/lit/ - Literature

I'm a classic Ripper fan.
Well, actually, "fan" may be a strong word...

Also:
There once was a man named Ed
Who never took a woman to bed
When he wanted to diddle,
he'd cut out the middle
And hang the rest in a shed.

>Who is your "favorite" serial killer, if you have one? Who do you find most interesting, and why?

>Mine is Richard Trenton Chase, but Bundy has been a huge inspiration of mine.

Your fucking crazy, kid...
...But I like it.

I liked Bundy's style; single women, al under 25, not to keen on the Necro thought.
John Wayne Gacy is probably my favourite, he's just pure class. Not only did he dress as a clown, but he had the sense to dissolve the bodies in vats of acid.
Ramirez is cool too, probably gets the creepy award.
Anders Breivik is just a newfag who couldn't manage a routine.
Jack doesn't have enough biographical details.
Does the Manson family count too? I fucking love Charlie.
Fred and Rose: Best couple.. although Ian and Myra come close
Albert Fish: Gained his centurion (100 children)
...and then there's me.

This fellow is quite thorough with his research and references, I do like anything he produces. He also has a serial killer trilogy; including the novels Depraved (about H. H. Holmes), Deranged (Albert Fish), and Deviant (Ed Gein).

Michael Newton's The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers is my favorite resource. It is incredibly well-researched as well as written, and is a must-own for any fan of the writing and analysis on and of murder and murderers.

>>2762432
God, the Mason family was such a hack.

>>2762435
Why? The Manson family were awesome.

>>2762439
Ugh. All that hype and then they turned out to be a bunch of backwater nazis that managed to murder some newlyweds and five year olds. I was extremely disappointed. And then the Hakenkreuz on his forehead? Bitch, please.

>>2762429

I love this limerick! Good stuff!

>>2762432
I am also a fan of Charlie's. He is so profound in the nuttiest way. A true transcendentalist, I love it!

>>2762447
Children's rhymes are scary as shit, when you think about it.

Ed Gain, Lizzy Bourden, Hoppa Hoppa Reiter...

>>2762445
He was batshit insane, they just wandered around the desert taking acid. Charles had so much fucking charisma that people gravitated towards him, he even befriended the beatles. And that couple was the famous film director Roman Polanski.

How are they any worse than Richard Trenton Chase? That guy was the worst killer in history. Not only did he thing nazis were trying to kill him, he botched every murder and left bloody fingerprints everywhere.

>>2762465
Yeah? Thompson beat him in spades. Except the murder part (which we can never be too sure of).

I'm not saying he's worst than Chase, I'm just saying he's lame.

>>2762476
>Chase
Great. Now I'm thinking of sexy Australian doctors.

I prefer guys who kidnap people and hold them captive/torture/rape them, as opposed to serial killers.

>>2762465
I admire Chase's primitive behavior; he was disorganized, but obviously not for evasive purposes. He was an objectivist of his kind, there were no rules other than his own, and there were no morals that could question his, for he must have acted in accordance to his impulses.

BAMF.

Also, Gary Heidnik's philosophies interest me. I just enjoy the alternate realities these individuals live in as well as project.

>>2762493
You need to read up on Heidnik, then. You may find him interesting.

He kidnapped vulnerable women, prostitutes, even a young autistic girl; most, if not all, were African-American. He was post-military (honorably discharged), an investor, and started his own church in which he lived. In the basement of this building, he would keep the girls naked and chained, raped them regularly and repeatedly, made them fight for food, would turn them against each other, and would torture them with electricity as well as any other device within reach.

He dug out "the pit" in the center of the cement floor of the basement, and on one occasion filled it with water. He had the girls' chains linked, and had his favorite slave applying the exposed end of an extension cord to the chains of the other girls. He dismembered the bodies of the girls who did die, cooked some, froze the remainders, and boiled the heads.

Pic related, it is "the pit".

>>2762500
This is the novel about him that I own, and it is very well-researched. I enjoyed it.

>>2762500
>Objectivism

Son, you are bordering on a ban there.

I always found psychological torture more interesting. The victims being terrified rather than someone being terrifying.

Since we're already hit the dubious mental health high bar in this thread, I have a question.

I've been thinking one of the scenarios I've got is that this guy gets locked into an oil drum with a corpse, there he is left for days. It's more about the psychological trauma than the physical.

What do you guys think?

>>2762536
Read it out of the context of what has been shoved down your il/lit/erate throat. ;)

>>2762549
Great story idea! It could also be shortened, chronologically, and written along with the protagonist's thought process. I would love to read that.

>>2762552
Yes, my favorite part is after he's rescued. Psychosis, Night terrors, psuedo-hallucinations... I just don't know if that's... right. You know? Believable to the point that it's not just cliche... whatever.

>>2762563
It could even be adapted into a film, and then you can make some real money. I could see such a story being produced into something extremely visually striking and emotionally gripping.

>>2762570
Oh, you!

>>2762578
Hahah, do you write horror or psychological thrillers often? Again, I would really like to read that. That is not a plot idea I would like to see go to waste, and one I would hate to steal. ;)

Do you have a website or blog that features any of your writing?

>>2762582
No, I don't, sorry. To any of it. But maybe I'll give it a go. I'm just always skeptical about how plausible it all is.

But now... BRB writing screenplay. This is going to be awesome.

>>2762593
I just realized it's going to look like it was made in the early 90s. Huh.

So, I have asked for your suggestions, and have provided only my own. Does anyone else here read non-fiction concentrated on individuals?

>>2762618
Sorry, I don't, but here's a list.

http://crime.about.com/od/books/tp/truecrime1.htm

>>2762645
Thank you for the reference, this is a very good list!

>>2762618
Read Mr Nice by Howard Marks. its a crime autobiography:

>Young British dude
>Very friendly and highly intelligent
>Gets accepted to Oxford uni to study Physics
>Experiments with drugs
>Graduates and briefly teaches Physics
>Makes spy friends
>Starts importing industrial quantities of cannabis
>Soon becomes millionaire
>Becomes biggest cannabis smuggler in history
>Gets arrested in the UK
>Pays a random Mexican to stand in court and say he works for Mexican intelligence
>Gets the case dropped because Mexico wouldn't deny that he was a spy
>Starts working with the IRA
>Tricks the IRA into smuggling his weed by making them think they are smuggling guns


I wont give any more away, but not only is Marks a badass motherfucker, he is a really calm peaceful guy who is hilarious and can write his ass off. One of the best books I have ever read.

>>2762673
I've got one (2in1 for fucking 2 euro, man) by Robert Sabbag. Smokescreen and Snowblind. Both pretty awesome. Basically the same as yours, except...
"The scammer's bible!" - Howard Marks
I recommend it, but it's not about murders... but there are some pretty brutal deaths in it. And it's hilarious.

>>2762673
Thank you, sir!

>>2762688
The Scammer's Bible! seems super interesting, definitely something I would like on my reference shelf.

Something I've always been curious about is whether younger people and people my age who are getting into psychology would ever push for a post-structuralist understanding of the field. I know, that many of the psychologists I've encountered seem to have understandings of the individual that directly conflict with post-structuralism. Either that, or they buy in to one of the newer divisions of the field which also don't inherently relate to post-structuralism. While I know that the idea of a world without "meta-narratives" could perhaps be detrimental to a field whose foundations are upon curing illnesses and studying human behavior or nature (which would be hard if there were no illnesses to cure or nature to study).

The reason I ask this is because, yes many of the younger people I've encountered who display interest in the field tell me that it was serial killers who got them interested. Not ones they had actually met, but Hollywood characterizations like Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates, or ones they had encountered on wikipedia........

>>2762776
While I understand how much fun it is to talk about are favorite serial killers and the caricatures media has given them, almost to the point of fandom (Movies have also been made about this, see: Natural Born Killers, Man Bites Dog, etc.). I also see this as a stagnation in the field, as many of its older members became interested in it based on studying "weird" individuals (thanks to Freud), it makes me wonder if we can progress past this into an understanding of psychology where the individual does not exist, or is at least understood to be more complicated than the way it behaves or thinks.

I see this "identity rule" over psychology as showing extreme forms of both collectivism (as it treats these individuals as part of a whole in which they stand out and can be treated for the greater good), but also individualism (as it remains persistent in treating them as individuals). I can't see psychology lasting on such imbalanced foundations, it needs to be revamped.

Thoughts?

>>2762776
And not Jack the Ripper? Really?

>>2762776
The first book I ever read was when I was three. It was about a talking train. (on the topic of your final paragraph)

Sigh, bump.

"The Ashes of Waco" about cult leader David Koresh
not a serial killer ofc but he was a strange guy too

>>2762781
>if we can progress past this into an understanding of psychology where the individual does not exist

Will literally never happen

>>2765053
I'm not sure. I believe it's possible to express people with algorithms.

>>2765060
The you should fuck off the /sci/ and continue searching fervently for that equation that expresses the ineffable, you fucking dumb cunt

3/10, not even mad, just world-weary

>>2765063
>fuck off the /sci/

wut

>>2765053
>if we can progress past this into an understanding of psychology where the individual does not exist, or is at least understood to be more complicated than the way it behaves or thinks.

The second part was more important. I was just using the "does not exist" part to illustrate.

>>2765071
I understood, I'm telling you it's not possible. The only knowledge we have is that of the self; it's all psychology is based on. Anything other than extrapolations on things we experience as the self can never be verified and as such are of no value.

>>2765063
What's wrong with you, cupcake? You were so butthurt you couldn't even write a post properly.

>>2765060
>I believe it's possible to express people with algorithms.

Not only that; perfect simulations of humans could also be made. Carbon copies whose behaviour patterns are indistinguishable from that of conventional people. It's a rather beautiful notion to think that biological organisms could function identically using just mathematical equations.

>>2765092
>It's a rather beautiful notion to think that biological organisms could function identically using just mathematical equations.
It's a rather life denying notion, if anything.

>>2765075
I'm not saying we should do away entirely with the idea of self in psychology. What I'm mainly pointing to is the fact that the current generation of aspiring psychologists base their interest in the field on flimsy notions of the self and identity. It is notions illness based on identity that make up much of the DSM. This is illustrated by the Rosenhan experiments.

I suppose what I'm really talking about is anti-PSYCHIATRY, but I don't think it is possible to deny the profound relationship the two fields have.

>>2765101
>It's a rather life denying notion, if anything.
Are you not comfortable without a God and soul?

>>2765114
Those things are also pretty life denying at the best of times. Although, the idea of a soul is kinda the thing you've fallen into. You've become so enamored by the idea of a universe governed by mathmatical equations, the true reality for you is mathematical equations, I guess like Platonic forms. They're just human abstractions though, that have some resemblance to reality, not something which necessarily governs it.

>>2765092

>rather beautiful

"grossly naive"?

>>2765125
>hat have some resemblance to reality, not something which necessarily governs it.
But there is nothing else. We have mathematics to explain the processes of everything, but it can also act as a perfect substitute. Why wouldn't you regard AI as sentient if it was indistinguishable from a biological organism?

A computer program that perfectly replicated neural activity, had access to the same stimuli and subsequently behaved exactly the same as its biological counterpart is just as valid as a biological clone.


>>2765127
Thank you for your contribution.

>>2765145
>A computer program that perfectly replicated neural activity
By what measure?

>>2765125
What I was getting at was the relevance to psychology. Such a system, albeit 'artificial' could provide a perfect mapping of the full spectrum of neural functions.


A certain personality trait which is observably different in two people could have an infinite number of observable intermediate states; Imagine a variable volume control - In the two human subjects we have 2 and 7, but we could(and no doubt will) have every number in between to however many decimal places we want. I'm grossly oversimplifying, of course. - We would need a perfect map of the entire neural network for any minor trait.

This will allow us to test hypothetically with different stimuli and decide the best possible action for however you wanted the human programmed, or 'socially conditioned', and will give a perfect understanding of the variations in human personality. (as long as the individuals genetics are known)

>>2765156
By what measure?
Comparative testing. I guess from a philosophical viewpoint it wall always remain theoretical, but will never fail testing.

>>2765165
Neural networks not only vary between individuals, but also evolve over time. And things like personality traits evolve not only out of neural networks but out of the interactions between the environment and the individual.

>>2765181
>Neural networks not only vary between individuals, but also evolve over time.
Are you referring to ageing, or natural selection? ageing would be accounted for, degenerative ailments like parkinsons could be accounted for too. Anything can be predicted if you have the variables.
Natural selection is interesting. I'm not sure how random mutation would factor in to a technological race if humanity were wiped out. I'm pretty sure they would choose to decommission natural selection in favour of their own enhancement. Natural selection is irrelevant if you have the human counterpart there to model from though.

>And things like personality traits evolve not only out of neural networks but out of the interactions between the environment and the individual.
I know. I'm sure I said earlier about having access to stimuli; you would need to feed the program with exactly the same sensory input.
Once you have a fixed computer model of an individual human it will only be identical for the instant it is created, as time passes they would grow more distinguishable as they are subjected to different environmental factors.

We would be able to transcend the limitations of biology though. We could factor in the most extreme variations of humanity into a single model which, would be capable of turning off functions to mimic a specific individual.

>>2765202
One of the strengths of neural networks is in how they form in an ad-hoc manner and then optimise. So when I try and play the violin, a number of neurons will fire, a number which decreases as I practice playing over time (learning a skill). Depending on how I've approached the problem of learning to play the violin, the neural network will form and develop differently. This is one reason why it's better to talk about neural correlates rather than trying to map complex social processes to neurons.