Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Amanda Knox

Freed! Does this strike anyone else as a miscarriage of justice? I have not followed the case at all, I have only seen photographs of her. I am not sure if she killed this particular victim, or even is she has killed already, but I get the distinct impression that she is very capable of killing.

I guess that is the true price of fame--having your every facial expression documented. I could not myself survive that sort of scrutiny, kudos to her for managing to pull it off somehow.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Fringe: Parallel universe serial killers

On the most recent episode of Fringe, there was an interesting analysis of how a serial killer develops from a genetic predisposition to a full blown mass murderer. Spoiler alert, but Fringe is a television series that (I believe) sees itself as a modern X-Files, exploring "fringe" science with a team of genius scientists and pragmatic law men and women. One of the major story arcs is the existence of a parallel universe (oddly just one) that resembles our own in many ways, including having most of the same cast of characters. In the episode "One Night in October," this concept of parallel universes is exploited quite nicely where in the one universe a man has killed at least 40 victims, on the other side he is a professor of abnormal psychology with a specialty in serial killers. The professor version of the man later confesses that he has always struggled with an urge to kill, but that there had been an early intervening force in his life that guided him to a different path. The killer version of the man had no such intervention. As one blogger puts it:


It turns out that was it not for a single choice, made one night in October, [Professor] would likely have ended up in the same situation as the serial killer. Naturally, he escapes to try and explain things to his bad guy self; there’s a choice to be made, and he’s living proof that his urges can be controlled. That while we are who we are and our natures are innate, it’s possible for decisions to accumulate and snowball into drastic differences.

“One Night in October” had a lot to say about some big questions about identity, which makes sense for a show like Fringe to take on. . . . No one is dictated exclusively by nature or nurture, but by a combination of things they can and can’t control. It’s what we do with the information we have that defines us.
Apart from some very trite stereotypes for serial killers and human development in general, I think it was an interesting exploration of some of these questions. Also, professor version says this:
"I don't think that we can underestimate the role that empathy plays in the structuring of the self, or the lack thereof"
I wasn't aware that there was a connection between lack of empathy and sense of self, but it made me curious. There are a couple of articles I found that I will read. I'll do a post on them if they seem promising.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Sociopaths in literature: Byron's "Lara"

From Byron's "Lara":
He stood a stranger in this breathing world,
An erring spirit from another hurled;
A thing of dark imaginings, that shaped
By choice the perils he by chance escaped;
. . .
Too high for common selfishness, he could
At times resign his own for others' good,
But not in pity, not because he ought,
But in some strange perversity of thought,
That sway'd him onward with a secret pride
To do what few or none would do beside;
And this same impulse would, in tempting time,
Mislead his spirit equally to crime;
So much he soar'd beyond, or sunk beneath
The men with whom he felt condemn'd to breathe,
And long'd by good or ill to separate
Himself from all who shared his mortal state;
. . .
'Tis true, with other men their path he walk'd,
And like the rest in seeming did and talk'd,
Nor outraged Reason's rules by flaw nor start,
His madness was not of the head, but heart;
. . .
He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an art
Of fixing memory on another's heart:
It was not love, perchance — nor hate — nor aught
That words can image to express the thought;
But they who saw him did not see in vain,
And once beheld, would ask of him again:
And those to whom he spake remember'd well,
And on the words, however light, would dwell.
None knew nor how, nor why, but he entwined
Himself perforce around the hearer's mind;
There he was stamp'd, in liking, or in hate,
If greeted once; however brief the date
That friendship, pity, or aversion knew,
Still there within the inmost thought he grew.
You could not penetrate his soul, but found
Despite your wonder, to your own he wound.
His presence haunted still; and from the breast
He forced an all-unwilling interest;
Vain was the struggle in that mental net,
His spirit seem'd to dare you to forget!

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Song: The Lion and the Wolf



The lion's outside of your door
The wolf's in your bed
The lion's claws are sharpened for war
The wolf's teeth are red

And what a monstrous sight he makes,
Mocking man's best friend
When both the wolf and lion crave
The same thing in the end

The lion's outside of your door
The wolf's in your bed

The wolf, he howls
The lion does roar
The wolf lets him in
The lion runs in through the door
The real fun begins
As they both rush upon you and
Rip open your flesh
The lion eats his fill and then
The wolf cleans up the mess

The lion's outside of your door
The wolf's in your bed

Friday, September 30, 2011

Traders > psychopaths

As a sometime dabbler in the stock market, I found amusing this Der Spiegel article about traders being not necessarily more ruthless than psychopaths, but definitely more pointlessly vindictive:
According to a new study at the University of St. Gallen seen by SPIEGEL, . . . stockbrokers' behavior is more reckless and manipulative than that of psychopaths. Researchers at the Swiss research university measured the readiness to cooperate and the egotism of 28 professional traders who took part in computer simulations and intelligence tests. The results, compared with the behavior of psychopaths, exceeded the expectations of the study's co-authors, forensic expert Pascal Scherrer, and Thomas Noll, a lead administrator at the Pöschwies prison north of Zürich.

Appetite for Destruction

"Naturally one can't characterize the traders as deranged," Noll told SPIEGEL. "But for example, they behaved more egotistically and were more willing to take risks than a group of psychopaths who took the same test."

Particularly shocking for Noll was the fact that the bankers weren't aiming for higher winnings than their comparison group. Instead they were more interested in achieving a competitive advantage. Instead of taking a sober and businesslike approach to reaching the highest profit, "it was most important to the traders to get more than their opponents," Noll explained. "And they spent a lot of energy trying to damage their opponents."

Using a metaphor to describe the behavior, Noll said the stockbrokers behaved as though their neighbor had the same car, "and they took after it with a baseball bat so they could look better themselves."

The researchers were unable to explain this penchant for destruction, they said.
As continued here:
Faced with a hypothetical choice between co-operating for everyone’s benefit and getting a predictable reward or cheating and possibly getting more for themselves, traders were more likely than psychopaths to cheat, said Noll.

As a result, psychopaths, who broke the rules occasionally, won the most, ordinary people, who almost always played by the rules and who co-operated, came in second, while traders, who didn’t care how their actions affected anyone else, cheated the most and won the least.
Sounds like a violation of the Diamond Rule to me.
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