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- Thread starter James Rogers
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That's where I'll have to agree to disagree... There are plenty of intelligent and even cultured serial killers. They just haven't been caught. Plenty of people are killed every year by a serial killer but local and federal law enforcement just aren't up to the task (I'm putting that nicely) of figuring it out. As a society, we've been lead to believe that serial killers always get caught. We watch television shows like CSI and we think that's really the way it works... LOL.
It doesn't.
You'd be surprised at how many murders go unsolved: Half at least.
At any given time, criminalists and FBI profilers believe there are around 2,000 active serial killers who they haven't caught yet because they've simply been (thus far) too good at what they do to get caught or enough cases across jurisdictions have yet to link them together.
As for Tony Soprano and organized crime like that... If you notice, most of their victims are actually people who are in similar organizations or those who've crossed the line of the individual or organization that had them killed. They normally do not go around killing our next door neighbor like a serial killer does. They actually try NOT to kill citizens unless that citizen has crossed the line i.e., they've somehow gotten into business with organized crime. Once that happens? The under the table rule of not killing or hurting a citizen no longer applies.
It's not always that way but for the most part it is...
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Oh, we catch the intelligent and cultured serial killers all the time. Then we offer them valet parking and bow as they walk past. One of their assistants runs up and tugs at your sleeve, "remember not to make eye contact. This person is much too important"
But in a less facetious reply, I think you're probably sort of right. It's a grey area because I think in many ways you have to be stupid to be a serial killer. It's a person who's unable to see the value of a human life right? That indicates brain damage to me. Even if you disregard that, you're looking at someone who doesn't understand risk. There's no smart way to risk your entire life in prison to get a momentary thrill. That's the thinking of a damaged mind. Even an average child could tell you not to put yourself in danger for the rest of your life so you could have fun one afternoon. Tailored clothes, investment portfolio, salad forks carefully arranged on the proper side of the plate, it doesn't impress me. If you can destroy another persons life to give yourself a surge of dopamine, you're an idiot who doesn't understand the most basic aspects of what makes life worthwhile. Just another dumb junkie, with a more sophisticated façade. I guess it's all semantics though.
Here's what I picture when I think about people who risk their entire future so they can "live in the moment". Are you sure these cultured and intelligent people you're talking about aren't just idiots with money that dress well? Case in point "The Jinx" the story of Robert Durst. This guy was not at all what I'd call smart, but he had millions and millions of dollars, and they would catch him in the act, and just let him go. Al Capone was considered quite well dressed and intelligent. He just beat anyone to death that told him no, and used the money to buy nice suits. He wasn't brilliant at hiding his crimes, he just got too rich and powerful to go to jail. Pablo Escobar, almost the same story. I'll kill you if you don't do what I want, over and over until he's practically the king of Columbia a decade later. They tried and convicted him, understanding that he was responsible for hundreds of murders, and his punishment was a few years in a vacation prison that he built and staffed. Look it up.
As far as, "he was in the game" I understand what you're referring too quite well. I just don't see the nobility. Anyone can make up a rule, or tradition, or whatever. Civilization does not allow groups of private citizens to start civil wars with each other. And there is far more intelligent thinking behind that policy than there is behind "He knew what he was getting into when he decided to sell on our turf". In my opinion, the serial habit of humanity validating dumb ideas on the basis of "culture" is misguided. I know they have their rules, their logic, but I would say it makes them more predictable, maybe safer, than a wild animal, but not necessarily smarter. I think the bigger picture is that even if you do buy into the idea that private citizens can have private wars, innocent people always get hurt, and ignoring that reality in favor of selfish needs doesn't paint a picture of wisdom or intellect in my mind.
The mentality of chrono myopic thrill seekers, illustrated below. Combine this with randomized targets, resources to relocate often, and sanding off your fingerprints because you saw a youtube video still doesn't add up to intelligence. So yes, agree to disagree.
Also, I'd note that this post is not meant to be combative, I just spent a lot of time on debate team, and it's kind of a sport to me to hit a topic back and forth with a worthy opponent. It's actually more a token of respect, since I don't fire back at the intellectually defenseless.
But in a less facetious reply, I think you're probably sort of right. It's a grey area because I think in many ways you have to be stupid to be a serial killer. It's a person who's unable to see the value of a human life right? That indicates brain damage to me. Even if you disregard that, you're looking at someone who doesn't understand risk. There's no smart way to risk your entire life in prison to get a momentary thrill. That's the thinking of a damaged mind. Even an average child could tell you not to put yourself in danger for the rest of your life so you could have fun one afternoon. Tailored clothes, investment portfolio, salad forks carefully arranged on the proper side of the plate, it doesn't impress me. If you can destroy another persons life to give yourself a surge of dopamine, you're an idiot who doesn't understand the most basic aspects of what makes life worthwhile. Just another dumb junkie, with a more sophisticated façade. I guess it's all semantics though.
Here's what I picture when I think about people who risk their entire future so they can "live in the moment". Are you sure these cultured and intelligent people you're talking about aren't just idiots with money that dress well? Case in point "The Jinx" the story of Robert Durst. This guy was not at all what I'd call smart, but he had millions and millions of dollars, and they would catch him in the act, and just let him go. Al Capone was considered quite well dressed and intelligent. He just beat anyone to death that told him no, and used the money to buy nice suits. He wasn't brilliant at hiding his crimes, he just got too rich and powerful to go to jail. Pablo Escobar, almost the same story. I'll kill you if you don't do what I want, over and over until he's practically the king of Columbia a decade later. They tried and convicted him, understanding that he was responsible for hundreds of murders, and his punishment was a few years in a vacation prison that he built and staffed. Look it up.
As far as, "he was in the game" I understand what you're referring too quite well. I just don't see the nobility. Anyone can make up a rule, or tradition, or whatever. Civilization does not allow groups of private citizens to start civil wars with each other. And there is far more intelligent thinking behind that policy than there is behind "He knew what he was getting into when he decided to sell on our turf". In my opinion, the serial habit of humanity validating dumb ideas on the basis of "culture" is misguided. I know they have their rules, their logic, but I would say it makes them more predictable, maybe safer, than a wild animal, but not necessarily smarter. I think the bigger picture is that even if you do buy into the idea that private citizens can have private wars, innocent people always get hurt, and ignoring that reality in favor of selfish needs doesn't paint a picture of wisdom or intellect in my mind.
The mentality of chrono myopic thrill seekers, illustrated below. Combine this with randomized targets, resources to relocate often, and sanding off your fingerprints because you saw a youtube video still doesn't add up to intelligence. So yes, agree to disagree.
Also, I'd note that this post is not meant to be combative, I just spent a lot of time on debate team, and it's kind of a sport to me to hit a topic back and forth with a worthy opponent. It's actually more a token of respect, since I don't fire back at the intellectually defenseless.
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Zodiac killer seemed like he was pretty smart.
And I think you're wrong to dismiss someones intelligence because of one indicator.
Intelligence is a very complex, multi-faceted concept.
Plus, we're all gonna die no matter what, so it's pretty reasonable from where I'm sitting for someone to live a life they enjoy, instead of sitting around depressed and hating themselves for decadess, even if that enjoyable life has lethal risks
And I think you're wrong to dismiss someones intelligence because of one indicator.
Intelligence is a very complex, multi-faceted concept.
Plus, we're all gonna die no matter what, so it's pretty reasonable from where I'm sitting for someone to live a life they enjoy, instead of sitting around depressed and hating themselves for decadess, even if that enjoyable life has lethal risks
Well that's what I meant when I said it was all semantics. What does constitute intelligence? Does it have to be well rounded? I'd say that what I'd call intelligence does need to be somewhat well rounded. We all understand the concept of an idiot-savant, a person with huge ability in one area and very little in another. It's a very different term than we use for Ben Kingsley in example. Actually, I don't know if people still use that term.
I guess in my estimation an intelligent person is one capable of prioritizing logic.
And you're saying, hey, YOLO, maybe getting a face tattoo isn't proof that you're an idiot. What if that's what they want, and tomorrow isn't a given, so fuck it! Maybe that's not what you're saying, I'm jumping to a conclusion there, because many many people in my area think in exactly this way. Most of them overdose on heroin though. I do get your point, and there's some validity to it, but on the other hand, I think an intellect can be considered more advanced as it takes more and more factors into consideration at each decision juncture. To me this point seems to agree with the popular notion that solving one side of a rubicks cube constitutes wit. If you've ever solved one, you know that solving the cube is 1000 times more difficult than solving one side.
I'd argue that this person with the face tattoo is an idiot. Maybe they can arrange a melody better than another. Maybe they can eat enough hot dogs to win a 10,000 dollar prize. What they can't do, and this is what I call intelligence, is predict the cascading results of their action, and weigh that against the information they have about probable outcomes and typical human lifespans. In example, I'm kind of an idiot because I smoke. It's bad for me, costs money, and provides very little in return.
I guess my main point is that we play pretty fast and loose with our labeling of intelligence. If I come up with a devious and effective plan to gain control of my entire town's crack supply so I can smoke it and have a brain hemorrhage, does this really tell the story of a bright person? Well, you tricked 500 idiots into giving up their crack, so you must be pretty smart. I don't think so. A smart person would never have started trying to amass crack in the first place. Now I'm sitting here with a million dollars of crack, everyone in the city hates me, and I'll have to live with these people for the rest of my life, which is going to be about 2 weeks, because I'm so dumb that I smoke crack (this is just a story problem people, I don't smoke crack, my pillow CEO Mike smokes crack). So even if my plan was extremely clever, and I succeeded at a difficult goal, in terms of proving my intellect, I'd say it's a castle built on quicksand. I've done more to prove I was stupid than I have to prove that I was smart in this story. I think people are just easily impressed by superficial things.
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I don't consider intelligence to have anything to do with what you know, but rather how quickly and easily you can absorb and learn new things if/when they're presented to you. And I intentionally use "can" not "do" because lots of people who I consider intelligent simply choose not to engage with learning.
I agree. It's more about the ability to learn than it is stored knowledge. I think the two concepts, while certainly adjacent, are too often conflated.
There's a core problem with not having an interest in learning. The issue is that everything is always changing, at least in many areas, and I think individuals that make the error in judgement of thinking they no longer need to learn, will as a matter of course become less and less knowledgeable over time, as the world shifts out of phase with the time when they gained their knowledge. I also think smart people know this. In addition, and this is just on a neuroscience level, curiosity is the single greatest marker of an intelligent mind. When you look back at the great geniuses of history, they all died, still curious, still a bit excited to see what was on the next page.
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Caught that reference pretty quick, lol.
Actually, from what I hear, he's kind of a wonderful person, and someone I'd really like.
We all got a little too drunk when we were young, and errrr.... after that.
Actually, from what I hear, he's kind of a wonderful person, and someone I'd really like.
We all got a little too drunk when we were young, and errrr.... after that.
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Though you did forget to include the Joey Chestnut gif. This man is a world champion, have the respect to lean his name and track record of achievements!!!
I don't mind facetious replies at all... It's all good as long as we're not getting personal which is why I keep coming back to all us "regulars." LOL.
Having said that... I never meant to imply that a serial killer is like the rest of us or even sane... Quite the opposite.
THEY'RE INSANE.
For whatever reason which will always be unbeknownst to us mere mortals... They obsess and obsess and obsess until they make that first kill and then? They figure out they like it. It becomes their drug of choice. Many profilers call it, "CHASING GOD."
Why? Because these warped minds consider God to be the only being that regularly takes life. I don't consider the fact that we all have free will and can freely choose what we do from day to day to be God's way of taking life... LOL. But then? I'm not a serial killer either.
And? According to a lot of profiling, most serial killers have above average intelligence but at the same time? Because they're insane and because they're chasing God? I think they tend to get all caught up in what they're doing. Like I said... It's their drug of choice. It's their version of orgasm.
So often? That can lead to less and less self control even if the serial killer in question possesses above average intelligence.
Quite simply? They fuck up, thank God and get caught.
Unfortunately, it is the serial killer who possesses much more self control that does not get caught... They just get better at doing what they love. Even when they make mistakes and though they quite often do?
They learn from them.
Just like a lot of us regular people who turn hobbies into successful endeavors.
Additionally? I never meant to imply that there is any nobility in killing people unless it's someone that, quite frankly, deserves it. That kind of understanding can offend people from time to time but it's simply my own humble opinion.
Having said that... I never meant to imply that a serial killer is like the rest of us or even sane... Quite the opposite.
THEY'RE INSANE.
For whatever reason which will always be unbeknownst to us mere mortals... They obsess and obsess and obsess until they make that first kill and then? They figure out they like it. It becomes their drug of choice. Many profilers call it, "CHASING GOD."
Why? Because these warped minds consider God to be the only being that regularly takes life. I don't consider the fact that we all have free will and can freely choose what we do from day to day to be God's way of taking life... LOL. But then? I'm not a serial killer either.
And? According to a lot of profiling, most serial killers have above average intelligence but at the same time? Because they're insane and because they're chasing God? I think they tend to get all caught up in what they're doing. Like I said... It's their drug of choice. It's their version of orgasm.
So often? That can lead to less and less self control even if the serial killer in question possesses above average intelligence.
Quite simply? They fuck up, thank God and get caught.
Unfortunately, it is the serial killer who possesses much more self control that does not get caught... They just get better at doing what they love. Even when they make mistakes and though they quite often do?
They learn from them.
Just like a lot of us regular people who turn hobbies into successful endeavors.
Additionally? I never meant to imply that there is any nobility in killing people unless it's someone that, quite frankly, deserves it. That kind of understanding can offend people from time to time but it's simply my own humble opinion.
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Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Rain Man,' look retarded, act retarded, not retarded.
Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho'. Not retarded.
You know Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and he won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. He was a goddamn war hero. You know any retarded war heroes?
Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho'. Not retarded.
You know Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and he won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. He was a goddamn war hero. You know any retarded war heroes?
See people, this guy knows how to engage in a civilized debate. Of course, who am I even talking to? Most people here are pretty good with it. I guess that's just a kneejerk response from years of getting into fights with people in conversations that were intended as civil debates on other forums, or IRL. There's a reason I keep coming back to Indietalk.
To respond, I guess some semantic dissonance here comes from my personal perception that since retaining your sanity in a world brimming with conflicting virtue signals and ideologies, is in and of itself one of the factors I use to gauge intelligence. I consider people who stay sane under the relentless torrents to be smarter than their counterparts that failed.
It takes everything I've got to stay sane, and I can't report a 100% success rate, but I can and do take points off of someone's score when they slide down that slippery slope. We're all tempted by our base instincts, and part of being what I call an intelligent person is rising above our sometimes petty nature, and tendency to chain logical fallacies, and retain a clear mental image of the differences between right and wrong.
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You're not going to get me with your trick questions!
Reminds me of this roommate I had.
Average intelligence. VERY fit. Completely obsessed with fitness lifestyle.
We had a conversation one time about how he thought all unfit people were stupid, because they were too dumb to even manage their own health.
Like, bro, some of the most intelligence people on the planet are that way because theyre focusing on their minds 24/7 instead of their bodies, but he just didn't get it. Like he thinks hes smarter than some 300 lb super nerd just because he has abs. lol.
your post follows a very similar thought pattern.
Anyway the point is fairly tangental to what UNK said. Intelligence and Self Control are independant variables.
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I also would have accepted this as an answer
McCain 'never considered myself a maverick'
<p><strong>Blog:</strong> Newsweek reports that John McCain has explicitly repudiated one of the most carefully crafted and maintained images in politics, product of many yea</p>
www.politico.com
He had a memoir subtitled ‘The Education of an American Maverick’, compaigned for president as a maverick, had his running mate call him a maverick dozens of times... and then after the election says he's not a maverick JFC
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I hear ya... I really do. My mother and father were ex-cons. My dad did 9 years in Vacaville and San Quentin -- my mother -- a little over two years in Tehachapi.
I only mention this to make note that I didn't grow up like most if not all the friends I had in school. I would be invited to their homes for whatever reason and both SEE and EXPERIENCE a completely different way of life than what I had.
And? I preferred it to my own life but I couldn't do anything about that. Both my brother and I honest-to-God figured and assumed we'd either both end up dead or in prison one day because of the way were raised. As it turned out? My brother took his own life because of how we were raised.
What a lot of people do not realize when people like us are raised by ex-cons who never really got rehabilitated... The mundane is no longer the mundane... My brother and I couldn't even walk into a bank without a bit of recon while we stood in line. Why? We certainly weren't going to rob the place but it's just a different way of thinking that I believe came straight from our environment. We become a lot like coyotes which I have studied quite often in the wild. They are opportunists. We were brought up to be opportunists. Our parents were opportunists.
But back to staying sane... That's why my brother chose to join the Air Force and I chose to join the Navy. Quite frankly? My brother didn't really care what kind of job he got in the Air Force. What he cared about most was being able to eat three meals a day because we certainly never ate three meals a day growing up. Sometimes we'd get lucky and eat dinner three or four times a week.
Lunch at school? Oh hell no. But we did get to see how the normal (at least what we considered normal) got to live and we definitely saw the benefits to being normal as opposed to being and staying opportunists.
We didn't have a lot of choices so we went military and even though I hated the first several years of it? I knew intrinsically, it was going to help straighten out my thinking at least to a degree because of the routine, the rules, etc.
Unfortunately, my brother didn't fare well... After three years? The Air Force kicked him out. He simply couldn't conform and to be honest? I never did either but I learned enough to realize and know I NEEDED TO GIVE THE ILLUSION OF BEING CONFORMED.
It was quite honestly... The most difficult 21 years of my life.
In other words? I quite agree with you. It takes a lot to stay sane... LOL. For me too.
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It's a valid point. As you said though, intelligence is multifaceted, I don't think either of us is actually wrong, but rather looking at the same thing from different perspectives.
And in the past, I was quite confused by this phenomenon. So I thought about it and figured out what was going on. I wish I hadn't because I do understand what's happening now. And basically, we're all in a great deal of trouble because of that answer.
Here's why the world is fucked. It has to do with how people judge intelligence.
I'll give an example to make it clear.
ok, so this is how we SHOULD gauge intelligence. A person is given a task, such as solving an equation, and we watch them do it and determine their level of success. They do this in the military, which is smart, but not in politics, which is not smart.
That's what I always assumed was going on, but I kept repeatedly encountering these situations where the dumbest people around were constantly being promoted to top positions. Gene Simmons plays open string quarter notes, give this guy 1000 helicopters and one of the states. Is it ok if I elect Gene president? How do I make it so this super genius decides federal laws?
I worked at a retail store once, didn't need to, I was basically just hanging around a guitar store for a few months to meet girls and play every guitar for free. It worked! There were 11 people there, and when it came time to promote to management they instantly picked out the two lowest IQ people in the store.
And I'm scratching my head a bit. Errrr, why is that person that still thinks pro wrestling is real considered the smartest person by the brass? I had not met the brass at that point. I did later. Made sure of that, lol.
Then Trump and Biden are elected. With Trump, people are watching this guy eat a cheeseburger and yell, I the greatest, I the greatest, and they are mesmerized by his wit. Democrats see Biden trying to remember where he put his shoes, and it's "I'd die for this man's brilliance". I'm watching this, and thinking, what the fuck are you guys on. There's people making 50k a year that could beat these guys at checkers, and you're elevating them to the status of god kings. What's so impressive? Why is it too much to ask to simply give people applying for extremely high paying positions an intelligence test?
Here's the answer that I found that seemed to fit almost every scenario. Try it out in your life and watch how many situations this one skeleton key fits.
People are actually so fucking narcissistic at heart, and I'm not saying I'm any better, that they don't gauge intelligence by intelligence at all. It's not about how hard you can strike that bell, it's about something else.
See that bullseye? That's how person X thinks. Your intelligence will be judged by person X not based on how intelligent you are, but rather by how similarly you think, to how they think. The gruesome underlying mechanic? The apex of your potential intelligence is thinking exactly like I do. So if the boss hits that bell, and it only goes up halfway, whoever is closes to that halfway mark is "the smartest" Whoever you are, me is the smartest person, and being smart is synonymous with "being like me".
Let's broaden the scope and see how this plays out. To do that, we need to break down the population into segments of actual measured intelligence. Let's use the standard method of standard deviations. 6 really, because the other two don't really factor.
We have a mean intellect of 100 IQ. It's basically just a percentage of the grading curve based on known averages. Doesn't function like a percentage in practice though, but I need to limit the scope of this discussion. We're discussing the Bell Curve here.
So here is how we can determine who will become popular or respected in our world. You can see from this chart that 68% are in the core. 96% are withing that first standard deviation. Let's say that those 120 IQ people are just barely starting to understand how to think. They are mostly competent, live decent lives, etc. There is mass evidence that people all the way up to about 140 do tons of stupid shit all the time. That factors in to the picture I'm developing here. But let's say it's just 115, and you're capable of knowing what's going on. So let's combine the number below that line, at 84% of the people.
Now it's time to vote. We can't keep people from voting, it wouldn't be fair. That's not sarcastic, I mean that. so everyone gets an equal vote. They then vote for whoever they think is the smartest, see above arguments.
So now we have a pro wrestler managing a state's economy, and a professor of economics isn't allowed anywhere near the control panel.
That control belongs to the "smart" people, and the methodology people use would indicate that by and large, with some notable exceptions, what we will see, over and over, is very simple minded people being labeled as highly intelligent and successful, by a crowd that understands that pro wrestling is real, and that those idiot economics professors with their high test scores "Just aren't smart enough to get it like Jesse Ventura does"
But it gets worse. Especially if you are unlucky enough to be two or three standard deviations out. You will never be represented, paid, idolized, or any of the positive things that will happen to your chaw can compatriots. The guy who invented electricity had a much worse life, and was respected less, than whatever pop singer of his time sang "I drank and drank and dranked some more, until I couldn't any more, they picked me up right off the floor, and threw me right out of the front door"
The concept of communication range was established by Leta Hollingworth. It is +/- 2 standard deviations (roughly 30 points) up or down on one’s own IQ. It denotes the range where meaningful interaction (communication, discussion, conversation and socializing) is possible. If the IQ difference between two persons is more than 30 points, the communication breaks up. The higher IQ person will look like an incomprehensible nerd and the lower IQ as a moronic dullard – and they will not find anything common.
While this is somewhat of an oversimplification, the reality is this, if you're one of the smartest people in the world, you will never be considered one of the smartest people in the world, as people will perceive you as stupid again, once you leave that 30 point range.
Anyway, sorry about the long rant, you just happened to hit a topic that I had given a lot of thought.
By the way, those brass guys at the guitar store showed up one day..... lol. I did something to shake em up a bit. And I sat down and talked with them. They were hundred IQ people, very cocky and confident. I also watched the people they hired interact with them. The smart ones asked questions. Should we be focusing more on promotions this month? I'm not sure the corporate strategy fits our local market. They were told to sort magazines and know their place. The dumb ones who got promoted. Every time the brass spoke, they just nodded in agreement. No thoughts, no opinions, no brains. Yes men. The brass looked pleased. Finally, someone smart enough to be just like them.
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Like this schmuck ?
I disagree with a lot of what you said. People can think totally differently, and be a brain surgeon, and pretty much everyone will say hey that guy must be pretty smart. or if you came out of your garage with a cure of all cancers, i think basically everyone would recognize you as intelligent.
A lot of what you're talking about is you want people to give you respect without doing things that are worthy of respect, and humans just aren't logical creatures. They're never gonna put you up on a pedestal over everyone else they know unless you have a very clear and demonstratable accomplishment that proves it beyond a shadow of doubt.
And even then, sometimes you get very smart people that speak out of their field of expertise and they get caught slippin, so you could point a finger there, but hey we all make mistakes, and like mara said its about hteir ability to take on information in other cateogires and learn it if they will it so