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> My take is this: We present to others, and even ourselves, the illusion that there's just one unified "self"; but really inside there are a number of independent motivations within us. In both cases above, I think there was a part of those people who felt guilty and actually did want to be caught and punished.

I have a different take. Assuming his crime is driven by his beliefs/mission, not being found will not further it. Logically you may argue that it would afford him more chances to carry on but given that we assume him to be driven by strong and passionate belief, he would want to be clearly and explicitly recognized for those beliefs and would want those thoughts to take center stage of public opinion. Carrying evidence also is his way of broadcasting the signal that he doesn't care about getting caught since he did the right thing and has nothing to be ashamed of.

> I have a different take. Assuming his crime is driven by his beliefs/mission, not being found will not further it.

I'm not so sure in this case. It would have been hard for the perpetrator to predict beforehand, but there was so little public sympathy for the victim, and there are lot of people who said they would not help the police catch him. Him getting away would have shown that insurance companies are so terrible and so hated that the public is OK with the murder of those responsible (because if they weren't, they'd help the police and he'd be caught).

Escape would have sent a much stronger message than whatever he could hope to accomplish by grandstanding in a courtroom.

> Him getting away would have shown that insurance companies are so terrible and so hated that the public is OK with the murder of those responsible

That is already proven to a large extent. Sure police are doing their job because of the pressure they have and someone working at McDonald's wants to collect tens of thousands of dollars, but it is pretty clear that he has significant public support based on the outpouring of support in the recent days.

> Escape would have sent a much stronger message

No, escape would have just shown that he is good at hiding. Effectively giving himself up gave an even bigger stage for him to place his point. And he got a lot more coverage by delaying that instead of immediate surrender.

> than whatever he could hope to accomplish by grandstanding in a courtroom.

What is grandstanding for you could be advocacy for another. Only time can tell whether it accomplishes anything.

There's a decent book written about exactly this, Crime and Punishment, by one of those Russians. Pretty hilarious read too.

I immediately thought of this when I read the parent comment.

one of those Russians... lol

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Wait, this doesn't make sense", believe it or not, is not the default state of humanity, nor is it even the majority of our thoughts.

I know I am not doing my body and health a favor. There's a tool called journaling, but I am not even using it right now. It's a very useful tool to get your mind into thinking "wait, this doesn't make sense", or "why am I behaving this way?"

Everyday, I say to myself that I am speeding up my decline in health, and yet nothing changes(because I don't journal).

> I think there was a part of those people who felt guilty and actually did want to be caught and punished.

Eric Berne in one of the pop psy books makes a claim which to me rings true -- that the real criminals don't get caught, the ones that get caught are the ones that want to play hide & seek as a trauma response from childhood -- there's a very deep drive to be sought after and found and those people, because of absent parents and lack of attention didn't get to play it out, so they really do want to be discovered in their sub-conscious mind.

There is a hypothesis/philosophy called Society of Mind [1] which posits that our minds are a collection of individual 'agents' that each have their own motivations, sometimes cooperating and sometimes competing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind

Welcome to Jungian Psychology and the wonderful world of enantidromia. As humans are General Intelligences, we're capable of entertaining contradictory courses of action/thinking at the same time. At some point our conscious faculties "meet" our unconscious faculties, and the period of time when the two start to integrate into a whole individual is a bit of a wild ride that practically no modern practitioner of psychology I've met seems to even be aware of anymore, and can absolutely go awry.

Shout out to the Red Book.