I'm no expert on killers, but there does seem to have been a shift, within my lifetime, in what certainly looks like a nihilist direction. See “A nation is never conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground.” I've heard a number of reasons for not having children, and many center around meaninglessness and disbelief in a future. (And also "can't afford" and "I have genetic issues")
If it were a nihilist culture shift, you'd expect to see differences with places that don't share the culture, and similarities with others that do--which would include a large fraction of Europe, although there are enough differences to make comparison fraught.
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I don't know of anyone who formally embraces nihilism, but I know a lot of people who have adopted theraputic views of reality in which everything is traumatic and your major goal is to 'work on your issues' and 'fix your self.' It's not that the world has no meaning; it's that the only meaning is "me." I know at least two young women who have told me that they have decided not to have children because "I want my life to be about me."
Eliminating children (and therefore grandchildren, etc) eliminates a major source of meaning from your life; the relationships you have with others end up being the main thing that determines if you are or are not happy.
It is frequently noted that the lack of a father in the lives of these shooters is a common thread. There too is an absent, void human relationship of the foremost importance: one that should be there, but it is not. The relationships are gone, and all that's left is the self.
And the self is selfish, angry, lustful, proud and hurt that its pride is not respected by an uncaring world, all those bad things that have always lain at the heart of men. You find the good in yourself when you help others; but there are fewer and fewer to help, fathers who are gone, mothers who didn't really want you, friends who have shifted into the virtual instead of the present and embodied, schools full of strangers you only get to know well enough to dislike.
I had a very secular psychologist friend who noted that while he was close to being an existentialist, with the only meanings being those he had worked on and imposed himself, he had some recognition that those who came up in his generation were raised with the belief that life had meaning, and that therefore their nihilism was tempered. The younger rebels, he thought, were nihilistic at a more profound level. He didn't know what was to be done about that.
Interesting what he could sense at a distance.
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