What’s relevant is that someone capable of getting into a Ph.D. bio-science program had such a strong preference for mass murder that he was willing to spend the rest of his life in jail to achieve this ends.
I would expect to find people with very skewed senses of reality (as seen in schizophrenia). I don’t consider that the same as a preference. What’s currently called antisocial personality disorder, also known as psychopathy or sociopathy, I might consider more a preference (in that it deals with how they value other people’s wellbeing, not from their perception of reality).
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone who attacked strangers for no apparent reason was experiencing delusions or hallucinations. I would be surprised to hear that someone with sociopathy did so, because they normally hurt people only for personal gain, and there’s nothing to gain from opening fire on a crowd.
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone who attacked strangers for no apparent reason was experiencing delusions or hallucinations. I would be surprised to hear that someone with sociopathy did so, because they normally hurt people only for personal gain, and there’s nothing to gain from opening fire on a crowd.
If you know that someone is a mass murderer, it should give you a high posterior probability assessment for mental illness, but not a high probability assessment for schizophrenia.
Most sociopaths are not mass murderers or serial killers, but as best I can determine (I’ve found articles that allude to it, but none that give an actual percentage, and wikipedia pages for individual mass murderers seem to support it) most mass murderers and serial killers are sociopaths. However, most mass murderers and serial killers are not schizophrenics, although it seems that a significantly greater proportion of serial killers and mass murderers are schizophrenics than the proportion of the population in non mass murderers or serial killers.
Sorry, you’re right. I spent last year working on a psych ward, and I agree that most people with schizophrenia are unlikely to hurt others.
My guess is that mass murderers with some ideological or practical reason for choosing the people they murder are more likely to be sociopaths. I can’t think of a reason to target people at a movie theater, which makes me put a higher prior on delusions or hallucinations in this case.
Well, given the specific evidence that the culprit dressed up and identified himself as the Joker and informed the police that he had booby trapped his apartment, I’d assign a high probability of schizophrenia, but I wouldn’t write off preference based reasons for a sociopath to gun people down at a movie theater in general. It could be motivated by a fantasy rather than a delusion of the perpetrator. Winston Moseley, for instance, sexually assaulted and killed Kitty Genovese and two other women because he had violent sexual fantasies. Alyssa Bustamante (who I read about recently while looking up information on young female murderers,) committed premeditated murder by her own testimony because she wanted to know what it felt like. Personally, I sometimes find myself frustrated at the ineptitude of both terrorists and the Department of Homeland Security, and have thoughts along the lines of “that’s pathetic, I could show them how it’s done,” (I consider this to be one of the manifestations of my imp of the perverse,) but I’m not inclined to do it because I don’t want to terrorize the population. If I were a sociopath, on the other hand, I might actually be tempted to do it.
Other people’s preferences are not necessarily going to be relatable. Even if there’s no potential for profit or cause for vengeance, for the right sort of person, murder could be a thrill activity, like skydiving (another example of something people do for pleasure that other people can’t imagine why one would ever want to do it.)
I would expect to find people with very skewed senses of reality (as seen in schizophrenia). I don’t consider that the same as a preference. What’s currently called antisocial personality disorder, also known as psychopathy or sociopathy, I might consider more a preference (in that it deals with how they value other people’s wellbeing, not from their perception of reality).
Thanks for the serious response. I see what you mean. My unease about these kind of explanations is the asymmetry between the kinds of terms used to explain why someone would choose to commit a horrible act and the kinds of terms used to explain why someone wouldn’t choose to commit a horrible act. After rethinking it though, I agree that making reference to beliefs in addition to preferences does add explanatory power, but I’m not very certain of this. After all, we make reference to the same physical laws to explain why a bridge stays up as when it falls down; but when we explain “normal” behavior, we talk about preferences and constraints, without saying anything about having non-schizophrenia.
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone who attacked strangers for no apparent reason was experiencing delusions or hallucinations. I would be surprised to hear that someone with sociopathy did so, because they normally hurt people only for personal gain, and there’s nothing to gain from opening fire on a crowd.
And yet, fame is a very common preference among humans and this guy is now world famous (he even has his own thread on Less Wrong!). Depending on how strong his fame-preference is, we can’t rule out that these tactics weren’t instrumentally rational in his particular case.
Hearing voices is not a preference.
Maybe, IDK. Do you never hear voices? I hear a voice (it sounds very similar to my normal speaking voice, but not exactly). As far as I can tell, this is just what linguistic thinking feels like from the inside. I can even make it go away by using my visual imagination, doing strenuous physical exercise, or practicing mindfulness meditation. The extent that I do make it go away seems to be determined by my personal preferences and the constraints imposed by my environment.
After all, we make reference to the same physical laws to explain why a bridge stays up as when it falls down; but when we explain “normal” behavior, we talk about preferences and constraints, without saying anything about having non-schizophrenia.
I don’t understand the analogy. Explanations why a bridge stays up usually point out different physical laws than explanations why it had fallen down. You rarely hear “the bridge stays up because the construction hasn’t corroded and the engineers made no mistake”, unless there is a reason to suspect something wrong with the bridge.
This is a good question for one to ask one’s self. That said, juliawise nailed it. If I had seen your reply before juliawise posted, I would have said, “‘Disorder’ imples the individual’s map doesn’t match the territory (well ok, consensus reality) in conspicuous ways, e.g., schizophrenia with paranoid delusions.”
The killer apparently identified himself to police as “the Joker” (with hair dyed red or orange instead of the comic book character’s green). He also rigged his apartment with booby traps but then told police about them. I’m not getting a strong sense of coherent goal-seeking here, in spite of the reported fact that the venue of the attacks was apparently chosen for maximum killing.
I’m not sure if that’s surprising. I’ve seen somewhere that psycopaths have higher than average IQ, and there were some serial killers who certainly could have managed a PhD program… Wait, Kaczynski?
Actually I’d be more scared of a Kaczynski than of Holmes. Holmes seems to enjoy his mass murder up close and personal. Kaczynski was driven by ideology; that type seems much more dangerous.
Actually I’d be more scared of a Kaczynski than of Holmes.
Kaczynski killed 3 people in 20 years. Holmes killed 12 people in a few minutes. I can’t easily get away from an estimate that I am around 4X as likely to suffer from someone like Holmes than from someone like Kaczynski, and so if I had my fear under any sort of rational control and thought it was helpful in lowering my chances of harm, I would fear Holmes more, myself.
I suppose it depends on whether you expect to be the target of someone’s ideology.
Kaczynski targeted mostly people in technical fields (science professors, grad students, and people in the computer business). Anders Breivik, who copied parts of Kaczynski’s manifesto in his own, targeted mostly members of a particular political party.
Why is the category of ‘capable of getting into a Ph.D. bio-science program’ relevant? I can kindof see where you are going with this; it’s easy to say that someone who can design something that could hurt a lot of people has better access and is therefore more likely to do so.
But while this is evidence that someone of the category you’ve named can want to engage in mass murder, it isn’t evidence that he had better access or was more likely to do so given that he may have had better access. In actual fact, since the harm here largely involved a firearm and we don’t know if the canister was even related to his bio-science program you should be updating downward on someone in that category relying on a biochemical agent rather than just using a gun. You have evidence that, even with a (perhaps strong) bio-science background people who engage in mass murder for what appear to be their own preferences just use a damn gun like everyone else with the same preference.
People who kill with guns aren’t trying to kill lots of people. Mass murderers prefer armies, or if armies aren’t available, bombs. A backpack-sized IED have killed more people than a gun.
Generally I agree, for certain values of “a lot of people” and with the restrictions of a given person at a given time. Fortunately, not all mass murderers are optimal mass murderers.
Very fortunately, there have been very, very few optimized murderers. The most effective ones use armies and countries or religions, while the ones who use bombs are many orders of magnitude lower in effectiveness.
Part of the lesson is that guns in the hands of citizens helps prevent mass murderers, even though it facilitates group murders.
What’s relevant is that someone capable of getting into a Ph.D. bio-science program had such a strong preference for mass murder that he was willing to spend the rest of his life in jail to achieve this ends.
My best guess is that this individual has an organic mental disorder, e.g., schizophrenia with paranoid delusions.
What possible experiences would you anticipate if the first statement was true that you wouldn’t also expect if the second statement was true?
I would expect to find people with very skewed senses of reality (as seen in schizophrenia). I don’t consider that the same as a preference. What’s currently called antisocial personality disorder, also known as psychopathy or sociopathy, I might consider more a preference (in that it deals with how they value other people’s wellbeing, not from their perception of reality).
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone who attacked strangers for no apparent reason was experiencing delusions or hallucinations. I would be surprised to hear that someone with sociopathy did so, because they normally hurt people only for personal gain, and there’s nothing to gain from opening fire on a crowd.
Hearing voices is not a preference.
People with schizophrenia usually do not attack people for no reason either. The independent association of schizophrenia with violent behavior is low, and most of the difference in rates of violence between schizophrenics and non schizophrenics seems to be attributable to the higher rate of substance abuse among schizophrenics.
If you know that someone is a mass murderer, it should give you a high posterior probability assessment for mental illness, but not a high probability assessment for schizophrenia.
Most sociopaths are not mass murderers or serial killers, but as best I can determine (I’ve found articles that allude to it, but none that give an actual percentage, and wikipedia pages for individual mass murderers seem to support it) most mass murderers and serial killers are sociopaths. However, most mass murderers and serial killers are not schizophrenics, although it seems that a significantly greater proportion of serial killers and mass murderers are schizophrenics than the proportion of the population in non mass murderers or serial killers.
Sorry, you’re right. I spent last year working on a psych ward, and I agree that most people with schizophrenia are unlikely to hurt others.
My guess is that mass murderers with some ideological or practical reason for choosing the people they murder are more likely to be sociopaths. I can’t think of a reason to target people at a movie theater, which makes me put a higher prior on delusions or hallucinations in this case.
Well, given the specific evidence that the culprit dressed up and identified himself as the Joker and informed the police that he had booby trapped his apartment, I’d assign a high probability of schizophrenia, but I wouldn’t write off preference based reasons for a sociopath to gun people down at a movie theater in general. It could be motivated by a fantasy rather than a delusion of the perpetrator. Winston Moseley, for instance, sexually assaulted and killed Kitty Genovese and two other women because he had violent sexual fantasies. Alyssa Bustamante (who I read about recently while looking up information on young female murderers,) committed premeditated murder by her own testimony because she wanted to know what it felt like. Personally, I sometimes find myself frustrated at the ineptitude of both terrorists and the Department of Homeland Security, and have thoughts along the lines of “that’s pathetic, I could show them how it’s done,” (I consider this to be one of the manifestations of my imp of the perverse,) but I’m not inclined to do it because I don’t want to terrorize the population. If I were a sociopath, on the other hand, I might actually be tempted to do it.
Other people’s preferences are not necessarily going to be relatable. Even if there’s no potential for profit or cause for vengeance, for the right sort of person, murder could be a thrill activity, like skydiving (another example of something people do for pleasure that other people can’t imagine why one would ever want to do it.)
Thanks for the serious response. I see what you mean. My unease about these kind of explanations is the asymmetry between the kinds of terms used to explain why someone would choose to commit a horrible act and the kinds of terms used to explain why someone wouldn’t choose to commit a horrible act. After rethinking it though, I agree that making reference to beliefs in addition to preferences does add explanatory power, but I’m not very certain of this. After all, we make reference to the same physical laws to explain why a bridge stays up as when it falls down; but when we explain “normal” behavior, we talk about preferences and constraints, without saying anything about having non-schizophrenia.
And yet, fame is a very common preference among humans and this guy is now world famous (he even has his own thread on Less Wrong!). Depending on how strong his fame-preference is, we can’t rule out that these tactics weren’t instrumentally rational in his particular case.
Maybe, IDK. Do you never hear voices? I hear a voice (it sounds very similar to my normal speaking voice, but not exactly). As far as I can tell, this is just what linguistic thinking feels like from the inside. I can even make it go away by using my visual imagination, doing strenuous physical exercise, or practicing mindfulness meditation. The extent that I do make it go away seems to be determined by my personal preferences and the constraints imposed by my environment.
I don’t understand the analogy. Explanations why a bridge stays up usually point out different physical laws than explanations why it had fallen down. You rarely hear “the bridge stays up because the construction hasn’t corroded and the engineers made no mistake”, unless there is a reason to suspect something wrong with the bridge.
This is a good question for one to ask one’s self. That said, juliawise nailed it. If I had seen your reply before juliawise posted, I would have said, “‘Disorder’ imples the individual’s map doesn’t match the territory (well ok, consensus reality) in conspicuous ways, e.g., schizophrenia with paranoid delusions.”
The killer apparently identified himself to police as “the Joker” (with hair dyed red or orange instead of the comic book character’s green). He also rigged his apartment with booby traps but then told police about them. I’m not getting a strong sense of coherent goal-seeking here, in spite of the reported fact that the venue of the attacks was apparently chosen for maximum killing.
Yeah, I see it now. I’m pretty sure I would anticipate them having a significantly more faulty web of belief than non-serial killers.
If you think that the venue was chosen for maximum killing, you haven’t considered what someone who was optimizing for killing would do.
Another possibility is that Cyan and James Holmes are not as creative or intelligent as Decius.
http://www.amazon.com/Schizophrenia-A-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802216/
I’m not sure if that’s surprising. I’ve seen somewhere that psycopaths have higher than average IQ, and there were some serial killers who certainly could have managed a PhD program… Wait, Kaczynski?
Actually I’d be more scared of a Kaczynski than of Holmes. Holmes seems to enjoy his mass murder up close and personal. Kaczynski was driven by ideology; that type seems much more dangerous.
Kaczynski killed 3 people in 20 years. Holmes killed 12 people in a few minutes. I can’t easily get away from an estimate that I am around 4X as likely to suffer from someone like Holmes than from someone like Kaczynski, and so if I had my fear under any sort of rational control and thought it was helpful in lowering my chances of harm, I would fear Holmes more, myself.
I suppose it depends on whether you expect to be the target of someone’s ideology.
Kaczynski targeted mostly people in technical fields (science professors, grad students, and people in the computer business). Anders Breivik, who copied parts of Kaczynski’s manifesto in his own, targeted mostly members of a particular political party.
Why is the category of ‘capable of getting into a Ph.D. bio-science program’ relevant? I can kindof see where you are going with this; it’s easy to say that someone who can design something that could hurt a lot of people has better access and is therefore more likely to do so.
But while this is evidence that someone of the category you’ve named can want to engage in mass murder, it isn’t evidence that he had better access or was more likely to do so given that he may have had better access. In actual fact, since the harm here largely involved a firearm and we don’t know if the canister was even related to his bio-science program you should be updating downward on someone in that category relying on a biochemical agent rather than just using a gun. You have evidence that, even with a (perhaps strong) bio-science background people who engage in mass murder for what appear to be their own preferences just use a damn gun like everyone else with the same preference.
People who kill with guns aren’t trying to kill lots of people. Mass murderers prefer armies, or if armies aren’t available, bombs. A backpack-sized IED have killed more people than a gun.
Generally I agree, for certain values of “a lot of people” and with the restrictions of a given person at a given time. Fortunately, not all mass murderers are optimal mass murderers.
Very fortunately, there have been very, very few optimized murderers. The most effective ones use armies and countries or religions, while the ones who use bombs are many orders of magnitude lower in effectiveness.
Part of the lesson is that guns in the hands of citizens helps prevent mass murderers, even though it facilitates group murders.