We are learning more about what Luigi Mangione thought of various cultural trends and societal ills prior to allegedly killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan earlier this month.
On Monday night, a writer based in the United Kingdom who had communicated with Mangione in the recent past spoke to CNN all about the accused killer’s theories on porn, video games, and social media. And there are some serious shockers here.
Related: The Internet Reacts To Luigi Mangione Being Charged With Terrorism!
Gurwinder Bhogal (pictured above, inset) met the 26-year-old accused killer online after Mangione found his writings via the Substack blogging platform. Speaking to CNN anchor Erin Burnett on Monday in primetime as part of her show, Bhogal explained that Mangione was apparently very concerned with the rise of internet porn and the ease with which it seemed like men were becoming addicted:
“He was very concerned with things like online porn. He believed a lot of men were not going out and meeting women because they were addicted to porn.”
Adult films weren’t the only issues facing Mangione, though. According to Bhogal, the accused killer also felt like video games were broadly holding back large swaths of society from achieving more:
“He was really concerned about video games, he believed that people were not making accomplishments, they were not accomplishing things in the real world because they were getting the dopamine hits from video games.”
And social media was on Mangione’s worry list, too. Bhogal claimed that Mangione spoke to him about social media websites and the addiction to them that was taking people’s “agency” away. In fact, Bhogal even asserted that he and Mangione had a two-hour video call about those exact fears earlier this year:
“He was afraid that technology was going to take people’s agency away. He actually believed that this was already happening.”
In turn, Bhogal told Burnett that those worries were why Mangione became more interested in the writings and theories of Ted Kaczynski. Better known as the Unabomber, Kaczynski is famous for killing three people and injuring another 23 via the use of mail bombs between 1978 and 1995 before he was captured and imprisoned. And as far as Mangione is concerned, Kaczynski’s anti-technology and anti-modernity beliefs as laid out in the man’s infamous manifesto from decades ago played right into it. Per Bhogal:
“He became interested in Kaczynski’s work for this reason — because Kaczynski also believed this.”
More directly pertinent to the Thompson case was one other issue Mangione and Bhogal discussed previously: the accused killer’s “frustrations with the US healthcare system.” Bhogal, who is from the United Kingdom, told CNN that Mangione was deeply interested in that country’s National Health Service. The friend explained:
“He [Luigi] said the US health care system was really expensive and I told him about the NHS because here in the UK we have a free health care system. And he kind of seemed to idolize the UK’s health care system.”
You can see the full interview from Monday night (below):
[Image via Pennsylvania Department of Corrections/CNN/YouTube]
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