5 ms·

I'm perfectly willing to: a) Understand violent criminals have made amends and are rehabilitated b) Believe that people who were once racist are no longer rac

I'm perfectly willing to: a) Understand violent criminals have made amends and are rehabilitated b) Believe that people who were once racist are no longer racist Both issues are, to me, a 'sad result of circumstances'. So all of that seems fine.

sebmellen 6y ago
As am I. The point I was trying to make was that there isn't really a "path to rehabilitation" for people who have made very minor missteps online. In the case of the linked TED talk, the persecuted woman made a mistake, and was not a "career-racist". I think even accusing her of racism is a distortion of the word — she made a bad joke in bad taste. Meanwhile, there is an established, albeit broken path to rehabilitation for ex-convicts. There is also a certain faction of the left which seems to be more willing to accept prison reform than "tweet-reform". I think it should be far more easy to rehabilitate oneself from a bad tweet than a murder, and that they are entirely different classes of offences.
- staticassertion 6y ago
  Oh I agree entirely that we lack paths to rehabilitation for both the (a) and (b) cases, couldn't agree more - it makes the judgment call to hire that much more difficult.
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    I'm glad we can agree on that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
hnracer 6y ago
While that's true, there's no comparison between (a) and (b) in terms of how bad the original offense is. One is murder and the other is a thought crime.
- staticassertion 6y ago
  I can compare anything I like, actually. That's my right and my responsibility as the one who determines who comes to work with me and my colleagues. You can say that all "though crimes" are incomparable to legal indictments, and when you are hiring people that is your right as well.
  - hnracer 6y ago
    I didn't mean that there's no way you can make a comparison in a literal sense. I mean that it takes a particularly screwed up and deranged individual to think that murder and racist thoughts are somehow equivalent on the moral scale. Also, I'm not claiming that this is the position you are taking, only that it would be deranged if it is the one you are in fact taking.
    - sebmellen 6y ago
      Thanks for making this point. This is what I was trying to get at. Racist thoughts, to some, are seen as offences in the same way murder is, while they're not. Murder is a very clearly defined criminal act, to tweet something racist is an expression of free speech. Racism is inexcusable, but in an entirely different way than murder.
    - staticassertion 6y ago
      This whole conversation started off with "any crime" vs "a definitively racist tweet", not "murder" vs "thought crime". Trying to consider any of these things in isolation is worthless and not really something that makes sense to discuss, it's just a sillier version of the trolley problem. Context is going to be everything. Could someone convicted of murder be worth hiring? Yeah, sure, I'm not willing to say that that's not the case - what if they had an untreated medical condition, just as one potential contextual element? It's not worth discussing because it will end up with a "but what if but what if but what if". The point I will definitely make is the original point I made - that if I determine someone to be a racist that is important to me, and if I find that someone is a criminal I will need more context before I determine that it is important to me.

sebmellen 6y ago

As am I. The point I was trying to make was that there isn't really a "path to rehabilitation" for people who have made very minor missteps online. In the case of the linked TED talk, the persecuted woman made a mistake, and was not a "career-racist". I think even accusing her of racism is a distortion of the word — she made a bad joke in bad taste. Meanwhile, there is an established, albeit broken path to rehabilitation for ex-convicts. There is also a certain faction of the left which seems to be more willing to accept prison reform than "tweet-reform". I think it should be far more easy to rehabilitate oneself from a bad tweet than a murder, and that they are entirely different classes of offences.

staticassertion 6y ago
Oh I agree entirely that we lack paths to rehabilitation for both the (a) and (b) cases, couldn't agree more - it makes the judgment call to hire that much more difficult.
- sebmellen 6y ago
  I'm glad we can agree on that.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

hnracer 6y ago

While that's true, there's no comparison between (a) and (b) in terms of how bad the original offense is. One is murder and the other is a thought crime.

staticassertion 6y ago
I can compare anything I like, actually. That's my right and my responsibility as the one who determines who comes to work with me and my colleagues. You can say that all "though crimes" are incomparable to legal indictments, and when you are hiring people that is your right as well.
- hnracer 6y ago
  I didn't mean that there's no way you can make a comparison in a literal sense. I mean that it takes a particularly screwed up and deranged individual to think that murder and racist thoughts are somehow equivalent on the moral scale. Also, I'm not claiming that this is the position you are taking, only that it would be deranged if it is the one you are in fact taking.
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    Thanks for making this point. This is what I was trying to get at. Racist thoughts, to some, are seen as offences in the same way murder is, while they're not. Murder is a very clearly defined criminal act, to tweet something racist is an expression of free speech. Racism is inexcusable, but in an entirely different way than murder.
  - staticassertion 6y ago
    This whole conversation started off with "any crime" vs "a definitively racist tweet", not "murder" vs "thought crime". Trying to consider any of these things in isolation is worthless and not really something that makes sense to discuss, it's just a sillier version of the trolley problem. Context is going to be everything. Could someone convicted of murder be worth hiring? Yeah, sure, I'm not willing to say that that's not the case - what if they had an untreated medical condition, just as one potential contextual element? It's not worth discussing because it will end up with a "but what if but what if but what if". The point I will definitely make is the original point I made - that if I determine someone to be a racist that is important to me, and if I find that someone is a criminal I will need more context before I determine that it is important to me.