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Dylan Roof Makes Me Sad

marplots

Penultimate Amazing
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He's guilty. Sentenced to die.

The New York Times released a two hour interview with FBI agents shown at trial. Roof confesses, more or less calmly. The first hour or so the FBI agents are ticking off all the evidence boxes and making sure they get him to say everything they needed at trial.

But then, around an hour and ten minutes, it sounds like the agents get generally curious about his state of mind and the logic behind the crime. I hear in their questions my questions and amazement at the banality, the seeming lack of animus, the ho-hum everydayishness - from a guy who killed nine people.

It really makes me sad knowing there are probably many many more Dylann Roofs out there. Unsophisticated, hollow, pointless.

Here's the link. Is there anything to learn from it at all?
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004815369/full-dylann-roof-confession.html?smid=pl-share


ETA: I'd ask the mods to fix the spelling of his name in the thread title, but screw it, he's not worth the trouble.
 
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Yeah... just finished Capote's In Cold Blood.

Sometimes the simple truth is that all it takes is a sociopath and the right conditions.
 
Greedo said:
Yeah... just finished Capote's In Cold Blood.

Sometimes the simple truth is that all it takes is a sociopath and the right conditions.
Click to expand...

I want to believe I can detect evil people. It's just that some evil people aren't any more evil than a dog who suddenly decides today is the day he's going to bite your nuts off.

If it's not abnormal for them, but just another way to pass the day, what chance do I have to spot it?
 
Greedo said:
Yeah... just finished Capote's In Cold Blood.

Sometimes the simple truth is that all it takes is a sociopath and the right conditions.
Click to expand...
I read it for the second time after a few decades then watched the movie again on youtube.
Literature and banality work well together although Smith and Hickock effortlessly became fascinating deep characters.
Now I'd better study this Dylan Roof case....
 
No, I don't want him to die.

I would like to see him stay alive, and be punished. There's some frozen airfields in Antarctica that need the penguin-**** licked off them continuously. I've got just the boy in mind...
 
Norman Alexander said:
No, I don't want him to die.

I would like to see him stay alive, and be punished. There's some frozen airfields in Antarctica that need the penguin-**** licked off them continuously. I've got just the boy in mind...
Click to expand...

I could accept that one! Great minds..............:D:thumbsup::D:thumbsup:
 
marplots said:
I want to believe I can detect evil people. It's just that some evil people aren't any more evil than a dog who suddenly decides today is the day he's going to bite your nuts off.
Click to expand...

Can't go into detail for obvious reasons, but I've sat across the table from a couple of such folks. I now know that I am 100% incapable of reliably detecting sociopaths, liars, and murderers from pure conversation.

I am forever skeptical of anyone who uses a convincing exchange as evidence of someone's earnestness.
 
TraneWreck said:
Can't go into detail for obvious reasons, but I've sat across the table from a couple of such folks. I now know that I am 100% incapable of reliably detecting sociopaths, liars, and murderers from pure conversation.

I am forever skeptical of anyone who uses a convincing exchange as evidence of someone's earnestness.
Click to expand...

I suppose there must be the opposite as well - people who look guilty as hell, who carry around an evil affect, but who aren't.
 
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marplots said:
Here's the link. Is there anything to learn from it at all?
Click to expand...


Hannah Arendt wrote on "the banality of evil" decades ago.

It's one of the reasons I'm against the death penalty. If we kill these people, they're not available to study. Meanwhile, running terrorists like Tim McVeigh through fMRI tests to compare them to serial and spree killers would seem to be important neuroscience. But we can't do that with Tim McVeigh because we killed him.
 
Loss Leader said:
Hannah Arendt wrote on "the banality of evil" decades ago.

It's one of the reasons I'm against the death penalty. If we kill these people, they're not available to study. Meanwhile, running terrorists like Tim McVeigh through fMRI tests to compare them to serial and spree killers would seem to be important neuroscience. But we can't do that with Tim McVeigh because we killed him.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding? There'd be a ******** of lefties who would prevent us from "experimenting" on him. This is America, don't you know.
 
Ampulla of Vater said:
Are you kidding? There'd be a ******** of lefties who would prevent us from "experimenting" on him. This is America, don't you know.
Click to expand...


Considering the fact that some extraordinary new science has been done with fMRI's of psychopathic prisoners including serial and spree killers, I don't think it's too outrageous to believe that some terrorists would choose to participate in studies as well.
 
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