They are programmed. Kids play video games all the time, with headphones, listening to others and communicating while they play.
Until this moment I had never given a thought as to how you could use these video games to identify, control, and condition people. People communicate on the games and it would be easy to find the angry, the lonely, the unstable, socially awkward and “friend” them to work them and control them. Perfect to to find those worth conditioning into murderers.
It bothers me to even think these thoughts, but I find that this is possible and believable.
My husband and I were just talking about this very thing. It’s unsettling.