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> He is innocent until proven guilty ... Not "reasonable chance" according to your random opinion, but a judge and jury and various council go through a legal c

> He is innocent until proven guilty ... Not "reasonable chance" according to your random opinion, but a judge and jury and various council go through a legal case and legally find him guilty. If someone is running towards you with a knife shouting religious scripture, are you going to stand still and think to yourself "I'm going to assume this person is innocent until they are convicted of my murder in a court of law"? No, you're going to consider the possibility that they actually might intend to murder you, and you'll take appropriate precautions. Innocent until proven guilty is a concept for the court of law, not for the court of public opinion. People are allowed to hold opinions and thoughts regarding how dangerous other people are.

BoorishBears 6y ago
Is the court of public opinion what makes you run away from someone coming at you with a knife?! Is a compelling article using stinging quotes what makes you think a knife coming at you is going to be a bad thing? They're completely non-comparable concepts. It's such an embarrassingly lazy strawman I can't believe you bothered to waste words on it, and it's silly I should have to respond to it. Innocent until proven guilty is not a concept born for the sake of legal rigor... it's born of the fact that "court of public opinion" is easily swayed by nonsense. It's largely seen as detracting from the proper functioning of an actual impartial justice system which is why we go to such great lengths to isolate jurors in major cases and why some countries don't even publish people's information this easily. - So many comments are replying trying to say "there's nothing that legally requires me to assume people are innocent!!!" That's not a clever argument, there's no legal requirement to be a free-thinking person. But as I pointed out before, the same way a literal alarm clock splayed out in a box became a national scandal, the burden of proof for the media to sensationalize anything is embarrassing low. Someone could have a picture taken of a simple hobbyist electronics bench and most people would see it as some sort of mad scientist's electronics lab. Use your brain cells of a second and think of the context. Someone running at you with a knife? Where the hell does public opinion come into it? Someone asking for money for thousands of hours of free work that they've done after their apartment burns down and they're left homeless? And you want to protest that because the Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism of the entire NYPD found some unmixed materials and some reading materials and felt: > the totality of the circumstances that raised our concern to a level where we're going to need more investigation Really? If a deputy commissioner of counterterrorism is saying "we're just worried enough to look into it" almost 2 months ago and the guy is still out here on the street, you really think you have a leg to stand on protesting the guy getting some money to not be homeless? This honestly feels like inverse-concern baiting. The man is asking for money and about to go homeless after spending a good chunk of his life doing free work used by multi billion dollar corporations. Trying to go "oooOOooOo he might be a terrorist!!!" over this weak of an indictment is the height of something so insulting, the words to describe it escape me.
- baobabKoodaa 6y ago
  > Someone running at you with a knife? Where the hell does public opinion come into it? Look, you decided to build your entire argument on this extreme form of innocent-until-proven-guilty-nonsense. So I took an extreme example to demonstrate to you that your position was too strong. Let me try to explain in more detail: if you must assume that "everyone is innocent" until they are proven guilty in a court of law, then clearly you would assume that the man charging at you with a knife has no intention of committing a crime, right? Since you assume that they are entirely innocent, then there is no risk of being murdered, so you would not try to run away, right? Can you see how that doesn't make sense? Clearly you would try to run away from someone running at you with a knife, and that's because you have no obligation (legal or otherwise) to assume that everyone is innocent. It's okay to assign probabilities to different events, including crimes that people may or may not commit. If you didn't take the extreme position to begin with, we wouldn't have to go over extreme examples to demonstrate why your extreme position was wrong. Anyway, I'm going to assume that we both now agree that there is no obligation to assume people are innocent until proven guilty. If you still disagree, please explain how this obligation should work out in the context of the knifeman attack. > ...the same way a literal alarm clock splayed out in a box became a national scandal... ...but this was not an alarm clock. This was ammonium nitrate (among other stuff). Ammonium nitrate is used for fertilizer and explosives. Was he a farmer? No. So either he was intending to use it for explosives, or he was running some chemistry experiments or something. Can you see how this is different from the possession of an alarm clock? For what it's worth, I think the most likely explanation for the stuff found is that he was geeking out some harmless experiments. I think the second most likely explanation is that he was going to build bombs and blow stuff up in the forest for fun. I don't think it's likely that he intended to hurt people in bombs, because it's extremely rare for people outside warzones to hurt other people with bombs. But it's definitely within the realm of possibility, and it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. > Someone asking for money for thousands of hours of free work that they've done after their apartment burns down and they're left homeless? I'm not calling for any fundraisers to be shut down, and I'm not admonishing people for donating money. Even if he intended to hurt people with bombs (which he probably didn't), I think the world is going to be a better place if people donate money and help him get on his feet. Let's hope that the investigation can clear him innocent of any suspicions, and that this doesn't loom over his job search in the future.

BoorishBears 6y ago

Is the court of public opinion what makes you run away from someone coming at you with a knife?! Is a compelling article using stinging quotes what makes you think a knife coming at you is going to be a bad thing? They're completely non-comparable concepts. It's such an embarrassingly lazy strawman I can't believe you bothered to waste words on it, and it's silly I should have to respond to it. Innocent until proven guilty is not a concept born for the sake of legal rigor... it's born of the fact that "court of public opinion" is easily swayed by nonsense. It's largely seen as detracting from the proper functioning of an actual impartial justice system which is why we go to such great lengths to isolate jurors in major cases and why some countries don't even publish people's information this easily. - So many comments are replying trying to say "there's nothing that legally requires me to assume people are innocent!!!" That's not a clever argument, there's no legal requirement to be a free-thinking person. But as I pointed out before, the same way a literal alarm clock splayed out in a box became a national scandal, the burden of proof for the media to sensationalize anything is embarrassing low. Someone could have a picture taken of a simple hobbyist electronics bench and most people would see it as some sort of mad scientist's electronics lab. Use your brain cells of a second and think of the context. Someone running at you with a knife? Where the hell does public opinion come into it? Someone asking for money for thousands of hours of free work that they've done after their apartment burns down and they're left homeless? And you want to protest that because the Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism of the entire NYPD found some unmixed materials and some reading materials and felt: > the totality of the circumstances that raised our concern to a level where we're going to need more investigation Really? If a deputy commissioner of counterterrorism is saying "we're just worried enough to look into it" almost 2 months ago and the guy is still out here on the street, you really think you have a leg to stand on protesting the guy getting some money to not be homeless? This honestly feels like inverse-concern baiting. The man is asking for money and about to go homeless after spending a good chunk of his life doing free work used by multi billion dollar corporations. Trying to go "oooOOooOo he might be a terrorist!!!" over this weak of an indictment is the height of something so insulting, the words to describe it escape me.

baobabKoodaa 6y ago
> Someone running at you with a knife? Where the hell does public opinion come into it? Look, you decided to build your entire argument on this extreme form of innocent-until-proven-guilty-nonsense. So I took an extreme example to demonstrate to you that your position was too strong. Let me try to explain in more detail: if you must assume that "everyone is innocent" until they are proven guilty in a court of law, then clearly you would assume that the man charging at you with a knife has no intention of committing a crime, right? Since you assume that they are entirely innocent, then there is no risk of being murdered, so you would not try to run away, right? Can you see how that doesn't make sense? Clearly you would try to run away from someone running at you with a knife, and that's because you have no obligation (legal or otherwise) to assume that everyone is innocent. It's okay to assign probabilities to different events, including crimes that people may or may not commit. If you didn't take the extreme position to begin with, we wouldn't have to go over extreme examples to demonstrate why your extreme position was wrong. Anyway, I'm going to assume that we both now agree that there is no obligation to assume people are innocent until proven guilty. If you still disagree, please explain how this obligation should work out in the context of the knifeman attack. > ...the same way a literal alarm clock splayed out in a box became a national scandal... ...but this was not an alarm clock. This was ammonium nitrate (among other stuff). Ammonium nitrate is used for fertilizer and explosives. Was he a farmer? No. So either he was intending to use it for explosives, or he was running some chemistry experiments or something. Can you see how this is different from the possession of an alarm clock? For what it's worth, I think the most likely explanation for the stuff found is that he was geeking out some harmless experiments. I think the second most likely explanation is that he was going to build bombs and blow stuff up in the forest for fun. I don't think it's likely that he intended to hurt people in bombs, because it's extremely rare for people outside warzones to hurt other people with bombs. But it's definitely within the realm of possibility, and it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. > Someone asking for money for thousands of hours of free work that they've done after their apartment burns down and they're left homeless? I'm not calling for any fundraisers to be shut down, and I'm not admonishing people for donating money. Even if he intended to hurt people with bombs (which he probably didn't), I think the world is going to be a better place if people donate money and help him get on his feet. Let's hope that the investigation can clear him innocent of any suspicions, and that this doesn't loom over his job search in the future.