Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? (2003)

We can point to war or to the Stanford prison experiment. People in unusual stressful situations have the potential to be abusive, or to follow abusive orders.

But there's a large gap between that and the kind of trouble that results in serial killers. Soldiers in a war are under terrible living conditions, and commit atrocities in the name of taking it out on the enemy.

But even the soldier does not stoop as low as torturing animals. The enemy, maybe, but not the innocent. Serial killers are completely indifferent to the pain of the innocent. Soldiers only hurt the outgroup, the enemy.

And I think you're being unfair to people living in more primitive societies. There's crime in every society, but you will not make friends anywhere by being antisocial. A small village doesn't survive by people turning against each other. It would simply cease to exist.

My claim is that most people do not have the violent impulses, and don't need to channel them. Some people do. And they benefit from channeling them, because bad outcomes happen much more often to those who don't.

Nature will beat the violence out of people, over generations. You simply survive less in aggregate with a harmful set of instincts. Most people have no need for hard to control violent impulses, and indeed tend to be born without them.

The company you keep...

I haven't read up on Reiser since it went down-- it was the 2000s and I #believedallwomen so I wrote him off as a piece of shit. He absolutely did it, but in retrospect his late wife was a real piece of work herself:

> Nina was a Russian-born and -trained obstetrician and gynecologist[16] who was studying to become an American licensed OB/GYN.

> Hans' father, Ramon, became suspicious of his new daughter-in-law when she took the title of CFO at Namesys at that time [...] and claimed that Nina lied to him when he confronted her about inexplicably-fast-shrinking reserves of Namesys.

> Nina Reiser filed for divorce [...] citing irreconcilable differences and alleging that their children "hardly know their father" because he was out of the country on business for most of the year, according to court records. She was granted sole legal custody of the children and shared physical custody [...]

> Nina Reiser alleged in court filings that her husband had failed to pay 50 percent medical expenses and childcare expenses as ordered by a judge and was in arrears for more than $12,000.

> [...] on September 3, 2006, Nina Reiser dropped their two children off with Hans Reiser at his mother's house, where he was living at the time. The pair got into a heated argument over Nina Reiser taking the children to the doctor's, with Nina referencing that she had custody over the children, and so was free to do as she wished. [...] Hans Reiser alleged that Nina Reiser was fabricating illnesses in the children. In a fit of rage, Hans Reiser hit her in the face and strangled her to death.

> On July 2012, a jury awarded Reiser's children $60 million against their father for the death of Nina Reiser.[69] Reiser acted as his own attorney during the trial and tried to argue that he killed his wife to protect their children.

Having dealt with a custodial Munchausen/grifter parent myself since that played out, it's a fucking nightmare. Reiser was especially fucked with her having the credentials of a doctor; her word on medical decisions would always trump his. If the kid presents as sick in any way, you're a monster for not supporting medical intervention-- there is no support or framework for questioning whether such care is in fact iatrogenic. The most you can hope to do is stall for time and be as much of a nuisance is possible-- reimburse claims late, nitpick over accounting errors and contractual terms, question everything, invite yourself into medical discussions to challenge the narrative, etc. Someone with Hans' temper wouldn't stand a chance when it's an actual doctor colluding with colleagues to conduct these shenanigans.

And for the love of Christ, never accept these open-ended 50% clauses-- offer to pay more in support as a flat fee instead. Giving a bitter ex-spouse a blank checkbook with your name on it never ends well. And make sure this stuff has an end date in your divorce papers. It's 18/end-of-high school by default, but one trick I've seen (and been burned by) is the other party's attorney slipping verbiage in to make child support/medical payments extend to 21. It depends on the "illness" and whether they're also playing at disability fraud but when you're in a situation like this for real, you'll find the kids magically stop being sick all the time the day your support obligations end.