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Comment by tdewitt | Hacker News Reader

The science on the matter disagrees with your personal opinion's about the impact of video games. There have been more than a handful of studies around this.

I don't couple that with young males having little prospects because they still have more than their counterparts. Why aren't young black women shooting up Walmarts? Why not Mexican men? I'm a white male. I didn't graduate from a college. I was awkward. I haven't killed anyone and I know a lot of others that fit that mold. You're ignoring the poison being put into their heads by people using your exact talking points. That creates the powder keg.

Bombs don't get you the praise from the gutter. The alt-right incels like the glory. You're right, we could see a rise in bombings but we also might not. What we'll definitely see (and already do) is nothing changing by doing nothing.

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and most of them have led to the conclusion of increased aggression, so it's not really a personal opinion (as I tend to hold opinions fairly loosely):

https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2003/10/anderson

As well just because someone fit's a profile does not mean they are predisposed to commit acts of violence. That being said, when there is a pattern, there is a pattern. There are many young white males, of similar experience who do not pick up a gun and start killing people. That being said, there is a definitive pattern of behavior and interest among these white males that do, rejection, isolation and immersion in video games (almost always violent) are certainly some of those patterns.

Also please stop trying to pin it on alt-right (or left for that matter), these guys are popping up all over the political spectrum.

> That being said, when there is a pattern, there is a pattern.

There is a pattern of mentally unhinged men being radicalized by the right wing and committing heinous acts of violence with guns.

The Ohio shooter described himself as a left wing Satanist. Most of the school shooters had little to no political ideology. A few have been hard left leaning and some have been alt-right. It is disingenuous to state that they are motivated by political ideology as the overwhelming majority have has little to no interest in politics given their age. I don't dispute that some of the mass killings have been done out of ultra-radicalized political ideologies but the majority are not committed for that reason.

> It is disingenuous to state that they are motivated by political ideology as the overwhelming majority

No it is not. You provided one or two examples that do not eliminate a pattern, and as you yourself said- "A pattern is a pattern."

There are three problems here: mental illness, (far right) radicalization, and guns. I don't have any solutions to propose for this but saying videogames are somehow the cause of this is absurd.

Why not see it as a bigger culture rot? Guns and violence is glorified by games, music, tv. It might a sign, not a cause. Also, a lot of these shooters talk about high score (kill count), a lot of these extremists (right wing) and tied to gaming communities etc. So it's a lot to think about, people like to nitpick things they like and say it doesn't have anything to do with it because it does not affect me.

I'm not pinning this on any group (although if we look at the rhetoric from major events in the past few years, it clearly supports doing so) but I am saying your talking points come straight from the alt-right playbook. Hate fueled rhetoric, plus making the world the bogie man for the sad displaced white boy is literally the alt-right SOP. Let's not stop pointing fingers at them as part of the problem.

For the record, I do not consider myself to be right, I may lean to the right on some issues but as a supporter of Universal-Basic-Income and Universal Healthcare, environmental science etc. I would say many of my view lean left of center. It total I consider myself a centrist.

Where I don't waver from the alt-right on is on constitutional rights, so while my talking points may seem to you to come out of a playbook they are my views on the world and I tend to form those views based of my experiences and reasoning.

I do not believe I am making the world a boggy man for anyone. Just calling the numbers as I see them. I believe these young men are cowards as evident in the Texas shooters manifesto where he explicitly states that he targeted Walmart as he would not meet armed resistance.

I think you misunderstand the things I'm saying are talking points. The sad white boy having no place in the world and sexual rejection being a new and uniue problem that justifies disproportionate response, is what I'm talking about. That's the alt-right bogeyman. That's the fuel for a lot of this fire.

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