Center of the universe • Hacker News Board

Re: Center of the universe

#91

Post by DanBC » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 12:52 PM UTC

saturdaysaint wrote: post #90

vidarh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being too direct is a huge turn off so Yes, and no. Being "too direct" can be fantastically effective if you can back it up with sufficient confidence, and can manage to make it look natural rather than creepy. It works exactly because the confidence and making it look natural thing is rare enough to make you stand out in a way that often produces very rapid and strong attraction. E.g. in a bar, it shocked me years…

Yeah, there's certainly an 'art' to being direct as well. So having said that, it's kind of tricky to pinpoint what was creepy about this guy and what's kind of fair game. I mean, my feeling is that it's almost anachronistic to get worked up about this in 2013. Before he killed anybody, this guy got off the hook incredibly easy for drugging/raping a minor (and getting caught red handed!), as I understand was often th…

> how much safer would this guy be if they'd done the standard 'Hey, you're cool, let's add eachother on Facebook' or 'Can you text me your address'? A minimal digital 'paper trail' would probably give a guy like this a lot of pause, and if he'd been hesitant/weird about those interactions, it'd probably be even more of a clue for even a young guy.

I guess being a serial killer is an iterative process. You start clumsy, and develop the technique. You probably lack the inhibitions that stop you from psychological experiments on people.

I'm sure a plausible liar could persuade me that there was a reason not to give me facebook ("oh, hey, my mom is on there, and she'd ask me questions about all the guys I keep adding" would probably work on me) or other interactions.

Re: Center of the universe

#92

Post by popee » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 1:05 PM UTC

This story is for great (non-blockbuster) movie. Almodovar, but with good ending :-)

But it's interesting to think why is author still alive. Is killer possessive gay that is willing to kill guys that are ignoring/rejecting him? Because author didn't reject him as many others that are now in the grave?

Also, even if author is wrong, really interesting and non-intrusive emotional overview.

Re: Center of the universe

#93

Post by spindritf » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 1:11 PM UTC

mistercow wrote: post #16

Oh oh! I remember this technique from Cialdini's Influence . During the Korean war, the Chinese used the same technique on American POWs: For instance, prisoners were frequently asked to make statements so mildly anti-American or pro-Communist as to seem inconsequential (“The United States is not perfect.” “In a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem.”). But once these minor requests were complied with, the…

> For instance, prisoners were frequently asked to make statements so mildly anti-American or pro-Communist as to seem inconsequential (“The United States is not perfect.” “In a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem.”).

This is a great technique because most people's beliefs about most things are shallow and weak. Anyone even slightly versed will quickly flip those ("You know what we call a system with no unemployment? Slavery.") but you can chip away at what seems like very fundamental convictions (democracy, human rights, capitalism, heliocentrism...) with relative ease because most people have never been confronted with any half-intelligent criticism of those.

Partially, it's a problem of our education system rewarding recitation of canonical answers. Fundamentally, humans have not evolved to be philosophers.

Re: Center of the universe

#94

Post by popee » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

pudakai wrote: post #18

mistercow wrote: post #16

Oh oh! I remember this technique from Cialdini's Influence . During the Korean war, the Chinese used the same technique on American POWs: For instance, prisoners were frequently asked to make statements so mildly anti-American or pro-Communist as to seem inconsequential (“The United States is not perfect.” “In a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem.”). But once these minor requests were complied with, the…

In retrospect, I'm pretty convinced he was going to try to get me to undress myself at his escalating suggestion w/out him ever touching me. He was extremely careful about not touching, "accidentally" brushing, etc, and keeping out of my personal space. I realize now that this was a survival mechanism for him, as if the spell were broken by some wrong move, he really could have gotten hurt badly in this sort of situa…

What if you are over thinking it? Maybe he was gay and knew he had to be careful from experience?

Re: Center of the universe

#95

Post by drharris » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 1:29 PM UTC

unimpressive wrote: post #57

jacobwcarlson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you disturbed that he was a Republican? Because if you'd read the very next section of the Wikipedia article you'd have seen that it said: "Shortly after his enrollment as a freshman at Claremont Men's College, Kraft enrolled in the Claremont Reserve Officers Training Corps[16] and he regularly attended demonstrations in favor of the Vietnam War and — in 1964 — for the election of conservative presidential candid…

>Are you disturbed that he was a Republican? Not in the slightest. If that paragraph had said "democrat", but every other word was the same, I'd have pointed it out. I'm disturbed that in an alternate universe we could be reading about Kraft's reelection campaign.

> I'm disturbed that in an alternate universe we could be reading about Kraft's reelection campaign.

Both serial killers and politicians (and CEOs) have sociopathy in common. It's not a huge leap to imagine such a universe. Think of all the innocents killed at the hands of the current slate of US politicians.

Re: Center of the universe

#96

Post by drderidder » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 1:32 PM UTC

I know there's a policy to keep the title of the source article, but if admins are going to blindly change post titles to remove all useful context and revert to meaningless, misleading headlines, can't they at least come up with a prefix for it? There's Ask HN, Show HN... in this case "Distract HN" might have been appropriate.

Re: Center of the universe

#97

Post by jcarreiro » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 1:38 PM UTC

Killah911 wrote: post #89

ekianjo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also disturbed that this police officer ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Balcerzak ) could even continue doing his job and be elected as a public official after handing back a victim to his would-be murderer. And still asking for appeal and getting his job back after his termination.

That Wikipedia article scares me more than the Serial Killer one. This dumb SOB is still a cop & was installed in a leadership position. Where the F#?k is Dexter when you need him?

> Where the F#?k is Dexter when you need him?

Vigilantism is not the answer.

Re: Center of the universe

#98

Post by popee » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 1:40 PM UTC

paxcoder wrote: post #43

cam4er wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did you ever get to enjoy sex with a guy after that? Seems with the popularity of sites like chatroulette and cam4 more and more guys are either secretly or openingly experimenting with their curious sides. *Why is this getting downvoted are hacker newers homophobic? The author notes how much the encounter excited him and how he thought about how it excited him throughout the years. I don't see this being an unrea…

This gay story, as well as one (especially) of the comments on the actual article, and your comment; something's very wrong with all three. I was about to ask if I'm the only one who sees that, but if you were downvoted, I guess I'm not. I'm glad because seriously: WTH. EDIT: Actually, the reason for the downvotes is probably the fact that it has nothing to do with hacking.

When you say gay story what do you mean? I'm straight but i don't think this is gay story, it involves homosexual momentum, like, let's say Naked Lunch, but is not pro or even against gays. Author really tried to make neutral view about everything and he tried to make human analysis of situation in which he was involved.

Re: Center of the universe

#99

Post by mistercow » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:00 PM UTC

spindritf wrote: post #93

mistercow wrote: post #16

Oh oh! I remember this technique from Cialdini's Influence . During the Korean war, the Chinese used the same technique on American POWs: For instance, prisoners were frequently asked to make statements so mildly anti-American or pro-Communist as to seem inconsequential (“The United States is not perfect.” “In a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem.”). But once these minor requests were complied with, the…

> For instance, prisoners were frequently asked to make statements so mildly anti-American or pro-Communist as to seem inconsequential (“The United States is not perfect.” “In a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem.”). This is a great technique because most people's beliefs about most things are shallow and weak. Anyone even slightly versed will quickly flip those ("You know what we call a system with no…

Cialdini has a different take on it in his analysis, which hangs this on a much lower level tendency that cannot be easily overcome by education - consistency pressure. The idea is that the prospect of being perceived as wishy-washy is so devastating socially, that we have evolved to actually change our self-image and our beliefs to reflect our actions and words. There's a scary amount of evidence for this effect.

The worst part, when applied to how we reason, is that being smarter can actually make it worse. I've sometimes found myself arguing for some downright idiotic positions because I made an uninformed declaration early in the conversation, and then found myself compelled to defend it. If I were dumber, I might run out of things to say and stop talking in those situations. Instead, I have from time to time actually convinced people - or at least convinced them that my ignorant position was worth considering.

Re: Center of the universe

#100

Post by Pxtl » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 2:01 PM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #70

JabavuAdams wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading about Jeffrey Dahmer left me similarly shaken. One of his victims -- Konerak Sinthasomphone -- managed to escape out onto the street and contact some women who called the police. When the police officers (John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish) arrived, Dahmer managed to convince the them that it was a gay lovers' quarrel and the officers let Dahmer take Sinthasomphone home again. Can you imagine the horror of esc…

Holy shit. This victim, who 31 year old Dahmer claimed was his lover, was also 14 years old at the time, and the police returned him (naked and bleeding) despite his protests. (Sinthasomphone was disoriented at the time, having been drugged, but apparently still did protest.) At least the officer was fired: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Balcerzak

> having been drugged

... reading the other wikipedia article, Dahmer had also performed an experiment on him that would've also impared his cognition pretty severely. I'm not going to write the details since it was NSFL, but I'm surprised people didn't notice it.