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I’m still mad HN banished my comment on an earlier article suggesting that the “random crime” narrative was obviously false.

zen_1 4y ago
That's likely because given the publicly available information at the time, no narrative was obviously anything, because no details beyond Bob Lee being found stabbed and dead were known. The cause could have been (with equal evidence for each case) aliens, mossad, or a cooking accident, but people were quick to project their biases onto the situation and jump into flamewars or political attacks based on literally no information other than a man having died.
- asdfman123 4y ago
  But my point was that the “random crazed homeless assailant” guess (or however you want to phrase it) was every bit as much speculation, and frankly, less plausible speculation. And now is it not only speculation, it’s conclusively just a bad and irresponsible guess.
  - sleepyjohn 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - asdfman123 4y ago
      But I think it’s even more important to recognize your own capability to be led and to succumb to groupthink. We all do it, to some degree or another.
    - nindalf 4y ago
      Account created 10 minutes before posting this. Friend, you clearly care more about these points than you let on.
  - MrOwnPut 4y ago
    I don't think anyone said it was a "random crazed homeless" attack for sure. They just started sharing their stories about crime in San Fransisco from what I saw. The clarification of this specific event doesn't negate the recounts of others in the related issue of crime.
    - whateveracct 4y ago
      people were definitely assuming it was a random stabbing by a person unfamiliar with the victim people were acting like getting stabbed was just something that SF enables
      - MrOwnPut 4y ago
        From what I saw no-one was assuming on the specific event, but it was a fuel to let loose the stories of crime that many SF residents experienced and wanted to vent. But yes, ideally we don't ever assume, sure. But don't let that distract from actual problems that people vocalized. And let's also remember that this is a SUSPECT, so we are still assuming to this moment.
        belltaco 4y ago
        > And let's also remember that this is a SUSPECT, so we are still assuming to this moment. In high profile cases like this, the prosecutor risks their entire career if the charges don't stick, so they usually have iron clad evidence or they wouldn't have made the arrest, and would've just waited for more evidence. The suspect hasn't even put in a not guilty plea during the arraignment. Mistakes do happen but I would say the odds are way in the favor of it being what is claimed.
        MrOwnPut 4y ago
        > but I would say the odds Yes, you are still assuming the odds currently. Innocent until proven guilty is the setup of the system.
- sammalloy 4y ago
  > The cause could have been (with equal evidence for each case) aliens, mossad, or a cooking accident, but people were quick to project their biases onto the situation and jump into flamewars or political attacks based on literally no information other than a man having died. I’m going to push back on that. 70-80% of homicides in the US are committed by offenders known to the victims, with the small minority committed by strangers. People here are smart enough to know that and yet still pushed the "crazy homeless killer due to liberal policy" false narrative. That’s the problem.
  - zen_1 4y ago
    I'm not sure I follow. So since ninety something percent of murders are committed by men aged 14-40 (not the real statistic, I'm going off of memory here) do you think we should assume with no evidence that any random murder was done by somebody from that demographic?
    - rovolo 4y ago
      > The cause could have been (with equal evidence for each case) aliens ... people were quick to project their biases onto the situation It would indicate a specific kind of commenter bias if, lacking any evidence, most comments on the original thread were about alien abductions and cow mutilations. Saying that it's weird that so many people talked about aliens doesn't necessarily mean we should suspect a human. Noting that we know a lot of murders were conducted by humans would be evidence that it was even weirder that there were so many comments about aliens.
    - sammalloy 4y ago
      I think you follow me just fine. We know that men commit most of these types of crimes, we know they are usually younger than 40, and we know that in the majority of cases, they are already acquainted with the victim. We also know the murder rate in Rincon Hill was zero before this happened, lending weight to the relationship between the victim and the offender. The tech narrative that blames liberal SF policies for crime were well underway before this crime occurred.
viraptor 4y ago
Only the random speculation comment was flagged. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35450340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35450340 (and I think that was correct). The following ones about the narrative were not.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > Only the random speculation comment was flagged. But... that comment hasn't been flagged? It just says "[flagged]". Compare this one from the same thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35456831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35456831
  - n2d4 4y ago
    Enable showdead on your profile to see what the comment looked like. There are two states of being flagged; one is [flagged], which will still show to everyone but look like the comment you linked, and the second is [flagged][dead], which results in the comment being removed entirely unless showdead is enabled. (A comment can also be [dead] for other reasons according to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.)
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dang 4y ago
What do you mean by "banished" and what was the comment?

zen_1 4y ago

That's likely because given the publicly available information at the time, no narrative was obviously anything, because no details beyond Bob Lee being found stabbed and dead were known. The cause could have been (with equal evidence for each case) aliens, mossad, or a cooking accident, but people were quick to project their biases onto the situation and jump into flamewars or political attacks based on literally no information other than a man having died.

asdfman123 4y ago
But my point was that the “random crazed homeless assailant” guess (or however you want to phrase it) was every bit as much speculation, and frankly, less plausible speculation. And now is it not only speculation, it’s conclusively just a bad and irresponsible guess.
- sleepyjohn 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - asdfman123 4y ago
    But I think it’s even more important to recognize your own capability to be led and to succumb to groupthink. We all do it, to some degree or another.
  - nindalf 4y ago
    Account created 10 minutes before posting this. Friend, you clearly care more about these points than you let on.
- MrOwnPut 4y ago
  I don't think anyone said it was a "random crazed homeless" attack for sure. They just started sharing their stories about crime in San Fransisco from what I saw. The clarification of this specific event doesn't negate the recounts of others in the related issue of crime.
  - whateveracct 4y ago
    people were definitely assuming it was a random stabbing by a person unfamiliar with the victim people were acting like getting stabbed was just something that SF enables
    - MrOwnPut 4y ago
      From what I saw no-one was assuming on the specific event, but it was a fuel to let loose the stories of crime that many SF residents experienced and wanted to vent. But yes, ideally we don't ever assume, sure. But don't let that distract from actual problems that people vocalized. And let's also remember that this is a SUSPECT, so we are still assuming to this moment.
      - belltaco 4y ago
        > And let's also remember that this is a SUSPECT, so we are still assuming to this moment. In high profile cases like this, the prosecutor risks their entire career if the charges don't stick, so they usually have iron clad evidence or they wouldn't have made the arrest, and would've just waited for more evidence. The suspect hasn't even put in a not guilty plea during the arraignment. Mistakes do happen but I would say the odds are way in the favor of it being what is claimed.
        MrOwnPut 4y ago
        > but I would say the odds Yes, you are still assuming the odds currently. Innocent until proven guilty is the setup of the system.
sammalloy 4y ago
> The cause could have been (with equal evidence for each case) aliens, mossad, or a cooking accident, but people were quick to project their biases onto the situation and jump into flamewars or political attacks based on literally no information other than a man having died. I’m going to push back on that. 70-80% of homicides in the US are committed by offenders known to the victims, with the small minority committed by strangers. People here are smart enough to know that and yet still pushed the "crazy homeless killer due to liberal policy" false narrative. That’s the problem.
- zen_1 4y ago
  I'm not sure I follow. So since ninety something percent of murders are committed by men aged 14-40 (not the real statistic, I'm going off of memory here) do you think we should assume with no evidence that any random murder was done by somebody from that demographic?
  - rovolo 4y ago
    > The cause could have been (with equal evidence for each case) aliens ... people were quick to project their biases onto the situation It would indicate a specific kind of commenter bias if, lacking any evidence, most comments on the original thread were about alien abductions and cow mutilations. Saying that it's weird that so many people talked about aliens doesn't necessarily mean we should suspect a human. Noting that we know a lot of murders were conducted by humans would be evidence that it was even weirder that there were so many comments about aliens.
  - sammalloy 4y ago
    I think you follow me just fine. We know that men commit most of these types of crimes, we know they are usually younger than 40, and we know that in the majority of cases, they are already acquainted with the victim. We also know the murder rate in Rincon Hill was zero before this happened, lending weight to the relationship between the victim and the offender. The tech narrative that blames liberal SF policies for crime were well underway before this crime occurred.

viraptor 4y ago

Only the random speculation comment was flagged. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35450340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35450340 (and I think that was correct). The following ones about the narrative were not.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> Only the random speculation comment was flagged. But... that comment hasn't been flagged? It just says "[flagged]". Compare this one from the same thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35456831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35456831
- n2d4 4y ago
  Enable showdead on your profile to see what the comment looked like. There are two states of being flagged; one is [flagged], which will still show to everyone but look like the comment you linked, and the second is [flagged][dead], which results in the comment being removed entirely unless showdead is enabled. (A comment can also be [dead] for other reasons according to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dang 4y ago

What do you mean by "banished" and what was the comment?