Today we're joined by Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, psychologist and one of the country’s foremost addiction and mental health experts, to discuss mass shootings, incel culture, and video game violence. We start off with an update on the Texas shooting that took place last weekend and the strange details about the shooter's online history that have come out (which are still being investigated). We discuss how incel culture began as a well-intentioned lonely hearts support group and morphed into an online breeding ground for angry people. We go through some of the ideologies espoused by mass shooters and talk about how search algorithms create a sense of egocentric narcissism, causing people to believe they're the center of their digital world. We argue that while it's worth talking about guns, mass shootings are rooted more in societal and psychological issues that need to be addressed. Then, we ask why these shootings are almost always perpetrated by men and address whether violent video games have anything to do with this male aggression, as some have argued. We end with some encouragement: How to feed your kids digital vegetables rather than digital candy.

You can get Dr. Kardaras' books here:

Digital Madness: How Social Media Is Driving Our Mental Health Crisis--and How to Restore Our Sanity

Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids - and How to Break the Trance

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Timecodes:

(00:58) Updates on Texas mall shooting

(10:23) Interview with Dr. Kardaras begins / ideology of shooters

(14:23) School shootings

(16:32) Incels & narcissism

(27:35) Mentality of serial killers and mass shooters

(32:30) Why it's usually men

(38:50) Violent video games

(50:18) Drug use

(54:57) Mental health assessments & Jordan Neely

(56:55) Texas shooter profile

(01:01:11) Treatment for this kind of person

(01:03:45) Treatment for screen/gaming addiction

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Links:

WFAA ABC: "How did the Allen mall shooting happen? Who were the victims? Who was the shooter? Everything we know" https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/allen-texas-outlet-mall-shooting-victims-shooter-suspect-updates-everything-we-know-about-the-allen-shooting/287-2f9a1328-b59f-4960-a96a-5a143953fd99

Omega Recovery: "The connection between drug use, video games, deadly weapons and school shootings." https://omegarecovery.org/the-connection-between-drug-use-video-games-deadly-weapons-and-school-shootings/

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Relevant Episodes:

Ep 801 | Don’t Fall for Weaponized Empathy https://apple.co/3psSEuc

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Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book

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