It’s those lazy millennials. They just don’t have the patience or dedication.
Millennials owning their murder house in this economy?
Or massive amounts of lead poisoning
Nah. It’s an industrialized, mass-produced economy now. Before the 90s, killing people was a bespoke trade. Mass murder was a one-on-one kind of transaction, each murder personally crafted for the victim by a specialist. The really industrial scale deaths at the time were the stuff of nation-states.
The transition of mass murders to the private sector as heralded by Atlanta, Waco, Columbine and Oklahoma City coincided¹ with the Clinton admin and the advent of NAFTA, which promoted mass industrialization of heretofore domestic industries².
Ever since, it’s been death dealt on an ever expanding scale on an j cident-by-incident basis. A sort of Moore’s Law of death and disillusionment.
I hate myself for even penning this diatribe, but the situation is so bleak it feels like no depth of dark humor will reallybshock anyone anymore.
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- Correlation does not imply causation
- This is such a badly formed argument even for satire, I’m embarrassed
I thought it amusing! Keep on keepin’ on OP.
Lead poisoning is still the prevalent theory, I think. It fucks up brain development in ways that make kids tend to sociopathic personalities.
I’m always glad to hear more people know about lead poisoning. It makes a lot of sense.
I’m curious, you got anything light reading you can recommend to ease into the topic, please pm me. I’d appreciate, if it wasn’t another post which basically recites the content of another post, and so on - far too much out there these days)
Here are a few. Most people think it’s just in the water or lead paint. This first link is about the air.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/07/violent-crime-lead-poisoning-british-export
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-20961241
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6068756/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/08/lead-poisoning-crisis-us-children
No. It’s not possible to find light reading about lead.
It’s called The Lead-Crime Hypothesis, and you can find vetted info on it, here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis?wprov=sfti1).
Here’s a recent meta-analysis: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046222000667
Society has not yet realized how important it is to clean up this issue. But we’re getting there.
In the book Freakonomics they made the argument that the sudden decline in crime in the late 90’s appeared to be tied to Roe v. Wade. I wonder if this is similar.
I thought you were being sarcastic but there is a book called Freakonomics and it does suggest as you did. Check the “Criticism” section for details.
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Weird most people I know read fiction for fun.
A large percentage of serial killers suffered from childhood abuse and trauma. Kids in the foster system are often abused and traumatized. I can see it.
Now they just do mass shootings.
That was specifically covered in he article.
There’s almost zero overlap in motivations between mass/spree killers, and serial killers.
I tend to agree but I don’t know if we can say that for sure.
Incels who want media attention is one way you could frame both types of killers.
I’m not sure that you can safely label serial killers as incels per se. BTK was married, IIRC. Ted Bundy def. dated. John Gacy was a pedophile (more accurately a hebephile, but close enough).
Many of them were misogynistic for sure, although that’s not necessarily a motive when you have serial killers that are gay or pedophiles (Gacy, Wayne Williams–believed to have been the Atlanta Child Murderer–and Dahmer). Incels seem to be much more likely to be spree or mass murderers; the idea of an incel where all women collectively share the blame seems to be a fairly new idea. And a lot of mass murderers aren’t related to sex a all, like the people that have been trying to start racial holy wars by murdering non-white people.
I think the lead poisoning theory is a bit overblown, personally. There’s something to it, but “all the serial killers were just brain damaged” is I think trying to put a very neat little bow around a complex package.
I think a lot of it is simply that it’s harder to get away with murder now. I mean not to make it sound too easy but in 1982 there were a lot of ways to kill someone that basically could not be tracked back to you as long as you weren’t literally seen doing it. People aren’t stupid, they know this, and they change their patterns around it.
Additionally, I’m sure that (potentially as a result of this) we have more spree/mass killings now, and a decent deal of spree killings have a component of sexual frustration to them as many serial killers had.
Agreed. There was a would-be serial killer that popped up in Stockton a year or two ago. Dude would just pop up and shoot someone from out of the shadows. He made it to victim number four before a camera caught him and the cops caught up to him. In 1980, this dude would have been a national fucking terror, but he barely made the local news in 2023.
I figure it’s mostly the electronics angle. Your phone, if you have it with you it’s really obvious if you travel to the area crimes happen. Heck, even not using your phone or other connected electronics can indicate something. Your car seen on surveillance cameras which are everywhere, from private home’s doorbells to commercial cameras to municipal roadway cameras. Your internet search history of maybe the victim or the location. Automatic toll payments. You’d have to live an almost completely disconnected life and take serious measures to avoid detection, and even then it’s not a sure thing.
Yep. The Moscow Murders seem to be a good example of this. College student seemingly took a lot of precaution to stab 4 people to death in their rental home, left almost nothing behind, turned his cell phone off during the crime - but he’s still dinged because earlier records show him basically scoping out the house in days prior based off his cell phone location.
I should say it’s not yet stated in a court of law whether this student actually did the killings, and courts do get those decisions wrong - but even still it’s a good example of how technology can track you essentially all the time
Sounds to me like there’s a serial serial killer killer on the loose!!
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War on drugs shifted police focus from real crimes, to you guessed it, drugs. I bet some serial killers go under the radar due to shitty police work.
“Nah those murders aren’t related, let’s go do a no knock raid on shitty evidence. Maybe plant some drugs? That always cheers ya up Captain!” - Cops, probably
lot of comments in here talking about how they’re just doing their kills some other way: cops, mass shootings, not getting caught (this one is the most braindead). But everyone is ignoring how we’ve largely eliminated regular lead exposure that used to be the norm. that shit makes you go fucking insane.
Could it be that not as many potential serial killers are being born? I believe there is a link between criminality and childhood abuse. Less unwanted kids are being born. Less abuse. Less criminals of all kinds, including serial killers.
I think also it’s because it’s just people are so easily tracked now.
CSI type pop culture television has taught basically everyone on the planet that trace evidence always gets left behind and nobody can hide from DNA. Nowadays through genealogy they don’t even need a direct DNA match.
The Long Island serial killer case that broke recently is a good example, they got evidence out of pizza crust he left in a garbage can outside his office. Evil piece of shit he is.
I also hate people that don’t finish the crust.
But podcasts about them have rapidly increased
Yes and I think it’s ridiculous. Like that podcast My Favourite Murder? That’s just insulting to the victims who died terrified and alone, IMO. Might as well have a podcast called My Favourite Rape if they’re going to treat human misery as a spectator sport.
Murder “clearance” rates in the US have been declining for decades, meaning police are solving fewer and fewer murders. Unsolved killings were at record highs in 2023.
Seems to me that there are probably just less serial killers being suspected, investigated, and caught, as police continue to do less and less, rather than there being less serial killers. The United States is now basically the least effective country at solving murders in the industrialized world.
It’s absurd trying to spin police incompetence as a positive thing. Roughly 27% of murders in Oakland, CA are solved for instance. Who knows if there is a serial killer at work with that kind of solve rate?
Are serial killers a 1st world country thing? In my country a third world one only have 1 recorded serial killer and that was in the early 1800s and he was a priest.
No there are others. Like the one that show The Serpent was based on was in Vietnam. I think it’s mostly North America though.
Four of the most prolific serial killers were based in south American countries like Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil etc.
After those, it’s India, China, Pakistan, former Soviet states, Russia and so on.
Hardly first world countries, and especially not when these killings took place.
Those killers’ body counts eclipse all American killers’ by a very significant margin.
Gary Ridgway (the Green River Killer) is the most prominent American serial killer by a mile, but he’s not that “famous” even though he was arrested and convicted rather recently (about 20 years ago).
He is an uninteresting person who is rather stupid, doesn’t do interviews and doesn’t revel in his infamy like the more famous serial killers do or did. He’s almost more akin to a rabid animal as far as public perception goes.
Furthermore, the decline of serial killers, even with more interest and attention than ever, I think is largely attributed to better social safety nets.
As it turns out, it seems that in at least some cases, socialistic policies work surprisingly well.
Reduction in lead exposure plays a huge part.
Everyone keeps saying that. I didn’t know.
Is there actually any scientific consensus on this, or just conjecture.
The lead generation is currently running the country (that I live in). It shows.
Maybe there is a Dexter on the loose…
