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Speaking in general terms, not to the specifics of Hans Reiser's crimes - I dont see why it wouldn't allow for redemption, people do stupid things and get blind

by Aloha 3y ago

Speaking in general terms, not to the specifics of Hans Reiser's crimes - I dont see why it wouldn't allow for redemption, people do stupid things and get blinded easily.

themerone 3y ago
Drunk driving is a stupid thing people do. Murder is an act of evil.
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
  Only if you believe in evil. I'm not christian so I don't see the world like that. He killed his s/o, like what 15 years ago now? People change and deserves a second chance.
  - themerone 3y ago
    Evil is not a religious concept.
    - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
      Dude. Good & evil is such a central concept in Christianity it is practically ingrained in your society if you live in a christian country even if you are secular.
      - lupusreal 3y ago
        Christianity also features the premise of marriage, so does that mean no secular conception of marriage can exist? Most people think otherwise. Christianity doesn't own "good and evil", even though it features it, and nor are these premises even owned by religion generally.
      - skissane 3y ago
        The English words for good and evil are pre-Christian in origin. So are their cognates in other European languages. Greek philosophers were debating “good and evil” centuries before Jesus of Nazareth was born. So there is nothing inherently Christian about those words, or the concepts they describe.
        shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        You are correct, but you are also ignoring the fact that we are no longer living in ancient greek time. I did not claim that Christianity invented good & evil. I claimed that it is a central concept in Christianity. Your way of reasoning here is often referred to as a straw mans argument.
        skissane 3y ago
        > You are correct, but you are also ignoring the fact that we are no longer living in ancient greek time. Even today, people still read and are influenced by Plato and Aristotle. > I did not claim that Christianity invented good & evil. I claimed that it is a central concept in Christianity. You claimed you don’t believe in evil because you are not a Christian. Not being a Christian and not believing in evil have little connection with each other, given billions of non-Christians believe in evil. > Your way of reasoning here is often referred to as a straw mans argument. You argument was too unclear to strawman.
        shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        In my part of the world, christianity has dominated for 1000+ years. There are no influences from eastern religion or Plato or whatever. I suspect the same is true in your part of the world.
        selimthegrim 3y ago
        You do realize there was a great deal of Ancient Greek influence on Christianity?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - anthk 3y ago
        Goodness and evilness predates Christianity by millenia. Read about Mesopotamian religions, or the Hindic ones.
        shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        It's not relevant since those religions are no longer practiced. Christianity is, and is still influencing our world, like I wrote above.
        anthk 3y ago
        Hinduism it's pretty much alive, and Christianity it's just a fork of Judaism. When Cristianity didn't even exist, the Chinese already had a good chunk of philosophy perfectly set and written, and even modernish rules for war and diplomacy: Tao Te King, and The Art of War. Heck, America from Canada to the Patagonia didn't even know about Jesus until the Europeans arrived 1500 years later. 1500s damn years. For a huge continent mass spread over from almost the North Pole to the South pole. So much for an 'Universal' God. So universal that Aquinas had to rip a good chunk of Greek philosophy to adapt (more like smash it down with nails and duct tape) ancient Middle East fairy tales into the less-desert bound Europe as the modern Christian canonical sources. If any, the Western world is shaped by the Roman architecture and law, and the Greek worldview, mindset and math.
        shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        >> It's not relevant since those religions are no longer practiced. >> Christianity is, and is still influencing our world, like I wrote above. > Hinduism it's pretty much alive, and Christianity it's just a fork of Judaism Okay, so you're a hindu or a jew. Are you arguing my point about christianity influencing "our" world? I guess I expressed myself rather western-centric.
        anthk 3y ago
        I am not neither a hindu or jew. Christianism in Europe is larguely cultural, our values shifted a lot since the Enlightenment times. The US, not much, they have a large sense of prudeness which affected even policitically left leaned people. I mean, here people it's Christian by name only. Technically, even the Southern Spain with infamous street parades with large walks carrying a big structure with a Virgin, most of that it's just a showoff and a way to say "look how loaded we are, so much that we can build great golden clothes for our Virgin". If any, lots of lore in Europe it's just paganism with a Christian disguise. Even Christianism itself it's so-so Christian-wannabe unlike the original one which came from the Middle East; it was largely repurposed with Greek values so people here could assimilate better these alien customs such as not being able to eat pork or nonsense about alcohol when the risk of dehidrating in Europe was near nil. Kinda like North Korea with Communism. Marxist? Today, in name, maybe. Because Juche it's almost a copycat of right wing fascism with Asian features. Kinda like the Japanese one, but with Koreans.
    - hnbad 3y ago
      Evil as a moral judgement isn't. Acts can be good or evil. In more secular terms we prefer to say "harmful" or "unjust" but the meaning is arguably the same. But the idea that "evil" is an attribute a person can possess is 100% a religious one. If you're not religious, there can be no evil person unless you think there is an "evil" gene or an "evil" psychosis - "sociopath" and "psychopath" are often used this way but usually in ways that have very little to do with diagnostic criteria and more with trying to sound more profound than just calling someone a bad person; in pseudoscience this also sometimes manifests as the idea that some people are more predisposed to crime, though usually nowadays this more often manifests as vague notions of "racial culture" than measuring skull shapes, but this too is just a more elaborate way to call groups of people inherently bad. As a religious concept, "evil" can be somewhat nebulous where people just take some wrong turns and "evilness" seeps into them making them irredeemable: many Christians (especially certain sects of American protestantism) believe "sins" (i.e. disobeying God's rules, not necessarily causing measurable harm to others in secular terms) work kind of like this where habitual sinning in one way can lead to sinning in other ways as sinfulness takes over the person's life (like an addiction spiraling out of control). It can also be a much more literal idea of outright demonic possession (e.g. the kind of thing you need an exorcist to help with) or demonic presence (e.g. evil people actually being lizard people masking themselves as fellow humans to hide among us). And yes, I'm labelling certain fringe conspiracy movements as religious as they operate on a similar framework and often have direct ties to religious traditions and concepts. Conversely, not only are "evil people" a religious concept but so are "good people". If good is something you do that means you need to continously demonstrate your "goodness" by doing good things. But if good is something you can be then any accusations of wrongdoing are highly suspect because a good person would do no such things. This is why most people don't take kindly to being told even in the most polite terms that something they did was kinda racist (or sexist, or misogynist, or...) because "I'm not a racist" (i.e. thinking of it as an innate attribute of their character rather than one of their actions and hence something they can and need to actively control) - mind you, liberals did not do a good job with this distinction either over the past decade because as it turns out even self-professed non-religious people often have religious upbringings that stick with them (i.e. self-applied labels like "feminist", "anti-racist", etc should only ever be read as statements of intent and dismissed if they do not manifest in their actions which they rarely do).
  - masklinn 3y ago
    Has Hans Reiser changed and does he deserve a second chance? His first parole board certainly didn’t think so and decided to keep him in for 5 more years.
  - readthenotes1 3y ago
    Religion-free definition of evil: inclined to increase someone else's suffering without regard (that is, without caring enough to try to reduce that increase).
  - nulld3v 3y ago
    What do you mean by "I don't believe in evil"? I think many people can agree that inherently "evil" people are very very rare. Usually people who commit an "evil" act have a reason or justification. It's portrayed in literally every movie with an antihero and spawned the "villain origin story" meme. But even if they have a reason/justification, that does not make the antihero or villain any less evil.
    - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
      > What do you mean by "I don't believe in evil"? I mean that the popular idea of evil is a childs story and should not blur our reasoning. One can consider an act "evil", but if you saw the other side of the coin, perhaps it was done out of necessity, revenge, fear or another "non-evil" reason. (I am not trying to rationalize away horrible deeds). I believe in selfishness tho. That's a real thing.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    If you don't believe in evil (I don't) that not only means he isn't evil but that he also didn't murder his ex because he was evil. So there must still be something to him 15 years ago that made him plan to and murder his ex, hide the body, use elaborate lies to deny his actions and then only admit to it when offered a deal to disclose the location of the body to allow the victim's grieving family to bury her. That's a lot. The prison system is neither equipped nor designed to resocialize or rehabilitate people. He hasn't demonstrated any considerable change in his character or outlook on the value of human life that makes me believe he changed for the better. He didn't make a mistake. He intentionally planned out the murder of his ex and how to hide the body and explain her disappearance and he did this to keep his children he neglected, which was the reason for her breaking up with him to begin with. And then he acted out that plan and stuck to it for months. Most people don't even commit to their gym memberships as long as he did to his cover story. People aren't evil. But people also don't improve by rotting in prison. You can argue that means we need something better than prison and I would, but you can't argue that means he should be treated as redeemed or released early. Dropping a feel-good out of context MLK quote to try and impress a future parole hearing is not a demonstration of character growth. Still referring to his victim as "my wife" when she had already broken up with him is not a demonstration of character growth. If he seeks redemption he needs to address those surviving his victim. If he wants to demonstrate rehabilitation he needs to do more than just get older and memorize meaningless platitudes.
    - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
      > If you don't believe in evil (I don't) that not only means he isn't evil but that he also didn't murder his ex because he was evil. So there must still be something to him 15 years ago that made him plan to and murder his ex, hide the body, use elaborate lies to deny his actions and then only admit to it when offered a deal to disclose the location of the body to allow the victim's grieving family to bury her. For sure, there were reasons. We just don't know them. > but you can't argue that means he should be treated as redeemed or released early. I'm not. Was just saying people deserve another chance.
    - themerone 3y ago
      If you don't believe in evil, then you must not believe in friendless, meanness, empathitic, or any other adjective for describing how a human acts.
  - seti0Cha 3y ago
    Christians believe in evil AND believe in redemption. If you are looking for people who believe that positive change is impossible, try genetic determinists.
  - beepbooptheory 3y ago
    > The true Übermensch would never give a second thought (or the light of day) to such a piddling subject as this, one who exhibits all the frailties and animal passions of the last man! "Second chances" and "forgiveness" are just as much symptoms of christian morality as good and evil themselves. Remember always that justice died with God. Our only arbiter is the creative life, is the aesthetic domain. Thus spoke Zarathustra..
  - rayiner 3y ago
    If you’re not religious, what’s the basis for saying anyone “deserves” anything? If he’s just meat, then he’s clearly a defective model. Just take him out. How is society better with him alive?
    - selimthegrim 3y ago
      Do you think BD was right to execute all the “war criminals” with their very flawed trial? Why so?
      - rayiner 3y ago
        I’m an ex-atheist so it’s complicated. If I’m taking off my religion hat, I would say yes. It enhances national unity and in-group loyalty, and the risk of antagonizing Pakistan seems to be of no real consequence. And it’s not like BD has any lack of people. Now if I’m positing that human beings have intrinsic worth because god made them, and that we need to turn the other cheek and all that, then no, the process is deeply flawed and shouldn’t be happening.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- TomK32 3y ago
  I don't understand and can't accept why crimes committed while drunk get you a lesser punishment than a crime committed while sober.
  - hobs 3y ago
    tl;dr https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/mens_rea https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/mens_rea If you don't want to accept it, that's more on you, refusing to understand it is weird though.
    - kwhitefoot 3y ago
      Recklessly drinking when you know you are going to drive immediately afterwards means that there is mens rea. Perhaps not for murder but certainly for deliberately increasing the risk of harm to an innocent party.
      - HideousKojima 3y ago
        Which is why killing someone while driving drunk is treated more harshly than killing someone because you got distracted by something on the side of the road. Another example of mens rea.
  - TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
    "Impaired judgement". I'm not supporting it, just stating that's the claim.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    So, this is a reasonable thing to be confused and frustrated about. It's worth remembering that the underlying philosophy of justice, crime, and punishment isn't actually something a society agrees upon. Ask five different people a question about the law, the courts, or the prisons and you'll get five different answers. And the system we get out of that is a hodgepodge of extremely path dependent features based upon who was in control of what levers of power at the time a given law was passed or a given punishment decided to be cruel and unusual (or not). Broadly speaking, there are two independent axes the judicial system is trying to satisfy: - punitive punishment. There are some actions that cannot be undone and some catastrophes for which there is no "making whole" the victim. Our system factors in a certain amount of eye for an eye retribution in these cases that dates all the way back to Hammurabi. If you're looking for a justification based on societal structure and survival and not just "vibes" (and make no mistake, there's a huge amount of just vibes in the way law, crime, and punishment come about)... It is believed a general understanding amongst the people that committing irrevocable transgressions on their neighbors will cause society to inflict transgressions upon them keeps the society from degenerating into infliction of individual violence on each other in the common case. Does it work? Depends on who you ask. But that's the idea, at least from the Machiavellian "stable society" standpoint. In that context, it doesn't matter if Reiser completely overhauls his philosophy of life in jail; he took something that he cannot give back, he took something no one can give back, and a certain amount of punishment is necessary to inform everyone else this is not acceptable ("thus always to the enemies of the country," etc). - rehabilitation and rebuilding of trust. We humans broadly speaking divide other humans into two categories: those who would never and those who would. Certain transgressions bump a person from the would-never into the would category, and that opens a fissure that can never be closed. The fissure can be diminished by the transgressor demonstrating that they understand why that's unacceptable and providing reasons for the public to believe they will never commit that transgression a second time. Under this theory, crime commission is contextual; if a person can demonstrate that they will never be in the context again that would cause them to commit the crime, a certain amount of trust can be reestablished. And here we get to the question of why drunk driving is treated less severely than, say, premeditated murder. As an individual, it's very hard to guard against premeditated murder. And people premeditating murder look like everybody else; It's hard to generate signifiers that would rebuild trust if somebody does such a thing. So the state has a large interest in discouraging it via "the olde ways," because the state has a hard time detecting it coming or defending the victims. In contrast, crimes committed under the influence of mind-alterers we generally feel would be something the transgressor would not do if the influence were removed. It's a lot easier to reestablish the trust gap in theory if somebody who drives drunk swears they will never drink again. ... That having been said, in practice, I totally agree with you. I think the numbers on drunk driving recidivism are ridiculous and it is completely unacceptable to maintain the status quo trust model on this issue; drunk driving should be an immediate revocation of the ability to use a licensed vehicle for life without extraordinary circumstances (on the order of pardon from the governor) to allow someone to retest for a license. We treat pilot licenses thusly; we should treat vehicle licenses with similar scrutiny. ... Problem is, in the US at least, we've built a society so heavily dependent upon cars in most of the country that doing this in the general case would be a sentence worse than the location constraints we put on sex offenders, and there's an upper limit on the state's capacity to actually enforce a law.
- auntienomen 3y ago
  Drunk driving is worse than stupid. It's up there with shooting a gun into someone's house.
foxyv 3y ago
Redemption requires that a person change and provide restitution. What Reiser did wasn't a stupid mistake, it was a calculated action that he took. His only mistake was getting caught. He didn't accidentally kill someone, or do so in the heat of a unique moment in his life. He decided that he could make his life easier by killing someone else and did so with no intention of facing the consequences of his actions. While I won't say redemption is impossible. He is going to have to serve his time and dedicate the rest of his life to helping others to even come close.
- hollerith 3y ago
  Since the prosecutor's office offered him a sentence of 3 years if he'd lead investigators to where he buried the body, the burden is on you IMHO to support your assertion because obviously if the informed professionals in the prosecutor's office thought it was a pre-planned murder they wouldn't've been that lenient. (In the US, pre-planned murders are routinely punished by life in prison without parole; California might be a little more lenient than the rest of the country, but not that much more lenient.)
  - masklinn 3y ago
    What sentence of 3 years are you talking about? The judge offered (and prosecutors agreed to) a plea guilty of second-degree murder (down from the first degree murder he was convicted of) if he revealed the location of the body and gave closure to her Nina’s children and family. He got 15 to life, the maximum for second-degree murder, and his first request for parole was rejected so he’s doing at least 20 for now.
    - hollerith 3y ago
      What you describe happened after the trial. The offer of 3 years happened before the trial: >An Alameda County Superior Court judge confirmed today Hans Reiser was presented a deal last year in which the convicted murderer would have only served three years in prison. During what was supposed to have been Reiser’s sentencing hearing – which has been delayed due to this week’s events – Judge Larry Goodman, in an effort to clear up what he called inaccuracies in the media, said that Reiser was given the opportunity last September to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter. While voluntary manslaughter can carry different prison terms, Goodman said he agreed to give Reiser three years – the lowest possible term – to spare Nina Reiser’s family the turmoil of going through a trial and having the couple’s oldest son testify. Goodman pointed out in court if Reiser had accepted the deal, he would have been released in May 2008. However, Goodman said Reiser chose to “roll the dice,” and a jury convicted Reiser April 28 of first-degree murder in the killing of his wife. https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/07/09/reiser-rejected-voluntary-manslaughter-plea-3-years-in-prison/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/07/09/reiser-rejected-volun...
masklinn 3y ago
There’s “Stupid thing”. And then there’s murdering your ex, hiding her body over two days, lying to your children that she’d left for russia and they’d been abandoned, and only revealing the location of the body so you could plea down to second degree murder (a good 18 months later mind, we’re not talking quick change of heart). Oh and then filing a civil suit against pretty much the entire legal system, including the trial judges and your attorney. And when sued for damage by your children’s grandmother (on their behalf) assert that you killed your ex to protect your kids (which you had basically never been there for, which was the entire reason your wife left you). I’m not saying redemption is not possible, but I’d think some reflection and atonement would be the baseline, and I’m not aware of Hans Reiser having done any such work.
- dlandau 3y ago
  That he still wrote "in prison for killing my wife Nina" when she wasn't his wife anymore at the time indicates IMO that he still doesn't get it.
  - 0x457 3y ago
    Legally speaking, she was, since the divorce wasn't finalized.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      I don't think that matters much. To all practical intents and purposes she was no longer 'his wife' and given that he killed her the fact that the divorce was never finalized shouldn't give him extra rights.
      - 0x457 3y ago
        How is he supposed to refer to her? ex-wife is incorrect. By name doesn't provide enough context for people that don't know about him. The fact is - he killed his wife. > To all practical intents and purposes she was no longer 'his wife' It doesn't work like that, though. My soon-to-be-ex-wife is still listed as spouse on our health insurance because I can't remove her until the divorce is finalized. I still have to specify her in many legals documents as my wife. Even outside the legal field, many in my personal life consider her as my wife, go "call me when it's finalized".
tussa 3y ago
> do stupid things Yes, we've all done stupid things we regret. But this is not it. This is way to bad to fit in the "stupid things" category.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  I’ve said and done stupid things that hurt people I cared about. Anyone who’s been a teenager and yelled “I hate you, Dad!” in a moment of hormonal overload has. Ain’t killed anyone, though.

by Aloha 3y ago

Speaking in general terms, not to the specifics of Hans Reiser's crimes - I dont see why it wouldn't allow for redemption, people do stupid things and get blinded easily.

themerone 3y ago

Drunk driving is a stupid thing people do. Murder is an act of evil.

shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
Only if you believe in evil. I'm not christian so I don't see the world like that. He killed his s/o, like what 15 years ago now? People change and deserves a second chance.
- themerone 3y ago
  Evil is not a religious concept.
  - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
    Dude. Good & evil is such a central concept in Christianity it is practically ingrained in your society if you live in a christian country even if you are secular.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      Christianity also features the premise of marriage, so does that mean no secular conception of marriage can exist? Most people think otherwise. Christianity doesn't own "good and evil", even though it features it, and nor are these premises even owned by religion generally.
    - skissane 3y ago
      The English words for good and evil are pre-Christian in origin. So are their cognates in other European languages. Greek philosophers were debating “good and evil” centuries before Jesus of Nazareth was born. So there is nothing inherently Christian about those words, or the concepts they describe.
      - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        You are correct, but you are also ignoring the fact that we are no longer living in ancient greek time. I did not claim that Christianity invented good & evil. I claimed that it is a central concept in Christianity. Your way of reasoning here is often referred to as a straw mans argument.
        skissane 3y ago
        > You are correct, but you are also ignoring the fact that we are no longer living in ancient greek time. Even today, people still read and are influenced by Plato and Aristotle. > I did not claim that Christianity invented good & evil. I claimed that it is a central concept in Christianity. You claimed you don’t believe in evil because you are not a Christian. Not being a Christian and not believing in evil have little connection with each other, given billions of non-Christians believe in evil. > Your way of reasoning here is often referred to as a straw mans argument. You argument was too unclear to strawman.
        shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        In my part of the world, christianity has dominated for 1000+ years. There are no influences from eastern religion or Plato or whatever. I suspect the same is true in your part of the world.
        selimthegrim 3y ago
        You do realize there was a great deal of Ancient Greek influence on Christianity?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - anthk 3y ago
      Goodness and evilness predates Christianity by millenia. Read about Mesopotamian religions, or the Hindic ones.
      - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        It's not relevant since those religions are no longer practiced. Christianity is, and is still influencing our world, like I wrote above.
        anthk 3y ago
        Hinduism it's pretty much alive, and Christianity it's just a fork of Judaism. When Cristianity didn't even exist, the Chinese already had a good chunk of philosophy perfectly set and written, and even modernish rules for war and diplomacy: Tao Te King, and The Art of War. Heck, America from Canada to the Patagonia didn't even know about Jesus until the Europeans arrived 1500 years later. 1500s damn years. For a huge continent mass spread over from almost the North Pole to the South pole. So much for an 'Universal' God. So universal that Aquinas had to rip a good chunk of Greek philosophy to adapt (more like smash it down with nails and duct tape) ancient Middle East fairy tales into the less-desert bound Europe as the modern Christian canonical sources. If any, the Western world is shaped by the Roman architecture and law, and the Greek worldview, mindset and math.
        shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        >> It's not relevant since those religions are no longer practiced. >> Christianity is, and is still influencing our world, like I wrote above. > Hinduism it's pretty much alive, and Christianity it's just a fork of Judaism Okay, so you're a hindu or a jew. Are you arguing my point about christianity influencing "our" world? I guess I expressed myself rather western-centric.
        anthk 3y ago
        I am not neither a hindu or jew. Christianism in Europe is larguely cultural, our values shifted a lot since the Enlightenment times. The US, not much, they have a large sense of prudeness which affected even policitically left leaned people. I mean, here people it's Christian by name only. Technically, even the Southern Spain with infamous street parades with large walks carrying a big structure with a Virgin, most of that it's just a showoff and a way to say "look how loaded we are, so much that we can build great golden clothes for our Virgin". If any, lots of lore in Europe it's just paganism with a Christian disguise. Even Christianism itself it's so-so Christian-wannabe unlike the original one which came from the Middle East; it was largely repurposed with Greek values so people here could assimilate better these alien customs such as not being able to eat pork or nonsense about alcohol when the risk of dehidrating in Europe was near nil. Kinda like North Korea with Communism. Marxist? Today, in name, maybe. Because Juche it's almost a copycat of right wing fascism with Asian features. Kinda like the Japanese one, but with Koreans.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    Evil as a moral judgement isn't. Acts can be good or evil. In more secular terms we prefer to say "harmful" or "unjust" but the meaning is arguably the same. But the idea that "evil" is an attribute a person can possess is 100% a religious one. If you're not religious, there can be no evil person unless you think there is an "evil" gene or an "evil" psychosis - "sociopath" and "psychopath" are often used this way but usually in ways that have very little to do with diagnostic criteria and more with trying to sound more profound than just calling someone a bad person; in pseudoscience this also sometimes manifests as the idea that some people are more predisposed to crime, though usually nowadays this more often manifests as vague notions of "racial culture" than measuring skull shapes, but this too is just a more elaborate way to call groups of people inherently bad. As a religious concept, "evil" can be somewhat nebulous where people just take some wrong turns and "evilness" seeps into them making them irredeemable: many Christians (especially certain sects of American protestantism) believe "sins" (i.e. disobeying God's rules, not necessarily causing measurable harm to others in secular terms) work kind of like this where habitual sinning in one way can lead to sinning in other ways as sinfulness takes over the person's life (like an addiction spiraling out of control). It can also be a much more literal idea of outright demonic possession (e.g. the kind of thing you need an exorcist to help with) or demonic presence (e.g. evil people actually being lizard people masking themselves as fellow humans to hide among us). And yes, I'm labelling certain fringe conspiracy movements as religious as they operate on a similar framework and often have direct ties to religious traditions and concepts. Conversely, not only are "evil people" a religious concept but so are "good people". If good is something you do that means you need to continously demonstrate your "goodness" by doing good things. But if good is something you can be then any accusations of wrongdoing are highly suspect because a good person would do no such things. This is why most people don't take kindly to being told even in the most polite terms that something they did was kinda racist (or sexist, or misogynist, or...) because "I'm not a racist" (i.e. thinking of it as an innate attribute of their character rather than one of their actions and hence something they can and need to actively control) - mind you, liberals did not do a good job with this distinction either over the past decade because as it turns out even self-professed non-religious people often have religious upbringings that stick with them (i.e. self-applied labels like "feminist", "anti-racist", etc should only ever be read as statements of intent and dismissed if they do not manifest in their actions which they rarely do).
- masklinn 3y ago
  Has Hans Reiser changed and does he deserve a second chance? His first parole board certainly didn’t think so and decided to keep him in for 5 more years.
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  Religion-free definition of evil: inclined to increase someone else's suffering without regard (that is, without caring enough to try to reduce that increase).
- nulld3v 3y ago
  What do you mean by "I don't believe in evil"? I think many people can agree that inherently "evil" people are very very rare. Usually people who commit an "evil" act have a reason or justification. It's portrayed in literally every movie with an antihero and spawned the "villain origin story" meme. But even if they have a reason/justification, that does not make the antihero or villain any less evil.
  - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
    > What do you mean by "I don't believe in evil"? I mean that the popular idea of evil is a childs story and should not blur our reasoning. One can consider an act "evil", but if you saw the other side of the coin, perhaps it was done out of necessity, revenge, fear or another "non-evil" reason. (I am not trying to rationalize away horrible deeds). I believe in selfishness tho. That's a real thing.
- hnbad 3y ago
  If you don't believe in evil (I don't) that not only means he isn't evil but that he also didn't murder his ex because he was evil. So there must still be something to him 15 years ago that made him plan to and murder his ex, hide the body, use elaborate lies to deny his actions and then only admit to it when offered a deal to disclose the location of the body to allow the victim's grieving family to bury her. That's a lot. The prison system is neither equipped nor designed to resocialize or rehabilitate people. He hasn't demonstrated any considerable change in his character or outlook on the value of human life that makes me believe he changed for the better. He didn't make a mistake. He intentionally planned out the murder of his ex and how to hide the body and explain her disappearance and he did this to keep his children he neglected, which was the reason for her breaking up with him to begin with. And then he acted out that plan and stuck to it for months. Most people don't even commit to their gym memberships as long as he did to his cover story. People aren't evil. But people also don't improve by rotting in prison. You can argue that means we need something better than prison and I would, but you can't argue that means he should be treated as redeemed or released early. Dropping a feel-good out of context MLK quote to try and impress a future parole hearing is not a demonstration of character growth. Still referring to his victim as "my wife" when she had already broken up with him is not a demonstration of character growth. If he seeks redemption he needs to address those surviving his victim. If he wants to demonstrate rehabilitation he needs to do more than just get older and memorize meaningless platitudes.
  - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
    > If you don't believe in evil (I don't) that not only means he isn't evil but that he also didn't murder his ex because he was evil. So there must still be something to him 15 years ago that made him plan to and murder his ex, hide the body, use elaborate lies to deny his actions and then only admit to it when offered a deal to disclose the location of the body to allow the victim's grieving family to bury her. For sure, there were reasons. We just don't know them. > but you can't argue that means he should be treated as redeemed or released early. I'm not. Was just saying people deserve another chance.
  - themerone 3y ago
    If you don't believe in evil, then you must not believe in friendless, meanness, empathitic, or any other adjective for describing how a human acts.
- seti0Cha 3y ago
  Christians believe in evil AND believe in redemption. If you are looking for people who believe that positive change is impossible, try genetic determinists.
- beepbooptheory 3y ago
  > The true Übermensch would never give a second thought (or the light of day) to such a piddling subject as this, one who exhibits all the frailties and animal passions of the last man! "Second chances" and "forgiveness" are just as much symptoms of christian morality as good and evil themselves. Remember always that justice died with God. Our only arbiter is the creative life, is the aesthetic domain. Thus spoke Zarathustra..
- rayiner 3y ago
  If you’re not religious, what’s the basis for saying anyone “deserves” anything? If he’s just meat, then he’s clearly a defective model. Just take him out. How is society better with him alive?
  - selimthegrim 3y ago
    Do you think BD was right to execute all the “war criminals” with their very flawed trial? Why so?
    - rayiner 3y ago
      I’m an ex-atheist so it’s complicated. If I’m taking off my religion hat, I would say yes. It enhances national unity and in-group loyalty, and the risk of antagonizing Pakistan seems to be of no real consequence. And it’s not like BD has any lack of people. Now if I’m positing that human beings have intrinsic worth because god made them, and that we need to turn the other cheek and all that, then no, the process is deeply flawed and shouldn’t be happening.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
TomK32 3y ago
I don't understand and can't accept why crimes committed while drunk get you a lesser punishment than a crime committed while sober.
- hobs 3y ago
  tl;dr https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/mens_rea https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/mens_rea If you don't want to accept it, that's more on you, refusing to understand it is weird though.
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    Recklessly drinking when you know you are going to drive immediately afterwards means that there is mens rea. Perhaps not for murder but certainly for deliberately increasing the risk of harm to an innocent party.
    - HideousKojima 3y ago
      Which is why killing someone while driving drunk is treated more harshly than killing someone because you got distracted by something on the side of the road. Another example of mens rea.
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  "Impaired judgement". I'm not supporting it, just stating that's the claim.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  So, this is a reasonable thing to be confused and frustrated about. It's worth remembering that the underlying philosophy of justice, crime, and punishment isn't actually something a society agrees upon. Ask five different people a question about the law, the courts, or the prisons and you'll get five different answers. And the system we get out of that is a hodgepodge of extremely path dependent features based upon who was in control of what levers of power at the time a given law was passed or a given punishment decided to be cruel and unusual (or not). Broadly speaking, there are two independent axes the judicial system is trying to satisfy: - punitive punishment. There are some actions that cannot be undone and some catastrophes for which there is no "making whole" the victim. Our system factors in a certain amount of eye for an eye retribution in these cases that dates all the way back to Hammurabi. If you're looking for a justification based on societal structure and survival and not just "vibes" (and make no mistake, there's a huge amount of just vibes in the way law, crime, and punishment come about)... It is believed a general understanding amongst the people that committing irrevocable transgressions on their neighbors will cause society to inflict transgressions upon them keeps the society from degenerating into infliction of individual violence on each other in the common case. Does it work? Depends on who you ask. But that's the idea, at least from the Machiavellian "stable society" standpoint. In that context, it doesn't matter if Reiser completely overhauls his philosophy of life in jail; he took something that he cannot give back, he took something no one can give back, and a certain amount of punishment is necessary to inform everyone else this is not acceptable ("thus always to the enemies of the country," etc). - rehabilitation and rebuilding of trust. We humans broadly speaking divide other humans into two categories: those who would never and those who would. Certain transgressions bump a person from the would-never into the would category, and that opens a fissure that can never be closed. The fissure can be diminished by the transgressor demonstrating that they understand why that's unacceptable and providing reasons for the public to believe they will never commit that transgression a second time. Under this theory, crime commission is contextual; if a person can demonstrate that they will never be in the context again that would cause them to commit the crime, a certain amount of trust can be reestablished. And here we get to the question of why drunk driving is treated less severely than, say, premeditated murder. As an individual, it's very hard to guard against premeditated murder. And people premeditating murder look like everybody else; It's hard to generate signifiers that would rebuild trust if somebody does such a thing. So the state has a large interest in discouraging it via "the olde ways," because the state has a hard time detecting it coming or defending the victims. In contrast, crimes committed under the influence of mind-alterers we generally feel would be something the transgressor would not do if the influence were removed. It's a lot easier to reestablish the trust gap in theory if somebody who drives drunk swears they will never drink again. ... That having been said, in practice, I totally agree with you. I think the numbers on drunk driving recidivism are ridiculous and it is completely unacceptable to maintain the status quo trust model on this issue; drunk driving should be an immediate revocation of the ability to use a licensed vehicle for life without extraordinary circumstances (on the order of pardon from the governor) to allow someone to retest for a license. We treat pilot licenses thusly; we should treat vehicle licenses with similar scrutiny. ... Problem is, in the US at least, we've built a society so heavily dependent upon cars in most of the country that doing this in the general case would be a sentence worse than the location constraints we put on sex offenders, and there's an upper limit on the state's capacity to actually enforce a law.
auntienomen 3y ago
Drunk driving is worse than stupid. It's up there with shooting a gun into someone's house.

foxyv 3y ago

Redemption requires that a person change and provide restitution. What Reiser did wasn't a stupid mistake, it was a calculated action that he took. His only mistake was getting caught. He didn't accidentally kill someone, or do so in the heat of a unique moment in his life. He decided that he could make his life easier by killing someone else and did so with no intention of facing the consequences of his actions. While I won't say redemption is impossible. He is going to have to serve his time and dedicate the rest of his life to helping others to even come close.

hollerith 3y ago
Since the prosecutor's office offered him a sentence of 3 years if he'd lead investigators to where he buried the body, the burden is on you IMHO to support your assertion because obviously if the informed professionals in the prosecutor's office thought it was a pre-planned murder they wouldn't've been that lenient. (In the US, pre-planned murders are routinely punished by life in prison without parole; California might be a little more lenient than the rest of the country, but not that much more lenient.)
- masklinn 3y ago
  What sentence of 3 years are you talking about? The judge offered (and prosecutors agreed to) a plea guilty of second-degree murder (down from the first degree murder he was convicted of) if he revealed the location of the body and gave closure to her Nina’s children and family. He got 15 to life, the maximum for second-degree murder, and his first request for parole was rejected so he’s doing at least 20 for now.
  - hollerith 3y ago
    What you describe happened after the trial. The offer of 3 years happened before the trial: >An Alameda County Superior Court judge confirmed today Hans Reiser was presented a deal last year in which the convicted murderer would have only served three years in prison. During what was supposed to have been Reiser’s sentencing hearing – which has been delayed due to this week’s events – Judge Larry Goodman, in an effort to clear up what he called inaccuracies in the media, said that Reiser was given the opportunity last September to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter. While voluntary manslaughter can carry different prison terms, Goodman said he agreed to give Reiser three years – the lowest possible term – to spare Nina Reiser’s family the turmoil of going through a trial and having the couple’s oldest son testify. Goodman pointed out in court if Reiser had accepted the deal, he would have been released in May 2008. However, Goodman said Reiser chose to “roll the dice,” and a jury convicted Reiser April 28 of first-degree murder in the killing of his wife. https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/07/09/reiser-rejected-voluntary-manslaughter-plea-3-years-in-prison/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/07/09/reiser-rejected-volun...

masklinn 3y ago

There’s “Stupid thing”. And then there’s murdering your ex, hiding her body over two days, lying to your children that she’d left for russia and they’d been abandoned, and only revealing the location of the body so you could plea down to second degree murder (a good 18 months later mind, we’re not talking quick change of heart). Oh and then filing a civil suit against pretty much the entire legal system, including the trial judges and your attorney. And when sued for damage by your children’s grandmother (on their behalf) assert that you killed your ex to protect your kids (which you had basically never been there for, which was the entire reason your wife left you). I’m not saying redemption is not possible, but I’d think some reflection and atonement would be the baseline, and I’m not aware of Hans Reiser having done any such work.

dlandau 3y ago
That he still wrote "in prison for killing my wife Nina" when she wasn't his wife anymore at the time indicates IMO that he still doesn't get it.
- 0x457 3y ago
  Legally speaking, she was, since the divorce wasn't finalized.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I don't think that matters much. To all practical intents and purposes she was no longer 'his wife' and given that he killed her the fact that the divorce was never finalized shouldn't give him extra rights.
    - 0x457 3y ago
      How is he supposed to refer to her? ex-wife is incorrect. By name doesn't provide enough context for people that don't know about him. The fact is - he killed his wife. > To all practical intents and purposes she was no longer 'his wife' It doesn't work like that, though. My soon-to-be-ex-wife is still listed as spouse on our health insurance because I can't remove her until the divorce is finalized. I still have to specify her in many legals documents as my wife. Even outside the legal field, many in my personal life consider her as my wife, go "call me when it's finalized".

tussa 3y ago

> do stupid things Yes, we've all done stupid things we regret. But this is not it. This is way to bad to fit in the "stupid things" category.

kstrauser 3y ago
I’ve said and done stupid things that hurt people I cared about. Anyone who’s been a teenager and yelled “I hate you, Dad!” in a moment of hormonal overload has. Ain’t killed anyone, though.