4 ms·

I think this is an excellent observation and I agree that it's very hard. I'm no expert whatsoever, but I think that the key to all of this stuff is nuance. Nu

I think this is an excellent observation and I agree that it's very hard. I'm no expert whatsoever, but I think that the key to all of this stuff is nuance. Nuance, nuance, nuance. Nobody's totally good or totally bad, and you just need to dig deep enough to see the details. A jury can see all the nuance (if there's enough lawyer time/money to dig it up). A judge can (eg in contintenal European courts). Here in NL there's a popular narrative that judges are old rich white dudes who are disconnected from reality (they're actually mostly middle-age white women, but OK). I never understood that narrative - these are people who get confronted with all the nasty parts of society in their full nuance, all day every day. They see that somebody commits wellfare fraud, but they do it out of desparation to keep their family afloat. They see that someone beats up their wife, but it's driven by harsh inescapable alcoholism. These are tragedies plain and simple, and it's extremely hard to just say either "you were just a victim!" or "lock you up forever!". Personally I think mob outrage (eg on Twitter), or justice processes with too little money for proper lawyering, are a serious threat to society precisely because of this. If there's no time or space for nuance, everything becomes black&white and tragedies deepen.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
Alcohol is not a drug that makes people violent. It merely lowers inhibitions. If drunkards are violent, the violence can't reasonably be blamed on the alcohol per se. Giving people a chance at a fresh start only works if it involves a "tough love" approach with an explicit expectation that future behavior must be better. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior and it is notoriously hard to get people to actually change, often even in cases where they want to change. People who get told "It's not your fault. You were the victim of a broken system." tend to not conclude that their behavior still needs to change going forward. That message tends to actively hinder the reform process. They tend to want to justify their past behavior as okay because they had a good reason and it wasn't their fault. This tends to result in monsters, not reformed lives. Even if you supposedly "do everything right," extremely warped people tend to be talented at running things through their warped minds and coming up with creative interpretations that just keep justifying their horrifying behavior.
- saberience 7y ago
  I would say that there is something specific about alcohol that increases violence actually. MDMA, Cannabis, and various other drugs also lower inhibitions but I've never seen anyone on MDMA or Cannabis get violent or even come anywhere close to violence. Alcohol is an absolutely brain-warping drug and can create behaviors and new personalities which are light-years from how somebody was originally. I know this from personal experience seeing two close friends pass into alcoholic territory and become completely different people.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    That's anecdotal. I have my own anecdotal first-hand experience that contradicts yours. Battle Of The Personal Anecdotes never settles any internet arguments ever.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > I have my own anecdotal first-hand experience that contradicts yours. Leaving aside reliability concerns of anecdote in associating cause and effect, an anecdote could can suffice to say that alcohol does induce violence by means other than disinhibition (since if does so even once, this is true) but it could suffice (even, again, leaving aside reliability concerns) to say that it does not, because it not doing so in one particular case (or even a larger number of particular cases) does not support the argument that it cannot do so. All you can get from "it didn't happen this time" is "it doesn't always happen", not "it doesn't happen at all".
      - DoreenMichele 7y ago
        There can be many confounding factors in a particular instance. Correlation does not prove causation. I've had personal experience with thinking X caused Y and only realizing years later that there was some unaccounted for variable that I had been unaware of at the time.
        7y ago

DoreenMichele 7y ago

Alcohol is not a drug that makes people violent. It merely lowers inhibitions. If drunkards are violent, the violence can't reasonably be blamed on the alcohol per se. Giving people a chance at a fresh start only works if it involves a "tough love" approach with an explicit expectation that future behavior must be better. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior and it is notoriously hard to get people to actually change, often even in cases where they want to change. People who get told "It's not your fault. You were the victim of a broken system." tend to not conclude that their behavior still needs to change going forward. That message tends to actively hinder the reform process. They tend to want to justify their past behavior as okay because they had a good reason and it wasn't their fault. This tends to result in monsters, not reformed lives. Even if you supposedly "do everything right," extremely warped people tend to be talented at running things through their warped minds and coming up with creative interpretations that just keep justifying their horrifying behavior.

saberience 7y ago
I would say that there is something specific about alcohol that increases violence actually. MDMA, Cannabis, and various other drugs also lower inhibitions but I've never seen anyone on MDMA or Cannabis get violent or even come anywhere close to violence. Alcohol is an absolutely brain-warping drug and can create behaviors and new personalities which are light-years from how somebody was originally. I know this from personal experience seeing two close friends pass into alcoholic territory and become completely different people.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  That's anecdotal. I have my own anecdotal first-hand experience that contradicts yours. Battle Of The Personal Anecdotes never settles any internet arguments ever.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > I have my own anecdotal first-hand experience that contradicts yours. Leaving aside reliability concerns of anecdote in associating cause and effect, an anecdote could can suffice to say that alcohol does induce violence by means other than disinhibition (since if does so even once, this is true) but it could suffice (even, again, leaving aside reliability concerns) to say that it does not, because it not doing so in one particular case (or even a larger number of particular cases) does not support the argument that it cannot do so. All you can get from "it didn't happen this time" is "it doesn't always happen", not "it doesn't happen at all".
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      There can be many confounding factors in a particular instance. Correlation does not prove causation. I've had personal experience with thinking X caused Y and only realizing years later that there was some unaccounted for variable that I had been unaware of at the time.
      - 7y ago