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Perhaps but I would argue that the most likely reason is genetics plus traumatic childhood. Manson had traumatic childhood; living on the streets, committing cr

Perhaps but I would argue that the most likely reason is genetics plus traumatic childhood. Manson had traumatic childhood; living on the streets, committing crime and spending half of his life in prison and in state institutions. When you add drugs and hippie flower power music scene to that you get Manson. Bundy also had traumatic childhood not knowing who his real father is and believing his mother is his older sister while being raised by his grandparents. He was violent sex addict always craving for more and more. Imo his genetics played the key part in his deviant violent behavior.

emmelaich 1y ago
Parents may have been affected by lead as well.
Y_Y 1y ago
I'd be careful about associating a genetic cause with high-level behaviors. I don't have a good argument either way, but it seems to come close to a political third rail where you can ascribe patterns of behavior to genetically defined(-ish) groups like "race".
- exe34 1y ago
  I'm always suspicious of people who advocate this kind of caution - I can never trust if you are saying or withholding information in case it might lead to outcomes you don't like. Reality should take precedence. If X does Y, let's find out how to help X, not pretend X doesn't exist.
  - nkrisc 1y ago
    Because it's rarely ever as simple as X causes Y, yet it will be taken out of context and concluded out of context that X in fact causes Y, thus we must round up everyone exhibiting X to prevent Y.
    - exe34 1y ago
      And that's how you make it worse for everyone, because now some X still cause Y, but Z doesn't trust you anymore and will start hurting random X anyway.
  - Y_Y 1y ago
    You may have misunderstood, I'm advocating caution on the basis that naive discussion of this kind of topic can attract attention from people who associate it with outcomes they don't like, and specifically you can end up being accused of having an ulterior motive But maybe you underood that and think I'm arguing in bad faith. From your perspective, that may well appear to be the case, I don't think I can demonstrate otherwise.
- mrkramer 1y ago
  It's not about race, it is about personality, even cats have different personalities which are shaped by their genes[0]. Evolution uses variation so you can adapt and survive but variation is experimental meaning its results are nor perfect nor conclusive. [0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250626-how-loud-a-cat-meows-might-be-down-to-their-genes https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250626-how-loud-a-cat-m... This article was on HN frontpage 2 days ago.
dlisboa 1y ago
I’ve watched movies on and read about countless serial killers. Almost always they came from horrible families, with abuse, neglect, different types of punishment. Also it seems there never is any type of psychological follow up of them as kids when they started to act “weird”. So most are just forgotten people who were never looked at mentally. At least I the 70s, I don’t know today. I think there a couple cases where that’s not true but rare exceptions.
- mrkramer 1y ago
  For example John Wayne Gacy underwent psychiatric evaluation and "Two doctors concluded he had an antisocial personality disorder (the clinical term for sociopathy and/or psychopathy), was unlikely to benefit from treatment, and that his behavior pattern was likely to bring him into repeated conflict with society. The doctors concluded Gacy was mentally competent to stand trial[0]." After that he was granted parole and released from prison and in the following years he murdered more than 30 young boys. So yea, the system failed us all. Although it is hard to evaluate and predict who will turn out to be maniac killer out of thousands and thousands of psychiatric cases health system deals with. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy#:~:text=Two%20doctors%20concluded,to%20stand%20trial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy#:~:text=Two%20...
  - dlisboa 1y ago
    Gacy is a good example of failure of the judicial system. He also came from a broken family and his father was violent and drunk. He was imprisoned but homosexual sex crimes weren’t taken seriously even against minors. This allowed him to leave prison with almost no time served. I wouldn’t blame the psychiatrists here. We see that same pattern with Dahmer where the police literally released one of his victims into his custody and joked about the young teen being Dahmer’s “boyfriend”.
jama211 1y ago
Did you read the article or are you just responding to the headline? The article argues that no lead probably didn’t matter. I agree that the headline is terrible because - as you’ve shown - the headline gets taken as the fact despite the question mark at the end… but we should still be better than this.

emmelaich 1y ago

Parents may have been affected by lead as well.

Y_Y 1y ago

I'd be careful about associating a genetic cause with high-level behaviors. I don't have a good argument either way, but it seems to come close to a political third rail where you can ascribe patterns of behavior to genetically defined(-ish) groups like "race".

exe34 1y ago
I'm always suspicious of people who advocate this kind of caution - I can never trust if you are saying or withholding information in case it might lead to outcomes you don't like. Reality should take precedence. If X does Y, let's find out how to help X, not pretend X doesn't exist.
- nkrisc 1y ago
  Because it's rarely ever as simple as X causes Y, yet it will be taken out of context and concluded out of context that X in fact causes Y, thus we must round up everyone exhibiting X to prevent Y.
  - exe34 1y ago
    And that's how you make it worse for everyone, because now some X still cause Y, but Z doesn't trust you anymore and will start hurting random X anyway.
- Y_Y 1y ago
  You may have misunderstood, I'm advocating caution on the basis that naive discussion of this kind of topic can attract attention from people who associate it with outcomes they don't like, and specifically you can end up being accused of having an ulterior motive But maybe you underood that and think I'm arguing in bad faith. From your perspective, that may well appear to be the case, I don't think I can demonstrate otherwise.
mrkramer 1y ago
It's not about race, it is about personality, even cats have different personalities which are shaped by their genes[0]. Evolution uses variation so you can adapt and survive but variation is experimental meaning its results are nor perfect nor conclusive. [0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250626-how-loud-a-cat-meows-might-be-down-to-their-genes https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250626-how-loud-a-cat-m... This article was on HN frontpage 2 days ago.

dlisboa 1y ago

I’ve watched movies on and read about countless serial killers. Almost always they came from horrible families, with abuse, neglect, different types of punishment. Also it seems there never is any type of psychological follow up of them as kids when they started to act “weird”. So most are just forgotten people who were never looked at mentally. At least I the 70s, I don’t know today. I think there a couple cases where that’s not true but rare exceptions.

mrkramer 1y ago
For example John Wayne Gacy underwent psychiatric evaluation and "Two doctors concluded he had an antisocial personality disorder (the clinical term for sociopathy and/or psychopathy), was unlikely to benefit from treatment, and that his behavior pattern was likely to bring him into repeated conflict with society. The doctors concluded Gacy was mentally competent to stand trial[0]." After that he was granted parole and released from prison and in the following years he murdered more than 30 young boys. So yea, the system failed us all. Although it is hard to evaluate and predict who will turn out to be maniac killer out of thousands and thousands of psychiatric cases health system deals with. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy#:~:text=Two%20doctors%20concluded,to%20stand%20trial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy#:~:text=Two%20...
- dlisboa 1y ago
  Gacy is a good example of failure of the judicial system. He also came from a broken family and his father was violent and drunk. He was imprisoned but homosexual sex crimes weren’t taken seriously even against minors. This allowed him to leave prison with almost no time served. I wouldn’t blame the psychiatrists here. We see that same pattern with Dahmer where the police literally released one of his victims into his custody and joked about the young teen being Dahmer’s “boyfriend”.

jama211 1y ago

Did you read the article or are you just responding to the headline? The article argues that no lead probably didn’t matter. I agree that the headline is terrible because - as you’ve shown - the headline gets taken as the fact despite the question mark at the end… but we should still be better than this.