6 ms·
Serial murders have dwindled, thanks to improved technology
- nonesuchluck 3y agoYeah. Now we have parallel murders.
- KingMob 3y agoOnly until the tech to develop universal serial killers displaces it.
- hoppyhoppy2 3y agoGift Article link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/nyregion/serial-killers-gilgo-beach-rex-heuermann.html?unlocked_article_code=2hLLUMd8BzI6Vi8fmhbNmhsICmYV_r55Zf4xZ6JRtKFHySXhkaw77r2TZIwdqKXPt6xg9g7F3FMgyI9M7BhogQpMffaSxuGygnoiN9Nq6_5shQ41I1aruKl33f24iZ4U_lD1YvigzdHTTQW1IBlFWfP7WLsXJaHZD4CvMcobXy584cFLERoCgA2a1yn-zMjo_dj8iyH1VpuNRrsdzzAlTn1iigc3AYP8DuwGQaSq1giZHiTlLBaByuYmnxSrhF-y8JFjwQQNXRHAL1GFRBowqRxxOkPcpATPWBert0uQqKdc6WS7kmpcXb2sG89cvfgQ9etJ5I4kDjDr4jPGMPBHEuKOcT2EDw0GyEGnfrekAAoqAHk&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/nyregion/serial-killers-g...
- LorenzoGood 3y agoThanks kind stranger
- blackpill0w 3y agoUse the upvote button instead of filling the thread with comments that add nothing to the discussion.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoActually I think "thanks kind stranger" adds something to the discussion. A sense of human connection.
- blackpill0w 3y ago[flagged]
- jamiek88 3y ago> This is a site for technical discussion Citation needed. Also, there’s literally a note about not saying ‘making the place like reddit’ in the faq. Which, if you feel the need to jump in as a quasi mod, perhaps you should give a once over?
- fortran77 3y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/LOLHackerNews/comments/15k8c49/this_is_a_site_for_technical_discussion_if_half/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LOLHackerNews/comments/15k8c49/this...
- dredmorbius 3y agoGenerally: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>
- jrflowers 3y agoThank you for your work enforcing the rules, kind stranger. I might’ve simply scrolled past that comment, but it is good to see several people debating the nature of this website in the comments of an article about serial killers
- acheron 3y agoSaying “me too” like some brain dead AOLer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos
- jacquesm 3y ago> instead of filling the thread with comments that add nothing to the discussion Like yours? (And this one...) 58 Karma users shouldn't be telling others how to behave. (See: karma is good for something...).
- blackpill0w 3y ago1) It is indeed my fault for replying, I thought flagging is only available for users with a certain number of karma but apparently you have to click on the comment for the flag button to appear (which is weird). 2) The number of karma I have doesn't affect the correctness of my statement.
- jamiek88 3y agoNo but there is a culture and it behooves you to learn it prior to trying to enforce it.
- LorenzoGood 3y agoA simple downvote would suffice as well.
- dang 3y agoEmpty comments can be ok if they're positive. There's nothing wrong with submitting a comment saying just "Thanks." What we especially discourage are comments that are empty and negative—comments that are mere name-calling. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090206141746/http://www.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://web.archive.org/web/20090206141746/http://www.ycombi...
- karlzt 3y agoI read the whole article by stopping it from loading and toggling reader view, then with your gift link I confirmed that it was complete.
- Qem 3y agoNowadays if somebody wants to commit murder and go unpunished ironically one of the few remaining options is to enter the police.
- dogmatism 3y agoor get said victim on a bicycle, then run them down in your car and say "I didn't see them"
- sgjohnson 3y agoYes, technically murder would be hard to prove in such a scenario if it was a crime of passion, but I don’t see how being charged with vehicular manslaughter lets you get away with it. “I didn’t see them” is not the “get-out-of-jail-free” card when it comes to manslaughter.
- callalex 3y agoIt really, truly is at least in my part of the USA. Most drivers who kill people and aren’t found to be drunk will never see the inside of a prison.
- local_issues 3y agoAbsolutely is in NYC.
- ecf 3y agoThe driver was most likely on their phone when it happened, so hopefully there will be some charges filed. I would love to see the precedent set where killing someone while distracted is treated as murder. https://www.npr.org/2023/07/31/1191096086/cyclist-magnus-white-17-dies-accident-car-boulder-colorado https://www.npr.org/2023/07/31/1191096086/cyclist-magnus-whi...
- doctor_eval 3y ago> Just by walking outside, people are now tracked by ever-present cameras, from Amazon’s Ring units outside homes to surveillance at banks and retail stores I’m certainly not advocating in favour of serial killers, but I can’t help thinking that George Orwell apparently never envisaged that people would not only welcome Big Brother into their homes, but actually pay for the privilege.
- XorNot 3y ago1984 was not about surveillance. Surveillance was not what enabled the state depicted in 1984 to exist. The entire final section of the book explains, in detail why the state in 1984 exists and it's not because of the telescreens. The telescreens and their usage was a tool in the arsenal of the state, but it wasn't why it functioned, nor how it came into existence.
- jncfhnb 3y agoWell what was it
- Retric 3y agoControl, indoctrination, and fear. The books makes a big deal about language and editing history because of how important they are in framing how people think. The ration increased from 200 units from 15p units without mention that last years ration was 250. You couldn’t trust anyone including friends or family members etc. But what’s so masterfully done was the realization that the revolution had become a tool for the state.
- aidenn0 3y agoIMO, surveillance is a necessary tool for control and fear. It need not be total surveillance (see e.g. the panopticon), but a belief that you will get caught is needed.
- rcme 3y agoBut the surveillance was a crucial part of control and indoctrination. Surveillance of the home, never knowing whether or not someone was watching, led Winston Smith, and presumably other citizens, to change their thought patterns. He was literally afraid to have an unapproved thought lest it change detectably his behavior while he was being watched. This was very similar to Soviet-style control where you could never be sure your neighbor wasn’t spying on you. One big difference, though, is that people in our society generally accept the set of forbidden things.
- raincom 3y agoCell phone ping data from nearest towers can help solve problems. What if missing people reports are not filed? What if dead bodies are not found? There are many unsolved homicides even today, even though family and friends know who could be behind. It is just that cops can't pin down suspects.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoOr thanks to the end of leaded gasoline, or the advent of legalized abortion, or some combination of the three, or none of this. The only evidence in this article is one serial killer they maybe tracked down after 25 years of searching.
- jncfhnb 3y agoWhy would legalized abortion reduce the rate of serial killers?
- sitharus 3y agoReduced child neglect and abuse
- polski-g 3y agoAbortion preponderance is inversely correlated with IQ. Low IQ is correlated with criminality.
- revscat 3y agoWith more economic strength comes better child rearing environments. Fewer children means greater economic strength. Greater economic strength leads to less stress. Less stress means better childrearing. Abortion is an unmitigated good for most women who choose it.
- zer8k 3y ago> Fewer children means greater economic strength. I don't think you understand the utility of having children. Neoliberals love this position because it effectively supports importing as many immigrants as possible for megacorps to pay bottom dollar to. There's an entire industry (industrial farming) that loves this. > Less stress means better childrearing. The context of this statement is not supported by the unmitigated economic disaster we are currently in, and have been in, since at least the great financial crisis. > Abortion is an unmitigated good for most women who choose it. Have you ever wondered why you can almost predict the location of abortion clinics by the number of pawn shops and pay day loan centers? When you break down those locations by race it may become more clear. Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist and racist [0][1] who wished abortion to be used to clean out the mental defectives. Her own words: “the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective,” [0]. What's funny is I could've swapped her name out with any 19th and 20th century dictator and you'd believe me. It would be wonderful if activists stopped hiding behind the banner of freedom and acknowledge the roots of their alleged "unmitigated good". [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/07/21/planned-parenthood-drops-margaret-sangers-name-from-manhattan-clinic-over-ties-to-eugenics-movement/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/07/21/pl... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20221104040930/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-eugenics-and-birth-control/ https://web.archive.org/web/20221104040930/https://www.pbs.o...
- chubot 3y agoSomething I was wondering about in this case ... They tracked the killer through his use of burner phones 10 years ago. And I obviously know phones continuously ping cell towers. So that means somewhere out there, there's a database of all cell phones and their locations for all time, with fine-grained resolution? They don't ever delete it, at least not in the last 10 years? Or it's 1 database per cell provider ? I guess phones ping towers that are not owned by the company that provided the phone I'd be curious if anyone has a link to a good summary of how this works, and the location tracking implications. Do they have to do a subpoena, or is it just a big database everyone's doing joins against? What's the resolution of the data? I knew that people obviously get caught due to cell phone tracking -- it comes up in every one of these cases, like the Idaho killer recently. But I'm slightly surprised they reached back 10 years and did it
- runjake 3y agoThere’s an LE chart floating around out there, slightly different than this[1] that shows how long carriers keep records. AT&T in particular keeps records forever. I suspect all the other carriers do as well despite their claims. 1. https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_nbcnews-ux-600-700,f_auto,q_auto:best/streams/2012/february/120220/57636-null37df4602-2949-6770-4444-ec18f61fff4d.jpg https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_nbcnews-ux...
- aristus 3y agoCan confirm AT&T retention. In the late 90's they were already approaching trillions with-a-T metadatums. Federal LE, telecoms, and "the intelligence community" have always worked closely together.
- dredmorbius 3y agoAT&T doesn't merely keep call record data, but does so explicitly to share it with law enforcement. Going back to the 1980s. <https://www.eff.org/cases/hemisphere https://www.eff.org/cases/hemisphere> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_detail_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_detail_record> <http://epic.org/privacy/nsa/Section-215-Order-to-Verizon.pdf http://epic.org/privacy/nsa/Section-215-Order-to-Verizon.pdf>
- metadat 3y agohttps://archive.today/EFeEG https://archive.today/EFeEG
- api 3y agoTodays mass killers go for their whole body count up front with a machine gun instead of racking up kills slowly over a long serial killing career. Instant gratification culture man… even the killers don’t have any attention span or patience anymore.
- delfinom 3y agoNYTimes has basically created an entire new generation of serial killers with this article by basically advertising to the deranged in the world that there's empty space with their serial killer alter-ego-name on it.
- daft_pink 3y agoClearly the people who wrote this article have never been to the city of Chicago. The statistics might just say shootings, but those shootings are perpetrated by the same people and the cops aren't doing anything.
- P_I_Staker 3y agoThere's no reason to be racist.
- astrange 3y agoIf you think it's bad now it means you don't remember how it used to be, because it was a lot worse.
- pohl 3y agothe same people Unpack this. Which people, precisely, do you mean?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- soligern 3y agoI see what you’re saying but I think I’m this case he means the same individual/gangster doing multiple shootings over an extended period of time which fits the bill for a serial killer. Atleast I hope that’s what he means.
- pohl 3y agoWe’ll see. The longer my question goes unanswered, the less likely it is that your overly generous interpretation holds.
- solumunus 3y agoWhen I read OP my immediate understanding was that they were talking about the same individuals (gang members) committing numerous murders. That makes perfect contextual sense.. I think you’re racism detector was a little overly sensitive here.
- hedora 3y ago> By 2018, there were only 12 known serial killers and 44 victims, according to the report Ok, I’m calling bullshit. There were 27 mass shooting events with >= 4 dead in the US in 2018: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2018 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th... (I used 4 dead as the cutoff, since it is close to the mean in the article’s data set.) If you count people that managed to shoot at least 4 others, then there were 323 attempted serial murders, “resulting in 387 deaths and 1,283 injuries, for a total of 1,670 victims.” The article may as well be titled “Serial murders can mow be performed in under an hour, thanks to improved technology”
- ksaj 3y agoSerial killing and mass killing aren't the same thing. I like to think of mass killing as "parallel killing." The "serial" refers to one killing event after another, whereas mass killing is lots of killing in single events. Having said that, you are right - technology might be better at finding and stopping serial killers, but doesn't really do much at all for finding and stopping parallel killers. Mass killing is way up, so the article's conclusion is not really all that reassuring.
- pivic 3y agoMass murder≠serial murder. Serial murder requires three or more murders committed by the same perpetrators with more than a month of time between each murder.
- agency 3y agoI'm as horrified as you are by the rate of mass shootings in the US but this is a basic misunderstanding of terminology on your part. Criminology distinguishes between mass killings (single event), spree killings (multiple separate killings rapidly with no "cooling off" period between them), and serial killings
- p3rls 3y agoI personally suspect inequality in social status among such victims to be rising as well. Before times, you had propaganda of the deed, serial killers, political violence etc. keeping elites on their toes. Now the Columbine meta has solidified and that has turned Wal*Marts and public schools into shooting galleries for these rage-filled losers to maximize their KDR by shooting in high-density and low-defense areas.
- r13a 3y agoThe article thesis about technology impact on the prevalence of serial killers doesn't really hold up against the fact that rate of unsolved homicides has sky rocketed since the 60's [1]. One could offer a lot of speculations on how to reconcile the disappearance of "traditional' serial killers with the jump of unsolved homicides. For instance, I have read in the past articles about "experts" warning about a possible epidemic of undetected serial killers... [1] https://www.murderdata.org/2015/01/how-many-unsolved-murders-are-there-its_24.html https://www.murderdata.org/2015/01/how-many-unsolved-murders...