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Many of the comments here about about the SWAT teams and militarization of the US police force, but the story I read is that this guy (and others) went after wo

Many of the comments here about about the SWAT teams and militarization of the US police force, but the story I read is that this guy (and others) went after women gamers because of their gender. Just the other day a woman programmer told me of some of the threats and abuse she'd suffered essentially because she's a programmer, a woman and has a public profile. I find this so depressing.

karmacondon 11y ago
My first thought in response to your comment was "Well, most jerks are men". But I was reading about Berkson's Paradox [1] earlier and I think it might apply here. There's probably an even distribution of bad behavior between both men and women, but the selection bias in programming and technology limits the sample so that it skews towards males who behave badly. This doesn't add much to your comment, other than offering a potential explanation as to why women in technology can have a hard time. Unfortunately I don't see a solution to the problem either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox
- maroonblazer 11y ago
  Perhaps I'm misreading Berkson's Paradox but I'm not sure that explains all of it. We know men engage in risk-seeking behaviors more-so than women, in aggregate. Couple that with teenage men/boys being more likely to be socially isolated and all the other factors associated with the adolescent/pubescent lifestage (hormones raging, identity issues, etc) - again, in aggregate - it's easy to see why you'd get more males than females engaging in this kind of behavior.
- dahart 11y ago
  > There's probably an even distribution of bad behavior between both men and women... We're talking about sexual harassment, not just jerks or any old "bad behavior". There is not an even distribution of sexual harassment. http://news.msu.edu/media/documents/2011/03/1205ff7b-5b6c-40ab-ac78-9356422cd451.pdf http://news.msu.edu/media/documents/2011/03/1205ff7b-5b6c-40... http://www.aware.org.sg/training/wsh-site/14-statistics/ http://www.aware.org.sg/training/wsh-site/14-statistics/
diego_moita 11y ago
This is also what I read. What I found most disturbing there is the pattern of a fragile and weak person being abused and returning all that abuse into others that are weaker than him. It reminds me an Israeli writer (Amos Oz, if I remember correctly) saying that many times the mind of the opressed is an mirrored inverted version of the mind of opressor.
- api 11y ago
  Thanks for that reference. This is also very close to the true non-westernized definition of karma: evil is essentially a virus that spreads from perpetrator/teacher to victim/student. If the victim does not consciously decide to stop the disease, they go on to reenact it in the perpetrator role. Karma isn't a penalty for evil but a description of the cycle and how it is perpetuated; there is no penalty except continued eternal entrapment in the cycle.
iSnow 11y ago
I am going out on a limb, I don't think the behavior in the article is "simply" misogyny like with the programmer you mention, i.e. attacking women in techy jobs, it's more like sexual harassment by guys who don't have a girlfriend but some technical skills (and no moral compass). I believe it starts with 4Chan's "tits or GTFO" whenever a woman identifies as such. In the end, guys like this one try to extort as much nudes, porn or ultimately sex as they possibly can.
- gotchange 11y ago
  I don't think that sexual gratification has anything to do with his behavior. He's a sadist psychopath who enjoys torturing his victims and inflicting as much pain as he could on them but he picks women due to their natural response "tend and be friend" in these situations unlike men with their "fight or flight" response in confrontations. He knew very well he would face a violent reaction if he tried any of these sick mind games on any grown up male.
cstross 11y ago
I'm kind of startled that this type of crime isn't prosecuted as attempted murder. (If I go out and try to hire a hit-man to kill someone, that's how the prosecuting authorities would deal with me. If I try and trick someone else who is armed into killing someone for me? That's a very short step from paying an assassin -- there's just less money involved. That the armed someone in question is a SWAT team doesn't clearly change the nature of the interaction. QED: attempted murder.)
- cmdkeen 11y ago
  The problem is that would involve the state conceding that SWAT teams don't exercise sufficient restraint in choosing when to utilise deadly force. It very much should be heavily prosecuted but that is why it can't be attempted murder. Much like why the police can't "shoot to disable" it's to do with the legal implications of what you are admitting.
  - rchaud 11y ago
    Maybe not a murder charge, but in the US, there are a number of lesser charges that don't imply direct intent, such as negligent homicide, 3 degrees of manslaughter and others. In the case of deliberate targeting of women based on gender, it's possible to attach a hate crime charge as well, which would add significantly to the possible jail time. At the very least, pursuing some of these charges would build leverage, which may result in the defendant pleading to a lesser charge. That in turn would result in no trial, and circumvent the complicated question of whether SWAT team operations disproportionately increase the risk of death or serious injury.
    - gherkin0 11y ago
      I don't think you're going to solve this problem by merely increasing penalties and throwing more years-in-prison at the perpetrators. Most of them seem to be kids who seem think they're invincible anyway. > At the very least, pursuing some of these charges would build leverage, which may result in the defendant pleading to a lesser charge. That's a really ugly part of the American justice system (e.g. scare the accused with over-inflated penalties to get them to plead guilty with no trial). That should be abandoned. The real solution will be 1) removing SWAT teams from communities that have no real need for them and 2) training police to only use SWAT tactics once they've confirmed they're appropriate for the situation. SWATing pranks are only just one symptom of the overuse of military tactics by police.

karmacondon 11y ago

My first thought in response to your comment was "Well, most jerks are men". But I was reading about Berkson's Paradox [1] earlier and I think it might apply here. There's probably an even distribution of bad behavior between both men and women, but the selection bias in programming and technology limits the sample so that it skews towards males who behave badly. This doesn't add much to your comment, other than offering a potential explanation as to why women in technology can have a hard time. Unfortunately I don't see a solution to the problem either. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox

maroonblazer 11y ago
Perhaps I'm misreading Berkson's Paradox but I'm not sure that explains all of it. We know men engage in risk-seeking behaviors more-so than women, in aggregate. Couple that with teenage men/boys being more likely to be socially isolated and all the other factors associated with the adolescent/pubescent lifestage (hormones raging, identity issues, etc) - again, in aggregate - it's easy to see why you'd get more males than females engaging in this kind of behavior.
dahart 11y ago
> There's probably an even distribution of bad behavior between both men and women... We're talking about sexual harassment, not just jerks or any old "bad behavior". There is not an even distribution of sexual harassment. http://news.msu.edu/media/documents/2011/03/1205ff7b-5b6c-40ab-ac78-9356422cd451.pdf http://news.msu.edu/media/documents/2011/03/1205ff7b-5b6c-40... http://www.aware.org.sg/training/wsh-site/14-statistics/ http://www.aware.org.sg/training/wsh-site/14-statistics/

diego_moita 11y ago

This is also what I read. What I found most disturbing there is the pattern of a fragile and weak person being abused and returning all that abuse into others that are weaker than him. It reminds me an Israeli writer (Amos Oz, if I remember correctly) saying that many times the mind of the opressed is an mirrored inverted version of the mind of opressor.

api 11y ago
Thanks for that reference. This is also very close to the true non-westernized definition of karma: evil is essentially a virus that spreads from perpetrator/teacher to victim/student. If the victim does not consciously decide to stop the disease, they go on to reenact it in the perpetrator role. Karma isn't a penalty for evil but a description of the cycle and how it is perpetuated; there is no penalty except continued eternal entrapment in the cycle.

iSnow 11y ago

I am going out on a limb, I don't think the behavior in the article is "simply" misogyny like with the programmer you mention, i.e. attacking women in techy jobs, it's more like sexual harassment by guys who don't have a girlfriend but some technical skills (and no moral compass). I believe it starts with 4Chan's "tits or GTFO" whenever a woman identifies as such. In the end, guys like this one try to extort as much nudes, porn or ultimately sex as they possibly can.

gotchange 11y ago
I don't think that sexual gratification has anything to do with his behavior. He's a sadist psychopath who enjoys torturing his victims and inflicting as much pain as he could on them but he picks women due to their natural response "tend and be friend" in these situations unlike men with their "fight or flight" response in confrontations. He knew very well he would face a violent reaction if he tried any of these sick mind games on any grown up male.

cstross 11y ago

I'm kind of startled that this type of crime isn't prosecuted as attempted murder. (If I go out and try to hire a hit-man to kill someone, that's how the prosecuting authorities would deal with me. If I try and trick someone else who is armed into killing someone for me? That's a very short step from paying an assassin -- there's just less money involved. That the armed someone in question is a SWAT team doesn't clearly change the nature of the interaction. QED: attempted murder.)

cmdkeen 11y ago
The problem is that would involve the state conceding that SWAT teams don't exercise sufficient restraint in choosing when to utilise deadly force. It very much should be heavily prosecuted but that is why it can't be attempted murder. Much like why the police can't "shoot to disable" it's to do with the legal implications of what you are admitting.
- rchaud 11y ago
  Maybe not a murder charge, but in the US, there are a number of lesser charges that don't imply direct intent, such as negligent homicide, 3 degrees of manslaughter and others. In the case of deliberate targeting of women based on gender, it's possible to attach a hate crime charge as well, which would add significantly to the possible jail time. At the very least, pursuing some of these charges would build leverage, which may result in the defendant pleading to a lesser charge. That in turn would result in no trial, and circumvent the complicated question of whether SWAT team operations disproportionately increase the risk of death or serious injury.
  - gherkin0 11y ago
    I don't think you're going to solve this problem by merely increasing penalties and throwing more years-in-prison at the perpetrators. Most of them seem to be kids who seem think they're invincible anyway. > At the very least, pursuing some of these charges would build leverage, which may result in the defendant pleading to a lesser charge. That's a really ugly part of the American justice system (e.g. scare the accused with over-inflated penalties to get them to plead guilty with no trial). That should be abandoned. The real solution will be 1) removing SWAT teams from communities that have no real need for them and 2) training police to only use SWAT tactics once they've confirmed they're appropriate for the situation. SWATing pranks are only just one symptom of the overuse of military tactics by police.