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Comment by wwweston | Hacker News Reader

Yep. A total lack of belief to the point of nihilism is a crisis of meaning, to be sure, but it tends to collapse towards either hedonism or depression rather than monomaniacal infliction of harm on the rest of the world. True determined harm usually requires ideological zeal.

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> True determined harm usually requires ideological zeal.

That's not what I think motivated all the US school shootings in the last 25 years.

Ideological zeal that pursues actively harming others is something I don't think the US has much of, culturally speaking. No one preaches "those people need to die" or "we need to harm those people".

It's certainly worth considering mass shootings. They're unsettling and the apparently growth in frequency is alarming, and I think you could fairly attribute them to personal crises in meaning that lead to a path of resentment ("if I'm suffering, why shouldn't others suffer too?") that does germinate into a plan to inflict arbitrary harm.

Still, as far as I can tell, even with the increase in frequency these are not common events. ~600 per year. No number of them is rare enough, but imagine if even 1 in 1000 of the estimated number of Americans who suffer from major depression (around 16 million) did a mass shooting. Running amok may be the exception that proves the rule.

I'd also point out that ideological zeal may play a role here. Ideology seems to underly policy of not only refusing to examine potential further restrictions on access but to broadly increasing access to arms/gear that make them easier. Characterizations of these events as mental health crises don't seem to lead to social policy supporting mental health. Certainly not the whole story, but probably plays a role in paving the way for harm.

I would argue mass shooters do, more often than not, believe strongly in something. It might not be religion or even a traditional ideology and the shooter might not even really understand themselves what they are experiencing but I bet if you dug in deep you would see some pretty extreme views on the world, themselves or their fellow man.

> even with the increase in frequency these are not common events. ~600 per year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_Way_To_Prevent_This,%27_...

The UK had one mass shooting, twenty-five years ago, and chose to end the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre

Mass shootings are a horror that the US is unwilling and unable to confront. Far too many people would simply prefer to listen to Alex Jones and imagine that it's all fake.

> No one preaches "those people need to die" or "we need to harm those people".

Nobody says it out loud, they just strongly imply it.

Much like how nobody advocates for war by saying that <people in some other country should die>, they couch it behind nicer-sounding rhetoric.

> No one preaches "those people need to die" or "we need to harm those people".

.. yes they do? It's not usually spelled out in those words, at least not on the "respectable" side of the preaching, but when there's a mass shooter manifesto the shooter usually makes clear their influences and sometimes gives them thanks and citations.

It's also often done in the past tense. Whenever there's a controversial shooting, hundreds of commentators will turn up to say "that person deserved to be shot".

People suffering a crisis of meaning might not inflict harm directly, but instead fail to stop the maniacs who do.

Fair point! Definitely some 2nd order effects to consider.

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