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I'm weirdly not too surprised due to this belief I have that software developers would make effective criminals. A lot of this boils down to a belief I have th

I'm weirdly not too surprised due to this belief I have that software developers would make effective criminals. A lot of this boils down to a belief I have that not getting caught in the first place is easy. Murders have something like a 50% solve rate and you can decrease your chances of getting caught with a little knowledge on how to evade common forensic techniques along with some planning. Those who get caught doing one crime or another either were dumb to begin or eventually got lazy and made a dumb mistake in hindsight. Besides that though, the ethos that we have lends itself well to acquiring advanced knowledge in more-or-less all domains, crime and forensics included.

tzs 2y ago
Careful. That solve rate is overall. When planning your life in crime you probably want to use the solve rate for the particular type of people you plan to murder. The solve rate for murders of white people is generally in the 80+% range, which is probably what you'd want to use if going after CEOs.
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  I think race of victim is probably not the root cause in the solve rate. There is a high correlation between being a non-white murder victim (in America) and being targeted by or involved in gang violence. Gang violence seems to be less moderated by the police, for probably a variety of reasons both practical and political. But yes, if you aren’t killing a rival gang member, you do probably have worse odds than the overall stat.
  - kenjackson 2y ago
    And 50% is a horrible baseline for 25 years to life in jail. Even 5%, with no statute of limitations, would make me uncomfortable my whole life.
  - Panzer04 2y ago
    Gang violence would often be random offender, random victim too. I imagine a motivated murder by a related party is significantly easier to solve than a random shooting where the perpetrator hightails it immediately. Related parties are easy to name and find, unrelated murderers which you don't find immediately are only going to get harder to catch - where do you even start when with something like that?
    - User23 2y ago
      A lot of gang violence is at parties and (sadly) funerals. The demographics of the injured bystanders thus tend to reflect the demographics of people who attend those events.
      - chimpanzee 2y ago
        > A lot of gang violence is at parties and (sadly) funerals Nice just-so argument. Any basis in fact? Stats maybe?
  - chimpanzee 2y ago
    - Gang-related homicides are less than 20% of all homicides in the US. - Gang-related homicides includes the homicides of innocent bystanders of gang-related shootings. - Over half of all homicide victims are non-white. These three facts make it obvious that well above 60% of all non-white homicides are NOT “gang-targeted or -involved”. If it is true that 80% [EDIT: not true (I misread stat in another comment) but gist of argument still stands] of non-white cases go unsolved, then more than 50% of all unsolved non-white homicides are NOT gang-related in any way. And this is an extremely conservative estimate. Just fixing unfavorable rounding adjusts the percentage of unrelated unsolved homicides to above 65%. Given that, it doesn’t seem wise to presume gang-involvement on the part of non-white unsolved homicide victims solely on the basis of them being… non-white unsolved homicide victims.
    - tzs 2y ago
      > If it is true that 80% of non-white cases go unsolved [...] It's not nearly that bad. Around 40-50% are solved. There are around 30% more non-white homicides than there are white homicides per year in the US, which means that the overall homicide solve rate is closer to the non-white solve rate than to the white solve rate.
      - chimpanzee 2y ago
        Thanks for catching my mistake and updating. I misread earlier comment.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  With the ubiquity of cameras, tracking, I suspect any murder can be solved if we are suitably motivated.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    Any one murder can be, or almost any one. It's generalising that effort to all murders that's hard.
astrange 2y ago
More importantly, engineers are for some reason especially likely to be terrorists. https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29836/1/Why_are_there_so_many_Engineers_among_Islamic_radicals_(publisher).pdf https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29836/1/Why_are_there_so_many_Engi... I think it's related to old physicist brain where you decide you know everything about everyone else's field. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Osama bin Laden had a degree in civil engineering. I wonder how mathematicians rank against engineers
  - rangestransform 2y ago
    I remember reading something like this but in relation to elite overproduction, how if you have engineers sitting with their thumbs up their asses instead of working, they will disrupt society in a bad way
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Overproduction theory, whether you believe it or not isn't really about engineers. The idea is that you get a lot of elites which are highly educated and expect high positions in society, but end up bitter because reality falls short. Engineers break with this because in general they are actually quite well compensated. The targets of the theory are essentially people with non-stem post-secondary degrees
      - garrettgrimsley 2y ago
        This doesn't align with the scholarship on the subject. See Gambetta and Hertog https://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/engineers%20of%20jihad.pdf https://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/engineers%20of%20ji...
readthenotes1 2y ago
"due to this belief I have that software developers would make effective criminals. A lot of this boils down to a belief I have that not getting caught in the first place is easy." Ummm.... You understand that the software developer was just caught by a McDonald's cashier?
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tedunangst 2y ago
Hans Reiser was far too smart to ever get caught.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Reiser killed his wife. Suspicion was always going to immediately fall on him.
jmyeet 2y ago
Murder is a really interesting crime. There are really two kinds of murder: those where the perpetrator and victim are known to each other and those where they are not. The first category is way more common [1]: > Among homicides in which the relationship could be determined, between 21% and 27% of homicides were committed by strangers and between 73% and 79% were committed by offenders known to the victims Another data point is that the recidivism rate for murder is incredibly low, roughly 2% [2], among the lowest of any crime. The point is that the vast majority of murders are personal in nature. Police will tell you that when someone dies, it's always the spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend as the prime suspect until it isn't. Murders with no personal relationship (eg serial killings) are quite rare. So if you, as a software developer, want to get away with murder you first have to be irrational and/or insane enough to murder people for pretty much no reason, which will get you pretty far to not getting caught, but still want to murder people you really have no reason to. You can further increase your odds of not getting caught by not leaving a crime scene or a body but also picking a victim who won't necessarily be missed. It's why serial killers end up preying on runaways and prostitutes. There's also the MMIW phenomenon [3]. Lastly, going outside your geographical area would further help your odds. This suspect allegedly had no relationship to the victim but they still had a reason (it seems). Now it so happens that being upset about private health insurance quite literally would leave police with millions of suspects. But the point is, they weren't necessarily acting rationally even if it was premeditated and planned. I still find it insane that the suspect didn't rid himself of every identifiable possession. Had they done that, I think they'd have a shot at acquittal (depending on DNA evidence from the water bottle and/or coffee cup). Now? Almost impossible. As much as we talk about jury nullification, people like there to be something to hang their hat on in terms of doubt. If a blurry partial photo was the only evidence I could see that as being way more likely. Having the ID used in the hostel and the mask, bag and clothes as well as the gun makes that harder to justify. [1]: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf [2]: https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/a-new-lease-on-life/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/a-new-lease-on-lif... [3]: https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-w...
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
mewpmewp2 2y ago
Given enough resources dedicated to hunting you, it doesn't seem that easy to be sure, considering how many cameras there are, how easy it becomes to narrow down DNA considering services like 23andme etc. Most murders wouldn't have this much resources dedicated to it though.
BurningFrog 2y ago
Software developers are also more likely to have weird eccentric beliefs, and to take them to extreme endpoints.
Hilift 2y ago
Location seems to be a factor. NYC has better statistics. Overall it is 54% since 2020. Washington DC had 1,088 murders, 559 clearances (51%) from 2020-2023. Baltimore is 1,042 and 315 (30%). NYC is notably better: 1,740 and 1,190, (68%). https://www.murderdata.org/p/blog-page.html https://www.murderdata.org/p/blog-page.html
nobody9999 2y ago
> Those who get caught doing one crime or another either were dumb to begin or eventually got lazy and made a dumb mistake in hindsight. >Besides that though, the ethos that we have lends itself well to acquiring advanced knowledge in more-or-less all domains, crime and forensics included. I wouldn't give too much credit to law enforcement. Perpetrators need to get it (opsec/disposal of evidence/etc.) right every single time, sometimes for decades. Law enforcement only needs to get it right once. And yet, clearance rates for murder are still pretty low.
clownpenis_fart 2y ago
[dead]
frud 2y ago
I think that, more generally, intelligent people don't get arrested for crimes for several reasons. First, because they are smarter, they just don't get themselves into jams where murdering someone seems like the best way to get out of the jam. Second, because they are more successful they have more to lose in terms of wealth, happiness, good living situation, so they risk more when choosing crime, so they're less likely to choose it. Only thirdly is actual proficiency in the planning and execution of the crime.

tzs 2y ago

Careful. That solve rate is overall. When planning your life in crime you probably want to use the solve rate for the particular type of people you plan to murder. The solve rate for murders of white people is generally in the 80+% range, which is probably what you'd want to use if going after CEOs.

pfannkuchen 2y ago
I think race of victim is probably not the root cause in the solve rate. There is a high correlation between being a non-white murder victim (in America) and being targeted by or involved in gang violence. Gang violence seems to be less moderated by the police, for probably a variety of reasons both practical and political. But yes, if you aren’t killing a rival gang member, you do probably have worse odds than the overall stat.
- kenjackson 2y ago
  And 50% is a horrible baseline for 25 years to life in jail. Even 5%, with no statute of limitations, would make me uncomfortable my whole life.
- Panzer04 2y ago
  Gang violence would often be random offender, random victim too. I imagine a motivated murder by a related party is significantly easier to solve than a random shooting where the perpetrator hightails it immediately. Related parties are easy to name and find, unrelated murderers which you don't find immediately are only going to get harder to catch - where do you even start when with something like that?
  - User23 2y ago
    A lot of gang violence is at parties and (sadly) funerals. The demographics of the injured bystanders thus tend to reflect the demographics of people who attend those events.
    - chimpanzee 2y ago
      > A lot of gang violence is at parties and (sadly) funerals Nice just-so argument. Any basis in fact? Stats maybe?
- chimpanzee 2y ago
  - Gang-related homicides are less than 20% of all homicides in the US. - Gang-related homicides includes the homicides of innocent bystanders of gang-related shootings. - Over half of all homicide victims are non-white. These three facts make it obvious that well above 60% of all non-white homicides are NOT “gang-targeted or -involved”. If it is true that 80% [EDIT: not true (I misread stat in another comment) but gist of argument still stands] of non-white cases go unsolved, then more than 50% of all unsolved non-white homicides are NOT gang-related in any way. And this is an extremely conservative estimate. Just fixing unfavorable rounding adjusts the percentage of unrelated unsolved homicides to above 65%. Given that, it doesn’t seem wise to presume gang-involvement on the part of non-white unsolved homicide victims solely on the basis of them being… non-white unsolved homicide victims.
  - tzs 2y ago
    > If it is true that 80% of non-white cases go unsolved [...] It's not nearly that bad. Around 40-50% are solved. There are around 30% more non-white homicides than there are white homicides per year in the US, which means that the overall homicide solve rate is closer to the non-white solve rate than to the white solve rate.
    - chimpanzee 2y ago
      Thanks for catching my mistake and updating. I misread earlier comment.
JKCalhoun 2y ago
With the ubiquity of cameras, tracking, I suspect any murder can be solved if we are suitably motivated.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  Any one murder can be, or almost any one. It's generalising that effort to all murders that's hard.

astrange 2y ago

More importantly, engineers are for some reason especially likely to be terrorists. https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29836/1/Why_are_there_so_many_Engineers_among_Islamic_radicals_(publisher).pdf https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29836/1/Why_are_there_so_many_Engi... I think it's related to old physicist brain where you decide you know everything about everyone else's field. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21

s1artibartfast 2y ago
Osama bin Laden had a degree in civil engineering. I wonder how mathematicians rank against engineers
- rangestransform 2y ago
  I remember reading something like this but in relation to elite overproduction, how if you have engineers sitting with their thumbs up their asses instead of working, they will disrupt society in a bad way
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Overproduction theory, whether you believe it or not isn't really about engineers. The idea is that you get a lot of elites which are highly educated and expect high positions in society, but end up bitter because reality falls short. Engineers break with this because in general they are actually quite well compensated. The targets of the theory are essentially people with non-stem post-secondary degrees
    - garrettgrimsley 2y ago
      This doesn't align with the scholarship on the subject. See Gambetta and Hertog https://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/engineers%20of%20jihad.pdf https://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/engineers%20of%20ji...

readthenotes1 2y ago

"due to this belief I have that software developers would make effective criminals. A lot of this boils down to a belief I have that not getting caught in the first place is easy." Ummm.... You understand that the software developer was just caught by a McDonald's cashier?

deleted 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tedunangst 2y ago

Hans Reiser was far too smart to ever get caught.

throwaway48476 2y ago
Reiser killed his wife. Suspicion was always going to immediately fall on him.

jmyeet 2y ago

Murder is a really interesting crime. There are really two kinds of murder: those where the perpetrator and victim are known to each other and those where they are not. The first category is way more common [1]: > Among homicides in which the relationship could be determined, between 21% and 27% of homicides were committed by strangers and between 73% and 79% were committed by offenders known to the victims Another data point is that the recidivism rate for murder is incredibly low, roughly 2% [2], among the lowest of any crime. The point is that the vast majority of murders are personal in nature. Police will tell you that when someone dies, it's always the spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend as the prime suspect until it isn't. Murders with no personal relationship (eg serial killings) are quite rare. So if you, as a software developer, want to get away with murder you first have to be irrational and/or insane enough to murder people for pretty much no reason, which will get you pretty far to not getting caught, but still want to murder people you really have no reason to. You can further increase your odds of not getting caught by not leaving a crime scene or a body but also picking a victim who won't necessarily be missed. It's why serial killers end up preying on runaways and prostitutes. There's also the MMIW phenomenon [3]. Lastly, going outside your geographical area would further help your odds. This suspect allegedly had no relationship to the victim but they still had a reason (it seems). Now it so happens that being upset about private health insurance quite literally would leave police with millions of suspects. But the point is, they weren't necessarily acting rationally even if it was premeditated and planned. I still find it insane that the suspect didn't rid himself of every identifiable possession. Had they done that, I think they'd have a shot at acquittal (depending on DNA evidence from the water bottle and/or coffee cup). Now? Almost impossible. As much as we talk about jury nullification, people like there to be something to hang their hat on in terms of doubt. If a blurry partial photo was the only evidence I could see that as being way more likely. Having the ID used in the hostel and the mask, bag and clothes as well as the gun makes that harder to justify. [1]: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf [2]: https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/a-new-lease-on-life/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/a-new-lease-on-lif... [3]: https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-w...

mewpmewp2 2y ago

mewpmewp2 2y ago

Given enough resources dedicated to hunting you, it doesn't seem that easy to be sure, considering how many cameras there are, how easy it becomes to narrow down DNA considering services like 23andme etc. Most murders wouldn't have this much resources dedicated to it though.

BurningFrog 2y ago

Software developers are also more likely to have weird eccentric beliefs, and to take them to extreme endpoints.

Hilift 2y ago

Location seems to be a factor. NYC has better statistics. Overall it is 54% since 2020. Washington DC had 1,088 murders, 559 clearances (51%) from 2020-2023. Baltimore is 1,042 and 315 (30%). NYC is notably better: 1,740 and 1,190, (68%). https://www.murderdata.org/p/blog-page.html https://www.murderdata.org/p/blog-page.html

nobody9999 2y ago

> Those who get caught doing one crime or another either were dumb to begin or eventually got lazy and made a dumb mistake in hindsight. >Besides that though, the ethos that we have lends itself well to acquiring advanced knowledge in more-or-less all domains, crime and forensics included. I wouldn't give too much credit to law enforcement. Perpetrators need to get it (opsec/disposal of evidence/etc.) right every single time, sometimes for decades. Law enforcement only needs to get it right once. And yet, clearance rates for murder are still pretty low.

clownpenis_fart 2y ago

[dead]

frud 2y ago

I think that, more generally, intelligent people don't get arrested for crimes for several reasons. First, because they are smarter, they just don't get themselves into jams where murdering someone seems like the best way to get out of the jam. Second, because they are more successful they have more to lose in terms of wealth, happiness, good living situation, so they risk more when choosing crime, so they're less likely to choose it. Only thirdly is actual proficiency in the planning and execution of the crime.