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Serial Killers

Chilling isn't it. Heartbreaking to look at the photos of her with him, she looked like she loved the bastard. All the time he was playing a game. Certainly it must be a psychopathic kind of mind to have such little emotion.
 
smokehead said:
What depravity of the spirit motivates someone to kill another human being for the sake of STUFF? Or considers personal worth to be based on consumption?
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It might be the apogee of materialism as a pathology.

Materialism as trait is negatively correlated with ethical resistance to authority. In other words, materialism is more important than ethical considerations and the materialist will do most anything to increase or maintain their 'stuff'. 'Stuff' matters more than anything else and it becomes the basis of judging one's own worth and other people's against yours. The ultimate external locus.

It's why ethical behavior decreases as you go further up a management structure, the motivations for almost all managers are power and materialism. It's why certain folk have to have big shiny cars to prove to 'us' their worth. They genuinely don't accept that for many of us, that is the flag of a twat, we must be 'jealous' or 'not as good as them'. Materialists think we're all playing the same game but they've 'just won more'.

This is like being able to play chess well and and judging everyone else as either jealous because (1) they can't play (as they haven't got a chess set) or (2) because I'm a better player (because I have a shiny more expensive chess set).

Welcome to the materialist world view.
 
drbastard said:
Chilling isn't it. Heartbreaking to look at the photos of her with him, she looked like she loved the bastard. All the time he was playing a game. Certainly it must be a psychopathic kind of mind to have such little emotion.
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Beats me why he would even think of killing her to get her wealth. He had everything right there already - lovely wife who loved him and wanted to marry him, beautiful house, luxurious lifestyle. She'd have given him anything he wanted.
I find it impossible to understand his mindset.
 
Murder is strange.

I once met a man who had fallen in love with a woman. To prove how much he loved this woman he walked into a bar where her previous boyfriend was. In front of a bar full of people he pulled out a hunting knife and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest until he was dead. He then walked out of the bar and waited for the police to arrive to arrest him. He then told them- "I did it because I wanted to prove how much I loved her".

He then received a, not unexpected, jail sentence of just over twenty years.

Twenty years where he would be kept apart from the woman he loved so much that he had to prove it to her by committing an act that would have them separated for over twenty years.


If you can figure that out. Well...
 
Coastaljames said:
Murder is strange.

I once met a man who had fallen in love with a woman. To prove how much he loved this woman he walked into a bar where her previous boyfriend was. In front of a bar full of people he pulled out a hunting knife and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest until he was dead. He then walked out of the bar and waited for the police to arrive to arrest him. He then told them- "I did it because I wanted to prove how much I loved her".

He then received a, not unexpected, jail sentence of just over twenty years.

Twenty years where he would be kept apart from the woman he loved so much that he had to prove it to her by committing an act that would have them separated for over twenty years.


If you can figure that out. Well...
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That's not about love though. It's more like psychosis. A bit like the men who kill their wives or girlfriends and even their children because they won't allow the woman to leave them. Nothing to do with love - it's ownership, control.
 
escargot1 said:
Nothing to do with love - it's ownership, control.
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Not in this instance- not about control. His act was ever going to enable him to exercise control or ownership over the lady. Quite the opposite.
 
Coastaljames said:
Not in this instance- not about control. His act was ever going to enable him to exercise control or ownership over the lady. Quite the opposite.
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That's how you see it (you're normal as it were), he might have seen it differently.
 
Coal said:
That's how you see it (you're normal as it were), he might have seen it differently.
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I don't think I'm very normal. But yes...he did see it different. Because he is insane. Despite what the judge thought. That is the action, and the thought process, of someone who is not sane.


One a day to day basis, perfectly pleasant chap though.
 
Coastaljames said:
There really aren't. There's no horns and spiky tails. No blood-dripping fangs. No scaly wings. There are just people.
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Look like people I grant you! A lot of awful things are perpetrated by people who think they are doing good, there are those who simply won't (not many but they're out there) and those for whom the rest of us are playthings in their own universe. The latter are monsters in disguise.
 
Coastaljames said:
Not in this instance- not about control. His act was ever going to enable him to exercise control or ownership over the lady. Quite the opposite.
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In his own eyes though he was a hard man, a hero, and he showed that bitch. He was saying, I'm such a MAN, I can throw away my whole life and not turn a hair. In prison that counts for a lot, and he was headed there anyway.
 
Coal said:
So was Eichmann
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Eichmann was just a very efficient middle-manager.

He organised conferences like the one at Wannsee, but it was planning The Holocaust.

He made sure the trains ran on time when they were transporting Jews to the death camps.
 
escargot1 said:
That's not about love though. It's more like psychosis. A bit like the men who kill their wives or girlfriends and even their children because they won't allow the woman to leave them. Nothing to do with love - it's ownership, control.
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which isn't really psychosis but rather a personality disorder. Psychosis suggests that its something unreal. These guys know what they are doing, rather than believing in aliens, or the KGB, etc.
 
Cars, yes. I remember being stuck in a hotel bar with a couple of managers and sales reps, and the conversation all night was who's driving what, how much it cost and how they got this or that modification on the budget. Jeez.
These sort of people must have titanium egos or go through life with their behaviour and actions unchallenged. They must do to think it's perfectly sane to kill another human being for financial gain.
For those who seek help with their mental health, it's known there is sometimes a cost. Broken relationships, lost friendships, loss of a job, financial worries and the ever present tender mercies of the DWP.
Better that than thinking murder for money is normal though surely?
 
True evil is very mundane. It's a complete lack of empathy, which is not insanity. Hence you get small time guys who would be excellent managers of , say, the parts store or the back-numbers library, running countries and eliminating people who don't 'fit' on any of the shelves in the filing system they've created. Heinrich Himmler is a perfect example.

Some serial killers fit that mould, but , thank goodness, got less chance to exercise their 'talents'. The majority seem to be losers of one kind or another who need to demonstrate control over other people to repair their damaged ego. They also seem to have boundless energy to plot and carry out their crimes, which in my opinion is because there is an underlying sexual motive as well. Nothing like a sexual fervour to keep people going - much more effective than coffee.

A serial killer who kills just for money is very rare.

I also doubt that many of them have a good self image, despite what they may claim to others. Your car-driving salesmen are not trying to impress each because they feel secure, just the opposite - they need to constantly reassure themselves they are in some way better than the other guy.
 
I think it was Hannah Arendt who coined the phrase 'The banality of evil' in reference to Eichmann.
In a way that situation is understandable. I've seen it recently with the foul policies of Donald Trump, and domestically been astonished but not overly surprised that the blame for the 2008 financial disaster got deflected away from banks and towards immigrants, the unemployed, the disabled and people with large families.
Any number of abuses are possible when the 'other' are treated as scapegoats, and I think it's perfectly possible to sleepwalk towards atrocity.
I suppose as a patient in the mental health system it's a clear process to me, abnormal thinking requires treatment.
Where I struggle is how anyone can believe that kind of thinking is normal, and why they seem to be able to go through life unchallenged.
However, the insight into a total lack of empathy is valuable, as someone can still function what is considered normally.
My boss told me when he was younger his parents felt it was time he moved out.
You would expect a sit down and an awkward but loving conversation.
They sent him a solicitors letter.
 
Last August I had a splendid holiday in Jesolo (around 20km from Venice) and spent an interesting afternoon at the Serial Killer Exhibition & Museum. A bit gimmicky and whimsical at times (I mean a giant display of Jeffrey Dahmer's fridge!!?), but worth a look. The museum part contains some very macabre exhibits and photos. Only open during Summer tourist season.

http://www.mostraserialkiller.it/
 
Cochise said:
The majority seem to be losers of one kind or another who need to demonstrate control over other people to repair their damaged ego.
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Think I said on the thread here earlier - I never met a murderer or a multiple murderer that wasn't a whiny, needy, selfish little mummy's boy that demanded that the world should revolve around him. And felt he had the right to do whatever he liked if it didn't. A bit like a spoilt little 4 year old.
 
smokehead said:
I think it was Hannah Arendt who coined the phrase 'The banality of evil' in reference to Eichmann.
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Hannah Arendt has been mis-represented ever since, starting with Milgram. She understood exactly the nature of the likes of Eichmann and more complete reading of her works show's she understood that while he was unprepossessing to look at, he was an active and creative participant in the Holocaust and knew exactly what he was doing viz. sending people to their deaths.

She also wrote (paraphrasing) that even IF he was a 'cog in a machine' unaware of the consequences of his actions, he shouldn't be at all surprised if he gets hanged for it anyway.

Coastaljames said:
A bit like a spoilt little 4 year old.
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Some might say 'exactly like'.
 
ramonmercado said:
Eichmann was just a very efficient middle-manager.

He organised conferences like the one at Wannsee, but it was planning The Holocaust.

He made sure the trains ran on time when they were transporting Jews to the death camps.
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As I've said above, he knew exactly what he was doing and the consequences of it. Efficient he may have been, but comparing him with an otherwise blameless administrator is missing the point. He efficiently organised slaughter and knew he was doing so. He even petitioned (Himmler) for more resources to do a 'better' job. For me, he was a monster-in-waiting and while the situation enabled him, he still knowingly decided for and committed to, mass murder.
 
Coal said:
As I've said above, he knew exactly what he was doing and the consequences of it. Efficient he may have been, but comparing him with an otherwise blameless administrator is missing the point. He efficiently organised slaughter and knew he was doing so. He even petitioned (Himmler) for more resources to do a 'better' job. For me, he was a monster-in-waiting and while the situation enabled him, he still knowingly decided for and committed to, mass murder.
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Oh, he knew what he was doing alright, I thought I made that clear in the qualifiers in the second and third sentences.

My point is that he remained at a relatively low level, Lieutenant-Colonel, yet he was able to wield death and destruction upon entire communities.
 
ramonmercado said:
Oh, he knew what he was doing alright, I thought I made that clear in the qualifiers in the second and third sentences.

My point is that he remained at a relatively low level, Lieutenant-Colonel, yet he was able to wield death and destruction upon entire communities.
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I misunderstood your post, sorry about that...:oops:
 
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