<p>does he have a job? past jobs? maybe his lack of career direction, poor academic record also contributes to his depression. Maybe he thinks that 5 years from now, he might still be in the same rut!!!</p>
<p>Why would he want a job? </p>
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<p>Unless SBCC maintains dorms in IV themselves, it’s likely he’s renting the apartment from a private owner or rental company just as an adult would rent an apartment in any municipality. </p>
<p>He was really hung up about his height– several mentions of it in his manifesto</p>
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<p>I don’t want to trivialize this discussion but guys being attracted to “hot blondes” has probably more to do with genetics than any cultural component. The difference is that 99.9% of guys do not take whatever disappointment they may have for not fulfilling all their fantasies into some murderous rage against an entire gender.</p>
<p>^ Disagreeing with you on it not being cultural. Google “Beautiful/hot/sexy/etc women” and see if most of them are not blonde or at least white. </p>
<p>Well, he was specifically targeting the USCB sorority. But, the plan went slightly awry when they didn’t answer the door. He knocked twice. Then he just decided to kill anyone.</p>
<p>Whether his attraction with “hot blondes” was genuine or not, he had an obsession with them. This obsession had a cultural component to it. </p>
<p>I think one area where Asperger’s does come to play is the fact that people with the disorder benefit from more specific social training and direct modeling of positive social interaction. It’s not necessarily something that comes naturally, but most develop a sense of how to interact with others that works for them. </p>
<p>My son, was dx’d with NVLD, which is also on the autism spectrum disorder. I remember him at four-years-old pouring over a series of books we bought for him with titles like “When you feel angry…” “When you feel sad…” “When you feel happy…” etc. He was looking for clues about how to react and how to deal with feelings and other people. It broke my heart a little then to see that he felt he needed to study how to be a “normal” kid, but in retrospect he was looking for what he needed. I think he got it. He’s probably the most outwardly social person in our family today. And he’s a really nice guy. But it didn’t come naturally to him.</p>
<p>Rodgers, on the other hand, seemed to have grown up in an environment where sex and money and power were the social currency. That’s a toxic combination for any child, let alone one who needs more help and guidance as he develops his own social and sexual identity. </p>
<p>According to his recounting of his childhood, he felt his stepmother was particularly harsh with him and his father always sided with her. Don’t know how accurate this is but this perception of how he was being treated by his parents was probably not helpful to his emotional well-being.</p>
<p>The childhood portion is totally obsessive though - I found the birthday party to birthday party theme really creepy - followed by jumps to gaming systems. That seems more like fixation than entitlement to me. Yeah, my kid wishes our internet was faster so he wouldn’t lag and get killed when he plays League of Legends but he just moves on with is life like most kids do. </p>
<p>On his perception of how he was treated not being helpful that is the whole problem . . . his perception is warped. His perception of how girls treated him didn’t help his well being either but that doesn’t make it accurate or right.</p>
<p>Isnt that why so many adults go into therapy?
Because they are angry with their parents?</p>
<p>A previous poster asked why no one confronted him on his skewed ideas. Actually, it sounds from his manifesto as if he did have a friend who disliked his rants and tried to get him to stop. The friendship ended uncomfortably. Elliot was extremely disappointed in his friend’s being so passive and not angered by all of the obvious injustices around them. </p>
<p>There are all kinds of people out there who are short, ugly, quirky, poor, awkward, a<strong>holes, entitled jerks, b</strong>ches, dorky, self-centered and you name it who still manage to sustain friendships, romantic and sexual relationships and have positive human interactions on some level that is sustaining. These people have had any number of experiences, exposures and upbringings and certainly haven’t lived in a bubble away from video games, pop culture, real housewives, sex, sub-optimal parents and sub-optimal internet speeds and still . . . given all those disadvantages . . . live in society relatively successfully. </p>
<p>I am not an expert on autism, but this kid does not read as autistic to me. I think I agree with whoever it was on this thread who said that he probably had a mistaken diagnosis, because if you’re a therapist and you’re asked to evaluate a little boy who has trouble connecting socially, and is maybe sullen and withdrawn to boot (drawing here on a news report that mentioned a family friend saying that when he and his sister came to visit he wouldn’t talk and would just hide), what else do you diagnose? You certainly don’t make the leap to “sociopath” for a 6 or 8 year old.</p>
<p>The more I read, the more I think this kid was really just broken from the outset. This wasn’t a case of his having had an abusive childhood, or of his family failing to get him the help that could have saved him. He got help; it didn’t help. His parents did everything they could for him. His living situation in Santa Barbara was actually through a program that tries to help young adults with disabilities integrate into society; how did he get into that program if his parents didn’t set it up for him? So I don’t think this is a case of a spoiled, entitled rich kid who was never taught that the world doesn’t revolve around him. There are a ton of those around, and they don’t all go shooting people.</p>
<p>The scariest part is that he had no previous history of violence. For someone to go from 0 to mass murderer with no warning other than verbal ranting, which might or might not mean anything, is freaky.</p>
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<p>Actually, I think it is almost PURELY a cultural issue. </p>
<p>Why do disturbed, angry people–especially young men–in our society resort to mass murder so frequently?</p>
<p>Why do people pull guns and shoot harmless people–teens with a bag of skittles, a young woman who has had an auto accident, a young exchange student wearing a Halloween costume who has the wrong address–so readily? Why do they live in totally unrealistic fear and arm themselves in the first place?</p>
<p>Our nation is plagued by a mythology and culture of threat, fear, and violence.</p>
<p>Great point, Consolation. Rodgers’ anger, delusional thinking and sense of entitlement are mental health issues. But that the issues impelled him to mass murder, rather than some other action such as suicide, is cultural. </p>
<p>maybe the media should stop giving these people tons of attention</p>
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<p>And with over 300M people in the country, many whom are not shooting harmless people, we fall victim to the 24 hour news cycle/500 channels/internet sites/constant media and start to belief that things that happen and are discussed a lot are symptoms that we are “plagued by a mythology…”</p>
<p>Violent crime per 1,000 people has dropped by almost 2/3rds since 1994 and yet people act as if there has been a huge increase.</p>
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<p>How frequently do we have a mass murder?<br>
I know we don’t want any but in a country of 300M with 50M young men (?), many of whom aren’t committing mass murder, how many is frequent?</p>
<p>Here are the reported facts that make me believe the autism diagnosis:</p>
<p>Presumably capable medical professionals diagnosed him with Aspergers, an autism spectrum diagnosis.</p>
<p>He was apparently bright in some ways, as judged by his writing, but he was unable to succeed even at community college.</p>
<p>He didn’t know what to do when initiating a conversation. He’d say “Hi” and then not know what to do next. </p>
<p>He had the “little professor” style of writing common in people with Aspergers.</p>
<p>He was described, as a child, as odd, weird, unable to fit in. The childhood descriptions don’t talk about him doing things young sociopaths do, like torturing animals. </p>
<p>He was described as without affect.</p>
<p>As a child, “a family friend said that when he and his sister came to visit he wouldn’t talk and would just hide,” according to dustypig above.</p>
<p>All the above are characteristic of people on the autism spectrum.</p>