Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?
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@anotherusername said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
Note that "serial killer" is defined as someone who kills repeatedly, but spread out over some considerable length of time. Otherwise, it's considered a mass killing; e.g. James Holmes does not qualify as a serial killer because he killed a bunch of people in one shooting; that's a mass killing, not a serial killing, if we're using the correct definitions.
Also, this point is moot as James Holmes isn't on the list
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@wharrgarbl that was a side note, not a "score a point for me, bitches" note.
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@wharrgarbl said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@anotherusername he is more like a parallel killer
Can't find the strip right now, but that joke came up on Schlock Mercenary a while back.
"Serial killer? No, if anything, he's massively parallel!"
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@wharrgarbl also, I was responding to your implication that the attention given to criminals by the media would motivate people to become serial killers.
I think that some mass killers tend to do it at least partly for the notoriety, but I doubt that many serial killers care that much about it. And since we're not talking about mass killers, I don't think your point about media attention was applicable. James Holmes probably did do it partly for the attention, but as you said, he's not on the list.
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@masonwheeler said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
Can't find the strip right now, but that joke came up on Schlock Mercenary a while back.
I don't remember that one... But then I'm only up to 2005 at the moment.
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@dcon Yeah, it's a lot more recent than that.
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@anotherusername said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
Just looking at the top two numbers on that table -- US and England -- yeah, the difference looks huge, but you have to consider that the population of the US is way, way larger than the population of England.
Presumably you used present day population, which doesn't make sense for historical killers.
Oh, also, USA! USA! USA!
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@anotherusername said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
t is far more likely that our criminal system does a better job of correlating patterns between separate murders, which leads them to trace them to the same individual; other countries might eventually catch the perpetrator for one of his murders without ever discovering that he's responsible for others. Also the U.S. probably keeps better statistics and records.
I think I posted this (or another article about the same thing) recently:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-02-08/serial-killers-should-fear-this-algorithm
Unless they go around popularizing their kills it's really easy for no one to realize there's a serial killer involved.
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@boomzilla if the population growth was the same everywhere, it wouldn't skew the numbers very much. If we had (accurate!) historical records going back for very much longer in some places than we have in others, then that should be expected to skew the numbers, but I suspect we have more just the highlights -- particularly notorious serial killers -- beyond a certain length of time back in history. So ultimately I doubt that it skews the numbers too much.
Now, population growth is not the same everywhere, so it probably skews the numbers somewhat, but it still gives a more accurate picture than the raw numbers themselves. It would affect the statistics more for countries whose population growth was abnormally high, or abnormally low.
Basically, I think that current population of a region has enough of a correlation to the total number of people who have lived there in recent recorded history that it can be used, as I did, to get better comparisons between rates of serial murders than the raw numbers of serial murders would present.
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Too bad we're not in the , otherwise I would try to draw a lot of far-fetched conclusions from that statistic just to troll @boomzilla. And I'd probably even get upvotes for it. :D
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@anotherusername said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
(I'm assuming that "England" refers to England, not the whole U.K.)
As long as the population and count of killers is using the same geographic basis, it really doesn't matter. (The pop figure appears to be for England.)
I'm much more suspicious of the difference in figures across different European countries. I suspect that there's excessively wide variation in data collection practices (e.g., nobody collected the data in some countries at all for a few decades!) such that I place not very much in the way of trust in them. It'd be much better to use a more consistent baseline, perhaps just over the past 20 years? Also, there may also be inconsistencies about what's classed as a serial killing: differences in the classification of inter-gang warfare could make huge differences there. (Germany might also be low if the figures for serial killers don't include the figures for the DDR. Baseline is important!) Austria looks plain old anomalous. Is there something in the water of Vienna? Or maybe it's the excessive number of wienerschnitzels? ;)
The figures for South Africa, Russia, and India look low. I'm guessing outright underreporting there (probably for local political reasons, not because the central governments in those countries want the underreporting, but rather because it makes the local chief of police look bad otherwise). I suspect that there is over-reporting in the USA (not every multiple murder incident is a serial killing, even if it does bring in more money in federal assistance for the local cops if it is classified as such).
Data says what it says, but mustn't be interpreted to mean more than what it actually says. Not unless you've first taken a course in how to properly tell lies with statistics…
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That can't possibly be true.
There was a period of 5+ years where both Japan and Germany had government-sanctioned serial killers. The Rape of Nanking alone probably outshines the entire US serial killer output.
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@asdf said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
Too bad we're not in the , otherwise I would try to draw a lot of far-fetched conclusions from that statistic just to troll @boomzilla. And I'd probably even get upvotes for it. :D
You would definitely get upvotes.
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@dkf said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
As long as the population and count of killers is using the same geographic
Well, yeah. That was the point. I was trying to select the geographic region that exactly matched what they drew their statistics from. "England" isn't really a country, so it seems out of place in a list of countries, but it said England so that's what I went with.
The vast majority of GBians actually live in England anyway, so it's not a huge difference if it was wrong.
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@boomzilla said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@asdf said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
Too bad we're not in the , otherwise I would try to draw a lot of far-fetched conclusions from that statistic just to troll @boomzilla. And I'd probably even get upvotes for it. :D
You would definitely get upvotes.
I'm learning from the best.
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@dkf said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
I'm much more suspicious of the difference in figures across different European countries. I suspect that there's excessively wide variation in data collection practices (e.g., nobody collected the data in some countries at all for a few decades!)
Also, yes. I don't for a minute trust that fuggin' Russia -- a vast country -- is accurately represented by that low number.
The fact that Austria has the same number of serial killers as Germany, with a population 1/10th the size, also seems suspect.
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@anotherusername said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
The fact that Austria has the same number of serial killers as Germany, with a population 1/10th the size, also seems suspect.
Have you ever met an Austrian? 'Cause I'm pretty sure you wouldn't say this if you had.
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@anotherusername said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
The vast majority of GBians actually live in England anyway, so it's not a huge difference if it was wrong.
Around 80%. The uncertainty you admit in the rate is therefore somewhere around 20%, but given that we suspect that other parts of the figures have order-of-magnitude type errors, I'm not going to get over-upset.
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@anotherusername said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
Also, yes. I don't for a minute trust that fuggin' Russia -- a vast country -- is accurately represented by that low number.
That's as nothing to India, whose numbers are sufficiently unbelievable as to make me wonder whether they export baloney…
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@dkf said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
there are also fields where specialists tend to have hobby-horses (politically motivated or otherwise) so there's a need to be really careful.
Definitely, and fields on the periphery of gun control tend to attract people with said hobby-horses.
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@dkf in their case I'm more inclined to think that the numbers are drastically underreported. Only a small fraction of the country is even civilized enough to expect to have reasonably accurate crime statistics for it.
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@anotherusername What's going on with Austria?
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@hungrier the hills are alive ... with serial killers, apparently.
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Now I want a quiz
Which serial killer are you
Fake edit: Google did not disappoint
You are Ted Bundy, a handsome notorious sadist with an evil, wretched soul that takes pleasure in tormenting others. Your ability to recognize right from wrong is completely diluted by your sick and twisted desires, and you are a mystery to anyone who has ever tried to psychoanalyze you. At the end of the day though, everything you have done is just a result of a sad little boy who never knew what it was like to properly be loved. Your story is a tragic one that was cut short before you could flourish into the brilliant person that you were always meant to be.
Frist link:
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@Karla What a useful Onebox
No link, nothing clickable, cut off with no scrolling.
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@hungrier Weird, I added link to google search.
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@asdf said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@anotherusername said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
The fact that Austria has the same number of serial killers as Germany, with a population 1/10th the size, also seems suspect.
Have you ever met an Austrian? 'Cause I'm pretty sure you wouldn't say this if you had.
I have. I came close to killing the first one.
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@abarker said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@asdf said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@anotherusername said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
The fact that Austria has the same number of serial killers as Germany, with a population 1/10th the size, also seems suspect.
Have you ever met an Austrian? 'Cause I'm pretty sure you wouldn't say this if you had.
I have. I came close to killing the first one.
Was she constantly breaking out into song? If so, I can understand why.
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@anotherusername No. He's my sister's lying, manipulative, and abusive ex-husband.
His mom's a sweet old lady, though.
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Not to blow your bubble USA but we had Harold Shipman
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@accalia said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
/me licks lips and starts stalking Dreikin with a predatory leer
Well, at least somebody wants to get intimate with my meat.
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@djls45 said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@Perverted_Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
so they lose the thread of the argument.
Some might say that you are quite ... uh, skilled(?) ... at losing your threads.
i have tons of threads. they're just not on my body!
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@Perverted_Vixen said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@djls45 said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@Perverted_Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
so they lose the thread of the argument.
Some might say that you are quite ... uh, skilled(?) ... at losing your threads.
i have tons of threads. they're just not on my body!
What about these threads?
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(Was that intentional misspelling in the title always there? I kept reading "first" till now... >_>)
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@CreatedToDislikeThis
Just like the frist thing you should expect when @Perverted_Vixen is around is that the boobs will be out, you should always expect frist to be spelled with the "r" frist.
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@Dreikin said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@Perverted_Vixen said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@djls45 said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@Perverted_Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
so they lose the thread of the argument.
Some might say that you are quite ... uh, skilled(?) ... at losing your threads.
i have tons of threads. they're just not on my body!
What about these threads?
Does it come in Turdly or Stanky Bean?
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Just think of all the serial killers we've had from the tech giants in the USA!
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@Dreikin said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@Perverted_Vixen said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@djls45 said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@Perverted_Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
so they lose the thread of the argument.
Some might say that you are quite ... uh, skilled(?) ... at losing your threads.
i have tons of threads. they're just not on my body!
What about these threads?
that's rope, and that is allowed, but only for sexy time shenanigans.
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@Perverted_Vixen said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
sexy time shenanigans.
Are there any other?
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@Luhmann said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@Perverted_Vixen said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
sexy time shenanigans.
Are there any other?
we don't talk about the other kind. at least not in public.
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@CreatedToDislikeThis said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
(Was that intentional misspelling in the title always there? I kept reading "first" till now... >_>)
Yes, it was intentionally done that way when the thread was forked.
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@Karla said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
Bullshit. Serial killing is a human thing. And more specifically a first world human thing.
Being a Patriots fan is a human thing, and very first world, but there are a lot less of them in Europe. Why would you think that is? Or is that "bullshit" too?
There just are not many serial killers here. Nor school shooters. My country's murder rate is over 5 times lower than that of the US.
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@Hanzo said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@Karla said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
Bullshit. Serial killing is a human thing. And more specifically a first world human thing.
Being a Patriots fan is a human thing, and very first world, but there are a lot less of them in Europe. Why would you think that is? Or is that "bullshit" too?
There just are not many serial killers here. Nor school shooters. My country's murder rate is over 5 times lower than that of the US.
Because violence is a human thing and I imagine would be serial killers in the third world don't have the luxury of time and money to be an effective serial killer.
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@Karla You can lie to yourself all you want
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@Hanzo And what about, lets say, stabbings? How do those compare? People are going to kill each other one way or another. Don't need guns to do it.
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@Karla said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
be an effective serial killer
like ... they only commit one murder? What are going for here? By definition you need multiple kills, I would even accept attempts. But anything else is just speculation about psychology and potential behavior.
@Karla said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
third world don't have the luxury of time and money
Yes. But again by definition: people in the third world don't have time and money for almost anything besides basics.
Then again I don't see why it's relevant since the discussion wasn't about if there are serial killers in the African jungle and all data has been reverencing the developed world.
Maybe we should move this to the FWP thread?
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Because my previous joke got no response, I'll try again:
A peer-reviewed study has shown that 47% of all serial killers are standing behind you right now.
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@ben_lubar Are you sure that study wasn't just peer-previewed?
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@coderpatsy said in Serial Killers and Statistics: Which Will Kill you Frist?:
@ben_lubar Are you sure that study wasn't just peer-previewed?
It was viewed by a peer and then it was viewed by a peer again.