10/10 but the difference is obvious, you just have to look into their eyes.
PL designers are a bit weird and not of this world.
Serial killers have this spark in their eyes that is really difficult to hide.
Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
121–130 of 153 posts
Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
#122Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I think so, too. But only after seeing them in real and not just on some blurry, distorted picture. But I also think, most people have the potential to become serial killers. Hunting and killing is deep in our genes after all and society can mess up people pretty bad, so some turn their animal instinct against society, while maintaining the facade on the outside.
I don't think that's right. In psychiatry, you reach the coveted status of Antisocial Personality Disorder (the remorseless manipulative sociopath with a charming personality, but no compassion) by starting out with Conduct Disorder (the kids that hurt animals, lie, cheat, and steal) and not snapping out of it by adulthood Humans are social animals. If your animal instinct is hunting and killing, and you feel like yo…
Modern civilized society tries hard to negate and channel all violent impulses from early on and only unleash it in ritualistic scenarios like sports.
(Or after a 180 degree turn - for real in the military.)
And this is mostly successful, but push someone hard enough and violence will be the result. Otherwise there would not be so many murders and violent crimes.
Most people will just explode violently (and then regret) and the path of the silent serial killer is (luckily) rare.
But if you look at other (savage) societys where violence is still baked in, there simply are no pacifists there, so pacifism is not something we were born with, but a learned trait. And one that makes sense, to keep society stable, but I don't think it makes sense to fool ourself about what humans are capable of. Just look at Ukraine to see what ordinary civilized people are capable of, if put in a different environment.
Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's right. In psychiatry, you reach the coveted status of Antisocial Personality Disorder (the remorseless manipulative sociopath with a charming personality, but no compassion) by starting out with Conduct Disorder (the kids that hurt animals, lie, cheat, and steal) and not snapping out of it by adulthood Humans are social animals. If your animal instinct is hunting and killing, and you feel like yo…
Modern civilized society tries hard to negate and channel all violent impulses from early on and only unleash it in ritualistic scenarios like sports. (Or after a 180 degree turn - for real in the military.) And this is mostly successful, but push someone hard enough and violence will be the result. Otherwise there would not be so many murders and violent crimes. Most people will just explode violently (and then regr…
That's fair, but I think there's a huge gap between that and being a serial killer.
We can point to war or to the Stanford prison experiment. People in unusual stressful situations have the potential to be abusive, or to follow abusive orders.
But there's a large gap between that and the kind of trouble that results in serial killers. Soldiers in a war are under terrible living conditions, and commit atrocities in the name of taking it out on the enemy.
But even the soldier does not stoop as low as torturing animals. The enemy, maybe, but not the innocent. Serial killers are completely indifferent to the pain of the innocent. Soldiers only hurt the outgroup, the enemy.
And I think you're being unfair to people living in more primitive societies. There's crime in every society, but you will not make friends anywhere by being antisocial. A small village doesn't survive by people turning against each other. It would simply cease to exist.
My claim is that most people do not have the violent impulses, and don't need to channel them. Some people do. And they benefit from channeling them, because bad outcomes happen much more often to those who don't.
Nature will beat the violence out of people, over generations. You simply survive less in aggregate with a harmful set of instincts. Most people have no need for hard to control violent impulses, and indeed tend to be born without them.
Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
It turns out with the trappings of how serial killers are presented in media (bad black and white photos from odd angles), everyone looks like a serial killer.
There's a security camera monitor displayed prominently in one store near where I live that makes everyone look dodgy — something about the frame rate and fuzzy image just looks like shoplifting footage you'd see on the news. I see myself on the screen as I enter and think "yeah, that guy's going to hold up the shop or something".
surely in this case the very fact that it looks like a security camera feed is why? wouldn't most security cameras do that right? :) its an interesting thought, that the only place most people see stuff like that is recordings of incidents
Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modern civilized society tries hard to negate and channel all violent impulses from early on and only unleash it in ritualistic scenarios like sports. (Or after a 180 degree turn - for real in the military.) And this is mostly successful, but push someone hard enough and violence will be the result. Otherwise there would not be so many murders and violent crimes. Most people will just explode violently (and then regr…
That's fair, but I think there's a huge gap between that and being a serial killer. We can point to war or to the Stanford prison experiment. People in unusual stressful situations have the potential to be abusive, or to follow abusive orders. But there's a large gap between that and the kind of trouble that results in serial killers. Soldiers in a war are under terrible living conditions, and commit atrocities in th…
"That's fair, but I think there's a huge gap between that and being a serial killer."
Oh for sure. Otherwise we all would live in fortresses surrounded by minefields.
"My claim is that most people do not have the violent impulses, and don't need to channel them. "
My claim is most people do not have them anymore (or buried deep inside). But most if not all kids do - they just (hopefully) learned at some point it is not beneficial to use violence to get what you want. Humans are very adoptable.
My main point actually is to prevent new serial killers from emerging by not treating them as a different species(where you cannot really do anything), but as ordinary humans where many things have gone horrible wrong in their upbringing.
I know back in my school were quite some canditates, but there was 0 official reaction towards doing something about it. As far as I know, none of them turned actually into a serial killer (yet), but I am quite sure with some it would not take much perceived injustice or merely boredom to take a dark path. But I actually have been through the limits of the legal system to get something to be done about someone who makes open violent threats. Largely unsuccesful.
Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another interpretation is that the portraits communicate essentially zero information about the subject. No information means no way to differentiate beyond the absolute basic facts: male, age such and such, seems to be wearing western clothes, things like that. No information means no way to shade probabilities. You might as well flip a coin. Or this way: Serial killers look like random people, just as programming l…
Facial asymmetry, testosterone (thick eyebrows, baldness), weight, piercings, tattoos, unnatural hair colors etc. surely have some correlation with being a serial killer?
do the research and report back. I'd be surprised by "unnatural hair colors" personally, but "surely" isnt the way for that sort of thought
Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
#128For men, it appears that wearing glasses is a pretty good proxy for not being a serial killer, you'll get 6 out of 8 with that. Unfortunately, the correlation is reversed on the women, which makes it a mediocre 6 out 10.
Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
#129It took shockingly long before I got even a single one right. Fortunately I recognised Guido.
And then there's the trick question where I was right that he looked like a programmer...
Re: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's fair, but I think there's a huge gap between that and being a serial killer. We can point to war or to the Stanford prison experiment. People in unusual stressful situations have the potential to be abusive, or to follow abusive orders. But there's a large gap between that and the kind of trouble that results in serial killers. Soldiers in a war are under terrible living conditions, and commit atrocities in th…
"That's fair, but I think there's a huge gap between that and being a serial killer." Oh for sure. Otherwise we all would live in fortresses surrounded by minefields. "My claim is that most people do not have the violent impulses, and don't need to channel them. " My claim is most people do not have them anymore (or buried deep inside). But most if not all kids do - they just (hopefully) learned at some point it is n…
Ah, I see what you mean. Trauma definitely doesn't help.
I think this might come down to a question about nature vs nurture if we keep digging too far, but I fear I'm not qualified to argue much further than this :)
Appreciate the perspective, thank you