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OK, I've posted and deleted a reply to this 3 times now. There's a lot in this post. Here goes the final draft. First of all, I feel like your post emanates ba

OK, I've posted and deleted a reply to this 3 times now. There's a lot in this post. Here goes the final draft. First of all, I feel like your post emanates barely-contained anger. Your choice of words and tone kind of betrays your contempt for me and my opinion. You're "fascinated" by my response, my views are "sociopathic", I'm "ignorant," yada yada. I can't say it makes it an appealing prospect to continue the discussion, because we fundamentally disagree, and I have a feeling that more insults will be flung my way. But against my instincts, I'll continue. The first few segments of your response have to do with rejection of my principle of "common sense" as a guiding principle in my opinions about some of these issues. You go through point by point, rebutting each example I listed with a detailed refutation and a link to some study. There are quite a few strawmans and a lot of insinuations that I'm a conservative. I'll just start this discussion by telling you I voted for Biden, I don't ascribe some umbrella label to myself, so let's just cut this name calling out right now. Here's the problem. I tell you, "my entire life experience tells me that X means Y. I know this to be a fundamental truth of the universe. I am CERTAIN of this." You reply: "That's totally incorrect. Here's a study or example where X does not equal Y. Here's my explanation of why X does not equal Y. Therefore you are wrong and willfully ignorant for still believing X equals Y." But what you don't understand is that it is very hard to change someone's mind when they are CERTAIN of something. It's like if you told me 2 + 2 equals 5, and linked to some study proving it, and wrote an essay on why it is the case, it still wouldn't change my mind. Because it directly contradicts my reality. My lived experience. My "common sense" position of, for instance, punishments being effective to deter crime is based on literally every experience I've ever had in my entire life. Are they perfect deterrents? Of course not. But I've changed my own behavior to avoid punishment, I've seen a million other people do the same, and there's no possible universe in which I could just read some study online and go "wow, I guess punishments don't work to deter crime!" That's not me being willfully ignorant, that's me not wasting my time with obvious falsehoods. Forgive my being harsh, but the "don't punish crimes" movement is the same as the flat earther movement in my view - so stupid, so obviously incorrect, that it isn't even worth a second of my time. Studies are not the arbiters of truth. Now onto the next point I want to make. I think it should be perfectly clear to you that when I talk about punishing crimes, I'm talking about SERIOUS crimes. We're on a thread about the stabbing of Bob Lee, after all. For you to suggest my opinion is dumb because I speed or don't correctly weigh my lobster and therefore technically everyone is a criminal... that's YOU being willfully ignorant, dude. Everybody speeds but practically nobody stabs, vandalizes, robs, rapes, etc. THESE are the crimes that I want harshly punished. It's literally common sense, a theme that seems to keep popping up here. I'm honestly just dumbfounded that you seriously think me saying "I don't commit any crimes" is tantamount to me saying "I have literally never sped or broken any law in my entire life." Like god damn. When I talk about law abiding citizens I'm talking about people who don't commit crimes that make life drastically shittier for everyone else. And the vast majority of people on the planet fall into this category. I could continue on, and go over the Norway thing and how I believe it's a completely different situation than the US, or go over the housing the homeless thing and talk about how expensive that would be in SF, or any of the other points, but I feel this would be a waste of time. Because I would guess it directly contradicts your lived experience. That's the thing. I don't comment to change people's minds. I don't comment to dunk on my political oppponents. I don't comment to show everyone what an idiot the other side is via angry point-by-point takedowns that are dripping with contempt. I literally just comment on HN because I like the discussion, I like hearing how people think and what their insights are. Hence what I originally commented: I wanted to comment "so we can exchange perspectives and see what someone 'on the other side' of the issue thinks." I really think there's no need for the clear contempt of the tone of your reply. We disagree, dude. It's no reason to get emotional. There are a lot of people out there and you'll likely find yourself disagreeing with many of them.

komali2 4y ago
If my tone was insulting I apologize. I am angry though, you're right. I'm watching the predictable cycle. A similar anger after 9/11 because of the tragedy but also because I knew it would be exploited to erode our freedoms, and lo, I was right (I'm not special, lots were warning this would happen). Same here. People are ignoring the research that highly punitive retributive justice systems don't work, and reformative justice systems do, because of some combination of yellow journalism and cognitive / rhetorical fallacy. > Studies are not the arbiters of truth. Certainly not all truths, and I agree with you that we can't expect people to fact check literally every aspect of their lives. However, your flat earth example is fantastic, here's why: the earth being flat is common sense. If you don't fly (many people) and have never seen the ocean (many people), don't think much about orbits or astronomy, why would you think the earth is round? There's a reason flat earthism is so popular, it really does "make good horse sense." Grant me for a moment that to believe the earth is flat in 2023 requires believing in a massive global conspiracy, maybe instead let's consider a detached farmer in 1920. How about this guy: https://youtu.be/RS27u6IqWt0 https://youtu.be/RS27u6IqWt0 . Consider what's necessary to know with certainty that the earth is a globe, and consider how they disagree with "common sense." A flat earth would allow for seeing all the way to the end of it, right, so since you can't see all the way to new York city from here, the earth must be a globe, right? "No, fog prevents that, and tall trees, and mountains." Ok, the shadow cast on the moon during a lunar eclipse is always round, and the only shape that can do that is a sphere. "Well, that's nice, but I've never seen a lunar eclipse, and I don't really care to sit around moving shapes in front of a candle to see if that's true." Ok, time zones! If the earth was flat it would be the same time in new York and San Francisco, instead it's different. "Is it different? I didn't know, I don't have a telephone." Without resorting to things completely outside the realm of "common sense," and basically coming up with good explanations for someone's daily experiences, i don't see how you could explain to someone (pre space age) how the earth is a globe. Can you think of a way? I wish there was a more polite way to say "willful ignorant" but my point is basically, you've had the explanations, with evidence, for why your common sense doesn't align with reality, set before you, and you said "I don't want to read that, I'm good with my view of reality." I'm not trying to sell you essential oils here, this is just something outside your domain and to do it well takes some research and perhaps I guess something that disagrees with the "common sense" of some people. What else can I call that? And anyway, surely you agree that when it comes to setting up our laws, infrastructure, we want to make sure to be doing so correctly? Before we build a bridge, don't we want some studies done on concrete before choosing the right kind? And isn't it best to have the domain experts doing that? And doesn't it make sense that even though every time you tried to use consumer concrete to build something with a gap, it crumbled, that's ok because we use a different kind for building in industrial applications with techniques involving rebar? And I still hold the position that the retributive model isn't common sense, I've found great success with never wielding a stick as a leader in various spheres: teacher, social worker, sales leader, engineering lead, scout leader, burning man camp leader. It just seems common sense and agreed with my every day experience that punishment drives shit results. A story from "How to Win Friends": a tech fails to fuel a stunt pilot's plane well, he nearly crashes and perishes. Tech is apoplectic, apologizing profusely, offering to resign, pilot says "why would I fire the tech least likely to make a fuel calculation mistake in the future?" I only use this example to demonstrate that even in the domain you chose, that being business / school / interpersonal relationships, the "retributive " model isn't common sense or effective, though again I don't think it's a great idea to try to draw too many conclusions between handling a fuel calculation error and a premeditated crime or crime of passion. > "I don't commit any crimes" is tantamount to me saying "I have literally never sped or broken any law in my entire life." Well, do you see why maybe your common sense is maladjusted? For me I'm genuinely surprised at your surprise. What else is a criminal but someone who breaks the law? That's why I pushed back so hard! Your definition is vague! "Someone that does these crimes I think are really bad." Well the USA doesn't care if you murdered someone or committed certain kinds of white collar fraud, or even something more mundane, all are felonies and you don't get to vote after. You're a criminal in all circumstances. Hence my point that your common sense doesn't map well onto an actual society, or at least not this one. > We disagree, dude. It's no reason to get emotional. This is the extraordinary privilege you live with. Imagine the conversation is discussing sodomy laws in Texas. "who cares, doesn't affect me, and anyway isn't that kinda gross?" You have the privilege to not worry about it, other people are literally fighting for their right to exist. If you're finding anger in response to your position, why is your response to hand wave it? "Damn bro, calm down." Are you not at all curious why someone would be so passionate about this issue? Because what we're talking about is America's bloodthirsty retributive justice system that's resulted in one of the highest incarceration rates on earth and essentially a continuation of slavery (prison labor, for profit privatized prisons), and you're dispassionately making "common sense" arguments for not only how that's great, but we should do more of it, and by the way you don't care about whatever evidence I show you demonstrating that you're wrong, you just want to continue believing it or whatever. No shit that's infuriating lol. > When I talk about law abiding citizens I'm talking about people who don't commit crimes that make life drastically shittier for everyone else. There's plenty of things people do that make life drastically shittier for everyone else, that isn't illegal. Banks making bad investments and crashing the economy in 2008. Sending soldiers to die in foreign countries. Locking up refugees. Lobbying to keep minimum wage low. Torpedoing welfare budgets. Driving gas guzzling vehicles. Operating a fossil fuel company. Rejecting health insurance claims. Addicting someone to alert bubble dopamine hits. Harvesting user data. Seems common sense to me that destroying the Gulf coast through blatant malpractice is just as bad as punching someone in the face, but nobody went to jail after the BP oil spill. > Are they perfect deterrents? Of course not. But I've changed my own behavior to avoid punishment, I've seen a million other people do the same, and there's no possible universe in which I could just read some study online and go "wow, I guess punishments don't work to deter crime!" It's worth pointing out by the way that this is basically a strawman, no study I linked said "we should stop punishing crime," the basic argument is that the best deterrent is certainty of being punished, whereas degree of punishment holds basically no effect. In this context that means the SFPD quiet quitting is having a much larger effect on increase in crime than, say, eliminating cash bail. In any case the other arguments are about actually solving what drives crime more than anything else which is economic disparity: improving that doesn't require halting the punishment of crime, my point is that the call to arms are a distraction towards ineffective solutions. Btw I forget that some Americans consider "conservative" an insult, I didn't mean that in a name calling way, I meant that in an attempt to accurately describe the political leanings of the position you hold. I maintain that retributive justice is a conservative policy position, and indeed is a favorite of your Republican party. Note also though that Biden is also a conservative by most international perspectives, and sf politicians are mostly centrists or at best liberals (a term which here means "moderate centrist," not "progressive"). So I didn't mean to name call you, sorry. > I could continue on, and go over the Norway thing and how I believe it's a completely different situation than the US Norway is different but I don't see why that means the usa can't apply the basic restorative justice principles > or go over the housing the homeless thing and talk about how expensive that would be in SF First, housing first advocates seem to be demonstrating that housing the homeless would be cheaper than the current solution of cycling them in and out of jail while wasting police resources on tearing down their shelters. Second, so what it's expensive? We're talking about humans living on the street. Society is only as good as it is for those living in the worse condition it offers. I admire you for having a clearer understanding of why you post here. I enjoy the discussions as well I think, and maybe I'm driven by a desire to seek truth? I guess throughout this thread I've been hoping people had SOME evidence to justify the retributive justice model they're all touting and seeking further implementation of, because otherwise to me it just seems like people are seeking further cruelty, but I haven't gotten that, just people saying "doesn't it just make sense? Cut off the hands of thieves, that'll teach them!" So maybe that's why I'm so frustrated. So we have two dudes with common sense disagreements. We need to decide whether we punish thieves by cutting off their hands or by making them make society whole through labor or otherwise while investigating why they felt the need to steal at all. How do we resolve that other than by seeking the truest effective method through study, experimentation, publishing results? "We disagreed so we did research and found the right answer." Well that's basically what I'm saying we as a society should do and it sounds like you're basically saying "despite that effort I still prefer to just believe I'm right." And a final thing I don't think I'm communicating well is so many things that turn out to be good policy violate "common sense," because we humans are bug ridden. Our cognitive fallacies cause all sorts of incorrect observation and behavior. This is so common in judicial theory. Zero tolerance policies at school: let's come down hard on crime in school! Result: huge expulsion rates, and incentives choosing the worse of bad behaviors, because they're all punished the same. Or, three strike laws. Repeat criminals aren't gonna change, let's just lock them up forever! Result: high rates of recidivism, overcrowded prisons. Criminalizing drugs. Drugs bad, lead to crime, ban them. Result: cartels, mafia. Result of decriminalization: drop in crime AND drug usage, drop in diseases like HIV. Rent control: lock prices, protect low income families. Result: high income families lock down low income rates, market overcorrects when housing comes available, etc. Basically when I find myself thinking "seems like common sense," I have the opposite reaction to you: I believe our rational facilities have documented flaws and so my first instinct is to apply rigid logic and evidence to check my understanding.

komali2 4y ago

If my tone was insulting I apologize. I am angry though, you're right. I'm watching the predictable cycle. A similar anger after 9/11 because of the tragedy but also because I knew it would be exploited to erode our freedoms, and lo, I was right (I'm not special, lots were warning this would happen). Same here. People are ignoring the research that highly punitive retributive justice systems don't work, and reformative justice systems do, because of some combination of yellow journalism and cognitive / rhetorical fallacy. > Studies are not the arbiters of truth. Certainly not all truths, and I agree with you that we can't expect people to fact check literally every aspect of their lives. However, your flat earth example is fantastic, here's why: the earth being flat is common sense. If you don't fly (many people) and have never seen the ocean (many people), don't think much about orbits or astronomy, why would you think the earth is round? There's a reason flat earthism is so popular, it really does "make good horse sense." Grant me for a moment that to believe the earth is flat in 2023 requires believing in a massive global conspiracy, maybe instead let's consider a detached farmer in 1920. How about this guy: https://youtu.be/RS27u6IqWt0 https://youtu.be/RS27u6IqWt0 . Consider what's necessary to know with certainty that the earth is a globe, and consider how they disagree with "common sense." A flat earth would allow for seeing all the way to the end of it, right, so since you can't see all the way to new York city from here, the earth must be a globe, right? "No, fog prevents that, and tall trees, and mountains." Ok, the shadow cast on the moon during a lunar eclipse is always round, and the only shape that can do that is a sphere. "Well, that's nice, but I've never seen a lunar eclipse, and I don't really care to sit around moving shapes in front of a candle to see if that's true." Ok, time zones! If the earth was flat it would be the same time in new York and San Francisco, instead it's different. "Is it different? I didn't know, I don't have a telephone." Without resorting to things completely outside the realm of "common sense," and basically coming up with good explanations for someone's daily experiences, i don't see how you could explain to someone (pre space age) how the earth is a globe. Can you think of a way? I wish there was a more polite way to say "willful ignorant" but my point is basically, you've had the explanations, with evidence, for why your common sense doesn't align with reality, set before you, and you said "I don't want to read that, I'm good with my view of reality." I'm not trying to sell you essential oils here, this is just something outside your domain and to do it well takes some research and perhaps I guess something that disagrees with the "common sense" of some people. What else can I call that? And anyway, surely you agree that when it comes to setting up our laws, infrastructure, we want to make sure to be doing so correctly? Before we build a bridge, don't we want some studies done on concrete before choosing the right kind? And isn't it best to have the domain experts doing that? And doesn't it make sense that even though every time you tried to use consumer concrete to build something with a gap, it crumbled, that's ok because we use a different kind for building in industrial applications with techniques involving rebar? And I still hold the position that the retributive model isn't common sense, I've found great success with never wielding a stick as a leader in various spheres: teacher, social worker, sales leader, engineering lead, scout leader, burning man camp leader. It just seems common sense and agreed with my every day experience that punishment drives shit results. A story from "How to Win Friends": a tech fails to fuel a stunt pilot's plane well, he nearly crashes and perishes. Tech is apoplectic, apologizing profusely, offering to resign, pilot says "why would I fire the tech least likely to make a fuel calculation mistake in the future?" I only use this example to demonstrate that even in the domain you chose, that being business / school / interpersonal relationships, the "retributive " model isn't common sense or effective, though again I don't think it's a great idea to try to draw too many conclusions between handling a fuel calculation error and a premeditated crime or crime of passion. > "I don't commit any crimes" is tantamount to me saying "I have literally never sped or broken any law in my entire life." Well, do you see why maybe your common sense is maladjusted? For me I'm genuinely surprised at your surprise. What else is a criminal but someone who breaks the law? That's why I pushed back so hard! Your definition is vague! "Someone that does these crimes I think are really bad." Well the USA doesn't care if you murdered someone or committed certain kinds of white collar fraud, or even something more mundane, all are felonies and you don't get to vote after. You're a criminal in all circumstances. Hence my point that your common sense doesn't map well onto an actual society, or at least not this one. > We disagree, dude. It's no reason to get emotional. This is the extraordinary privilege you live with. Imagine the conversation is discussing sodomy laws in Texas. "who cares, doesn't affect me, and anyway isn't that kinda gross?" You have the privilege to not worry about it, other people are literally fighting for their right to exist. If you're finding anger in response to your position, why is your response to hand wave it? "Damn bro, calm down." Are you not at all curious why someone would be so passionate about this issue? Because what we're talking about is America's bloodthirsty retributive justice system that's resulted in one of the highest incarceration rates on earth and essentially a continuation of slavery (prison labor, for profit privatized prisons), and you're dispassionately making "common sense" arguments for not only how that's great, but we should do more of it, and by the way you don't care about whatever evidence I show you demonstrating that you're wrong, you just want to continue believing it or whatever. No shit that's infuriating lol. > When I talk about law abiding citizens I'm talking about people who don't commit crimes that make life drastically shittier for everyone else. There's plenty of things people do that make life drastically shittier for everyone else, that isn't illegal. Banks making bad investments and crashing the economy in 2008. Sending soldiers to die in foreign countries. Locking up refugees. Lobbying to keep minimum wage low. Torpedoing welfare budgets. Driving gas guzzling vehicles. Operating a fossil fuel company. Rejecting health insurance claims. Addicting someone to alert bubble dopamine hits. Harvesting user data. Seems common sense to me that destroying the Gulf coast through blatant malpractice is just as bad as punching someone in the face, but nobody went to jail after the BP oil spill. > Are they perfect deterrents? Of course not. But I've changed my own behavior to avoid punishment, I've seen a million other people do the same, and there's no possible universe in which I could just read some study online and go "wow, I guess punishments don't work to deter crime!" It's worth pointing out by the way that this is basically a strawman, no study I linked said "we should stop punishing crime," the basic argument is that the best deterrent is certainty of being punished, whereas degree of punishment holds basically no effect. In this context that means the SFPD quiet quitting is having a much larger effect on increase in crime than, say, eliminating cash bail. In any case the other arguments are about actually solving what drives crime more than anything else which is economic disparity: improving that doesn't require halting the punishment of crime, my point is that the call to arms are a distraction towards ineffective solutions. Btw I forget that some Americans consider "conservative" an insult, I didn't mean that in a name calling way, I meant that in an attempt to accurately describe the political leanings of the position you hold. I maintain that retributive justice is a conservative policy position, and indeed is a favorite of your Republican party. Note also though that Biden is also a conservative by most international perspectives, and sf politicians are mostly centrists or at best liberals (a term which here means "moderate centrist," not "progressive"). So I didn't mean to name call you, sorry. > I could continue on, and go over the Norway thing and how I believe it's a completely different situation than the US Norway is different but I don't see why that means the usa can't apply the basic restorative justice principles > or go over the housing the homeless thing and talk about how expensive that would be in SF First, housing first advocates seem to be demonstrating that housing the homeless would be cheaper than the current solution of cycling them in and out of jail while wasting police resources on tearing down their shelters. Second, so what it's expensive? We're talking about humans living on the street. Society is only as good as it is for those living in the worse condition it offers. I admire you for having a clearer understanding of why you post here. I enjoy the discussions as well I think, and maybe I'm driven by a desire to seek truth? I guess throughout this thread I've been hoping people had SOME evidence to justify the retributive justice model they're all touting and seeking further implementation of, because otherwise to me it just seems like people are seeking further cruelty, but I haven't gotten that, just people saying "doesn't it just make sense? Cut off the hands of thieves, that'll teach them!" So maybe that's why I'm so frustrated. So we have two dudes with common sense disagreements. We need to decide whether we punish thieves by cutting off their hands or by making them make society whole through labor or otherwise while investigating why they felt the need to steal at all. How do we resolve that other than by seeking the truest effective method through study, experimentation, publishing results? "We disagreed so we did research and found the right answer." Well that's basically what I'm saying we as a society should do and it sounds like you're basically saying "despite that effort I still prefer to just believe I'm right." And a final thing I don't think I'm communicating well is so many things that turn out to be good policy violate "common sense," because we humans are bug ridden. Our cognitive fallacies cause all sorts of incorrect observation and behavior. This is so common in judicial theory. Zero tolerance policies at school: let's come down hard on crime in school! Result: huge expulsion rates, and incentives choosing the worse of bad behaviors, because they're all punished the same. Or, three strike laws. Repeat criminals aren't gonna change, let's just lock them up forever! Result: high rates of recidivism, overcrowded prisons. Criminalizing drugs. Drugs bad, lead to crime, ban them. Result: cartels, mafia. Result of decriminalization: drop in crime AND drug usage, drop in diseases like HIV. Rent control: lock prices, protect low income families. Result: high income families lock down low income rates, market overcorrects when housing comes available, etc. Basically when I find myself thinking "seems like common sense," I have the opposite reaction to you: I believe our rational facilities have documented flaws and so my first instinct is to apply rigid logic and evidence to check my understanding.