Dotzilla wrote:
i think the point you're missing is that it isn't my point. it's the author's point, which has been substantiated by FBI investigative profiler John Douglas, and a panel of 15 criminal psychology experts who interviewed Dahmer for 3 weeks before making their conclusion. the capture and interview of Dahmer by experts (and later Stone Phillips) was one of the most revealing and exciting times for criminal investigators/profilers. those interviews (along with Ted Bundy's and Richard Kuklinski's) have served as the foundation for modern serial killer profiling as we know it today.
Saying doesn't make it so. Just because a bunch of self-proclaimed "experts" say this and that doesn't instantly turn their claims into fact.
You remember the Unabomber case? Those "profilers" created a compound image and criminal profile that bore no resemblance to the actual perpetrator. Or what about the JFK assassination? A panel of "experts" sat down and gave a bunch of non-answers, and 30 years later Congress said, "We think they were in on it, but we're not sure."
In fact, just the other day:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18091903So why should we consider these turkeys' claims credible? Why?
Dotzilla wrote:
i mean, you asked about him and i told you. i'm not sure what you'd like me to say.
"Good points. I hadn't considered it from that point of view. It seems that what I believed has been proven illogical. I'll think about it some more, try to make sense of it all, and get back to you."
Dotzilla wrote:
i suppose your disagreement stems from, "if someone is born without a piece missing, are they insane, or are they just missing a piece?".
That's a strawman and not what I said at all. So I'll repeat what I said.
Pathology is as pathology does. If a mental condition causes destructive behavior, it's pathological. Arguing about the hows and whys is at best an intellectual Rube Goldberg device, at worst it's an effort at falsehood by way of dissembling. Whether you want to argue that he was born without human compassion or the world did that to him or he made the choice to do it is moot. He felt compelled to do things that only an insane person would feel compelled to do and then did them.
If only an insane person would feel compelled to do such things, then logically, the person who does them must be insane. I'll ask you again: do you agree with that statement as it applies to Dahmer drilling holes into peoples' skulls, eating them, trying to turn them into zombies, etc?
Or do you believe there's a non-insane reason to do such things?
Dotzilla wrote:
i think the first mistake is to look at them as if they were people. they aren't. they either severed their humanity, had it severed unwillingly, or were never born with it to begin with. which is something that obviously you and i could never understand. to attach emotional statements to his actions (morbid fascination) only shows an attempt to humanize his actions, as if that were possible. he was on a plane where there was no such thing as the inherent, unacceptable, or intolerable. unfortunately, in the state of wisconsin, possessing a brain, two lungs and a heart certifies him as human. of course, in addition to a human head in your freezer and a decomposing body in a plastic barrel.
Then what you're describing is Nazism. And no that is not Godwinning, because the parallel is perfectly valid and relevant. The goal of the Nazi ideology, as with what you describe, is to justify contempt and disrespect for another party on the basis that they are less than human, by redefining "human" according to a totally arbitrary and unscientific standard.
The scientific definition of a species is a group of reproductively compatible organisms (with certain taxonomic exceptions beyond the scope of this thread). You don't get to exclude individuals from that definition because "I feel like it".
Proof being? Back to square one. You compared me to Dahmer because you didn't "like" what I said, despite the fact that I made my point using facts and logic you couldn't debunk directly.
Further proof: the motives of the people who wrote that textbook, for all the reasons I described. They want to do things that don't make sense except from a standpoint of self-interest, so naturally, in order to sell their nonsense as sensible on the basis of science or common interest, there are some inconvenient facts in the way, which need to be written off.
The comparison between myself and Dahmer is obviously a false one, even according to your own definitions. Clearly, I have the capacity to empathize with others and do all the other things Dahmer couldn't do, and just as clearly, I'm not in the business of butchering random people. Therefore, the comparison is invalid.
The only constant in both cases, is that you, or other people, want to pretend people aren't human, according to your own totally arbitrary and incidental preference because - and this is why it is a form of Nazism - because you want to defend a world view that is totally bigoted and illogical.
Is there a flaw in my reasoning or is there not?