On the manifestos killers leave behind

I was picked on in school a fair amount. Some of it quite violent, and pervasive. At some point I got really fed up with one particular kid, and got myself a big stick. Luckily for him that stick broke cleanly in two upon first impact, otherwise i&#x27;m not sure what would have happened. After that things subsided somewhat. That kid threatened me more, but never did come after me again.<p>Growing older I realise two things. First, those &quot;jocks&quot; that get all the girls, have (generalizing here) other very serious problems, are often emotionally stunted, angry at their dads, or whatever. So we all get weathered differently by life, and actually it&#x27;s kind of heartbreaking to see. Second, I just think too much! It drives people crazy when i do that, and instead of that, I just need to turn my attention outwards, and feel what is going on outside of my own head. Then things become relational, and people can also sense that I am here too.<p>Wish I could tell all of this to my 14-year-old self.

I think this is a good read when combined with the Gladwell article from the New Yorker (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;19&#x2F;thresholds-of-violence?currentPage=all" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;19&#x2F;thresholds-of-v...</a>).<p>I&#x27;m not against gun control efforts or better mental health efforts (whatever that might mean) but I think that both articles suggest that a lot of progress can be made in figuring out how to arrest this kind of societal disconnect.<p>In the days after Columbine, there was a huge reaction from people who wanted to paint with a really broad brush, along the lines of random kids being potential suspects just because they liked wearing trench coats. John Katz had a project called &quot;Voices From The Hellmouth&quot; over at Slashdot, that invited people that had similar difficulties to write in and share their thoughts and experiences of being bullied or ostracized. I&#x27;m convinced that efforts like that can save lives.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.slashdot.org&#x2F;story&#x2F;99&#x2F;04&#x2F;25&#x2F;1438249&#x2F;voices-from-the-hellmouth" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.slashdot.org&#x2F;story&#x2F;99&#x2F;04&#x2F;25&#x2F;1438249&#x2F;voices-from-...</a>

I am convinced that the people who do these shootings do so because they have an ego that cannot cope with their societal impotence.<p>That is, they think they should be more liked, more powerful, be able to get girls, be in charge of things, free from criticism, unable to be bullied (which is reasonable) etc... but aren&#x27;t for any given reason.<p>So their recourse is to <i>prove</i> to everyone how powerful they are by shooting them up. The worst part is, it is pretty powerful and it destroys communities, which is what they want. They want to be able to say they destroyed a community because that&#x27;s how they are proving their power.<p>I don&#x27;t see any solution to this. Preventing them from getting access to the tools that could empower that could help but is really hard to do, especially in the US, because banning guns or whatever likely wouldn&#x27;t work 100% of the time. If they are smart and dedicated enough they will find a way to get&#x2F;make bombs and guns.<p>So I see no real solution here.

This is the first time I&#x27;ve read excerpts from these &quot;manifestos&quot; and it&#x27;s hard to know how to react. It all reads like a kind of mental illness and it&#x27;s chilling to see the similarities (although this article may only make them look similar). Intellectually I feel like there should be room for sympathy of some kind, but to be honest, I feel nothing of the kind; just angry. The authors strike me as small, pathetic, misguided and (for me, worst of all) demanding and entitled.<p>In terms of constructive moves to try and deal with this issue, it&#x27;s hard to think of anything substantive. For sure, less guns means these individuals would have taken fewer lives. Perhaps a better attitude toward mental illness and easier to access treatment options might help. On the other hand, it doesn&#x27;t sound like these people though they were mentally ill. On the contrary, they felt the opposite.<p>I found the bits about how special they think they are to be particularly striking. I certainly feel that my daughter is special, but I understand that what makes her most special is that she is my daughter. The idea that everyone should be, in some way, globally special seems somewhat misguided.

I link to this far too often, but it&#x27;s relevant to so many discussions had on this site.<p><pre><code> The Great On-Line Equalizer Date: 21 Mar 1996 https:&#x2F;&#x2F;subgenius.com&#x2F;bigfist&#x2F;answers&#x2F;articles2&#x2F;X0095_The_Great_On-Line_Eq.html Relevant quote: &quot;&quot;&quot; All the people who are invisible in the normal world (the world run by the rich and powerful), all those people you can dismiss on the street as powerless and harmless -- ALL THOSE PEOPLE are now in your face. You can feel their hot breath on the Internet. &quot;&quot;&quot; </code></pre> It seems the more we become intertwined with the Internet, the more we start feeling their hot breath in real life. Or at least, the more we notice it.

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thelastpsychiatrist.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;02&#x2F;the_rage_of_the_average_joe.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thelastpsychiatrist.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;02&#x2F;the_rage_of_the_avera...</a>

I went to school with the author. If you like his writing style, I highly recommend his (long but fascinating) account of trying to ghost write Julian Assange&#x27;s autobiography. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lrb.co.uk&#x2F;v36&#x2F;n05&#x2F;andrew-ohagan&#x2F;ghosting" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lrb.co.uk&#x2F;v36&#x2F;n05&#x2F;andrew-ohagan&#x2F;ghosting</a>

Interesting topic, but the article does nothing more than recycle points taken from the most quotidian of newspaper editorials.

From your first paragraph:<p>&gt;‘I have noticed,’ it says, ‘that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.’<p>So, PLEAE can you stop fucking mentioning these assholes names? For the the love of God you are perpetuating the problem.

At what point does the constant retread of mass murders&#x27; ideals become fetishization? Does anyone really think we&#x27;ll prevent more of these attacks by deep analysis of their writings or are we just obsessed with the possibility of understanding horrible tragedies?<p>I&#x27;m tired of reading these monsters&#x27; names and quotes. They all thought they were the smartest people on the planet and everyone should read their words.<p>I&#x27;m going to stick with remembering the amazing people taken from us instead. I think about people like Liviu Librescu and Alex Teves a lot as a reminder of the requirement for good people to stand up to evil. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nonotoriety.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nonotoriety.com&#x2F;</a>

Is pervasive PUA language in articles now so commonplace that nobody even comments on it?<p>Is it a thing now to identify people with serious mental health problems with &quot;betas&quot;, as if that was in any way a valid or helpful analysis?

There should be a Mad Max reference in the article with Immortal Joe shouting &quot;mediocre&quot;, because even in their blaze of glory moment for these troubled individuals, there is no glory and barely any blaze. And I think that the reason they leave this manifestos is because they feel they cannot do anything right and put it as insurance.

...what about the Unabomber?

People alone with their thoughts. Early, frequent and long-term intervention can ease the suffering of mentally troubled individuals. Instead we build prisons, invest in security and hire more police.

According to this ridiculous article I was &quot;a natural step&quot; from being a school shooter in my teenager years, and so are million others. The juvenile grouping of &quot;jocks and nerds&quot; is not enough for the author, who makes no effort in trying to understand the killera, instead he dwells into generalizations and sheer prejudice. If the title didn&#x27;t hint you into what sort of article it would be.

I realize this is the actual title of the piece, but it&#x27;s going to get <i>much</i> fewer views&#x2F;reads because of it.<p>For the sake of HN readers, it might be worth editorializing this title to add some kind of context.

It&#x27;s little more than a rehash of facts with little exploration beyond that. I expected more from such a read.

It&#x27;s a very strange time, when anyone can reach anyone else (or any knowledge) instantly, but many use this as an opportunity to isolate themselves even further. It seems to happen a lot when the exceptionalism common to young white men runs straight into the reality that they are in fact <i>un</i>exceptional and what power they have is not just unearned but waning. The cognitive dissonance that results is, as we see over and over, lethal to themselves and others.

Very well written and interesting. While some people put the blame on firearms (lets not turn this into a debate on gun control) i believe that its the media attention that is the biggest culprit. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4</a>

&gt; According to the FBI, there have been close to two hundred such incidents in the last 15 years, resulting in the murder of 486 people and the wounding of 557 as of September last year<p>According to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_States_military_casualties_of_war" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_States_military_casualt...</a> , in the 8-year Iraq War (2003–2011), there were 3,527 U.S. combat deaths and 32,222 wounded. Could save far more American lives, not to mention others, by keeping sociopaths out of the Presidency rather than profiling and surveilling loners.

Who cares honestly? It&#x27;s the same rehashed garbage. First world problems galore. Not getting enough sex, not having enough money, not making enough friends but not being willing to do anything about those things but sit in their basement of choice and whine.<p>Clarifying: The first world problem I&#x27;m talking about are the things the shooters cite as reasons for their actions, not the shootings themselves.