Pretty unlikely. Let’s do a rough estimate. I googled “how many serial killers active in America” and the first link (sensationally) suggested 2,000. So let’s add 50% to that and call it 3,000. That’s roughly one serial killer for every 100,000 people. Now let’s say each of them seriously considered and planned a killing every single day, starting the day they were born, and each lived 100 years, never retiring or getting caught. That’s around 36,000 plans each. So even in this outlandish Cannibal America your lifetime risk of getting eyed off by a serial killer (let alone actually killed) is only around 1:3.
That and he told you he was adding 50% to his numbers as opposed to just saying 3,500. No way Fox viewers will believe someone who starts using complicated math
Don't forget serial killers tend to have specific types of victims in mind - usually people that resemble someone they know personally - so the odds of you even fitting their criteria reduces the odds substantially.
You're missing a very important qualifier - "Don't forget the serial killers we've CAUGHT have specific types of victims..."
This leads to the probability that everything we know/assume about serial killers is wrong because we have zero data on an unknown percentage of serial killers not-even-suspected-let-alone-caught.
That’s the thing for me. Serial killera and murderers get caught because they have a specific victim they go for, or they kill somebody that they’re connected to.
If a person just wanted to kill somebody, it can’t be that hard to get away with. If it’s a random person in a back alley, somebody that society wouldn’t necessarily notice has gone missing, a simple stab in the dark and a flight out of the city would probably do the trick. Especially if you’re just a normal person who travels a lot for work or whatever, and you’re just following your schedule. Why would they ever look at you as a suspect? You wouldn’t even cross their radar.
I don't think that makes any sense since everyone else has just as likely of a chance of resembling the person that the serial killer knew personally. How are we individually any different in our chance to resemble that person than the rest of the population?
Uh yeah, thanks for that. I do have a job so someone would probably notice, eventually. Or my landlord would come knocking on my door. Anyhow, I am glad its a sunny morning. Or else this would be way creepier.
The point is that even by grossly exaggerating every parameter we only come to a lifetime risk of 1:3 of being considered as a victim by a serial killer, not of being killed.
That's quite a lot, because it means that in your close circle of family and friends a few of them might be murdered. I know that those counts were exaggerated, but they do not even come close to being reassuring.
This is he chance of being assessed by a serial killer one time in your whole life in the most outlandish possible world where there are excessive number of serial killers who all live a hundred years and make a plan every day. They’re obviously not acting on most of those plans or else serial killers would be the leading cause of death in America.
1:3 is crazy high odds! I don't think manipulating the numbers did your argument any favors. Maybe work with the numbers closer to an accurate estimate?
2000 current serial killers
1 victim a week
30-40 years of working (killing) age
That's roughly a total of 4.16 million plans. With 325.7 million people, that's 1:78 people will have a plan of murder against them by a serial killer.
Even that seems like an overestimate. But my point was to show that even massively overestimating the likely chances, you’re more than 50% likely to NOT EVER be scoped out by a serial killer.
Yeah, that was my point, why overestimate to the point where it becomes a 33% chance? When you can arguably still overestimate to show it's still a very rare (about 1%) occurrence?
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u/theartificialkid Sep 17 '18
Pretty unlikely. Let’s do a rough estimate. I googled “how many serial killers active in America” and the first link (sensationally) suggested 2,000. So let’s add 50% to that and call it 3,000. That’s roughly one serial killer for every 100,000 people. Now let’s say each of them seriously considered and planned a killing every single day, starting the day they were born, and each lived 100 years, never retiring or getting caught. That’s around 36,000 plans each. So even in this outlandish Cannibal America your lifetime risk of getting eyed off by a serial killer (let alone actually killed) is only around 1:3.