it in a later comment on Twitter:

"Millions of men who have trouble attracting the opposite sex didn't shoot someone today."

As McArdle put it in a later comment on Twitter:

"Millions of men who have trouble attracting the opposite sex didn't shoot someone today."

And that Kashmire Hill tweet you mention:

@kashhill Guy was more into Pokemon videos than PUA ones. He was mentally disturbed, lonely, and felt women should want him because he drove a BMW.

Sounds like this coward would have been a miserable bastard even if he had managed to rope his dream sorority trophy wife.

" I will torture some of the good looking people before I kill them, assuming that the good looking ones had the best sex lives."

Thank The Lord Jesus Christ I didn't live by him because according to his description I would have been his first victim.

The kid has one point, and unfortunately as long as we ignore that point, we'll keep getting crazies ... society treats people badly, and treating people badly is tolerated. Combine that with some sociopathy and likely a dysfunctional lonely home environment with probable abuse and no real safety nets for kids like that, and it's a recipe for this sort of thing. But I predict we'll all keep ignoring the causes.

Those sorority sluts who all said "No" to this evil creep showed excellent judgement, better than the police who investigated him a few weeks ago at the urgent request of his worried family, concluded he was polite & courteous, and walked away:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/24/shooting-california-santa-barbara/9532405/

Ted Bundy & Jack the Ripper could also be polite & courteous when they wanted to be.

Another sad violent tragedy, fueled by rage (apparently) and serious psychological problems and aided by lethal weaponry.

The only positive outcome is that the murderer is dead. Therefore, no need to debate whether or not he should be executed, no need to spend tax dollars keeping his twisted being alive in prison.

Too bad all mass murderers don't kill themselves (or get killed by cops in a shootout.) I see little-to-no value to have them alive in order to determine their motives. We already know the various reasons why mass murderers slaughter people; Lobster noted them in his post above. Not knowing the reasons isn't the problem. The problem, in my opinion, is that we are either unwilling to address them or, because of civil liberties, we can't address them.

no real safety nets for kids like that

Given that his family had the resources to provide him with any help they thought he needed, what sort of "safety net" would you suggest?

> The kid has one point, and unfortunately
> as long as we ignore that point, we'll
> keep getting crazies ... society treats
> people badly, and treating people badly
> is tolerated.

Lobster, I believe that even if you should live to be a thousand years old, you will never, ever pack more wrongitude into one sentence than you packed into that one.

"Society" didn't treat this kid badly. His Dad gave him a Beemer, fer Chrissake, and society gave him the license to drive it and the roads to drive it on.

"Society," Lobster, yours in particular, has never treated people as gently as it does today. Not in the most important themes of sustenance and safety, and not in all the trivial expressions of deference and courtesy. Looking backwards across humanity through the ages, and even in America's own past, our society is basically a toothless, twenty-four-hour-per-day blowjob. If America in 2014 can't make you feel comfy, the problem isn't America.

I think your comment is just so fucked up... It's like you share the Rogers punk's pussyweasel madness: There's unhappiness in the world, so it must be coming from other people.

Well, NO, kitten. It's a dark planet, and human nature is a dark force. But modern life provides incredible comfort and safety for minimal sacrifice.

Policy is NOT the problem. Not with this kid's life, and not with yours.

NOTHING is less "tolerated" nowadays than "treating people badly."

That doesn't mean that pretty women were supposed to fuck this guy.

After all, you could track down all the lonely 22-year-olds out there and blow them yourself, right?

We notice that you haven't made time to do that, Lobster.

> fueled by rage (apparently)

What does that even fucking mean?

I am sincerely curious.

What do you mean "fueled"? Do you think of "rage" as an illicit substance, one which the people in Roger's life were supposed to confiscate when they saw it sticking out of his jacket pocket?

And what's with the "(apparently)"? Is putting the word apparently in parentheses like that a way to disavow your own understanding of these events?

This is the problem with cliches: The teach you to think in cliches... That is, they teach you to think of nothing at all.

> Those sorority sluts who all said "No"
> to this evil creep showed excellent
> judgement, better than the police who
> investigated him

Martin, are you from our country?

Are you as concerned about the "judgment" of the police in your own country, too? Do you spend Sundays making blog posts about their judgment?

Just curious.

Do you think of "rage" as an illicit substance

I think of it as part of a band name and a word in a famous Dylan Thomas poem.

Well said, Martin. (Though I don't understand why you had to use such vulgar terms regarding women whose names you don't even know...)

The young man in question MAY have been a gentleman most of the time, but there was likely something about him that set off alarm bells with women, which would be why he didn't have a girlfriend. Probably the same thing that happened with George Sodini in 2009. (When you remember that there are plenty of golddiggers who will even marry men 30 years older, Sodini's being constantly rejected despite having having a good job and not-bad looks suggests that the women knew there was something seriously wrong with him - and they were right.)

I'd like to say, too, that young men need to know that while it's not true that nice guys necessarily finish last, it IS true that men - and women - with no sense of AUTONOMY finish last. Who wouldn't get bored eventually with a clinging, mindless groupie who needs to get a life?

BTW, here's a pretty interesting analysis of the Sodini case:

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/08/why_did_george_sodini_shoot_wo.html

Excerpt:

Q: "Does media reporting of this cause more shootings to happen?"

A: "Yes."

Q: "How can the press effectively report without causing more of them?"

A: "There's not much, unfortunately. The problem isn't the press, exactly; the problem is our changed relationship to the press as our defacto historians and thought police. They tell us the facts, but frame them in the historical context they think most applicable. But since there is no other 'media'-- most stories come from AP and Reuters, for example; and the type of people that go into journalism are of a certain mindset, etc-- they establish the parameters and the language of discussion. It's fourth generation warfare, played out on TV. We want to know about mass shooters because they have been telling us we want to know, and they produce the story in the way we want to hear it.

"There are some things the press can do better: report the story straight, like a boring day on Wall Street. No pictures of body bags, no sirens, no swat teams. All that stuff will get out, but don't mainstream it because then those images become the point of the story, and thus the point of committing a crime like this. These things will leak out on the internet, of course, but that's ok: no one is going to say, 'I so want to do something that will be remembered only by crazy internet detectives on metafilter.' (Unless the perpetrator is a crazy internet detective on metafilter.)

"Never, ever, show a picture of the killer on the news (unless it's a manhunt.) The public will find a picture of him if they want to, but by the media displaying it for us, it tells us we need to know it; it tells potential murderers that if they commit a murder, their identity will be the most important part of the story.

"In other words, they should report mass shooters the way they reported 9-11-- gross generalizations about 'terrorists' and little focus on the backstories of the individual perpetrators (other than Atta, name one hijacker), and massive focus on emergency personnel and victims. Hell, they don't even celebrate it as an attack, they call it by its date. That kind of coverage doesn't inspire copycats. (It doesn't inspire very much of anything, actually.)"

☑ Rex Little at May 25, 2014 10:29 AM

Along the lines of Rex's comment:

Police questioned Rodger at his apt after someone reported disturbing YouTube vids. "It would've ended everything" if they searched his room

YES, you dorkweeds, ALL CRIME CAN BE PREVENTED IF WE LET POLICE SEARCH EVERY CORNER OF OUR LIVES.

But it's not worth it. Nothing is worth that kind of intrusion... And that 'nothing' includes the lives of the people who died in Santa Barbara.

Speaking of mental cases who should have been stopped in advance, does anyone remember the case from several years ago, where a black man killed a police officer and jumped from a window, severely injuring himself, and came into the hearing room with some sort of plastic mask covering everything from the eyes down - and maybe a straitjacket as well?

What I also remember is that his mother(?) was screaming in front of the cameras, outside, that she'd repeatedly tried to get the authorities to lock him up in a hospital and no one cared enough
to do so.

(However, interestingly, you had to watch the news coverage several times over the week to catch her saying that - it was as if the media didn't really want to let the public know that the man's family had already tried everything and that the white authorities could have done more and didn't.)

I can't remember any names from the case.

Lenona @11:43 AM

I used Elliott's own language, just to emphasize that those women he had such contempt for were right when he set off their alarm bells.

Along the lines of Rex's comment:

Police questioned Rodger at his apt after someone reported disturbing YouTube vids. "It would've ended everything" if they searched his room
I hate that kind of thinking. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

YES, you dorkweeds, ALL CRIME CAN BE PREVENTED IF WE LET POLICE SEARCH EVERY CORNER OF OUR LIVES.

But it's not worth it. Nothing is worth that kind of intrusion... And that 'nothing' includes the lives of the people who died in Santa Barbara.

Posted by: Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at May 25, 2014 12:02 PM

Just like knowing yesterday's lottery numbers.

For every thousand crazies out there, one will snap, and go on a mass killing spree.
No one here is prescient enough to look at those thousand people and decide which one will go postal, and take appropriate legal steps in advance.

You could lock up this country like North Korea, and it still would not be enough to prevent this sort of thing.

California will attempt to tighten their gun laws (again,) so they appear to be doing something, conveniently ignoring the fact, that half of the innocent victims of this lunatic were stabbed to death.

@"Society" didn't treat this kid badly. His Dad gave him a Beemer, fer Chrissake"

Compensating for what? I bet he was raised in an abusive environment. He was in therapy since at least as early as age 8 ... what does that tell you - abusive parents. What is society doing about problems like that? Not much.

@"Society," Lobster, yours in particular, has never treated people as gently as it does today."

So why are so many teenagers committing suicide from the relentless alienation and peer abuse they face in schools? That, as I pointed out, is completely tolerated by society and, as I predicted, condoned and defended by people like you? How many more children will commit suicide or snap before we wake up?

@"Well, NO, kitten. It's a dark planet, and human nature is a dark force."

Oh, so which is it now? You just told me a couple paragraphs back that it's sunshine and f'ing roses.

@"NOTHING is less "tolerated" nowadays than "treating people badly."

That is a complete lie. Wake up. Open your eyes. There's carnage out there from all the children committing suicide, and I promise you it's not because those kids are being treated with love and kindness.

"Compensating for what? I bet he was raised in an abusive environment. He was in therapy since at least as early as age 8 ... what does that tell you - abusive parents. What is society doing about problems like that? Not much."

What should "society" do that is both legal and constitutional?

Abusive parents, yea, that's the ticket. Never mind all those killers who come from perfectly normal backgrounds.

What it tells me, that his mental illness, was most likely biological in origin and evident from a fairly early age.

In spite of your beliefs Lobster, sociopaths are born, not made.

"He was in therapy since at least as early as age 8 ... what does that tell you - abusive parents."

I had abusive parents and part of the abuse was never putting me in therapy for my very clear mental illness.( Actually I wish they had at least acknowledged my existence.)

He was just crazy-the kind of crazy that gives the rest of us crazies a bad name. I can tell you harrowing stories of my youth but I never went around violently attacking people. What's his complaints? He can't get laid? Jesus Christ neither could my male friends until they started making money in their fields.

I took a look at his parents and they look like the kind of people I grew up with. Eurasian, upper middle class, bought their kid a Beamer. Yup typical stuff in my part of the hood.

If they put the kid in therapy it means they suspected something was off from the get go.

And he had money and connections! Monies solves many a problem.

Let me get this straight. Rich kid, son of a Hollywood director, mad because NOBODY would take his V card ??

Let's see: Craigslst ? heck, tell some wannabe that if she sleeps with him, she gets an audition with Daddy ? Or even drive that Beemer a few hours to Nevada, and engage the services of a professional at one of the establishments there ....or even a local "pro"....

I mean, this is NOT nuclear brain surgery....

And this guy knows fuck-all about human interaction. Attractive people have better sex? MORE, maybe, but he's confusing quantity with quality here. Yes, women won't have sex with you because you're not attractive, and not because you give off the vibe that you'd like them dismembered and in your freezer.

Isab: You could lock up this country like North Korea, and it still would not be enough to prevent this sort of thing.

Not completely prevent, true, but it would likely reduce the number of occurrences.

Of course, we're never going to lock people up just because they appear threatening, so mass murders (and other violent crimes and drunk drivers killing people) are going to continue to happen. They are some of the prices we pay for living in a free society. No politician, of course, is ever going to put it in such honest terms.

Isab: Never mind all those killers who come from perfectly normal backgrounds. What it tells me, that his mental illness, was most likely biological in origin and evident from a fairly early age.

Is that really true, from "perfectly normal" backgrounds?

I mean, I don't know. Maybe it is true. Maybe sociopaths -- at least some of them -- are born, not created by their life experiences.

> I used Elliott's own language

But what's YOUR language, Martin? What part of the world are you from? Which nation?

Are there any news stories in your country for us to talk about today? Whatcha got?

Y'know, I'd been meaning to look it up for years, literally for years. I've paraphrased it several times on this blog. But a couple weeks ago I woke up before dawn and said I am going to find it, I'm going to nail it down. Didn't care whether I had to use Google, Nexis, Lexis or the power of Christian Prayer: I was going to find a proper citation for the the P.J. O'Rourke quote about America's dominance of the world's imagination.

I am a manly, imposing, and decisive personality. So it's done:

The Third World attitude toward the United States is also easy to understand if you think of it in terms of adolescence. The citizens of the Third World are in a teenage muddle about us--full of envy, imitation, anger and blind puppy love. I have been held at gunpoint by a Shi'ite youth in West Beirut who told me in one breath that America was "pig Satan devil" and that he planned to go to dental school in Dearborn as soon as he got his green card. In Ulundi, in Zululand, I talked to a young man who, as usual, blamed apartheid on the United States. However, he had just visited the U.S. with a church group and also told me, "Everything is so wonderful there. The race relations are so good. And everyone is rich." Just what part of America had he visited, I asked. "The South Side of Chicago," he said.

We are a beautiful twenty-year-old woman and they are a wildly infatuated thirteen-year-old boy. They think of us every moment of the day and we take no notice of them whatsoever. If they can't have a chance to love us, a chance to pester us will do--by becoming "Communists," for example. Anything for attention.

PJ O'Rourke
"Give War a Chance," Pg. 96
©1992, First Grove Press

This amuses... Right up to the moment in which it offends, which is always oncoming and never late.

With all the media bleating about women hating and too many guns, one fact gets ignored........
ALL these people who shoot up schools are on big pharma antidepressants. One of the side effects of antidepressants can be rage and delusion.

We have a generation of children who are on a high sugar low saturated fat diets(so called healthy). That diet combined with an incredible amount of time spent staring at video screens in various forms is playing havoc with brain chemistry. Add various antidepressants to the mix and you can get full blown psychosis.

Sometimes there are people who no amount of help will bring out of the darkness. We will never know. RIP the folks he killed.

"what part of America had he visited, I asked. "The South Side of Chicago," he said."

That made me chuckle. As a Orange County, CA native I adore the grittiness of Chi-town but lemme tell you the first time I was there I had one of those holy shit moments when I ended up in the bad part of town.

> I mean, this is NOT nuclear brain surgery....

☑



>> "Society" didn't treat this kid badly.
>> His Dad gave him a Beemer, fer Chrissake."

> Compensating for what?

Who (the fucq) told you there was "compensation" going around? What makes you think he deserved any?

>> "Society," Lobster, yours in particular, has
>> never treated people as gently as it does
>> today."

> So why are so many teenagers committing suicide
> from the relentless alienation and peer abuse
> they face in schools?

They aren't. I've certainly heard of no such trend, nor heard ANY expression of fear of suicide, neither from parents nor peers in my own childhood.

> That, as I pointed out, is completely tolerated
> by society

Ludicrous. I've never heard of anyone being complacent in response to suicide.

> and, as I predicted, condoned and defended
> by people like you?

You're eager to be weird about this, but it would be fun for you to look up the page and see where I or anyone else "condoned and defended" anything.

> Well, NO, kitten. It's a dark planet,
> and human nature is a dark force.

> Oh, so which is it now? You just told me a
> couple paragraphs back that it's sunshine
> and f'ing roses.

No one ever said any (the fucq) such thing. I said life and human nature were dark.

You think people are promising you things, "compensation" and "sunshine and f'ing roses."

We are not.

I doubt many of you know what rage is or what it feels like or how consuming and madness inducing it can be, how it eats away at your sanity and every aspect of your life.

This guy had rage, he enjoyed what he did and his only regret was he couldnt do more

Whether the initial spark was a real event or a delusion of his very real mental illness is immaterial at this point in time as he is dead and we'll never have a way of knowing.

But crid is right. This is the kindest gentlest period in all of human history.

And that is the problem. There are very few socially acceptable ways to excise violence, and no acceptable ways to excise rage and malevolence of this caliber.

People like this used to join crusades and rape and kill people in the path of their army. Today they (occasionally) try to maintain, until they blow

Besides, you didn't explain why you aren't out there giving sexual comfort to lonely 22-year-olds.

Apparently you think someone has to do it... Why not yourself?

From The Atlantic: Are All Murderers Mentally Ill?

[Dr. Jonathan H.] Pincus and his long-time collaborator, psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis, from New York University, came to the conclusion that it was a lethal combination of childhood abuse, neurological disturbances and psychiatric illness that led someone to murder. Pincus and Lewis reported that an astoundingly high percentage of the murderers they'd studied were victims of physical abuse and head trauma as children. In two of their studies, in fact, they found that 100% of their subjects had suffered previous head trauma, from one cause or another.

Dr. Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist who specializes in forensic and correctional mental health issues, agrees. "In prison populations, it's known that 60-80% of prisoners have had serious physical and sexual abuse prior to their crimes and incarceration," he says. "And the prevalence of that is higher on death row than elsewhere in prisons."

Other forensic psychiatrists dispute those numbers--a 2001 New York Times article on Lewis and Pincus quoted Barbara R. Kirwin, a forensic psychologist and author who has also studied hundreds of murder defendants, as saying she'd found about 10 percent of them to have histories of childhood abuse. Kirwin said she'd seen "plenty" of people with normally competent brains who simply had a gross lack of empathy.

But to Sharp, an expert on forensic head trauma cases, the point is that "gross lack of empathy," not the details of how it evolved. "It doesn't matter whether the frontal lobe damage is psychiatric or traumatic," she argues. "The result is the same." In other words, even those "normally competent" brains reported by Kirwin are, in Sharp's view, not really normal.

lujlp: I doubt many of you know what rage is or what it feels like or how consuming and madness inducing it can be, how it eats away at your sanity and every aspect of your life.

One person here knows. One person here knows everything.

It sure seems like rage fuels many of these mass murders (or is the spark that ignites the fuel.) The question is, of course: why do some people consumed with rage go on murderous rampages when there are likely a large number of people with the same amount of rage that don't?

Unless I misheard this morning (quite possible with noisy toddlers in the house) wasn't he on the autism spectrum? That means he would have been very likely to be prone to outbursts and violence and have problems forming and maintaining relationships with others, misreading social cues, lacking empathy, etc.

I was also bullied horribly as a child, beaten up, etc. Despite numerous complaints to teachers nothing was ever done about it. They made excuses for my tormenters and told me I should just ignore it. No word on how I was supposed to ignore being pushed down the stairs or having my head slammed into lockers, but that was their solution for me. I turned out fine. I never killed at anyone nor even considered that as an option. I was also raised to suck it up and worry about myself, not what others thought of me, that life was not fair. I was never raised to believe I was particularly special or more important than anyone else. You had to earn your place in life and if you weren't where you wanted to be work harder. I think the whole "everyone is so special, everyone wins" mentality is seriously acrewing up society and creating generations of weak and fragile people that can't handle life and its ups and downs.

☑ BunnyGirl at May 25, 2014 4:09 PM




> It sure seems like rage fuels many of these
> mass murders

[1.] It's an incredibly mundane thing to say. When it's not punishingly obvious (and therefore meaningless) it's threatening and ham-handed.

Because, after all...

[2.] Even if (and when) it's true, what the fuck do you want to do about it?

[2a., and this is important] Why can't you do it yourself?

…Because I'd just bet that your magnificent and deeply personal insights about rage(!) are going to mean that you want 2nd parties (cops, taxpayers) to do expensive and intrusive things to 3rd parties (rage-ee people with whom you want no contact).


America is a better place than it used to be, indisputably. But when reading literature from her past, particularly regarding immigrants, we see that there was a popular and powerful distrust of busybodies which paradoxically strengthened social cohesion in diverse neighborhoods.

Rage theorists and other pompous emo-types should think about that. Unless they're putting their own asses (and investments) on the line...

Which would be fine with me.

"As far as you can avoid it, do not give grief to anyone. Never inflict your rage on another. If you hope for eternal rest, feel the pain yourself; but don’t hurt others."
― Omar Khayyam, Quatrains

If you knew it would help, why didn't you read prose to Rodgers?

Isab: Never mind all those killers who come from perfectly normal backgrounds. What it tells me, that his mental illness, was most likely biological in origin and evident from a fairly early age.

Is that really true, from "perfectly normal" backgrounds?

I mean, I don't know. Maybe it is true. Maybe sociopaths -- at least some of them -- are born, not created by their life experiences.
Posted by: JD at May 25, 2014 2:13 PM

Yes, it is. Evidence indicates Sociopaths are born. And throughout history mass murder is quite common. We humans carry the genes for it.

Is it surprising that a certain small percentage of us, carry the genes for rage killings with no remorse?

I know of a case in Texas where an eight year old walked into the house one day, and killed both his parents with a shotgun. And he never shed a tear.
His devastated grandfather picked him up from state custody, and dropped him off at the state children's home.

Could you sleep with a kid like that in your house?

A son of a close friend was stabbed to death in a rage killing. That killer went on to attempt to kill one other person, killed a second person with a gun, and then killed himself.

Evidence at the scene, and testimony from the survivor indicated that something my friend's son did or said, set the murderer off. Evidence seem to indicate that it was a possible sexual rejection, and all of them had been drinking.

Once a rage killer kills one person,it often sets off a chain reaction, where they then kill as many as possible before taking their own life.

In a sick sort of way, it makes sense. Once you have murdered once it probably gets a whole lot easier. Nothing left to lose.

If you want to know what people are really capable of, there are several good books about the atrocities of World War II.

The Germans were terrible, and the Japanese were worse.

Yes, Many people are really evil, and they can manipulate others who are weak into doing terrible things on a massive scale.

Yes, it is. Evidence indicates Sociopaths are born. And throughout history mass murder is quite common. We humans carry the genes for it.

OK, let's assume they are SOA (sociopathic on arrival.)

Do all of them commit mass murders? Or even murder just one person? If not all, do most of them?

The Germans were terrible, and the Japanese were worse.

Inded they were. Are people in all countries equally capable of carrying out a mass execution of human beings, as the Germans did in the Holocaust, because we carry the genes for mass murder?

Excellent! We've (lanced and) drained your fascination with the word "rage," even the fuel-y kind that's been so popular in recent times.

Good progress today, JD! Forward motion!

Well done, everyone.

Inded they were. Are people in all countries equally capable of carrying out a mass execution of human beings, as the Germans did in the Holocaust, because we carry the genes for mass murder?

Posted by: JD at May 25, 2014 6:29 PM

Yes. All humans alive today are the descendants of murderers and cannibals.

If you think your ancestors were sitting In a Neolithic settlement somewhere peacefully growling carrots, and making pottery, you need to read more history and anthropology.

The killers were the ones who survived to pass on their genes.

Just like my father survived World War II by being smart, ruthless, and a little bit lucky.

Genetics are a complicated thing. It probably takes a certain bad combination of genes to end up a sociopath, and your environment can determine, how many of those tendencies you can safely express, without some other bad ass killing you before you can inflict any damage on him, or pass on those genes to the next generation.

“Men in rage strike those that wish them best.”
― William Shakespeare

☑ Isab

Talking about genetics on an occasion like this can be dangerous... Because we're talking about probabilities, which is not what ninnies want to think about. They want to convince themselves that they're intrinsic good character will protect them... 'I live in a clean environment!'

We are all at risk. The most poignant example for this blog may be Amy's friend Cathy, who died of lung cancer. Mizz Seipp was the sort of clear-headed and direct person who didn't mind letting strangers know that SHE HAD NEVER PUFFED A CIGARETTE IN HER LIFE. She knew we all should, and would, hear the bell tolling soon enough.

So Frank Zappa wrote a song about this, a lilting melody to comfort the simpleminded. It works best when you read along with the cute teenage vocalists.

JD: It's been a full human generation since anyone was impressed by keyword search. You won't answer the questions: What good comes from a fascination with the "fuel" of "rage"? What do you want others to do about it? What are you going to do with it?

Props to Nic K for the first comment:

> If he'd been getting laid, he still would
> have snapped, for some other reason.

That seems likely. His problems seem interpersonal, not merely erotic.

"There are some questions that shouldn't be asked until a person is mature enough to appreciate the answers."
― Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood

If you wanna build your approach to policy of science fiction, have at it, but don't pretend to be principled or anything.

__"I was also bullied horribly as a child, beaten up, etc. Despite numerous complaints to teachers nothing was ever done about it. They made excuses for my tormenters and told me I should just ignore it. No word on how I was supposed to ignore being pushed down the stairs or having my head slammed into lockers, but that was their solution for me. I turned out fine. I never killed at anyone nor even considered that as an option. I was also raised to suck it up and worry about myself, not what others thought of me, that life was not fair. I was never raised to believe I was particularly special or more important than anyone else. You had to earn your place in life and if you weren't where you wanted to be work harder. I think the whole "everyone is so special, everyone wins" mentality is seriously acrewing up society and creating generations of weak and fragile people that can't handle life and its ups and downs."

BunnyGirl: exquisitely well-stated. Thank You. :-)

I also was bullied and basically told by my parents and teachers that they didn't get paid enough to deal with my problems. On top of that, I've been diagnosed with Aspergers and never really had a fulfilling relationship with a woman.

Does it bother me? Sure, absolutely. I *do* believe that today's "rape culture" feminism is FUBAR and is likely to only lead to more loneliness and depression for lots of people, both men and women. But I've never hurt or killed anybody over it, and I never will.

They're called values, and they can't be replaced with birthday BMWs or private pop concerts, no matter how wealthy or powerful your parents.

Science-fiction?
So, killers like this are primarily floating-point errors in the Matrix?

“And for a price, I will pretend absolutely nothing.”
― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Chosen

YES, you dorkweeds, ALL CRIME CAN BE PREVENTED IF WE LET POLICE SEARCH EVERY CORNER OF OUR LIVES.

Thanks, Crid.

Anybody who thinks that Crid's wrong there had best look around their house and wonder what the cops might find should someone call them in as a threat, and that the cops should be able to search, just cause.

And before you say "I don't have anything..." remember, unless you're in a bare room with nothing in it, you can be charged with *something*. Got any cleaning supplies? Bomb materials, you terrorist.