Tag: murder

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Cobra Effect

Posted on by Jinavie

While colonising India, the British government became concerned about venomous cobra snakes causing a public safety issue in Delhi. To remedy this situation, they decided to use the people as cheap labour by offering a bounty if anyone brought in a dead cobra. They thought this would be a cost effective method of reducing the cobra population.

The strategy was initially a success, with a huge number of cobra snakes being killed for the reward. But then, something unexpected happened. People soon caught on that it did not matter where the cobra snakes came from, as long as it was dead. Therefore, they abused this loophole by breeding cobra snakes and then killing them for even more reward. The British government found out about this enterprise eventually and decided to scrap the program.

With no reason to have so many cobra snakes, the breeders decided to release the cobras. Ultimately, Delhi’s cobra population was now larger than when the program was initiated.

This is the cobra effect. Sometimes, an idea may seem novel and efficient, but human psychology can easily turn it on its head and make a problem worse than before.

A similar, but much more macabre, phenomenon happened in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1828. At the time, anatomy was a hot new field of research, so human cadavers were in great demand by the universities, doctors and scholars. Due to a Scottish law stating that cadavers could only come from deceased prisoners, orphans and suicide victims, there was very limited supply. Following the economic laws of supply and demand, the price of a human cadaver rose more and more. “Body snatching” became a popular crime, where people exhumed corpses from graveyards and sold them for a profit.

Two men by the names of William Burke and William Hare took things one step further. The two ran a lodging house, where a tenant passed away suddenly, while owing rent. To cover the owed amount, they stole the body before the burial and went to Edinburgh University, where they sold the body to an anatomist named Robert Knox. On hearing that bodies were in great demand and that they would be paid handsomely for any more cadavers, they hatched a sinister plan.

They realised that since their “clients” did not care about where the body came from, they could easily source them through murder. Over the course of a year, they murdered at least 16 people at their lodge and sold their corpses to Robert Knox for dissection. Their choice method of murder was to wrestle down and sit on the victim’s chest to asphyxiate them (now called “burking”), as strangling, choking or using a sharp instrument would reduce the corpse’s value due to the damage.

The pair were eventually caught and sentenced to death. Hare was eventually released, but Burke was hanged and ironically, his skeleton was preserved and exhibited at the Anatomical Museum of the Edinburgh Medical School.

Posted in Science & Nature

The Dangerous Number

Posted on by Jinavie

Everyone has learned of the Pythagorean theorem in maths class:

In a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (a² + b² = c²).

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A lesser known fact is that Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician who came up with the theorem, had a school where numbers were essentially worshipped. The school of Pythagoras were obsessed with whole numbers and their ratios, believing the universe was built around whole numbers. Their motto was “All is number”.

In 520BC, a mathematician named Hippasus was murdered by members of the school of Pythagoras, by being thrown off the side of a ship. Why did a group of scholars go as far as killing a fellow mathematician? The reason lies in a special number.

Hippasus raised an interesting question regarding the Pythagorean theorem. Imagine a square where each side is 1 unit long. What is the length of the diagonal?

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Using the theorem a² + b² = c²: 1² + 1² = 2 = c². Ergo, c = √2. This does not appear to be so controversial. The Pythagoreans would reason that it was simply a ratio between two whole numbers, much like ½ or ¾.

But as they tried to quantify what this ratio was, a horrifying truth emerged – no ratio between whole numbers could produce √2. It is what we now call an irrational number.

This was heresy – how can such a number exist in a universe built around whole numbers? The Pythagoreans would not allow this. Hippasus tried to argue that √2 was just as real a number as any other, but his attempts to propagate the knowledge of irrational numbers was quashed through murder.

Knowledge is power, but knowledge can also lead to tragedy.

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Posted in Science & Nature

Mandrake

Posted on by Jinavie

The plant Mandragora officinarum, more commonly known as mandrake, is a plant that has interested people in various fields throughout history. Firstly, the root is split into two at the end, giving the uprooted plant the appearance of a human being. Secondly, it belongs to the nightshade family, containing plants such as the infamous deadly nightshade (belladonna), tobacco, Datura, petunia, tomatoes and potatoes. Like its relatives the belladonna and Datura, mandrakes contain alkaloids such as atropine, scopolamine and hyoscyamine. These substances are potent (and toxic) hallucinogenics and sedatives, which is why they have had various uses ranging from witchcraft to anaesthesia to murder through poisonings.

The shape of the mandrake and its hallucinogenic effects have given it notoriety. Legend goes that when a mandrake root is dug up, it shrieks with such terror that anyone who hears it will die – possibly referring to the toxicity of the alkaloids. Historical texts give detailed instructions on digging up mandrakes by tying a hungry dog to the root and making it pull the plant out of the ground when the owner is out of earshot and he lures the dog with food.

Other folklore suggest that mandrake only grow when the ground is inseminated by semen dripping from a hanged man. This folklore is likely fuelled by the mandrake’s human-like appearance. Ancient and medieval literature associates mandrake being used to make fertility agents and love potions(again, likely related to the hallucinatory, sedative effects). Mandrake is a common ingredient in magic rituals of various kinds, such as in Wiccan rituals.

Alkaloids extracted from mandrake have been used in medicine since the Middle Ages, where extracts were used to anaesthetise patients before surgery, as it has a sedating, hypnotic effect. Eye drops made from mandrake extract were used for hallucinations and mandrake syrups were used to aide sleep. In modern medicine, scopolamine is used in motion sickness patches and atropine is used to speed up the heart rate when it slows too much.

The extensive list of supposed and actual properties of mandrake has made it a popular plant in fiction as well and it can be found in countless works throughout time, such as works of Shakespeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and J.K. Rowling.

Posted in Philosophy

Thief And Murderer

Posted on by Jinavie

Imagine that you have been incarcerated for committing a crime. You get to choose one of the prisoners as your roommate, but your choice is limited to a thief and a murderer. Who would you trust more?

Most people would consider the thief’s crimes to be lighter and choose him without a doubt. They would rather live with someone who stole some jewellery than some beast that killed another human being.

But if you think about it in depth, you may come to the opposite conclusion. Stealing is often a meticulous and calculated crime that involves logical planning, but murder is more often a crime of passion that is spontaneous (of course the person may be a psychopath). Ergo, statistically speaking thieves tend to be more predisposed to a criminal nature than murderers. A thief will easily repeat their crime, whereas those who have murdered often do not repeat it. Furthermore, thieves tend to target people they do not know, where as murderers often kill someone that they know. Statistically, you are more likely to die in the hands of someone you know well than a stranger.

Therefore, it just might be that sharing a room with a murderer is preferable to a thief (maybe the murderer will not steal all your secret food). This would definitely be the case if the “murderer” was actually framed like Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption. Of course, the wiser choice still is to not commit the crime in the first place so you do not end up in prison.

Posted in Philosophy

Fundamental Malevolence

Posted on by Jinavie

Human beings are fundamentally evil. This was a theory concerning human nature put forward by Xunzi – a leading Chinese Confucian philosopher, along with Confucius and Mencius. Xunzi stated that human beings naturally seek out only their own interests and greed, envying and hating each other so much that they are bound to fight if left alone. He suggested that people needed to learn etiquette and culture themselves to correct this.

Xunzi’s philosophies are on a background of the chaotic setting of the Warring States Period. The Warring States Period was a period when China was split into many different countries, all warring with each other to gain dominance over each other’s lands. During these wars, Xunzi saw countless cases of people looting and killing each other, which led him to the conclusion that people are naturally selfish beings. He believed that human beings focus on their greed and self-preservation from the moment of birth. He also believed that leaving people without order would indubitably lead to social chaos. Thus, to effectively rule over the people, a leader must place limits such as laws, ethics, etiquette and culture.

From an evolutionary point of view, the theory of fundamental malevolence (성악설, sung ak sul) makes sense. Would a starving lion mourn the death of a baby zebra? Protecting one’s own interests is a great way to increase your chance of survival and propagating your genes.

The more you carefully observe people’s behaviour, the more credibility the theory seems to gain. Human beings are selfish beings who become jealous of others for having more than themselves, kill someone because they tried to take away their love and engage in fratricidal war because others do not share their beliefs. You as the reader may state that you cannot imagine hurting anyone, let alone taking a life. In that case, let us examine the following thought experiment.

One day, you are kidnapped. When you come about, you find that you are trapped in a pitch-black room, tied to a pole. The room appears to be completely empty and you cannot see or hear anything. Suddenly, you hear a voice coming from the other side of the room. The voice talks about how it will murder you in a violent, excruciating way, over and over. The voice continues to threaten you in a macabre way for three days. Just when you are near your breaking point from the overwhelming fear of imminent death, another voice appears. The voice says: “If you nominate someone you are close to that I can kill in your stead, I will let you go and not harm you in any way”. Would you have the courage to not give a name?

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Emotion

Posted on by Jinavie

Unless you are a psychopath, as a human being you are bound to feel emotions. Love, happiness, anger, sadness… there are many emotions that range from simple to complex. Emotions are an interesting system as they allow us to respond rapidly to a situation without thinking, while alerting other members of our society to what is happening to us. Essentially, emotions help us in survival and social interactions. 

According to Professor Paul Ekman, emotions are universal from culture to culture, with facial expressions being almost identical from tribal cultures to modern ones. He found that there are six major emotions: anger, fear, disgust, sadness, surprise and happiness. He also pioneered the field of micro-expressions, which studies the flickering change in our facial expressions whenever we feel a certain emotion. As emotions usually occur before the conscious mind thinks, we are often unaware of the expressions we make.

Another psychologist, Dr. Paul Gilbert, divided emotions into three affect systems. They are as follows:

  • Threat/protection system: associated with the fight-or-flight response, activates in response to danger. It causes anger and fear and is related to catecholamines (e.g. adrenaline) and cortisol (stress hormone).
  • Want/desire system: associated with hunting and rewarding behaviour, helps us perform actions that aids survival such as obtaining food and mates. It is related to the emotion of excitement, which is caused by the neurotransmitter dopamine (part of the reward system).
  • Contentment system: associated with met needs and social connection, especially when we feel safe and relaxed. It produces feelings of happiness and peace, linked to the hormone oxytocin (released with human touch, especially during kissing).

Dr. Gilbert also posited that as societies have evolved over time, our affect systems have been altered. For example, despite the lack of natural predators around, urban dwellers are often in a state of high anxiety. This causes a sustained stress response, leading to negative health outcomes. Furthermore, the agitation and the paranoia caused by constant fear leads to crimes such as murder and war. Our want/desire system has also been heightened as we find pleasure in gaining material wealth. This has led to aggressive capitalism, exploiting other people and the environment for selfish gain.

On the other hand, the contentment system has shrunk. People feel less content despite being in a generally healthier and richer world than 100 years ago. The reason being, our brain has evolved to help us survive, not to keep us happy. 

One must learn how to adapt to these changes by finding a way to relieve tension and stress, while finding inner peace and happiness. Whether it be through sports, music, humour or simply talking to another person, finding your own way to deal with anxiety is the best road to being happy and content.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Bystander Effect

Posted on by Jinavie

March 13, 1964 – Queens, New York. A young woman called Kitty Genovese was running from a man chasing her across the parking lot. She screamed for help as she ran from the attacker but not a single person came to her rescue. The attacker stabbed her repeatedly but the police were never alerted to the incident. The astonishing fact is that not only was there someone watching the whole attack – completely able to call the police or intervene – but there were no less than 38 bystanders.

This case sparked a question in social psychology: what prevented those 38 people from stopping a murder happening in front of them? Was it fear of attracting the assaulter’s attention? The bystanders were all watching from their apartment and calling the police would have been simple and discreet, so this was not the reason. Psychologists designed an experiment to study the natural human response as a bystander in an emergency situation.

The experiment was simple: have participants fill a survey in a room and have the helper leave the room. The helper would then stage a collapse with a yell. The participants’ response would then be observed (particularly their response time).
What they found was fascinating. When only one person was in the room, it was very likely he or she would check to see what happened. But with a group (even three would suffice), the response time would dramatically increase, if they responded at all. Simply put: the more bystanders there are, the less likely someone will step in to do something.

The reason is actually simpler than people think. It is not that people are naturally evil and wish to see others suffer; the bystander effect is a consequence of the basic human psyche.
Firstly, people constantly observe others’ responses in a social situation. This creates a paradox where everyone assumes that since no one is doing anything, they themselves do not act either.
Secondly, there is a shared sense of delusion where people think “others will do it”. This is known as “responsibility splitting” and explains why more people lead to less response.
These two factors combined with cognitive dissonance reduce the guilt and burden of the bystander as they consider it alright to not respond as long as no one else does (or if they do, good for them).

Unfortunately, this effect is so powerful that they occur in about 70% of assault cases and also other emergencies such as a person collapsing from a heart attack (i.e. no one rushes to perform CPR). The same effect is seen in cases of suicides (where the person publicly announces their intentions with no one responding) and classrooms (when the teacher asks the class a question).

This is why one of the greatest tips for emergency response is to pick a single person out and instruct them to do something. For example, “You there, in the red jacket, call the ambulance” is much more effective than “Somebody do something”.

Posted in History & Literature

Crime And Punishment

Posted on by Jinavie

Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali. 
No crime or punishment without a previous penal law. 

This is the backbone of modern criminal law, stating that the law defines what a crime is, and without the law, there can be no crime. Ergo, a crime in the past cannot be punished with the law of the present.

The principle has allowed for many loopholes where past crimes went unpunished as they were not subjected to new laws. An example is The Homicide Act of 1957 in English law, which never gave a statutory definition of murder. This led to no less than six appeals challenging the definition, using it as a defence.
It also protects criminals by allowing them to use a defence (e.g. provocation) even after it is outlawed, as long as the crime was committed before the law came in place.

If Wonderland’s legal system was based around nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege, then the King of Hearts would not have been able to impose his Rule #42: “all persons more than a mile high must leave the court immediately”, as he created the rule after Alice ate the mushrooms and grew in size.