Discussion Serial Killers & The Public's Superiority Complex

[Chinaski]

You lost me after saying you have sympathy and empathy for serial killers

Maybe Ted bundy was neurodivergent and your ableism is the problem here!!!!!

 

[Celerity]

It's not just the murder that disgusts me but the sadistic (and often sexual) pleasure serial killers get from killing. That's fucked up. I have no issues saying that the vast majority of people are far superior, and I'm a misanthrope.

 

[Alcoholic Teletubby]

Maybe Ted bundy was neurodivergent and your ableism is the problem here!!!!!

Lol.
I didn't mean to imply that I agreed with them murdering people (but you know that). I'm just giving consideration to what may have lead up to that.

I'm also taking into account how we behave similarly as a society, but believe how it might sometimes be justified.

But I also don't want to keep talking in circles.

 

[freedompass]

Lol.
I didn't mean to imply that I agreed with them murdering people (but you know that). I'm just giving consideration to what may have lead up to that.

I'm also taking into account how we behave similarly as a society, but believe how it might sometimes be justified.

But I also don't want to keep talking in circles.

It's a stretch as to how anything 'society' does can be compared to getting your sexual kicks from torturing, raping, murdering and abusing the corpse. Such behaviour elicits disgust and revulsion for a reason and the perpetrator has forfeited human sympathy and compassion forever. Violent psychopaths live by a different set of rules, imo they don't need, want or deserve either empathy or sympathy of any kind.

 

[theboy]

I once heard that there is a very small chance that you have walked with a murderer in your day. That is, for every day you go out, you could have come across 2 assassins in the crowd.

 

[Alcoholic Teletubby]

It's a stretch as to how anything 'society' does can be compared to getting your sexual kicks from torturing, raping, murdering and abusing the corpse. Such behaviour elicits disgust and revulsion for a reason and the perpetrator has forfeited human sympathy and compassion forever. Violent psychopaths live by a different set of rules, imo they don't need, want or deserve either empathy or sympathy of any kind.

But if they were to say, be assaulted by another person, does that mean I should be okay with that? Do their actions make it acceptable to treat them in a way that would be considered egregious?

I would be concerned that this kind of reasoning would be applied to even more immoral acts. Maybe I'm too empathetic.

I once heard that there is a very small chance that you have walked with a murderer in your day. That is, for every day you go out, you could have come across 2 assassins in the crowd.

Now I'm just thinking of the dark possibility that a killer could be a member of someone's family. I can't imagine how you could really come to terms with that.

Repression?

 

[freedompass]

But if they were to say, be assaulted by another person, does that mean I should be okay with that? Do their actions make it acceptable to treat them in a way that would be considered egregious?

No it doesn't. They have as much right as anyone else to be kept safe in prison, but that's a long way from feeling any warm fuzzies for these humans whatsoever.

 

[Alcoholic Teletubby]

No it doesn't. They have as much right as anyone else to be kept safe in prison, but that's a long way from feeling any warm fuzzies for these humans whatsoever.

That's part of what I'm getting at. Although it's more of a reactionary response, I occasionally worry about how far people are ready to take it when they advocate for that kind of treatment (punishment over reformation).

What do you mean by "warm fuzzies?" Is it a response to me bringing up those who essentially worship an SK or to me suggesting that I can identify with or empathize with an SK?

 

[freedompass]

That's part of what I'm getting at. Although it's more of a reactionary response, I occasionally worry about how far people are ready to take it when they advocate for that kind of treatment (punishment over reformation).

What do you mean by "warm fuzzies?" Is it a response to me bringing up those who essentially worship an SK or to me suggesting that I can identify with or empathize with an SK?

I meant empathy. Why would you waste empathy on an SK who has none for anyone and has freely chosen to set aside any kind of morality, decency or feeling for others whatsoever?

I'm a little worried that you identify with SKs, or why you would even say that. To get a reaction? To be edgy? To get attention? What does that even mean? You have a secret desire to watch the life drain from your victim's eyes? You get sexual kicks from inflicting pain and terror? What are you even trying to say here.

 

[Alcoholic Teletubby]

I meant empathy. Why would you waste empathy on an SK who has none for anyone and has freely chosen to set aside any kind of morality, decency or feeling for others whatsoever?

I'm a little worried that you identify with SKs, or why you would even say that. To get a reaction? To be edgy? To get attention? What does that even mean? You have a secret desire to watch the life drain from your victim's eyes? You get sexual kicks from inflicting pain and terror? What are you even trying to say here.

Calm down. I hate to say it again, but identifying with or feeling empathy for someone who has done something wrong does not imply that I am endorsing their behavior.

If someone has experienced, let's say, emotional abuse or has been taken advantage of by others, you can empathize with them. I've had that happen. Therefore, if I learn that someone else experienced the same thing, I will think, 'That's awful. Nobody should have to go through that.'

If you think that the fact that I didn't want someone to experience something is the same as me approving their behavior, then I don't think you're really all that concerned, are you?

 

[freedompass]

Calm down. I hate to say it again, but identifying with or feeling empathy for someone who has done something wrong does not imply that I am endorsing their behavior.

If someone has experienced, let's say, emotional abuse or has been taken advantage of by others, you can empathize with them. I've had that happen. Therefore, if I learn that someone else experienced the same thing, I will think, 'That's awful. Nobody should have to go through that.'

If you think that the fact that I didn't want someone to experience something is the same as me approving their behavior, then I don't think you're really all that concerned, are you?

'Done something wrong' just lol. Your original post was garbled, incoherent and pretty weird. Trying to say people are 'egotistical' for disliking serial killers, just makes no sense. How about some 'empathy' for the victims? Plus. You didn't answer my questions. Never mind, I sense we won't agree so, all good.

 

[Alcoholic Teletubby]

'Done something wrong' just lol. Your original post was garbled, incoherent and pretty weird. Trying to say people are 'egotistical' for disliking serial killers, just makes no sense. Plus. You didn't answer my questions. Never mind, I sense we won't agree so, all good.

My stance was it seemed illogical to me that one should consider themselves better for not being a serial killer. It's what you shouldn't be — simple as that. When you try to equivalate smaller attributes of your character to being you "better" than another person, I find that to be weird. How does that make someone better? It's basic morality (not being a SK).

I'm also saying that if we don't have empathy for someone, how can we learn to prevent more people from ending up like them? I would think you would need to know what lead up to someone becoming a serial killer in order to understand why they are the way that they are. If my post was garbled, fine. But it seems like other users understood what I was saying.

What are your specific questions? From what I saw, the questions you posed earlier were, "Why would you have empathy for an SK? ", "Are you trying to elicit a response from people?" and "Do you wish to hurt others in the same way that an SK does?"

 

[JustSwingingTheD]

It's not the whining that concerns me and of course it sucks not being able to find a partner. I would never minimise that but incels adopt a toxic misogynistic ideology that is extremely offensive to women, maybe soothes their sense of grievance in the short term but actually just digs the hole deeper.

That's why i dislike the term, the same word is used about people unable to get laid and about people following some kind of weird "red-pill ideology". These things have nothing to do with each other.

I'm also saying that if we don't have empathy for someone, how can we learn to prevent more people from ending up like them? I would think you would need to know what lead up to someone becoming a serial killer in order to understand why they are the way that they are. If my post was garbled, fine. But it seems like other users understood what I was saying.

Have you considered what it could actually mean to have empathy for this kind of people? Meaning what kind of practical consequences your empathy could lead to.

Serial killers are really wired up differently, they are like aliens among men. Many of them hate themselves, but lack that part of the human psyche that enables self-destructive behaviour. Murder for some of them can be a substitute for suicide, something some of them simply are not capable of. Ed Kemper famously suggested that death by torture would be the best way for the society to handle people like him. Maybe that was tongue in cheek, maybe not. Some of them are quite masochistic. They might in some ways enjoy physical suffering, because on some level they know that they deserve it. Would you be ready to give them what they secretly wish, since you feel empathy for them?

Peewee Gaskins in his autobiography talked about the time he tried to rape a girl as a teenager and got his back whipped raw and bloody by the said girls mother. In the end of the whipping, he had an erection. Peewee had a horrible childhood/youth. He was abused all his life, grew up in poverty, was put into a youth detention center where he was regularly raped. But the kind of torture that animal describes subjecting his victims to in his autobiography is something completely else. Nothing he went through in his childhood explains it a bit. He was simply born a monster. Maybe his experiences made him worse, they most likely did. But i wonder how much that matters in the grand scale, if at all.

 

[WhatPowerIs]

Now I'm just thinking of the dark possibility that a killer could be a member of someone's family. I can't imagine how you could really come to terms with that.

Repression?

Could you imagine a serial killer as your father? Dennis Rader's daughter certainly couldn't. She wrote a whole book on that, if you're interested.

 

[GrumpyFrog]

How does that make someone better? It's basic morality (not being a SK).

I don't think there is such thing as "basic morality" built into any human being. Behaving morally is a choice.
I agree that the concept of one person being better than another is not very objective and somewhat problematic, but I think within the limits of ones belief system people can see others as "better" or "worse" than themselves, based on their personal ideas of what a person should ideally be. And for most people it is justified to feel that they are a better person than a serial killer, because possibly they also felt extreme anger towards another person or a category of people, but were able to restrain themselves from causing any harm to them unlike someone who is violent, or worse - a murderer, or possibly the person in question was able to overcome a harmful way of thinking that was built on hatred and learned to be empathetic instead.
This line of thinking is, indeed, not always completely justified, because it is sometimes overlooked that the serial killers are, quite often, severely mentally ill, and the morality argument no longer holds up because an average person simply doesn't understand what was going through the killers head.

I'm also saying that if we don't have empathy for someone, how can we learn to prevent more people from ending up like them?

That is a good point. Writing off horrible criminals simply as "complete monsters" and fully dehumanizing them poses a problem because we separate them from the rest of humanity almost as if they were different species that act the way they do because of the way they are and nothing can be done about it, instead of looking for ways to prevent people from turning into "complete monsters". They are not aliens from another planet, when these people came into this world they were no different from any other baby. Many serial killers are psychopaths, but not all psychopaths are killers or sadist, in fact many of them lead relatively normal lives, and are able to restrain themselves from harming others.
But saying "eh, it is what it is, nothing can be done" is always easier than trying to think of a solution.

 

[Alcoholic Teletubby]

That's why i dislike the term, the same word is used about people unable to get laid and about people following some kind of weird "red-pill ideology". These things have nothing to do with each other.

That, in my opinion, is due to one almost becoming an offshoot of the other. One was initially a concern, but the other had elements of its principles inserted into it. There are already some unfavorable aspects of the concept of getting laid because it seems like such an odd way to acquire status among your peers. It seems that inceldom makes that worse.

Have you considered what it could actually mean to have empathy for this kind of people? Meaning what kind of practical consequences your empathy could lead to.

Yes. That way of thinking could have negative repercussions. However, the majority of those who have asked me about it appear to think that by telling them, I'm doing it. This is not the case (when am I ever going to interview an SK, for instance).

Serial killers are really wired up differently, they are like aliens among men. Many of them hate themselves, but lack that part of the human psyche that enables self-destructive behaviour. Murder for some of them can be a substitute for suicide, something some of them simply are not capable of. Ed Kemper famously suggested that death by torture would be the best way for the society to handle people like him. Maybe that was tongue in cheek, maybe not. Some of them are quite masochistic. They might in some ways enjoy physical suffering, because on some level they know that they deserve it. Would you be ready to give them what they secretly wish, since you feel empathy for them?

Peewee Gaskins in his autobiography talked about the time he tried to rape a girl as a teenager and got his back whipped raw and bloody by the said girls mother. In the end of the whipping, he had an erection. Peewee had a horrible childhood/youth. He was abused all his life, grew up in poverty, was put into a youth detention center where he was regularly raped. But the kind of torture that animal describes subjecting his victims to in his autobiography is something completely else. Nothing he went through in his childhood explains it a bit. He was simply born a monster. Maybe his experiences made him worse, they most likely did. But i wonder how much that matters in the grand scale, if at all.

"They might in some ways enjoy physical suffering because on some level they know that they deserve it." That usually occurs before they commit murder.

The physicality you mention also somewhat contradicts my initial point/point of view. My idea was that because people perceive SKs to be deserving of such treatment, they may not take seriously any potential mistreatment of SKs. I was making a suggestion that was opposed to such physical treatment and eliminated all physical components. Did you intend for it to come off that way?

"Nothing he went through in his childhood explains it a bit. He was simply born a monster. Maybe his experiences made him worse, they most likely did. But I wonder how much that matters in the grand scale, if at all."

You are also imposing a perceived opinion. You recognize that an SK may have been impacted by abuse, but you wonder if it really matters. Wouldn't it be important if a component related to one's development may have an impact on it? I would liken it to a smoothie: Combine a variety of ingredients before blending them. Until the entire contents of what was put in there is reduced to a mush; a whole.

Articles on the subject:

A Behaviour Sequence Analysis of Serial Killers’ Lives: From Childhood Abuse to Methods of Murder

The aim of the current research was to provide a new method for mapping the developmental sequences of serial killers’ life histories. The role of early childhood abuse, leading to types of serial murder and behaviours involved in the murders, ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4722&context=theses (this one is more subjective)

Image Source: http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Research - Forensic/2005 20-1-Mitchell-40-47.pdf (This one is outdated/was published in 2005, but the chart serves as an identifier.)

Additionally, I want to know what you specifically think I mean when I suggest that we should have compassion towards SKs. What picture springs to mind?

Could you imagine a serial killer as your father? Dennis Rader's daughter certainly couldn't. She wrote a whole book on that, if you're interested.

 

[JustSwingingTheD]

That, in my opinion, is due to one almost becoming an offshoot of the other. One was initially a concern, but the other had elements of its principles inserted into it. There are already some unfavorable aspects of the concept of getting laid because it seems like such an odd way to acquire status among your peers. It seems that inceldom makes that worse.

I think it's odd that you would mention sex first and foremost as a way to acquire status, when for most people it's a very trivial part of it.

Sex, for many (if not most) men, not just "incels" either, is equivalent to "getting laid". That's just how these things work.

"They might in some ways enjoy physical suffering because on some level they know that they deserve it." That usually occurs before they commit murder.

The physicality you mention also somewhat contradicts my initial point/point of view. My idea was that because people perceive SKs to be deserving of such treatment, they may not take seriously any potential mistreatment of SKs. I was making a suggestion that was opposed to such physical treatment and eliminated all physical components. Did you intend for it to come off that way?

My post had some good points, but also way too much speculation. Meaning, i really have no idea why many serial killers seem to be masochistic on top of being extremely sadistic. I haven't studied the subject enough, so i shouldn't be making any speculations.

"Nothing he went through in his childhood explains it a bit. He was simply born a monster. Maybe his experiences made him worse, they most likely did. But I wonder how much that matters in the grand scale, if at all."

You are also imposing a perceived opinion. You recognize that an SK may have been impacted by abuse, but you wonder if it really matters.

Based on what i generally understand about human psyche, and based on the book i mentioned before, the autobiography of Peewee Gaskins, which has been the most informative read on the subject i have ever come across, i would say that the abuse definitely has an impact.

What i meant with "i wonder how much it matters", is that i strongly believe that most of these people would be incredibly destructive forces through out their lives, even without going through any abuse, even when having perfectly "ideal" backgrounds.

Viewing these people as victims, as a society, would be a huge mistake.

Wouldn't it be important if a component related to one's development may have an impact on it? I would liken it to a smoothie: Combine a variety of ingredients before blending them. Until the entire contents of what was put in there is reduced to a mush; a whole.

Articles on the subject:

A Behaviour Sequence Analysis of Serial Killers’ Lives: From Childhood Abuse to Methods of Murder

The aim of the current research was to provide a new method for mapping the developmental sequences of serial killers’ life histories. The role of early childhood abuse, leading to types of serial murder and behaviours involved in the murders, ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4722&context=theses (this one is more subjective)

Image Source: http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Research - Forensic/2005 20-1-Mitchell-40-47.pdf (This one is outdated/was published in 2005, but the chart serves as an identifier.)

A good point and a very interesting chart, thanks.

Additionally, I want to know what you specifically think I mean when I suggest that we should have compassion towards SKs. What picture springs to mind?

I'm not sure but i will say this: I think that most people don't really have a clue what kind of torture many of these people put their victims through. It's not something that usually gets advertised in connection to these crimes, out of respect for the victims and their close-ones or something, which i personally think is a huge mistake.

I think that if we suggest that people should have compassion towards SK's, in the same line of thought we should suggest for them to educate themselves on the matter. Get familiar with the details, especially the details. Only when you can say that you sort of understand the kind of mentality these people have, you can evaluate whether to have compassion on them or not.

Personally, i think that we are far, far, far away from a world where having/not having compassion towards SK's is a detail that even distantly matters, ethically speaking. Human rights should be for humans.

 

[Alcoholic Teletubby]

I apologize for not responding to the discussion for such a long time. Trying to manage my new job schedule while dealing with depression. I'll make an effort to resume responding to folks soon.