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I know there are plenty of hyper puritanical people who would disagree with me, but I feel like people really embody the ship of theseus paradox. We're just no

I know there are plenty of hyper puritanical people who would disagree with me, but I feel like people really embody the ship of theseus paradox. We're just not the same person we were decades ago. I really don't care if you were running around dealing drugs, robbing banks, stealing cars or whatever two decades ago. If I found out one of my coworkers was a career bank robber I'd just want to get a beer and hear the crazy stories.

takinola 3y ago
Legally, the statute of limitations addresses this very problem. You aren’t going to be dragged off to jail in your forties for some shoplifting you did in your twenties. Socially, we probably should adopt something similar. Depending on the crime (non-violent, low cost to society, one time), we should all pretty much pretend it didn’t happen after about 5 - 10 years.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 3y ago
  Statue of limitations is only on being charged. The conviction record is what causes problems and that sticks around for life in the US.
  - takinola 3y ago
    I agree there should be a statute of limitations on criminal records as well.
wpietri 3y ago
On the one hand, sure. When I started reading this new story, I was like, "If the guy has lived that long under a name, it's kinda his name now, right?" But then I read how thoroughly he fucked over the guy whose name he stole in 2019, or 30 years after he started using the name. So some people may not be the same 20 years later. But some of them sure the hell are.
qingcharles 3y ago
I was just recently given 24 hours to pack whatever I could carry and leave my home after the landlord's daughter found out my real government name which I rarely use and found a newspaper article about where I was arrested on false charges 11 years ago. (I spent 10 years in jail awaiting trial and then the charges were dropped) Most of the newspapers completely removed all mentions of the case, bless them, but it's the Internet -- removing something from the Internet is like trying to take the pee out of a swimming pool. After asking how I was going to manage on the streets, homeless (it was -30*C at the time), he did come to his senses somewhat and get me a couple of week's grace which let me find somewhere else to stay.
- richrichardsson 3y ago
  > I spent 10 years in jail awaiting trial and then the charges were dropped How is that even possible? What kind of system allows such a nonsense to occur?
  - voxic11 3y ago
    As long as you waive your right to a speedy trial and you don't post bail you can be held without trial basically forever in the United States.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ruined 3y ago
    rikers island, nyc
  - sneak 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder
- LiquidPolymer 3y ago
  If you are in the United States, in most jurisdictions, a 24 our eviction would be against the law and come with significant penalties for the landlord. 10 years in jail awaiting charges certainly means you waved off a speedy trial. Yet still, I believe you are leaving out a significant detail or two.
urban_winter 3y ago
> If I found out one of my coworkers was a career bank robber I'd just want to get a beer and hear the crazy stories. Would you want to hear the crazy stories of a two decades ago child murderer too? I didn't think so.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  It's not as farfetched as you seem to believe. I've been reading a translation of Water Margin; here's a bit from the story of Wu Song: Actually, first, here's Wu Song's dictionary entry in the Hanyu Da Cidian: > 《水浒传》中人物。勇猛刚烈，曾在景阳冈徒手打死猛虎。后参加梁山农民起义军，到处诛除强暴，是人民群众所喜爱的英雄形象之一。 [A character in Water Margin. Brave, fierce, strong, and violent, he once beat a man-eating tiger to death with his bare hands in Jingyang Pass. Afterward he joined the peasant uprising in Liangshan, with brutal killing [and rape?] everywhere, he is one of the heroic figures that the common people love.] OK, now, the excerpt from Water Margin: ------ [Wu Song has been framed for theft by a conspiracy of three men, beaten, and exiled. He has just returned to the home of the highest-ranking conspirator (General Zhang), beheaded all three of them at the self-congratulatory party they were holding, and left a note claiming responsibility in blood on the wall.] From all this killing the pavilion was swimming in blood, bodies could be seen lying everywhere in the flickering light of the candles. Wu Song said to himself: "It had to be all or nothing; kill a hundred, you can only die for it once." Sword at the ready, he went downstairs. "What's all the hullabaloo upstairs?" the General's wife was inquiring as Wu Song rushed in. At this monstrous sight she shrieked: "Who are you?" But Wu Song's sword was already flying. It caught her square in the forehead and she fell with a shriek right there in front of the pavilion. Wu Song held her down but when he tried to cut off her head the sword wouldn't cut. Baffled, he saw by the light of the moon that the blade was completely blunted. "So that's why I couldn't get her head off," he thought. He slipped out of the back door to get his halberd again and threw away the blunt sword. Then he turned and went back to the tower. A lamp could be seen approaching. It turned out to be the singing girl, Yulan, the one he'd had the trouble with before. She was accompanied by two children. When the light of her lamp fell on the General's wife where she lay dead on the floor, Yulan screamed: "Merciful Heaven!" Wu Song raised his halberd and ran her through the heart. He also killed the children, a single thrust to each. He went to the central hall, bolted the main door, and returned. He found two or three more young girls and stabbed them to death too. "Now at last," he said, "my heart is eased. Now it's time to stop." ------ This is the heroic figure that the common people love. The story is not short on villains, but Wu Song is not one of them. Wu Song befriends a husband and wife who operate a series of inns, where they drug and butcher travelers who make the wrong impression in order to serve their meat to the other guests. They aren't villains either.
AlexanderTheGr8 3y ago
> I really don't care if you were running around dealing drugs, robbing banks, stealing cars or whatever two decades ago. If I found out one of my coworkers was a career bank robber I'd just want to get a beer and hear the crazy stories. I am glad you are trying to put skin in the game. But your examples are all non-sentimental. Let's pick a different one. If that guy used to touch children in public swimming pools (not rape) decades ago, would you let him babysit your child? Or what if that guy just used to flash himself to children? I agree that people change. And I am willing to take the risk of working / hanging out with someone who has dealt drugs or stolen cars or even robbed banks. That's bec no one was hurt (at least intentionally) during these activities. But what if he intentionally hurt someone? Would you feel comfortable with that person roaming in the streets where their next target could be you or your family?
C6JEsQeQa5fCjE 3y ago
> I know there are plenty of hyper puritanical people who would disagree with me [...] If I found out one of my coworkers was a career bank robber I'd just want to get a beer and hear the crazy stories. Absolutes do not work and details matter. Maybe you just do not find the crimes you mentioned particularly disturbing. Now imagine that the coworker has comitted some crime that you personally are terrified of or disgusted by. Would you still just go get a beer and hang out? Would you trust the person around people you love or care about? Would you trust the person around potentially vulnerable people at your workplace?
soerxpso 3y ago
While I agree, the negative effect with letting it slide after X years would be that you're removing a lot of downside from the risk-benefit analysis of every prospective criminal. Fraud is already pretty easy to get away with. If there were a rule that all you have to do to face no consequences is get away with it for a certain amount of time, more people would do it.
lobocinza 3y ago
Maybe but people carry the same DNA for their whole life. And it's common to see people doing the same mistakes over and over again, the same mistakes their parents did and that their children will do.
ars 3y ago
It's the age old debate: Do people change? I think that most people do not. Teenagers get calmer when they get older, so I can accept ignoring minor misdeeds that can be attributed to not thinking, but not anything more serious. You seem to think that people do change, and maybe some do, but I think that's a rarity. Anyway that's the crux of your message: Do people change or not?
- pbj1968 3y ago
  19 years of uneventful employment later and we’re questioning, “do people change?” In his case, obviously yes. And his stuff was nonviolent, already long restituted crime. He fudged his background on a job application. The whole situation has never sat right with me.
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    For 19 years he continuously committed a crime against another guy and when given the chance to have the other chap incarcerated he proceeded with it. You guys are all very kind with other people's lives, but if Google cancels one app you use it's suddenly thunder and brimstone and how you will never use Google again what a horrific thing. Give me a break. I can almost guarantee that, should I look in your profile history, you'll be holding some position about someone or some organization long after they acted in some manner you found unacceptable. I'm all for forgiving people, but the guy was actively committing the crime against the other chap!
  - csomar 3y ago
    People do not change. In my opinion, people are driven by circumstance. Middle-class is relatively calm and peaceful because that's their circumstance. Of course, if you are part of one you'd claim otherwise in some process of self-insulation and protection. Remove all entitlements, money and credentials from a middle-class person and throw them on the street and see how quickly that goes down.
    - namaria 3y ago
      > People do not change. In my opinion, people are driven by circumstance. You contradicted yourself here.
kelnos 3y ago
I dunno, I guess maybe we'd just disagree on where the line is drawn. Murder? Rape? Something of that caliber? Nah, I'm not just gonna assume or trust that the person has changed, even if it'd been 20 years or whatever. Bank robbery? Well, I dunno. Armed robbery? Did anyone get hurt? Maybe that's not ok, no matter how much time has passed. But yeah... drugs, whatever. Super petty crimes where there wasn't any violence or physical threats involved? Yeah, maybe no big deal if enough time has passed with the person leaving that kind of life behind. But even then, it's hard to say. In this article, it seems like the faker didn't do anything that bad before stealing this other guy's identity. Like, the kind of stuff where, 20 years later, we'd probably just shrug and be like "yeah that guy's got some stories". But he ruined another man's life, causing a situation that led him to become committed to a mental hospital merely for claiming that someone else had stolen his identity. (Sure, the judge in the case almost certainly acted improperly, but that's not really the point.) I don't think that's something you just sweep under the rug, even in another 20 years.
brailsafe 3y ago
Absolutely agreed, but I'd go further and say you shouldn't have to hang onto everything you've ever done and get a few chances to reset in non-criminal situations too. I handled some previous relationships like shit in my early twenties, and upon years of reflection have formed what I'd consider a completely different sense of who I am and how I treat people; me at 23 is not me at 32, but it scares me a bit that my apparent integrity would be called into question should I have to dig into it, despite authentically having no part of me that could see life from those eyes again
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I don't think these things are at odds, if I understand you correctly. To use religious terminology - repentance makes up for the sin. In other words, the explicit reflection on your past and determination to do better is indeed a transformational thing. The thing is, "repentance" is not a given and I would say that most people do not go through the introspection and evolution process, so there's no reason to assume that mere passage of time has transformed one into a different person than he who has transgressed. In your case, the thing that would make me not worry about your "apparent integrity being called into question" is the fact that you yourself are calling yourself out for having done badly. That would be quite different than someone who's done the equivalent amount of aging but didn't recognize and evolve from their past. Of course there are some things where mere recognition is not sufficient. For example where the misdeed can be correct or otherwise accounted for, they ought to be. EG if one has the opportunity to go back and undo/apologize/repay/whatever but they don't, then their repentance is itself in question (if you don't go back to fix the thing, are you really beating yourself up for having done it, etc?) At most extreme cases, it can mean confessing to a crime and throwing yourself at the mercy of the court or whatever.
  - jonathanlydall 3y ago
    Unfortunately it can be hard or impossible to differentiate between the two, but people are sorry for what they did for one of two reasons: - They have empathy for the person they harmed and recognise that they should change their actions to avoid doing such harm again. - After being caught, they regret how their own freedoms are now jeopardised by their past actions. So they regret their actions, but mostly (or only) because of how it affects them (now) and not how other people may have been harmed. The problem with latter is that they are sometimes irredeemable, they may pay back their victims, but they see it kind of like losing a bet, they got caught this time so need to pay up and the lesson they internally learn is to not get caught.
triyambakam 3y ago
What if they raped children or murdered people? How far does it go? I can forgive but it also is wise to keep distance relative to the severity of the aberration.
- ivalm 3y ago
  At some point we should either give them life imprisonment or accept that if they are free to go then they paid their debt and need to be reintegrated (obviously if they did sex offences against minors then don’t put them in jobs with high contact to minors).
  - diordiderot 3y ago
    No death penalty if nitrogen hypoxia were the method?
    - ivalm 3y ago
      I’m against death penalty because: 1. False conviction rate is unacceptably high 2. It’s financially similarly burdensome to do life imprisonment as death penalty 3. Presence of death penalty doesn’t seem to impact homicide rates I am all for putting some people in prison and never letting them out (because of high chance of recidivism).
      - sneak 3y ago
        These are bad reasons to be against the death penalty. Even if the state were always perfectly correct, the right to life is the most basic of human rights and the state should not deprive anyone, including criminals, of human rights.
        planede 3y ago
        Jail already deprives people of human rights. I'm still against the death penalty though.
      - 3y ago

takinola 3y ago

Legally, the statute of limitations addresses this very problem. You aren’t going to be dragged off to jail in your forties for some shoplifting you did in your twenties. Socially, we probably should adopt something similar. Depending on the crime (non-violent, low cost to society, one time), we should all pretty much pretend it didn’t happen after about 5 - 10 years.

HeatrayEnjoyer 3y ago
Statue of limitations is only on being charged. The conviction record is what causes problems and that sticks around for life in the US.
- takinola 3y ago
  I agree there should be a statute of limitations on criminal records as well.

wpietri 3y ago

On the one hand, sure. When I started reading this new story, I was like, "If the guy has lived that long under a name, it's kinda his name now, right?" But then I read how thoroughly he fucked over the guy whose name he stole in 2019, or 30 years after he started using the name. So some people may not be the same 20 years later. But some of them sure the hell are.

qingcharles 3y ago

I was just recently given 24 hours to pack whatever I could carry and leave my home after the landlord's daughter found out my real government name which I rarely use and found a newspaper article about where I was arrested on false charges 11 years ago. (I spent 10 years in jail awaiting trial and then the charges were dropped) Most of the newspapers completely removed all mentions of the case, bless them, but it's the Internet -- removing something from the Internet is like trying to take the pee out of a swimming pool. After asking how I was going to manage on the streets, homeless (it was -30*C at the time), he did come to his senses somewhat and get me a couple of week's grace which let me find somewhere else to stay.

richrichardsson 3y ago
> I spent 10 years in jail awaiting trial and then the charges were dropped How is that even possible? What kind of system allows such a nonsense to occur?
- voxic11 3y ago
  As long as you waive your right to a speedy trial and you don't post bail you can be held without trial basically forever in the United States.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ruined 3y ago
  rikers island, nyc
- sneak 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder
LiquidPolymer 3y ago
If you are in the United States, in most jurisdictions, a 24 our eviction would be against the law and come with significant penalties for the landlord. 10 years in jail awaiting charges certainly means you waved off a speedy trial. Yet still, I believe you are leaving out a significant detail or two.

urban_winter 3y ago

> If I found out one of my coworkers was a career bank robber I'd just want to get a beer and hear the crazy stories. Would you want to hear the crazy stories of a two decades ago child murderer too? I didn't think so.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
It's not as farfetched as you seem to believe. I've been reading a translation of Water Margin; here's a bit from the story of Wu Song: Actually, first, here's Wu Song's dictionary entry in the Hanyu Da Cidian: > 《水浒传》中人物。勇猛刚烈，曾在景阳冈徒手打死猛虎。后参加梁山农民起义军，到处诛除强暴，是人民群众所喜爱的英雄形象之一。 [A character in Water Margin. Brave, fierce, strong, and violent, he once beat a man-eating tiger to death with his bare hands in Jingyang Pass. Afterward he joined the peasant uprising in Liangshan, with brutal killing [and rape?] everywhere, he is one of the heroic figures that the common people love.] OK, now, the excerpt from Water Margin: ------ [Wu Song has been framed for theft by a conspiracy of three men, beaten, and exiled. He has just returned to the home of the highest-ranking conspirator (General Zhang), beheaded all three of them at the self-congratulatory party they were holding, and left a note claiming responsibility in blood on the wall.] From all this killing the pavilion was swimming in blood, bodies could be seen lying everywhere in the flickering light of the candles. Wu Song said to himself: "It had to be all or nothing; kill a hundred, you can only die for it once." Sword at the ready, he went downstairs. "What's all the hullabaloo upstairs?" the General's wife was inquiring as Wu Song rushed in. At this monstrous sight she shrieked: "Who are you?" But Wu Song's sword was already flying. It caught her square in the forehead and she fell with a shriek right there in front of the pavilion. Wu Song held her down but when he tried to cut off her head the sword wouldn't cut. Baffled, he saw by the light of the moon that the blade was completely blunted. "So that's why I couldn't get her head off," he thought. He slipped out of the back door to get his halberd again and threw away the blunt sword. Then he turned and went back to the tower. A lamp could be seen approaching. It turned out to be the singing girl, Yulan, the one he'd had the trouble with before. She was accompanied by two children. When the light of her lamp fell on the General's wife where she lay dead on the floor, Yulan screamed: "Merciful Heaven!" Wu Song raised his halberd and ran her through the heart. He also killed the children, a single thrust to each. He went to the central hall, bolted the main door, and returned. He found two or three more young girls and stabbed them to death too. "Now at last," he said, "my heart is eased. Now it's time to stop." ------ This is the heroic figure that the common people love. The story is not short on villains, but Wu Song is not one of them. Wu Song befriends a husband and wife who operate a series of inns, where they drug and butcher travelers who make the wrong impression in order to serve their meat to the other guests. They aren't villains either.

AlexanderTheGr8 3y ago

> I really don't care if you were running around dealing drugs, robbing banks, stealing cars or whatever two decades ago. If I found out one of my coworkers was a career bank robber I'd just want to get a beer and hear the crazy stories. I am glad you are trying to put skin in the game. But your examples are all non-sentimental. Let's pick a different one. If that guy used to touch children in public swimming pools (not rape) decades ago, would you let him babysit your child? Or what if that guy just used to flash himself to children? I agree that people change. And I am willing to take the risk of working / hanging out with someone who has dealt drugs or stolen cars or even robbed banks. That's bec no one was hurt (at least intentionally) during these activities. But what if he intentionally hurt someone? Would you feel comfortable with that person roaming in the streets where their next target could be you or your family?

C6JEsQeQa5fCjE 3y ago

> I know there are plenty of hyper puritanical people who would disagree with me [...] If I found out one of my coworkers was a career bank robber I'd just want to get a beer and hear the crazy stories. Absolutes do not work and details matter. Maybe you just do not find the crimes you mentioned particularly disturbing. Now imagine that the coworker has comitted some crime that you personally are terrified of or disgusted by. Would you still just go get a beer and hang out? Would you trust the person around people you love or care about? Would you trust the person around potentially vulnerable people at your workplace?

soerxpso 3y ago

While I agree, the negative effect with letting it slide after X years would be that you're removing a lot of downside from the risk-benefit analysis of every prospective criminal. Fraud is already pretty easy to get away with. If there were a rule that all you have to do to face no consequences is get away with it for a certain amount of time, more people would do it.

lobocinza 3y ago

Maybe but people carry the same DNA for their whole life. And it's common to see people doing the same mistakes over and over again, the same mistakes their parents did and that their children will do.

ars 3y ago

It's the age old debate: Do people change? I think that most people do not. Teenagers get calmer when they get older, so I can accept ignoring minor misdeeds that can be attributed to not thinking, but not anything more serious. You seem to think that people do change, and maybe some do, but I think that's a rarity. Anyway that's the crux of your message: Do people change or not?

pbj1968 3y ago
19 years of uneventful employment later and we’re questioning, “do people change?” In his case, obviously yes. And his stuff was nonviolent, already long restituted crime. He fudged his background on a job application. The whole situation has never sat right with me.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  For 19 years he continuously committed a crime against another guy and when given the chance to have the other chap incarcerated he proceeded with it. You guys are all very kind with other people's lives, but if Google cancels one app you use it's suddenly thunder and brimstone and how you will never use Google again what a horrific thing. Give me a break. I can almost guarantee that, should I look in your profile history, you'll be holding some position about someone or some organization long after they acted in some manner you found unacceptable. I'm all for forgiving people, but the guy was actively committing the crime against the other chap!
- csomar 3y ago
  People do not change. In my opinion, people are driven by circumstance. Middle-class is relatively calm and peaceful because that's their circumstance. Of course, if you are part of one you'd claim otherwise in some process of self-insulation and protection. Remove all entitlements, money and credentials from a middle-class person and throw them on the street and see how quickly that goes down.
  - namaria 3y ago
    > People do not change. In my opinion, people are driven by circumstance. You contradicted yourself here.

kelnos 3y ago

I dunno, I guess maybe we'd just disagree on where the line is drawn. Murder? Rape? Something of that caliber? Nah, I'm not just gonna assume or trust that the person has changed, even if it'd been 20 years or whatever. Bank robbery? Well, I dunno. Armed robbery? Did anyone get hurt? Maybe that's not ok, no matter how much time has passed. But yeah... drugs, whatever. Super petty crimes where there wasn't any violence or physical threats involved? Yeah, maybe no big deal if enough time has passed with the person leaving that kind of life behind. But even then, it's hard to say. In this article, it seems like the faker didn't do anything that bad before stealing this other guy's identity. Like, the kind of stuff where, 20 years later, we'd probably just shrug and be like "yeah that guy's got some stories". But he ruined another man's life, causing a situation that led him to become committed to a mental hospital merely for claiming that someone else had stolen his identity. (Sure, the judge in the case almost certainly acted improperly, but that's not really the point.) I don't think that's something you just sweep under the rug, even in another 20 years.

brailsafe 3y ago

Absolutely agreed, but I'd go further and say you shouldn't have to hang onto everything you've ever done and get a few chances to reset in non-criminal situations too. I handled some previous relationships like shit in my early twenties, and upon years of reflection have formed what I'd consider a completely different sense of who I am and how I treat people; me at 23 is not me at 32, but it scares me a bit that my apparent integrity would be called into question should I have to dig into it, despite authentically having no part of me that could see life from those eyes again

xyzelement 3y ago
I don't think these things are at odds, if I understand you correctly. To use religious terminology - repentance makes up for the sin. In other words, the explicit reflection on your past and determination to do better is indeed a transformational thing. The thing is, "repentance" is not a given and I would say that most people do not go through the introspection and evolution process, so there's no reason to assume that mere passage of time has transformed one into a different person than he who has transgressed. In your case, the thing that would make me not worry about your "apparent integrity being called into question" is the fact that you yourself are calling yourself out for having done badly. That would be quite different than someone who's done the equivalent amount of aging but didn't recognize and evolve from their past. Of course there are some things where mere recognition is not sufficient. For example where the misdeed can be correct or otherwise accounted for, they ought to be. EG if one has the opportunity to go back and undo/apologize/repay/whatever but they don't, then their repentance is itself in question (if you don't go back to fix the thing, are you really beating yourself up for having done it, etc?) At most extreme cases, it can mean confessing to a crime and throwing yourself at the mercy of the court or whatever.
- jonathanlydall 3y ago
  Unfortunately it can be hard or impossible to differentiate between the two, but people are sorry for what they did for one of two reasons: - They have empathy for the person they harmed and recognise that they should change their actions to avoid doing such harm again. - After being caught, they regret how their own freedoms are now jeopardised by their past actions. So they regret their actions, but mostly (or only) because of how it affects them (now) and not how other people may have been harmed. The problem with latter is that they are sometimes irredeemable, they may pay back their victims, but they see it kind of like losing a bet, they got caught this time so need to pay up and the lesson they internally learn is to not get caught.

triyambakam 3y ago

What if they raped children or murdered people? How far does it go? I can forgive but it also is wise to keep distance relative to the severity of the aberration.

ivalm 3y ago
At some point we should either give them life imprisonment or accept that if they are free to go then they paid their debt and need to be reintegrated (obviously if they did sex offences against minors then don’t put them in jobs with high contact to minors).
- diordiderot 3y ago
  No death penalty if nitrogen hypoxia were the method?
  - ivalm 3y ago
    I’m against death penalty because: 1. False conviction rate is unacceptably high 2. It’s financially similarly burdensome to do life imprisonment as death penalty 3. Presence of death penalty doesn’t seem to impact homicide rates I am all for putting some people in prison and never letting them out (because of high chance of recidivism).
    - sneak 3y ago
      These are bad reasons to be against the death penalty. Even if the state were always perfectly correct, the right to life is the most basic of human rights and the state should not deprive anyone, including criminals, of human rights.
      - planede 3y ago
        Jail already deprives people of human rights. I'm still against the death penalty though.
    - 3y ago