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On the manifestos killers leave behind

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Re: On the manifestos killers leave behind

#71

Post by andreasvc »

justinator wrote: post #64
roflc0ptic wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as I understand it the Unabomber was politically motivated terrorism. He also had the distinction of being a pretty smart guy, which is unusual for the demographic that gets into mass murder.

Ted Bundy [0] Andrew Cunanan [1] Jeffrey Dahmer - I wouldn't say it's "unusual" [2] [0] http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Psyc%20405/serial%20killers/B... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cunanan#Early_life [2] http://www.examiner.com/article/22-serial-killers-with-high-...

You listed two serial killers with a high IQ; however, the merits of IQ can be debated, but more importantly Kaczynsky stands out because he holds a PhD and was a Berkeley professor.

Re: On the manifestos killers leave behind

#72

Post by hga »

anigbrowl wrote: post #67
cuberator wrote: post #11

Very well written and interesting. While some people put the blame on firearms (lets not turn this into a debate on gun control) i believe that its the media attention that is the biggest culprit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4

Media attention may well be the biggest motivator for such actions, but once someone gives in to their murderous impulses guns make it very easy to kill a lot of people, simply by being highly optimized. You can quickly kill more people with a bomb, but they're relatively hard to manufacture and deploy; you can very easily kill someone with a knife or any number of other close-quarters weapons, but it's not reliable…

Although it's worth pointing out that some of the worst US mass murders were arsons, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupont_Plaza_Hotel_arson and there's one I'm having difficultly finding that was almost as bad set in the entrance of a NYC nightclub.

That people in the US choose guns vs. fire is I'm sure cultural, including fire safety being part of our culture, i.e. the "payoff" will seldom be great.

Re: On the manifestos killers leave behind

#73

Post by [deleted] »

arthur_pryor wrote: post #59
tunesmith wrote: post #24

I think this is a good read when combined with the Gladwell article from the New Yorker ( http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-v... ). I'm not against gun control efforts or better mental health efforts (whatever that might mean) but I think that both articles suggest that a lot of progress can be made in figuring out how to arrest this kind of societal disconnect. In the days after Columbine, t…

I haven't thought about "Voices From The Hellmouth" in a really long time. I remember reading Slashdot a ton in high school and college (maybe 97 or 98 through 02?). Then, not so much. FWIW, HN, esp when I first found it a few years ago, reminded me a lot of what I loved about the discussion on Slashdot back in the day. Anyway, the actual point of this comment: much of what's described in "Voices From The Hellmouth"…

[deleted]

Re: On the manifestos killers leave behind

#74

Post by anigbrowl »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #38
cuberator wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesnt have much in common with the people mentioned in this article, except Breivik maybe, though i might be completely wrong since i havent read up on the Unabomber.

He's a total outlier since he had two very well documented issues that occurred in his life that affected him profoundly - and I can't blame him for feeling the way he did after either. The first was at 9 months after bieng born, he got a bad case of the hives and was isolated from his family, with no visitors. This time is the most important time for newborns to bond with their parents and he was deprived of this. H…

Both those articles were frustrating - the PT one is just promoting a book and the Atlantic one provides only one example. A little more information (based on the latter article's author's book) is available here: http://humaneeducation.org/blog/2010/07/19/imagine-a-differe...

Notwithstanding his murderous behavior, Kaczynski's manifesto is absolutely worth reading. Though uneven, it contains some profound insights, many of which will resonate with anyone interested in social theory.

Re: On the manifestos killers leave behind

#75

Post by manachar »

sliverstorm wrote: post #66
manachar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let's not turn this into a debate on BLANK, instead let's talk about my pet theory BLANK". Seems like that's the only constant after any sort of horrific tragedy. It becomes grist in the mill for people to push their pre-existing agendas. For some it has been a push for greater gun control. For others it has been a push for greater funding and understanding of mental health. For others, you blame media attention. Pe…

"Reduce media attention to criminals" seems like an odd pre-existing personal agenda. What ulterior motive could that possibly correspond to?

Blaming media has gotten increasingly popular for a variety of societal ills. It's just a favorite boogeyman to go after. Much like people who blame violent video games or 4chan.

The ulterior motive is to use the situation to disparage something they already don't like.

Re: On the manifestos killers leave behind

#76

Post by manachar »

avar wrote: post #53
manachar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let's not turn this into a debate on BLANK, instead let's talk about my pet theory BLANK". Seems like that's the only constant after any sort of horrific tragedy. It becomes grist in the mill for people to push their pre-existing agendas. For some it has been a push for greater gun control. For others it has been a push for greater funding and understanding of mental health. For others, you blame media attention. Pe…

As the linked article covers this is not exclusive to America, that's probably one correlation we can genuinely throw out.

To be fair, it does happen more often in America, which may provide some information to see the underlying conditions that lead to the kind of desperate isolation seen in these manifestos.

Re: On the manifestos killers leave behind

#78

Post by jessaustin »

FussyZeus wrote: post #13

Who cares honestly? It's the same rehashed garbage. First world problems galore. Not getting enough sex, not having enough money, not making enough friends but not being willing to do anything about those things but sit in their basement of choice and whine. Clarifying: The first world problem I'm talking about are the things the shooters cite as reasons for their actions, not the shootings themselves.

First world problems galore. Not getting enough sex...

You have a different idea of 1WP than I do. I think most humans have some interest in sex, and certainly most young men in both developed and developing nations would like to have a fair amount of it.

Once upon a time, nearly all women from a fairly young age were forced by custom and circumstance into subservient relations with men. We can appreciate that those circumstances have changed in much of the "first world". We'd be foolish not to realize that those changes have led to more men losing access to regular intercourse. The anti-prostitution laws that were in a skewed sense almost "feminist" back when a woman couldn't freely leave a relationship have certainly ceased to be that by now.

I don't claim that widespread legal prostitution would solve the mass-shooting problem. However, this has been identified as a factor in the unhappiness that these men feel, so it's relevant. It's interesting that this relevant factor is rarely mentioned in the numerous popular media discussions of mass shootings.

Re: On the manifestos killers leave behind

#79

Post by danielam »

VT_Drew wrote: post #30

From your first paragraph: >‘I have noticed,’ it says, ‘that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus

Re: On the manifestos killers leave behind

#80

Post by devindotcom »

minority-one wrote: post #49
dropit_sphere wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was definitely a straw man. I'm a dude and I don't live in fear of a shooter, and I don't get the impression many women do either. My point is: We're quick to claim victory as society grows more tolerant and race/sex matter less, but I think we claim it too soon. That young white men feel entitled to shoot people when their lives don't work out (and apparently others don't) is as real an imbalance as wage gaps, et…

> That young white men feel entitled to shoot people when their lives don't work out (and apparently others don't) If I said that Jews feel entitled to slander people and call them racist when their arguments about the existence of gas chambers don't work out, I would be ding ding ding 'ed by dang . While both assertions are crassly correct, we must ask ourselves (dropit_sphere, pay attention now): - Please tone down…

Well, that escalated quickly!
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