It’s the same quality of scholarship as a Malcolm Gladwell book - namely, none. On the one hand it’s a shame these kinds of books are bestsellers, but I guess it’s good that people are reading books at all. Most of the people I know stopped reading in their mid-20s except for poorly written “news” articles online that can be completed in a couple minutes or less.

Once can never be sure

Yes, that’s true, but right wing media is doing it on an exponentially larger scale than others, which is why I called them out.

Nowadays peopke bring their phone to a murder like a chump.

Some of the analytical software that can be applied to mobile phone cell ping and metadata alone is incredible. Not only is it able to show snapshots of a given period to identify patterns, but it can also be walked back in time to identify patterns which are increasing in their intensity. This can indicate changing behaviours in individuals and groups.

You might think the solution is to turn off your mobile, wrap it in foil, leave it at home, smash it ect but that’s not the answer. A suddenly lost mobile agent is a red flag, as is an abnormally stationary one, or an abnormally repetitive one.

Imagine you’re an analyst, and you’re aware of a potential terror cell consisting of 5-8 members. You’ve identified from cell metadata that each member has met at least one other member at least once in person. Imagine then that 6 of these individuals either go off-line, or their phone remains stationary for an unusual amount of time, eg normally they would be at work. You could reasonably conclude that they are having a secret rendezvous in meatspace. Then, based on the time taken for each mobile to reconnect, and its position when it does, you might be able to heat map a list of possible locations that they could have met at, based on estimated travel time for each. Then you might find evidence of tgeir meetup from osint sources like CCTV or sat imagery.

If you dont want mobile phone metadata used to uncover your crimes, you should constantly behave unpredictably. Maybe carry a foil bag and keep your phone in it sometimes at work to simulate black spots. Maybe choose a mobile provider with the worst possible coverage. Sometimes leave your phone at home. You know those random spam messages you get on Signal or whatsapp? Converse with them occasionally, these act like red herrings in your interaction matrix. Anything that contributes as chaff, white noise, false signals, whatever you want to call them, anything will help if it makes you unpredictable.

And that’s just phones. CCTV, satellite imagery, other peoples phones and devices, freeway ALPR cameras, audio devices, all these things contribute to mapping your move.ents, constantly, over time.

Take solace that probably nobody is actually watching you, at least, no human is. Just an algorithm. When the algo detects youve deviated from your pattern, then it might flag you for human review, so try not to have an easily identifiable pattern, and chaff that bitch up as often as you can.

I know I’ll sound like a bootlicker, but this is why I’m in favor of more street cameras for the city. It’s obnoxious how often there’s a picture of the car involved in something but no one catches them because there’s no way to just follow the car to where it went.

I believe that was discussed in the article. Along with early interventions that help little shits not grow into giant shits.

Here’s a starting point if you care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis

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.

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.

This is the answer. The logistics of staying off camera and getting around without leaving a digital signature is much more complicated. In the 70s you could buy a bus pass with cash and disappear for a few days and nobody would know and you’d never be on any list of suspects. Now you need to set up fake cell phone activity and get an alibi on camera and put on disguises in a dive bar bathroom and shit. Very difficult to get “lost” for more than a few hours if you are working alone and operating anywhere near civilization.

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.

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)

Weapons availability and the mental health crisis. In countries without easy access to guns, mass killings are conducted with knives or cars (runovers). And in countries with socialized healthcare that includes mental health, mass killings don’t happen, at all if ever. Socioeconomic inequality is usually the third element, like in the fire triad, mix the three and you get mass shootings.

1. Easy access to guns
2. The rise of easy access fascist media
3. The dissolution of public institutions

It’s simply too easy to grab a gun by anyone. Military grade equipment is available to pretty much anyone with a credit card. Then you combine that with a CONSTANT beating drum from people like Alex Jones talking about how much they want crush, destroy, kill their enemies and how corrupt everything is. Then also talking about how people need to rise up and do “something”. While also in the same breath telling people to go off their meds and how any sort of treatment for mental disorders is actually poison. Then pair that with the fact that there’s pretty much no public infrastructure around public health (thanks Reagan). That means if you are having some sort of mental break down, depression, whatever, if you can’t afford the $100s/$1000s of dollars to get regular psychiatric treatment you are basically just going to be untreated. There is also pretty much no safe place to recoup for someone in distress but not at risk of suicide. But even if there were, even if you could afford it, fascists and preachers know that mentally healthy people are harder to grift so they spend all their time demonizing the very help you’d need.

However, not everyone that does this is mentally unwell. Some are just hateful fascists that believe killing gets their hate filled messages into the world. It’s why it is irresponsible for any media outlet to publish the name or manifestos of these assholes. Having notorious killers encourages more notorious killers.

Shit life syndrome. The difference is they turn their misery outwards instead of committing suicide.

Availability of weapons mixed with infrastructure development that atomizes communities to the point that the only places some people can find any social activity is nihilistic message boards full of psychopaths that actively encourage terroristic attacks on society but in the oblique way that dodges accountability for it when someone actually goes and does it.

too many scared assholes who love their guns more than anything else

so… lead paint?

The other theory I’ve heard that makes some sense is lead exposure. From 1925 to about 1976, lead was commonly added to gasoline. Lead is known to cause psychological problems including irritablity and general mood disorders.

Pretty much everyone born during that period was exposed to aerosolized lead.

Maybe would be serial killers just spree kill in a mass shooting instead…that has certainly grown since Columbine

I was thinking that people returning from WW2 might be a factor, war trauma or something, but that seems like it’s a little too early.

In 1944, this data shows the largest cohorts in an infantry unit being measured being 19-24 years old.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7c725k/what_was_the_average_age_of_the_soldiers_that/

A 19-year-old – the youngest cohort listed – would be 33, maybe the end of the peak period to start serial killing – 14 years after 1944. That’s in 1958, and that’d have been the tail end of American WW2 veterans being in the prime serial killer age. The boom had started then, but the highest rate of increase came later…and that’s looking at the very tail end of the WW2 vets.

The serial killers would mostly have been children or young teens during World War II, not actually served in it.

K

Going based on the generations there, that would have mostly been the Silent Generation.

It’s always the quiet ones

It might be interesting to see if countries other than the US – and I have no idea if whatever metrics used by the author here can be applied in those countries, might not have the same data available – saw similar changes in serial killer activity, since that’d help let one know if the relevant factors producing the spike were something that the US in particular experienced or not.

This is really great info. Appreciate all the links backing up the data too. Thank you!

Boomers: Would you rather eat avocado toast or become a serial killer?

Millennials/GenZ: What the fuck? Uh, I guess I’d rather eat the toast?

Boomers nObOdY WaNts To SerIaL KiLl aNyMoRe!

Most serial killers had their own vehicle and house, and were able to keep those despite most killers not being able to hold down a job once they started the murders.

Try doing that today. You can’t methodically kill people if you’re freezing to death on the streets.

These greedy corporations are just saving us from serial killers by making it impossible to become one without financial ruin.

Plot twist. The serial killers still have all that time, but they realized the could kill way more people by becoming billionaires and exploiting them to death.

I thought it amusing! Keep on keepin’ on OP.

Back in the day you could afford both med school and running an elaborate murder hotel with some gruesome custom made contraptions. Now you can’t even afford a simple murder house. What has come of this country.