3 ms·

The behaviors demonstrated by Lidden here in the article sound to me like classic autistic behaviors. Is there any protection under the law in Australia for th

The behaviors demonstrated by Lidden here in the article sound to me like classic autistic behaviors. Is there any protection under the law in Australia for the fact that he's acting out an obsession tied to his "personality disorder"? Obsessive collecting, the interest in trains, and ultimately an overabundance of honesty and trying to rigidly follow rules to his own detriment, the court system should also be looking out for him as a defendant and not furthering this travesty of justice.

mmooss 2y ago
> overabundance of honesty I don't agree with that part. The immediate cost will be outweighed, I expect, by the impact on the judge; possibly, if Lidden isn't jailed, on the employer who will remember that Lidden was so honest under pressure and at personal cost; and on everyone around Lidden for the rest of their life, having earned trust that few of us have.
- tristor 2y ago
  I really really really wish that this is true, unfortunately it very often isn't. The Just World Fallacy is something I wish were not a fallacy.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    Save the nonsense characterizations and dismissals. What actual evidence do you have? In my experience, that's how things work - not 100% but it's a powerful effect.
    - tristor 2y ago
      Evidence of what? That Lidden is autistic? None, other than the contents of the article and my own knowledge of those traits (that I myself have). That the Just World Fallacy is strong and we all get kicked in the pants because of our better expectations? My evidence is a good 40-50% of my entire life's story, where I have been punished repeatedly for doing the right thing. To be clear, I am not being dismissive of your comment. I wish very deeply that it were true, and that I am wrong. Unfortunately I don't believe that to be the case.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        It's dismissive to assign my argument to a Internet argument (your fallacy) rather than address its merits. I'm not wasting time on defending my argument against your fabrications about it; I stand by what I actually say. And wanting to be true and dismissing it is still dismissing it. You don't know the outcome of the path not taken - lying, for example, also fails, much worse and much more often, and it fails in destroying your self-respect even when it 'succeeds' in some other narrow fashion. Maybe you would have failed anyway. We all fail plenty. Being honest isn't usually sufficient - you need other skills and resources too. The skills and resources for being honest, IME, differ from those of liars - they take experience and failure to master, like any other sophisticated skils (including lying). Why not spend time mastering them? I promise it pays off far better - even when you fail spectacularly, you retain your self-respect, and you spend a lot less time doubting what you should do (though you still need to figure out how to do it effectively). Whether the world - your world - is just or not is mainly up to you. You can't always succeed - liars don't get everything they want either - but you can have a big influence, on yourself and others. The world is what you make it.
        tristor 2y ago
        The opposite of "an overabundance of honesty" is not lying. It's knowing when to not speak at all. Perhaps rather than assuming I haven't mastered the skills of honesty, or that I am a dishonest person, you should really re-read what I wrote in all of my comments. I am not dismissing you, you are overreacting to a phrase I used which you understood differently than it was intended and has since been clarified.
        mmooss 2y ago
        It is a BS characterization - it wasn't something I said, but your imagination - and of course a characterization that served as something you could dismiss, which you did. Even the name of your fabricated characterization included the word "fallacy" - that doesn't leave much room to take the other person's idea seriously. It is much easier arguing with your personal strawperson than to understand a real person. I didn't assume anything about you; I just made my point.
    - achierius 2y ago
      Well, he was fired, so there goes any hope of his employer valuing his honesty.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        See my original comment ...
- giantg2 2y ago
  Id like to have a word with you about confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    Perhaps if you had an intelligent, constructive argument of your own, and not a worthless dismissal based on pure ignorance, I'd listen to you.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      Or you could interpret my comment charitably, in accordance with the HN guidelines. When you're entire professional life is based on enforcing the law and dealing with criminals, you end up protecting yourself to avoid cognitive dissonance. I see it all the time with police and judges (so much for your ignorance claim).
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  As someone raised to place, I later had to learn, dangerous levels of value on honesty and forthrightness and to assume that others would largely do the same, unless they were, you know, those relatively rare bad people... yeah, I'd guess it's just going to result in bad stuff, almost entirely. Cheaters never win, liars never prosper—sadly, these are closer to being the exact opposite of the truth, than to being true. Substitute "usually" and "often" and it's getting near to the truth.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    There's a popular 'wisdom' to dismiss things like honesty, but they actually do work, and they are used widely by most successful professionals, in my experience. Yes, they aren't usually sufficient by themselves - you need other things too. And sometimes the payoff is later, as I suggest it will be for Lidden. And people point to failures but nothing succeeds all the time; it's the distribution of outcomes you should look at: Lying fails more and worse and it damages and sometimes destroys the most valuable things in the world: your self-respect, your reputation with others, your relationships, and trust. Trust is one of the most powerful techniques in business and life. With it, people can make any arrangement with a few words, and not expend resources ensuring and verifying the other people do it. People trust me and I trust them (the ones I have relationships with), and that allows us to move quickly and accomplish much more. Integrity does one more great thing, it sets an example for others. People are social creatures that follow the herd much more than they realize. If you behave with integrity, you establish a norm that people follow. If you do the wrong thing, you have the same effect. I think Trump, the Republicans, and the far right are having that effect. We are each responsible for our communities - we are the doers and makers, not consumers of morality (except children and maybe others unsophisticated in these things). It's our free will, you can choose either - an understanding going back to the Genesis and further. And the consequences are very real.
    - tristor 2y ago
      I agree with every single thing you just wrote, and yet it doesn't address the fact that the world is an unfair place and that being too honest is a character fault, maybe a different take on the meaning of "discretion" in "Discretion is the better part of valor" best expresses what I had originally meant by "overabundance of honesty". I'm an extremely honest person, and it has paid dividends personally and professionally. It's also cost me a /lot/. But I am not "honest to a fault", which is a saying for a reason. I know when it's better to shut my mouth than to speak out, and sometimes I speak out even though I know I will suffer for it because it's the right thing to do, but it's not /always/ the right thing to do.

mmooss 2y ago

> overabundance of honesty I don't agree with that part. The immediate cost will be outweighed, I expect, by the impact on the judge; possibly, if Lidden isn't jailed, on the employer who will remember that Lidden was so honest under pressure and at personal cost; and on everyone around Lidden for the rest of their life, having earned trust that few of us have.

tristor 2y ago
I really really really wish that this is true, unfortunately it very often isn't. The Just World Fallacy is something I wish were not a fallacy.
- mmooss 2y ago
  Save the nonsense characterizations and dismissals. What actual evidence do you have? In my experience, that's how things work - not 100% but it's a powerful effect.
  - tristor 2y ago
    Evidence of what? That Lidden is autistic? None, other than the contents of the article and my own knowledge of those traits (that I myself have). That the Just World Fallacy is strong and we all get kicked in the pants because of our better expectations? My evidence is a good 40-50% of my entire life's story, where I have been punished repeatedly for doing the right thing. To be clear, I am not being dismissive of your comment. I wish very deeply that it were true, and that I am wrong. Unfortunately I don't believe that to be the case.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      It's dismissive to assign my argument to a Internet argument (your fallacy) rather than address its merits. I'm not wasting time on defending my argument against your fabrications about it; I stand by what I actually say. And wanting to be true and dismissing it is still dismissing it. You don't know the outcome of the path not taken - lying, for example, also fails, much worse and much more often, and it fails in destroying your self-respect even when it 'succeeds' in some other narrow fashion. Maybe you would have failed anyway. We all fail plenty. Being honest isn't usually sufficient - you need other skills and resources too. The skills and resources for being honest, IME, differ from those of liars - they take experience and failure to master, like any other sophisticated skils (including lying). Why not spend time mastering them? I promise it pays off far better - even when you fail spectacularly, you retain your self-respect, and you spend a lot less time doubting what you should do (though you still need to figure out how to do it effectively). Whether the world - your world - is just or not is mainly up to you. You can't always succeed - liars don't get everything they want either - but you can have a big influence, on yourself and others. The world is what you make it.
      - tristor 2y ago
        The opposite of "an overabundance of honesty" is not lying. It's knowing when to not speak at all. Perhaps rather than assuming I haven't mastered the skills of honesty, or that I am a dishonest person, you should really re-read what I wrote in all of my comments. I am not dismissing you, you are overreacting to a phrase I used which you understood differently than it was intended and has since been clarified.
        mmooss 2y ago
        It is a BS characterization - it wasn't something I said, but your imagination - and of course a characterization that served as something you could dismiss, which you did. Even the name of your fabricated characterization included the word "fallacy" - that doesn't leave much room to take the other person's idea seriously. It is much easier arguing with your personal strawperson than to understand a real person. I didn't assume anything about you; I just made my point.
  - achierius 2y ago
    Well, he was fired, so there goes any hope of his employer valuing his honesty.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      See my original comment ...
giantg2 2y ago
Id like to have a word with you about confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.
- mmooss 2y ago
  Perhaps if you had an intelligent, constructive argument of your own, and not a worthless dismissal based on pure ignorance, I'd listen to you.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    Or you could interpret my comment charitably, in accordance with the HN guidelines. When you're entire professional life is based on enforcing the law and dealing with criminals, you end up protecting yourself to avoid cognitive dissonance. I see it all the time with police and judges (so much for your ignorance claim).
alabastervlog 2y ago
As someone raised to place, I later had to learn, dangerous levels of value on honesty and forthrightness and to assume that others would largely do the same, unless they were, you know, those relatively rare bad people... yeah, I'd guess it's just going to result in bad stuff, almost entirely. Cheaters never win, liars never prosper—sadly, these are closer to being the exact opposite of the truth, than to being true. Substitute "usually" and "often" and it's getting near to the truth.
- mmooss 2y ago
  There's a popular 'wisdom' to dismiss things like honesty, but they actually do work, and they are used widely by most successful professionals, in my experience. Yes, they aren't usually sufficient by themselves - you need other things too. And sometimes the payoff is later, as I suggest it will be for Lidden. And people point to failures but nothing succeeds all the time; it's the distribution of outcomes you should look at: Lying fails more and worse and it damages and sometimes destroys the most valuable things in the world: your self-respect, your reputation with others, your relationships, and trust. Trust is one of the most powerful techniques in business and life. With it, people can make any arrangement with a few words, and not expend resources ensuring and verifying the other people do it. People trust me and I trust them (the ones I have relationships with), and that allows us to move quickly and accomplish much more. Integrity does one more great thing, it sets an example for others. People are social creatures that follow the herd much more than they realize. If you behave with integrity, you establish a norm that people follow. If you do the wrong thing, you have the same effect. I think Trump, the Republicans, and the far right are having that effect. We are each responsible for our communities - we are the doers and makers, not consumers of morality (except children and maybe others unsophisticated in these things). It's our free will, you can choose either - an understanding going back to the Genesis and further. And the consequences are very real.
  - tristor 2y ago
    I agree with every single thing you just wrote, and yet it doesn't address the fact that the world is an unfair place and that being too honest is a character fault, maybe a different take on the meaning of "discretion" in "Discretion is the better part of valor" best expresses what I had originally meant by "overabundance of honesty". I'm an extremely honest person, and it has paid dividends personally and professionally. It's also cost me a /lot/. But I am not "honest to a fault", which is a saying for a reason. I know when it's better to shut my mouth than to speak out, and sometimes I speak out even though I know I will suffer for it because it's the right thing to do, but it's not /always/ the right thing to do.