Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

yeah, parenthood is a roll of the dice no doubt.

Everybody loves a scapegoat. It makes it so we don't have to devote much thought to difficult issues like mental health and guns

no-one likes the muddy greys

Someone close to me was on the verge of suicide because he was still a virgin at age 23, it was quite painful to watch really. He was very creepy and could be scary at times, he didn't know how to act around girls and could be quite rude about in social situations. The pressure to get laid was such that it devolved into alcoholism and depression. Now he has a pretty great girlfriend and is doing good. Some dudes are creeps because they were never really given a proper education about sexuality and womanhood. What I'm trying to say is: usually, when I hear about those events I get really angry at the NRA for allowing guns to circulate so easily. However, this time I'm extremely angry at this sexist culture that leads to sentence like 'They have starved me of sex for my entire youth, and gave that pleasure to other men. In doing so, they took many years of my life away.' of ours.

it is sexist, but it's something else, too. like the word "sexist" doesn't seem large enough to encompass what's going on here - maybe only because sexism isn't accorded (by some/many) the validity and profundity of racism. "misogyny" gets closer to the truth. i dunno, PUA/misandry culture seems like a combination of intense sexism/misogyny and a virulent but unacknowledged, externalized self-loathing. like, "bitches suck and the whole world sucks because i embrace yet cannot accept the extent to which i think i suck." i'm probably splitting hairs...

yeah, i can't help but wonder whether this would have happened if dude hadn't subscribed to the bitter, misogynistic, MRA way of thinking, which divides men into "alphas" and "betas" and reduces women to sex objects. was he unable to empathize because he was a psychopath or because he saw the world through an ideological prism that was inherently dehumanizing? and why are so many people drawn to this shit? this last question seems critical to me. i remember the VA Tech killer, while not a PUA/MRA, was similar in that he felt this profound sense of rejection and believed himself to be thoroughly exiled from humanity. he had a similarly maladaptive, toxic way of thinking about himself and the world. i don't know anything but it seems like the question of school shooters concerns is more complicated than just the (very critical) issues of gun control and mental health access. i always end up thinking there is some cultural sickness that these men (they're almost always men) are just symptomatic of.

*should read "question of school shooters". concerns was a word from an earlier draft i forgot to delete.

i feel like our objectification of women makes this sort-of thing possible, creates the fantasy world where these unrealistic and negative beliefs about people are possible. but it also takes being whacked out of your mind to make it real. where individual pathology links up to cultural beliefs and becomes its own beast.

even beyond sexism it could be consumerism where being served and convenienced with the finest of pleasures is a sign of personal worth, with other people as the objects (women, friends, etc.) and failure of that is a failure of the entire self. etc. etc. it's one of those complex situations that can't be summed up in a pithy statement.

This was a hate crime. Against women.

yeah. no argument. i suppose i'm wondering aloud where this shit comes from, whether or not it's built into the conventional construction of the "masculine". not that origin matters much in the final analysis...

amateurist, that's probably due to the sheer amount of people posting stuff like this on youtube and the lack of time and resources police have to analyse it?

― cardamon, Sunday, May 25, 2014

or could be because the police don't give a shit about violence against women/are complicit in it? someone posted above that they followed up the parents' report and spoke to him but did nothing because he was 'nice' or 'well spoken'.

and rich

Yup

idk

i think about that shit alot, what parents of these kids are up against for, well, foreseeably the rest of their lives

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, May 24, 2014 11:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

right now (before this happened) i'd been reading the chapter of andrew solomon's far from the tree about kids who commit crimes and it (like the rest of the book) has been super illuminating. sadly germane to this tragedy too. solomon's compassionate and insightful interview with peter lanza is what led me to buy the book. would def recommend.

haven't finished that book but it's just incredibly moving

and rich

I read various parts of his bio last night, he wasn't actually that rich

e.g. one of his strategies was to buy lotto tickets because if he became a millionaire girls would love him, that strategy failed when he did not win the lotto

the extent of his actual wealth is probably immaterial. his parents are rich enough that he was able to cash in on the implicit trust that for some reason wealth provides when dealing with law enforcement/authority generally

I mean maybe but it wasn't immaterial as far as his psychology went, when his parents divorced his mom had to move from a house to an apt building, and his dad at that point was in financial crisis from putting all his money into his own failed movie

like he's spending all this money on rich people signals and confused by the fact that $300 sunglasses don't seem to change strangers' opinions on him

I don't think this guy was a true psycho in the james holmes sense, he was just super awkward, pretty dumb, extremely lonely. he was entitled in the 'he felt like he shouldn't have to do retail jobs' sense but he was not entitled in the winklevoss sense.

so much of his behavior was just copycat - dressing 'cool', doing a Hollywood villain laugh, even the act of 'going on a rampage' was what he thought bitter and unhappy people are supposed to do.

he certainly felt entitled to take innocent lives

oh great. A video from the deli now. What is wrong with people?

one of his problems seemed to have been his demand for being included in a certain type of world. Like he didn't want to just be a normal kid, he wanted to drive the BMW and sleep with the sorority girls and be popular. he must've got it in his head sometime years ago and never let go of it.

spending about 10 minutes looking into MRAs and 'the red pill movement' (all of this shit is fairly new to me) and falling into a horrible cirlce of weird bizarre youtube crazy crap I'm inclined to think the internet is a shit place that just amplifies gives credence to narcissistic and psychotic traits and people should probably need a license to use it.

t bomb

ban all men from the internet

think this wd help make ILX loads better tbh

Ban all men from maybe 15-24. Just put them on ice for long enough til they stop stressing so much about their gonads.

he must've got it in his head sometime years ago and never let go of it.

things that haunt me when i can see them happening ^^^

This is so frustrating. Unhealthy ideas really can kill people. What could have been effective in changing this kid's mind? How do you change a mind that has been so twisted by bitterness and loathing? Why do some men, why do *any men at all,* fall prey to the idea that they are not only entitled to women's bodies, but entitled to violence if they don't get what they want? How do I do my part as a man to gather up all the scuzzy residue of this idea and destroy it for good?

Not looking for literal answers to all these questions, mostly just need to vent.

Time to repeal the 2nd amendment. Should be a longterm goal of the left and dealt with as such.

I don't think this guy was a true psycho in the james holmes sense

"true psycho" oddly not a recognized dx by the DSM-IV

was he unable to empathize because he was a psychopath

apparently, he was unable to empathize because he was autistic. empathy is not really available to the autistic, except intellectually. so, even if he'd been taught what kind of behavior was socially acceptable, his intellect had become corrupted by the worldview of a bunch of jerkwads.

true. I wish there were some repercussions for those jerkwads, his parents knew about the jerkwads, and that people diagnosed to be incapable of empathy could not buy guns so easily.

If jerkwads were not allowed to have guns, then only people identified as not jerkwads could have guns, and then when you find out those people were sleeper jerkwads all along, we'll all be at a firepower disadvantage.

Basically, anyone who wants to buy a gun should not be allowed to have a gun. It's kind of an ipso facto thing.

HFA is a diagnosis. 'jerkwad' is not.

xp autism wasn't at the root of it, though. autism also makes it difficult to read social cues and to adapt accordingly; he had no trouble doing this when the police came to his house and he was "polite and courteous" to them. in his autobio, when he describes this scene, he's able to separate the fear he felt that he'd be discovered if they searched is apartment from his outward interaction with the police - an autistic person would have a very difficult time recognizing this split in his emotional state, as well as recognizing that he might be perceived as being fearful or nervous and taking steps to counteract that. the way he describes his manipulation of the police sounds a lot more like psychopathy than just high-functioning autism.

HFA is a diagnosis. 'jerkwad' is not.

― the glimmer man (Sufjan Grafton), Sunday, May 25, 2014 3:57 PM

we'll have to get canks back on the boards to tell him this

everything about this dude is a dead ringer for patrick bateman, it's pretty unsettling

How do I do my part as a man to gather up all the scuzzy residue of this idea and destroy it for good?

Not looking for literal answers to all these questions, mostly just need to vent.

― zchyrs, Sunday, May 25, 2014 5:52 PM (2 hours ago)

Why would you not want an answer to this last question tho? It's a good one.

this guy just makes me feel sad, because I 'get him'

I never in a million years would have killed innocent people, but I have definitely been in the position of suicidal despair over still being a virgin (even after going away to college!!)

even after losing my virginity, while super-drunk of course (o boy), it took several years to completely shake off the mindset of 'beta male' inferiority

... although much like this dude, I had formed this idea of loserdom without ever actually making a rejected sexual or romantic overture (way too scared)

I spent a lot of time talking to people (mostly male) online, but was fortunate enough to find myself in a community where a critical mass of dissenting voices (women, older people, progressive young men) insured that the everpresent pickup-artist/ladder-theory/woe-is-me misogynist bullshit always got shouted down. but I knew it was out there, and it did 'speak to me' on some level, if only to tell me things I wanted to hear

there was also a kid one year at summer camp, c. age 14-15, who teased me all session after I foolishly admitted that I had never masturbated, which has always struck me as especially heartless

I would have been way too ashamed to talk to any of my real-life friends about this stuff at the time, let alone my parents, who were dealing with some way-more-serious issues at the time so that I had just decided to 'lay low' for a few years

I also had one good, significantly older internet friend who reassured me that I might just be a 'late bloomer'... so Chris, if you're reading this, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for extending yr basic human decency & sympathy to a stranger, even if you subsequently introduced me to Neutral Milk Hotel and all sorts of bad emo

THIS HAS BEEN....... MY MANIFESTO

wow timely xpost! i was just typing this:

i don't think it's unusual for young people from late teens to early 20s, usually men, to have a social/dating life that is pretty much a disaster zone. i know mine was. i sometimes think this sort of thing happens (not the violence, just the self-ostracization which seems to be a pre-condition for it) because your particular set of peers was dating and just generally being more adult before you were ready/able/willing to do the same. a feeling of being left out, behind, etc. then leads pretty naturally to resentment. just a theory of mine.

i would have been a prime candidate for this kind of projected self-loathing outward at "society" or women, except that for whatever reason my response to it was very different. (it involved lots of books, existentialism, and self-abnegation.) i also had three older sisters, popular and attractive to boot, and i think that having a lot of women in my life who were neither potential dating material or my mother was a very very healthy thing in my life.

anyway, eventually, i think most people in this situation grow out of it. they learn that being "social" isn't something you have or don't have, it's something that you can learn and even get really good at. at that point you get a better grasp of "social inclusion" being something that you have at least some small control over. that and just getting older really mellows you out. life comes at you, you meet girls, and people will care about you to the extent that you really care about them.

The only thing that makes me feel good these days is calling people on this kind of BS when it comes up IRL (not on the online). I work with dozens of 13-year-old boys, some of whom are v redditty, and I can at least use my job of teaching people how to read and evaluate information as a starting point for this. "Is reddit a really good source for the claim that all women hate men and will eventually accuse men of rape?" (Which one of my v favorite students told me, just as a fact). They aren't even fully formed humans at all. I can pretend I make a difference. I don't think they recognize me as a human being, yet alone a woman. When it's some adult guy, IDK. They sure as fuck aren't going to listen to me. So men can call them on their BS better, I think. So that is one thing you can do as a man.

xp

also, not to get too amateur-psychologist, but I think it is maybe easier to come to the "all sexually-active men are scum" conclusion when dad leaves mom for a trophy wife? altho reifying this behavior into a biological trait of 'alpha male' means he must have been blind to the extent of his own material privilege and the amount of romantic success it could have facilitated...?

"all sexually-active men are scum" maybe not the right way to phrase it, but you get the point--they all have some mysterious ineffable quality I don't have, which makes them loathsome, although not as loathsome as the girls who willingly date them

Basically, anyone who wants to buy a gun should not be allowed to have a gun. It's kind of an ipso facto thing.

Could be extended to anyone who wants to run for public office too.

Bob Weiss said his daughter was wise and mature beyond her years. He said he would go to her for advice sometimes if he was having a problem with her brothers, Cooper, 17, and Jackson, 15, or even a minor argument with his wife.

Weiss said his daughter was always a tomboy. She played four sports in high school, which is a rarity. She participated in cross country, baseball, swimming and water polo and she earned straight A's. Her strength was math.

Starting at age 6 she loved playing softball, he said. Later she played baseball. He said she was the only girl out of 500 players in the Westlake baseball league.

"She was tough," he said. "She was a big strong girl and she was tough."

On the water polo team at Westlake High School, which she graduated from, the coach always put her as the defense player against the top scorer on the opposing team.

He said she always organized events for her circle of friends. He described her friends as nerds and serious students. They would study every Friday night and it was not unusual for her to spend Sundays working on her advanced math work. "She loved it," he said.

He said many of her friends went on to other prestigious schools such as Princeton and she wanted to go to the University of Washington. But the out-of-state tuition and financial situation made that prohibitive.

"She would always wear her purple and gold University of Washington sweat shirt," he said.

"She wanted to be a financial wizard, and use her high aptitude with complicated math."

He said her mother and grandmother belonged to the tri-Delta sorority so it makes sense that she would join it too at UCSB. She didn't know many people at the Santa Barbara campus but the sorority gave her a built-in circle of friends, he said.

Weiss said this was the second death in her high school group of friends. A boy committed suicide last fall.

He described her as being gregarious. She liked to laugh a lot, he said. She was loud and "she made everybody else laugh."

"She was happy all the time," he added.

She graduated high school with a 4.3 GPA.

He said she would sometimes visit him at his office in Newbury Park. She would just come over spontaneously and bring him lunch and they would eat together. "Who does that? How many high school kids are thoughtful like that and want to spend time with their parents?"

Veronika and her parents had just gone snowboarding together two weeks ago in Mammoth. That was their last trip together. They had planned to spend Sunday together. Bob Weiss and his wife had planned to drive up to Santa Barbara to take her to lunch and go shopping on State Street.

He said he doesn't know what happened Friday night but he does know that Veronika would have put herself in harm's way to help her friends or even the young man who shot her. "She always reacted to a situation quickly. She always wanted to help. She was very courageous."

"She will be an inspiration to me every day of my life," he said.

"There was never a day I wasn't proud of her. Never a single day."

schopenhauer wrote something like "There is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity." i often think that's the double bind that these types find themselves in, since it's often pretty clear they never really deigned to stoop to being an ordinary person who risks the often embarrassing experience of getting to know other people. it's a fragility that cannot risk judgment and so wildly projects it outward at everything, everyone.

everything about this dude is a dead ringer for patrick bateman, it's pretty unsettling

he had a video of him cruising in his bmw head bobbing to 80s music up on youtube