read the fucker's manifesto.

Everything needs to be analyzed

what a nutjob.

if we can imagine such a thing, this self-centered little prick would have invented reasons to act out as he did. He would have had no end to the number of "hurts" that he never got training to deal with in a responsible way.

What he ranted about in his suicide note is not any scholarly indictment of society, it's just the blatherings of a narcisistic asshole.

Or he's a blow hole.

But he most likely had paranoid schizophrenia, with delusions of grandeur.

This might resemble narcissistic personality, but people with NPD don't hear voices or exhibit paranoia -- and doctors don't prescribe antipsychotics for NPD.

But you seem to miss my point. Just because his video diatribe is fully soaked in misogyny doesn't mean that he's some sort of sign of what's happening in our society. He also ranted about his father not being successful enough, was this some kind of soul-searching moment for our culture to examine how upper middle class kids don't have the full advantages that filthy rich kids have?

As far as what he had, I'll leave that to experts. As for what he didn't have, that was parental units who failed to teach him empathy for other human beings, nor did they equip him with social skills that would have enabled him to have at least a few friends, and yes, possibly a date here or there. I don't really feel sorry for them for their loss, not nearly as much as I feel bad for the families of the victims.

on his poor parenting.

If he had paranoid schizophrenia, it was NOT because his parents failed to teach him empathy. Or even if he had uncomplicated Asperger's (which I doubt).

There is no way to know what his personality would have been like in the absence of schizophrenia, and the disease is NOT the result of poor parenting.

In high school, his parents had him seeing therapists daily, and they went so far recently as to call the police on him. But no one could require him, as an adult, to take the anti-psychotics his doctor prescribed.

His parents have been struggling with his condition since he was 8 years old. I think they deserve our compassion.

He killed them to get them out of the way.

From his manifesto:

On the day before the Day of Retribution, I will start the First Phase of my vengeance: Silently killing as many people as I can around Isla Vista by luring them into my apartment through some form of trickery. The first people I would have to kill are my two housemates, to secure the entire apartment for myself as my personal torture and killing chamber. After that, I will start luring people into my apartment, knock them out with a hammer, and slit their throats.

No matter how many times, in various threads, and on various sites, somebody makes this point, it is studiously ignored and people go right back to saying, But they were men! And now it's But they were Asian!

My favorite is the people who refuse to believe Rodger's own words. He took a long time, and many pages, to lay out exactly what his motives were and exactly what he planned to do. The irony is that he felt like a failure his whole life, and in his final act he failed at what he wrote in excruciating detail he intended to do, which was to get entry into the sorority house and kill all the women there. Ironic that he was foiled by women NOT doing the thing he wanted, yet again—they didn't open the door.

Why not post junk from tabloids ... ? Similar credibility and more entertaining.

Alternet is our version of their right wing nutty websites. It is designed to make us feel good and reinforce our preconceived notions by telling us what we want to hear. But liberals, progressives and Democrats should be smart enough not to fall for that crap. We have critical thinking skills. Use them.

We are better than the Freepers.

says more about you. Alternet has been a respected website here for years and years.

Breitbart and Fox are respected by the right wing nutters, too.

Alternet is fluff designed to appeal to us. Use your critical thinking skills.

I have noticed your critical thinking in other threads about the shooter....good luck to you.

Have a pleasant day.

I don't see it and if I am wrong I'll eat my words, but I seriously doubt he
qualified for the spectrum at all.

Many questions remain to be answered.

Thank you for the OP.

so misdiagnosis can occur. Also, I've read that his parents suspected that he had Asperger's, not that he had a formal diagnosis.

I think his symptoms and writings seem much more in keeping with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, with delusions of grandeur.

And yes, people on the spectrum can have comorbid conditions.

I suspect we will learn a great deal more about the team that worked with him,
I am very curious about that too.

I agree with you about his writings and his affect and demeanor, I don't
see a spectrum kid...seems to point elsewhere.

But that is a common delusion among schizophrenics.

8.
...As a society we totally lack the insight, commitment and capacity to deal with millions of people who have suffered from all sorts of trauma—sexual, violent, emotional. This is the trauma from wars, accidents, and any number of painful family and social experiences, especially including bullying and ridicule, which seems to have a role in any number of suicides. It seems that some number of bullied women kill themselves, but often some of the bullied or traumatized men turn terribly violent first, before often taking their own lives as well.

On a basic level the violence can be understood in the context of the flight or fight instinct that is often associated with triggers that push people to relive their trauma. Scientists and therapists know:

“That Post Trauma Disorder takes place in the oldest part of the brain, or the ‘Reptilian’ brain. The ‘fright and flight’ response takes place here when danger is present. Whenever there is severe trauma this part of the brain replays the events as it they were happening in the present. The human brain is highly evolved, yet at the same time it retains the instinct–driven brain of our reptilian ancestors. The central nervous system is highly vulnerable to stress and can be severely damaged. When this happens a condition develops called Post Trauma Disorder. Raw emotions and instinctual reactions create intense anxiety, depression and sleep disorders.”

And sometimes murderous rages. Yes, it is truly hard to grasp that giving ill and traumatized people political directives, or trying to reason with someone who is in flight or fight, just doesn’t address the problem. If we continue to primarily rely on rhetoric, political demands and imploring that people behave approriately when severe trauma or psychpathology is present, we will continue to fail our loved ones and our society.
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There was no shortage of people who knew something was wrong in the last 6+ years of this guys life. There should be intensive therapy for people like this not just to prevent them from hurting the rest of us, but to help make them productive and happy people.

Especially the last section.

like the Monster of Florence: he hates the hooked-up guys he sees no less than the "stuck-up" women who don't give themselves to him (a la Rodney Alcala, whose psych said "That is something he would not take too well. (Serial killers) don't understand the rejection. They think that something is wrong with that girl: 'She played me. She played hard to get." Ditto Chris-Chan.

That's the same crap found in all the male misogynist websites. They feel entitled to women automatically liking them. They don't like a woman? No prob. A woman doesn't like them? Oh she's a bitch! Evil! Nasty! Monstrous!

They want what they want when they want it, and if they can't get it, by golly, they'll resort to killing or any damned thing they want.

...with the main bad guy of Cataclysm (that description is about Deathwing, once Neltharion the Earth-Warder, not a fallen Titan but appointed BY the Titans, who turned evil from the whisperings of madness emanating from a Chthulhu-like character) who gets killed by the heroes in the final big battle of the expansion is not just inane, it's downright stupid and shows that the writer knows literally nothing about World of Warcraft except that it exists. He couldn't be further from the truth if he said that Fatal Frame was about taking pictures of puppies, or Half-Life was about a group of heroes trying to stop the evil villain Sephiroth.

Hint to the author: There is no possible way to 'be' Deathwing, to be anyone like Deathwing, to help Deathwing, or in any other way, shape, or form consider oneself a model of Deathwing by playing the game. The only thing one can do is -kill- Deathwing and help save the world from the destruction he planned.

I despise people who try to point to video games -- particularly mostly harmless ones -- as some kind of 'cause' of violence. Even moreso when they display the intellect of a snail while doing so.

Would Zedong have passed the culturally compulsory Brown Paper Bag test on West 53rd in New York City when hailing a cab ?

And the msm wasn't much better when I searched just now.

Sounds like the skidmark was an equal opportunity spree killer.

I'd imagine many also criticized and consciously minimized the role of Jim David Adkisson's strong hatred of Democrats, liberals, African Americans and homosexuals in the days after he shot and killed/wounded nine people at a Knoxville area church, and trivialize the role of Anders Breivik's hatred of cultural inclusion and immigration when he killed 69 people in Norway.

We as a species certainly do posses the creative imagination required to rationalize and reduce an explicit and glaring truth to the role of mere obscure and questionable minutiae. Yet I also thought that sentiment would be isolated to AM Radio talk shows and Fox news.