5 ms·

The purpose of reporting crime is not to receive compensation; it's to create a norm where crime is punished and hence deterred. It's a societal benefit not a p

The purpose of reporting crime is not to receive compensation; it's to create a norm where crime is punished and hence deterred. It's a societal benefit not a personal one. It's not good that miscarriages of justice do happen, but that doesn't change the overall point.

danielheath 4y ago
Given that miscarriages of justice happen, maybe calling the cops speculatively is not a great plan?
maxbond 4y ago
I understand the principle of what you're advocating for, but the unfortunate reality is that miscarriages of justice are the norm and not the exception. I'd put forward another principle; it is better to let 1000 guilty parties go free than to condemn 1 innocent party (and "innocent" here should be taken to include people who are committing a "crime" that is normally tolerated, employed as an excuse to arrest someone - each of us commits dozens of these "crimes" regularly, without realizing it). When we reflexively invite law enforcement into other people's lives, when we do not and cannot understand the situation at hand, we are not likely to promote a societal good. We are far more likely to promote a societal ill; that of overpolicing. I'd encourage people to think of law enforcement as an adversarial entity, constantly trying to do everyone in, who needs your invitation to act. It might be because they need to drive their performance metrics up, it might be because they're overzealous in the pursuit of what they view as justice, we can't really know and it doesn't matter. When you give them that invitation, they will make the absolute most of the opportunity. If you invite that monster into someone else's life - you had better be damn sure that they are a real threat to the community. You don't want to ruin (or perhaps end) someone's life over a miscommunication.
- Thorrez 4y ago
  >I understand the principle of what you're advocating for, but the unfortunate reality is that miscarriages of justice are the norm and not the exception. I'd put forward another principle; it is better to let 1000 guilty parties go free than to condemn 1 innocent party (and "innocent" here should be taken to include people who are committing a "crime" that is normally tolerated, employed as an excuse to arrest someone - each of us commits dozens of these "crimes" regularly, without realizing it). I think the ideal solution to this would be to work on fixing the system, not avoiding contact with the system. Hold police accountable for violating people's rights. Remove laws that don't need to be enforced, and consistently enforce ones that do need to be enforced. >When you give them that invitation, they will make the absolute most of the opportunity. When my car's window was broken and my work laptop was stolen, I reported it to the police and they didn't seem to do anything besides enter it into a database. I even have the thief's blood, but the police didn't want it.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    > I think the ideal solution to this would be to work on fixing the system, not avoiding contact with the system. Hold police accountable for violating people's rights. Remove laws that don't need to be enforced, and consistently enforce ones that do need to be enforced. This is a fair point. Personally I don't believe this reform is possible, as I believe that the nature of police powers is such that they will always become abusive and insulate themselves from accountability. Regardless, in the same way you go to war with the army you have, when you contact law enforcement, it's the law enforcement that you have and not the law enforcement you believe should exist. > When my car's window was broken and my work laptop was stolen, I reported it to the police and they didn't seem to do anything besides enter it into a database. I'm sorry that happened. Once my laptop with full disk encryption was stolen - while it was booted and asleep (thus defeating the full disk encryption), and I felt like such a fool. I meant this more as a mental model of what the worst case scenario you should anticipate is. Because we simply cannot predict how law enforcement will respond on a spectrum of not giving you the time of day to showing up with their weapons drawn, we have to consider whether the most extreme scenario is acceptable before contacting them. For what it's worth, I believe we should have a more diverse array of emergency services, who can be contacted directly, so that you have more control over what kind of response you are requesting.
    - Thorrez 4y ago
      Yeah, you have some good points. It's a complicated situation. >while it was booted and asleep (thus defeating the full disk encryption) Well I thought it would require a cold boot attack which would be extremely hard against a laptop with soldered RAM (like my stolen macbook pro). Until I looked it up just now and found this video... https://youtu.be/RqvPZnLkP70?t=2327 https://youtu.be/RqvPZnLkP70?t=2327
- cornel_io 4y ago
  It sounds like you have a deep (and IMO unjustified and motivated by wrong or weirdly interpreted statistics) hatred of law enforcement, probably from either personal experience or political activism. That's your prerogative, of course, but it's a really fringe position and most people would disagree.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    Nope, no hatred. Just conclusions I've come to through observation and reflection. This is something I'm seeing more and more, where people will say "You just have strong feelings on X, so your opinion doesn't matter." And for one, it presumes to know things about the contents of someone else's mind that you don't know, and for another, it's just not a criticism. It's a way to avoid engaging with the substance of someone's ideas. Basically what this comes down to is saying, "because you have an opinion, you don't get to have an opinion," which is nonsense.
  - ohbleek 4y ago
    I haven’t seen any hint of “hate” in their comments and their position is anything but fringe. Focusing on having a diverse set of emergency response teams has become mainstream, I’d say it’s a fringe position to think otherwise. Trust in police is very low nationwide and you seem to be out of touch. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/gallup-poll-police.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/gallup-poll-police.htm...

danielheath 4y ago

Given that miscarriages of justice happen, maybe calling the cops speculatively is not a great plan?

maxbond 4y ago

I understand the principle of what you're advocating for, but the unfortunate reality is that miscarriages of justice are the norm and not the exception. I'd put forward another principle; it is better to let 1000 guilty parties go free than to condemn 1 innocent party (and "innocent" here should be taken to include people who are committing a "crime" that is normally tolerated, employed as an excuse to arrest someone - each of us commits dozens of these "crimes" regularly, without realizing it). When we reflexively invite law enforcement into other people's lives, when we do not and cannot understand the situation at hand, we are not likely to promote a societal good. We are far more likely to promote a societal ill; that of overpolicing. I'd encourage people to think of law enforcement as an adversarial entity, constantly trying to do everyone in, who needs your invitation to act. It might be because they need to drive their performance metrics up, it might be because they're overzealous in the pursuit of what they view as justice, we can't really know and it doesn't matter. When you give them that invitation, they will make the absolute most of the opportunity. If you invite that monster into someone else's life - you had better be damn sure that they are a real threat to the community. You don't want to ruin (or perhaps end) someone's life over a miscommunication.

Thorrez 4y ago
>I understand the principle of what you're advocating for, but the unfortunate reality is that miscarriages of justice are the norm and not the exception. I'd put forward another principle; it is better to let 1000 guilty parties go free than to condemn 1 innocent party (and "innocent" here should be taken to include people who are committing a "crime" that is normally tolerated, employed as an excuse to arrest someone - each of us commits dozens of these "crimes" regularly, without realizing it). I think the ideal solution to this would be to work on fixing the system, not avoiding contact with the system. Hold police accountable for violating people's rights. Remove laws that don't need to be enforced, and consistently enforce ones that do need to be enforced. >When you give them that invitation, they will make the absolute most of the opportunity. When my car's window was broken and my work laptop was stolen, I reported it to the police and they didn't seem to do anything besides enter it into a database. I even have the thief's blood, but the police didn't want it.
- maxbond 4y ago
  > I think the ideal solution to this would be to work on fixing the system, not avoiding contact with the system. Hold police accountable for violating people's rights. Remove laws that don't need to be enforced, and consistently enforce ones that do need to be enforced. This is a fair point. Personally I don't believe this reform is possible, as I believe that the nature of police powers is such that they will always become abusive and insulate themselves from accountability. Regardless, in the same way you go to war with the army you have, when you contact law enforcement, it's the law enforcement that you have and not the law enforcement you believe should exist. > When my car's window was broken and my work laptop was stolen, I reported it to the police and they didn't seem to do anything besides enter it into a database. I'm sorry that happened. Once my laptop with full disk encryption was stolen - while it was booted and asleep (thus defeating the full disk encryption), and I felt like such a fool. I meant this more as a mental model of what the worst case scenario you should anticipate is. Because we simply cannot predict how law enforcement will respond on a spectrum of not giving you the time of day to showing up with their weapons drawn, we have to consider whether the most extreme scenario is acceptable before contacting them. For what it's worth, I believe we should have a more diverse array of emergency services, who can be contacted directly, so that you have more control over what kind of response you are requesting.
  - Thorrez 4y ago
    Yeah, you have some good points. It's a complicated situation. >while it was booted and asleep (thus defeating the full disk encryption) Well I thought it would require a cold boot attack which would be extremely hard against a laptop with soldered RAM (like my stolen macbook pro). Until I looked it up just now and found this video... https://youtu.be/RqvPZnLkP70?t=2327 https://youtu.be/RqvPZnLkP70?t=2327
cornel_io 4y ago
It sounds like you have a deep (and IMO unjustified and motivated by wrong or weirdly interpreted statistics) hatred of law enforcement, probably from either personal experience or political activism. That's your prerogative, of course, but it's a really fringe position and most people would disagree.
- maxbond 4y ago
  Nope, no hatred. Just conclusions I've come to through observation and reflection. This is something I'm seeing more and more, where people will say "You just have strong feelings on X, so your opinion doesn't matter." And for one, it presumes to know things about the contents of someone else's mind that you don't know, and for another, it's just not a criticism. It's a way to avoid engaging with the substance of someone's ideas. Basically what this comes down to is saying, "because you have an opinion, you don't get to have an opinion," which is nonsense.
- ohbleek 4y ago
  I haven’t seen any hint of “hate” in their comments and their position is anything but fringe. Focusing on having a diverse set of emergency response teams has become mainstream, I’d say it’s a fringe position to think otherwise. Trust in police is very low nationwide and you seem to be out of touch. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/gallup-poll-police.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/gallup-poll-police.htm...