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It's not a system of justice or truth finding. It is an adversarial system of fighting with each other in courts. I totally feel for what this woman had to go

by x5n1 11y ago

It's not a system of justice or truth finding. It is an adversarial system of fighting with each other in courts. I totally feel for what this woman had to go through. But imagine most court battles look like this and emotionally destroy people who are fighting them. Imagine being a perfectly good parent and then being torn down in court because of a custody battle. Or being Aaron Swartz and wanting to do good and free information being threatened with tens of years in prison. It's a system of fighting predicated upon harassment, character assassination, and half-truths and lies. Whatever the jury will believe, to win. And after you win you can't go back and get them for all the shit they did to you in court. Because most of those things are not actionable, especially when dealing with the government.

stcredzero 11y ago
It's not a system of justice or truth finding. It is an adversarial system of fighting with each other in courts. From what I have seen, there are a lot of young people who have concluded that there's no systematic system of truth finding, only adversarial systems of fighting with each other. Many young people seem to think this is what the Internet is. The tragedy is that there are systems for discovering the truth, and there are better ways of doing things than "win at all costs." I have no idea if the policeman thought what he was doing was right or wrong (rationalization is very powerful) but it's clear that he was acting improperly and abusing his position of power.
- x5n1 11y ago
  > I have no idea if the policeman thought what he was doing was right or wrong I have the right to rape people who I pull over? If your moral compass is that screwed up, then there is something very very wrong with you. In general people in positions of authority are held to a higher standard than the general public. A normal person would know it's not right to rape people you pull over.
  - stcredzero 11y ago
    I have the right to rape people who I pull over? I suspect the cop's story would be that the sex was consensual. Really, now, do you think the cop's defense strategy would be, "I have the right to rape people I pull over?" And also, on what evidence would you conclude that I would support such an extraordinary idea? Really!? What kind of caricatured straw men do you think you interact with on sites like HN? There is a kind of generosity and intellectual honor which entails proving the null hypothesis and starting from the standpoint of giving people the benefit of the doubt. This is what I expect on HN. There is another kind of Internet drama-seeking which does the opposite of the above, even if it defies common sense.
- rayiner 11y ago
  The whole process would be a lot simpler if we could only put people in prison based on someone concluding based on a three-page internet article that "it's clear [the defendant] was acting improperly and abusing his position of power." One of the paradoxical consequences of the Internet age is that people are so exposed to written communication that they forget the inherently probabilistic nature of truth-finding.[1] "Instead, Sanchez drove Lindsay down a dirt road into the pitch-black desert, where he raped her as she cried." Easy to state with clarity and certainty in a newspaper article--very difficult to establish with clarity and certainty in real life with conflicting personal accounts.[2] Litigation is like asking two people who just went through an acrimonious break-up "whose fault was it?" There is never the kind of clear answer you can put into a long-form article that rings of clarity and definiteness with every punctuation mark. There is only ugly, fuzzy, confusing probabilistic truth. [1] I imagine this certainty that narrative == objective truth was less common before mass-market narrative, when people had to learn about events through word of mouth. [2] In this case that narrative was probably true. But that's all you can conclude from the jury verdict.
  - adrusi 11y ago
    I imagine this certainty that narrative == objective truth was less common before mass-market narrative, when people had to learn about events through word of mouth. Hah! No this is human nature. Before the internet there was TV, and before TV there was radio, and before radio there was newspaper. Before newspaper, in Europe people would hear narratives from the Church via their priests, and at the most primitve level is gossip. If anything the internet combats this, by making available a whole array of narratives to anyone who would look for them.
- kiba 11y ago
  From what I have seen, there are a lot of young people who have concluded that there's no systematic system of truth finding, only adversarial systems of fighting with each other. Many young people seem to think this is what the Internet is. Do they think winning an argument means their version of the truth is the right one? That is a bizarre way of dealing with reality.
- adrusi 11y ago
  What other systems of discovering truth do you speak of?
rayiner 11y ago
You think there is any system in which a person accused of a cold-blooded rape, and his friends and colleagues, isn't going to harass, lie, and do pretty much whatever necessary to stay out of prison? The adversity is intrinsic to the situation, not the process.
- x5n1 11y ago
  The person who would be affected by the rape charge went to jail. This was the system fighting to protect itself from accusations that the system does not work or failed in this instance. Instead of looking hard upon itself and how it can improve, it look to justify itself.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    This was an organization trying to protect itself from a multi-million dollar judgment making it liable for the illegal actions of one of its employees. What organization, faced with such a situation, "look[s] hard upon itself and how it can improve?"
  - adrusi 11y ago
    See cperciva's comments elsewhere in this thread: based on the information presented in the article, the county did exactly what they should have done, and the criminal was convicted. It's not clear what the county could have done better. You're going to get people capable of commiting rape into the police force just like you get them everywhere else (in greater proportion due to the nature of police work). And then they will rape someone. You can't stop bad things from happening.
vinceguidry 11y ago
Unfortunately it's all we have. Until there is a magic box into which we can put into a question and get a 100% right answer out of, litigation proceedings inevitably have to be adversarial. The nice thing about this is that she won and has her piece of a $6 million dollar settlement to buy a house and that can make the rest of her life easier. She still has a lot of life ahead of her if she can move past this. Hopefully it doesn't get frittered away by all the scumbags that follow these kinds of cases.

by x5n1 11y ago

stcredzero 11y ago

It's not a system of justice or truth finding. It is an adversarial system of fighting with each other in courts. From what I have seen, there are a lot of young people who have concluded that there's no systematic system of truth finding, only adversarial systems of fighting with each other. Many young people seem to think this is what the Internet is. The tragedy is that there are systems for discovering the truth, and there are better ways of doing things than "win at all costs." I have no idea if the policeman thought what he was doing was right or wrong (rationalization is very powerful) but it's clear that he was acting improperly and abusing his position of power.

x5n1 11y ago
> I have no idea if the policeman thought what he was doing was right or wrong I have the right to rape people who I pull over? If your moral compass is that screwed up, then there is something very very wrong with you. In general people in positions of authority are held to a higher standard than the general public. A normal person would know it's not right to rape people you pull over.
- stcredzero 11y ago
  I have the right to rape people who I pull over? I suspect the cop's story would be that the sex was consensual. Really, now, do you think the cop's defense strategy would be, "I have the right to rape people I pull over?" And also, on what evidence would you conclude that I would support such an extraordinary idea? Really!? What kind of caricatured straw men do you think you interact with on sites like HN? There is a kind of generosity and intellectual honor which entails proving the null hypothesis and starting from the standpoint of giving people the benefit of the doubt. This is what I expect on HN. There is another kind of Internet drama-seeking which does the opposite of the above, even if it defies common sense.
rayiner 11y ago
The whole process would be a lot simpler if we could only put people in prison based on someone concluding based on a three-page internet article that "it's clear [the defendant] was acting improperly and abusing his position of power." One of the paradoxical consequences of the Internet age is that people are so exposed to written communication that they forget the inherently probabilistic nature of truth-finding.[1] "Instead, Sanchez drove Lindsay down a dirt road into the pitch-black desert, where he raped her as she cried." Easy to state with clarity and certainty in a newspaper article--very difficult to establish with clarity and certainty in real life with conflicting personal accounts.[2] Litigation is like asking two people who just went through an acrimonious break-up "whose fault was it?" There is never the kind of clear answer you can put into a long-form article that rings of clarity and definiteness with every punctuation mark. There is only ugly, fuzzy, confusing probabilistic truth. [1] I imagine this certainty that narrative == objective truth was less common before mass-market narrative, when people had to learn about events through word of mouth. [2] In this case that narrative was probably true. But that's all you can conclude from the jury verdict.
- adrusi 11y ago
  I imagine this certainty that narrative == objective truth was less common before mass-market narrative, when people had to learn about events through word of mouth. Hah! No this is human nature. Before the internet there was TV, and before TV there was radio, and before radio there was newspaper. Before newspaper, in Europe people would hear narratives from the Church via their priests, and at the most primitve level is gossip. If anything the internet combats this, by making available a whole array of narratives to anyone who would look for them.
kiba 11y ago
From what I have seen, there are a lot of young people who have concluded that there's no systematic system of truth finding, only adversarial systems of fighting with each other. Many young people seem to think this is what the Internet is. Do they think winning an argument means their version of the truth is the right one? That is a bizarre way of dealing with reality.
adrusi 11y ago
What other systems of discovering truth do you speak of?

rayiner 11y ago

You think there is any system in which a person accused of a cold-blooded rape, and his friends and colleagues, isn't going to harass, lie, and do pretty much whatever necessary to stay out of prison? The adversity is intrinsic to the situation, not the process.

x5n1 11y ago
The person who would be affected by the rape charge went to jail. This was the system fighting to protect itself from accusations that the system does not work or failed in this instance. Instead of looking hard upon itself and how it can improve, it look to justify itself.
- rayiner 11y ago
  This was an organization trying to protect itself from a multi-million dollar judgment making it liable for the illegal actions of one of its employees. What organization, faced with such a situation, "look[s] hard upon itself and how it can improve?"
- adrusi 11y ago
  See cperciva's comments elsewhere in this thread: based on the information presented in the article, the county did exactly what they should have done, and the criminal was convicted. It's not clear what the county could have done better. You're going to get people capable of commiting rape into the police force just like you get them everywhere else (in greater proportion due to the nature of police work). And then they will rape someone. You can't stop bad things from happening.

vinceguidry 11y ago

Unfortunately it's all we have. Until there is a magic box into which we can put into a question and get a 100% right answer out of, litigation proceedings inevitably have to be adversarial. The nice thing about this is that she won and has her piece of a $6 million dollar settlement to buy a house and that can make the rest of her life easier. She still has a lot of life ahead of her if she can move past this. Hopefully it doesn't get frittered away by all the scumbags that follow these kinds of cases.