The last James Holmes post?

I don’t want it to be the last post, but there doesn’t seem to be any more news stories about him. So of all of the mass murders during the years since I’ve been blogging, this one remains the most mysterious.

The other mass murderers showed obvious signs of mental illness or weird behavior (Jiverly Wong, Jared Loughner, Seung-Hui Cho) or an obvious motive (Nidal Hasan [motivated by Islam], George Sodini [angry at women], Anders Behring Breivik [angry at leftists]).

Holmes showed no obvious signs of mental illness or schizophrenia (which is the inability to distinguish reality from fantasy) up until the day he committed his massacre, even though he was planning it for several months. He may have had bad grades at school, but that’s hardly evidence of mental illness, merely of low conscientiousness or other normal problems. His lawyer claims he was a “patient” of the woman who is the Director of Mental Health Services as his school, but this seems to me to be just a legalistic argument to suppress evidence (because he mailed some incriminating stuff to her). There is nothing indicating that he was seeing this woman on a continuing basis for some serious mental problem.

I really do think that this is a case of beta-male rage, which is a term coined by a commenter at this blog who used to go by the pseudonym of “Commander Shepard.” The term is now being picked up by other bloggers. I think that beta-male rage is going to be an increasingly obvious phenomenon. It’s because “nice guys,” that is guys who did well in school, are polite to people, and generally follow the rules, but who lack an aggressive and extroverted personality, these guys now have a very difficult time finding girlfriends. In the past, they were considered good boyfriend material. I think that if Holmes had a girlfriend, all those people wouldn't be dead or injured.

There would probably be many times more instances of beta-male-rage shootings, except that beta-males have been pacified by video and computer games (such as Xbox and World of Warcraft), web surfing, readily available internet porn, big screen TVs, DVDs, and the like, which distract beta-males from being angry.

Comments

[Jim Norton]

"There would probably be many times more instances of beta-male-rage shootings, except that beta-males have been pacified by video and computer games (such as Xbox and World of Warcraft), web surfing, readily available internet porn, big screen TVs, DVDs, and the like, which distract beta-males from being angry."

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Also, escorts for those beta males who can afford them.

[dearieme]

"an aggressive and extroverted personality": what about those who are extrovert without being aggressive?

[Scarlet Knight]

The comment by Jim Norton was very clever if you have ever listened to the real Jim Norton on Opie & Anthony.

[alex]

Somehow I suspect the obesity epidemic has something to do with it as well. In the past a far higher percentage of women were sexually attractive.

[HS: Thanks to modern orthodonture, women have never been prettier. The obesity "epidemic" is mostly relegated to NAMs, and low-class proles that someone in graduate school wouldn't be interested in.]

[Peter]

"It’s because “nice guys,” that is guys who did well in school, are polite to people, and generally follow the rules, but who lack an aggressive and extroverted personality, these guys now have a very difficult time finding girlfriends. In the past, they were considered good boyfriend material."

Well maybe. If this theory's true the percentage of men without girlfriends should have risen. I don't know if that's the case, though according to the GSS there's been no big change in the median* number of sexual partners for men, and marriage rates haven't declined too much.

One thing that could be the case is that as society becomes less sexually repressed life becomes more frustrating for men who can't get sex. I can't imagine how this could ever be quantified, however.

* = not mean, which could be distorted by a relatively few Alphas with many sex partners

[Jim Norton]

I'm a meaty breasted little nothing.

Linger longer.

[whiskey]

My guess HS is that this guy was in fact suffering from mental illness, his poor grades were a function of personality disintegration. I think most signs point to this guy being crazy like Son of Sam David Berkowitz, hearing voices telling him to kill crazy.

I don't think in that case anything could have prevented him from being crazy, if indeed he had a biological trigger caused by brain chemistry changes in his early twenties.

However if he had a girlfriend, he probably would have just had a Kony 2012 naked meltdown (ala that Director who ran around naked screaming in San Diego). No one seriously hurt, he's committed to a nuthouse, no worries.

[whiskey]

Let me add that the reason I favor mental illness as an explanation is that the media, if accurate, are reporting that he had mental problems in late adolescence with his mother seeking help for them among professionals, his whole "Joker" thing, and that a number of people thought he has going nuts about a month before the shooting.

[Peter A]

I don't agree that it's harder for someone like Holmes to get sex or a girlfriend now than it would have been 60 years ago. Seems to me the big difference is that sexual success is simply now an explicit marker of status in a way that it wasn't before. Men who can't get sex are capital L losers. This wasn't always true.

Before the 1960s "Alpha" males and male promiscuity used to be judged negatively by society for the most part, at least publicly. The "beta" provider male was the icon in popular culture. (Of course, beta men used to be more masculine - competent in daily tasks, managing home repair, etc. than modern betas, but that's a longer discussion). And we didn't celebrate sexually demonstrative cultures or behavior - African Americans were considered primitive, Southern Italians were considered ridiculous. Sub-beta men like Holmes would still have been sexually frustrated and offputting to women 60 years ago, but they wouldn't have internalized this frustration as a sign of their intrinsic lack of worth the way today's sub betas do. It was also, oddly, less of a stigma to frequent prostitutes 60 years ago than today when every competent man is supposed to be an expert seduction artist. Availability of prostitutes is probably better than porn at reducing sexual frustration.

[Conquistador]

An update on Maggie McCombs victim of a similar incident you documented back in January. That one involved an Asian guy. She's paralyzed from the shoulders down but she's still hot.

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story/Maggies-story-of-survival/hHcx_DrmCkOJvP_i9F0i3g.cspx

http://www.halfsigma.com/2012/01/asian-omega-male-rage.html

[Flico]

[women have never been prettier...]
Women have never been fatter...

[Flico]

Once again, I think this is a simple case of mental illness. I don't buy the beta male rage theory, nor do we have any knowledge about Holmes's sex life, he may have been in a hypersexual phase. I doubt he was celibate in any case.

[Seo Sanghyeon]

James Holmes used escorts. http://www.tmz.com/2012/07/25/james-holmes-prostitutes/

[HS: The headline of the article is POSSIBLE prostitute connection. ]

[Dave]

There are a lot of beta males. Far more than alphas, actually, especially in this day and age. If "beta male rage" were indeed a phenomena you'd see a lot more if it nowadays. The fact is that betas a pussies - they don't rage.

I say its more likely this is a case of mental illness. Early on, it crept in slowly enough for him be lucid - to fantasize and plan, then as it accelerated he prepared, then it hit with a ferocity that enabled him to execute.

[Kaz]

Dude, if that was true then we'd see a lot more cases than just the few we could name. Anything could set people like this guy off. Anything. Invest in mental health institutions/research, that's all we can do.

[Bekenstein]

"Holmes showed no obvious signs of mental illness or schizophrenia (which is the inability to distinguish reality from fantasy)"

Then leftists and religious people have a mild form of mental illness.

[Bekenstein]

"Well maybe. If this theory's true the percentage of men without girlfriends should have risen. I don't know if that's the case, though according to the GSS there's been no big change in the median* number of sexual partners for men, and marriage rates haven't declined too much."

My gosh, Peter, you're really mediocre.

You truly don't understand, do you?

[ATC]

OT, but has anyone noticed Steve Sailer's Disqus profile, and that it's linked to a Twitter account (now deleted) called @SailMyAss, user name "WUT WUT"?

There seem to be a few traces of this account online in Google searches, but for the life of me I can't tell what he was trying to accomplish with it.

http://disqus.com/stevesailer/

[SFG]

Gonna disagree with the Sig on this one: the massive increase in obesity and overweight (in both sexes, mind you) means that the left half of the game bell curve (which is often the right half of the IQ bell curve) has to settle for significantly fatter girls than we used to. Go to a con and you'll see why Roissy/Heartiste uses Lovecraft similes.

[Conquistador]

"James Holmes used escorts." - Seo Sanghyeon

If true that just further proves the guy was a sexless loser. No paying for sex doesn't count it's equal to masturbation, imo.

I'm not sure what's so hard to get here. Men crave love too. You can't buy that. When they don't find it they become dysfunctional. That can take many forms. In this case homicide.

[Conquistador]

"If "beta male rage" were indeed a phenomena you'd see a lot more if it nowadays." - Dave

Look at the names Half Sigma listed in his post. All of them were single, unmarried, unattached, sexless men. Except for Sodini nobody cited their loserdom as justification. He was honest.

[Laura]

This beta male rage business isn't a new problem. Read Trollope's "The Small House of Allington" sometime. It's about a "hobbledehoy" (= beta male) trying to win the girl next door and losing her to a dashing but inconsiderate jerk. And then when the inconsiderate jerk dumps her, she would still rather live on the tiny income her uncle has settled on her than marry the hobbledehoy. This was written in 1864.

[Conquistador]

More and more men nowadays live lives of silent desperation. They may never lash out but what brews inside is very dark. It's a natural male impulse to kill. You'd be lying if you said you've never fantasized. James was a bright boy but no more nutty than the rest of the folks who go into his line of work. Do you know how many psychiatrists see professionals themselves? I see too many here are afraid to confront the primal urges that drive human behavior. I understand the denial. It's more comforting.

[asdf]

1) I agree with half that we have enough distractions now that betas don't rage because they are pacified. Lack of lots of incidents isn't proof there isn't a lot of rage out there.

2) I think we need to back off the "mental illness" bandwagon. All of us, at some point in our lives, want to go postal. Personal tradgedies. Health problems. Career setbacks. Or just the daily indignities and mediocrities added up. I've certainly FELT like Holmes from time to time. I was just lucky enough I didn't act on it and the problems fixed themselves either through my own actions or chance. Rage isn't an illness, it's a natural human emotion.

3) Beta males are still marraige material. But marraige has increased in age dramatically. Asking a guy to be celebate or near celebate till 30+ is crazy.

Betas can also tell women are settling for them. Yes, we all settle. But when a 22 with 0-2 partners settles for you it's different then when a 30 year old with 12+ partners does. The message is clear, all those men didn't work out so I guess I've got you.

4) The quality of marraige is down. Some of the dudes I work with have to write down on a calendar if they are doing anything outside of their regular schedule, and ask their wives permission. Can you imagine that in the 1950s? We've gone from father knows best to Homer Simpson.

[ATC]

@Peter A:
"(Of course, beta men used to be more masculine - competent in daily tasks, managing home repair, etc. than modern betas, but that's a longer discussion). "

Actually that's an egalitarian-minded Yankee quirk. Our culture fetishizes DIY home improvement more than most.

In much of the world, DIY repair is low-status and nothing to brag about (DIY computer/tech work carries that stigma in America). It means you are too poor to get some other schlub to do it.

Some gullible American pundits gush over Mexicans' presence at home-improvement stores, since they know nothing about Mexico's class structure. Those noble, virtuous workers are in their own country considered the peons, not the "patrones".

[R.]

A girlfriend is not enough. A loser beta male will immediately fall in love and catch oneitis. When the relationship eventually ends, he will be devastated and unable to handle the rejection, leading him to be even more dangerous than before he got into the relationship.
A solid foundation is more important, which means having some social status, a stable circle of normal non-loser friends, social hobbies, and a respectful career. A guy has to have something to fall back on in case of a breakup. And if he has all those things, then being single won't be that much of a problem.

[anon]

@SailMyAss?!!! Wtf?

Get your gerbils ready
Head for the hershey highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into gaaaays...

I'm just teasing. Sailer is married. To a woman even. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Some of my best friends are straight.

[chucho]

Re: the historical angle, sure the alpha/beta dichotomy has definitely always existed, but it's become much more stark in the last generation. Think back to the 70s with films like "Looking for mr goodbar" and tv shows like "Mary tyler moore"--women (on average) were still much lower in social class than men. But the feminist seeds were planted at that time for the next generation, and they are now in full bloom.

[CH]

HS makes a funny:
"HS: Thanks to modern orthodonture, women have never been prettier. The obesity "epidemic" is mostly relegated to NAMs, and low-class proles that someone in graduate school wouldn't be interested in."

nice troll. straight teeth are one, minor aspect of a woman's overall attractiveness. body shape and size and facial bone substructure are the most important and relevant variables BY FAR that account for women's physical attractiveness to the greatest number of men. the hottest chick i have ever known had an adorable snaggletooth.

as for obesity, you're being deliberately misleading. while black women and hispanic women do have higher grossness rates than white women, the obesity rate for white women has leapt up as well.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5827a2.htm

the overall obesity rate for white women is 22%, up from the low single digits in 1970. nearly 1/4 of white women are virtually unfuckable by any but the most desperate loser men. if you don't think this will have a significant impact on the functioning of the sexual market, you're living in la la land, aka manhattan. and, it's even worse than that. obesity is only the worst category of fatties; the number of simply "overweight" women, for all races, have shot up since about 1970 as well. if you are a winner man with options in women, you will not choose to be with an overweight women.

look, HS, most of the country does not attend (libtard) grad school, nor do they have the innate talents to ever do so. grad school sexual and marriage bartering is a tiny slice of the entire american sexual economy, and right now that economy is burdened (heh) by inefficiencies owing to the scale-tipping (double heh) that female obesity introduces to that market. try to see the bigger picture here.

[jz]

Sodini is a known beta-male rage. It took him until age 48 to develope actionable rage. Holmes' young age is consistant with emerging schizophrenia.

[ic]

Most alphal males are psychopath in nature.

[Watch]

He was tall, muscular and good looking. He could have had any girl he wanted. This may come as news to you guys but women are desperate, virtually any man can get a girlfriend if he wants one, especially a man has physically impressive as holmes

[gh]

ATC, though it's fun to imagine Steve Sailer leading a second life online, chatting up pink-haired Asian men and teenage NYU coeds on Twitter, it's unlikely that the @SailMyAss account belonged to him. Just look more closely at those remnants of the account on Google, or see the guy's photo: https://twitter.com/frank_truei/status/160262214689890304/photo/1 (not work safe, IMO). Maybe @SMA signed up with the other man's email address, Disqus picked it up, and Sailer verified it thinking it was his (https://twitter.com/steve_sailer).

[asdf]

Watch,

Huh? He is pretty ugly, and certainly not muscular.

[jef]

Holmes and Berkowitz were both adopted.

[destructure]

"Holmes and Berkowitz were both adopted." -- jef

That doesn't surprise me. This is going to sound harsh but a lot of kids given up for adoption are from the f'ed up end of the gene pool. Like they say: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Think about it.

[Allerious]

"No paying for sex doesn't count it's equal to masturbation, imo. "

Nonsense. Every idiot pays. You pay with your time, with your life, with your sanity or with your money.

Those who pay with the latter are usually best off among the lot.

[Melykin]

Holmes' psychiatrist reported behavior to colleagues

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/01/justice/colorado-theater-shooting-psychiatrist/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn