Was Theodore Kaczynski the Zodiac Killer? | Hacker News Reader

Was Theodore Kaczynski the Zodiac Killer?

unazod.com

9 pointsaxiomdata31610 comments

This is just absurd: Let's compare writing style:

Zodiac Killer: >I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND ALL THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE. EBEORIETEMETHHPITI

Unabomber: > 1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.

Those are not the same people, come on. The zodiac killer's notes were barely literate and Ted Kazcynski went to Harvard.

Kazcynski went to Harvard at the age of 16, and has an IQ of 167.

IQ tests only measure your ability to write IQ tests.

I don't doubt that Kazcynski was highly intelligent, but I would be careful of throwing out IQ scores like that. It very much depends on the test. More to the point, I believe that both Wechsler and Stanford-Binet have a maximum score of 160, so a number like 167 is not possible and meaningless with some of the most commonly used tests. Intelligence tests are normed and it's difficult to have enough data to do that properly on the the tails. Further, a good diagnostician uses the results of an intelligence test to determine areas of strength and weakness, so while the overall score is used to satisfy the legal criteria for children when placing into special education, it's not the only criteria.

tldr: Most modern tests stop at 160, so 167 is not possible in that context. If another test generated that score, then it's difficult to compare it against modern test scores since they have a different cap.

Another example of the Zodiac Killer's writing:

Sirs -- I would like to expression my consternt consternation concerning your poor taste + lack of sympathy for the public, as evidenced by your running of the ads for the movie "Badlands," featuring the blurb: "In 1959 most people were killing time. Kit + Holly were killing people." In light of recent events, this kind of murder-glorification can only be deplorable at best (not that glorification of violence was ever justifiable) why don't you show some concern for public sensibilities + cut the ad?

No. That is a really long ad for a book by a "Zodiologist and Kaczynski theorist"

"The odds of any single criminal bearing all the qualities outlined above has been conservatively estimated at more than one in two billion" According to whom? Even if accurate, that isn't particularly sound evidence of anything.

They way he keeps saying 'one in a billion' seems to negate the whole thing.

Whenever I see articles like this, I always remind myself to apply Betteridge's Law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

> Kaczynski was living in Lombard, Illinois during most of the Zodiac events.

...?

What is the point of this page?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com