6 ms·

It's not your fault for leaving your property in your car. Wild to say that.

renewiltord 8mo ago
I imagine they see it the way I do: the SF Bay Area has thieves like this because it's part of local native culture. You get the good with the bad. Sort of like going to the elephant graveyard and being eaten by hyena pack. Sure, it's not your fault for walking around graveyard and getting eaten by hyena. But this is where hyena is. I have lost (and sometimes recovered) many items to these hyena. Ultimately, they are not people or anything. They're like hyena. You don't say it is fault of hyena. It is animal and local culture is animal lover. Why stress about it? Like many, GP decided that he leave hyena here and go elsewhere where it is people and not animal.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- trollbridge 8mo ago
  But the thieves actually are people, not "wildlife". And there is no reason to tolerate this kind of quality-of-life crime. Nobody is better off for it.
  - renewiltord 8mo ago
    One way or the other, local culture is to do this. Yes, I agree it’s a negative sum choice. But they like it. It’s the same school of thought where a prison abolitionist didn’t report her gang rape: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/why-i-didnt-report-my-rape/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/why-i-didnt-report... It’s a coastal elite view. As for whether they’re people and not wildlife as you put it, I suspect I’m more right than you are. Some of them have almost been acquitted because after killing people while robbing them it was offered as an explanation that they are too stupid to know that killing was bad. https://sfist.com/2024/09/20/sf-jury-convicts-two-for-2017-murder-of-photographer-on-twin-peaks/ https://sfist.com/2024/09/20/sf-jury-convicts-two-for-2017-m... > Decuir and Mims were convicted last year of armed robbery, but a jury deadlocked on the first-degree murder charge, leading to this second trial… Attorneys also argued that she had a low IQ…
    - opello 8mo ago
      > One way or the other, local culture is to do this. Yes, I agree it’s a negative sum choice. But they like it. It’s the same school of thought where a prison abolitionist didn’t report her gang rape: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/why-i-didnt-report-my-rape/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/why-i-didnt-report... How are gangs of thieves reasonably justified as part of culture? Surely civil society frowns on theft? I read that article and I can (somehow) appreciate an ideal of prison reform so strong that it precluded reporting a crime--I think anyway--however, I did not see an explanation of what sort of remedy or justice this practitioner of a belief "in the abolition of police and prisons" would prefer. What is the appropriate punishment for such a crime? This is missing in the perspective presented. There is a description of a want for the perpetrator to change but no mechanism described for forcing the person to begin to change, just a reconciliation that every situation is different enough to avoid prescribing a template solution. In the theft context, tolerating people that steal seems to enable theft. Humans can reason and are a product of the choices they've made. One ideal of the courts is exposure to alternatives, in the case of your deadlocked murder case, there are annoying factors from my arm chair: perhaps first-degree was too high a bar, the use of IQ in a legal setting in 2023 is annoying because without knowing how it was measured it should be assumed culturally biased and pointless, what levels of decision making abrogate personal responsibility--in managing a disease or making choices that lead to finding oneself in a particular setting. The resulting life in prison without parole sentence is probably just, but as with the Las Vegas story, I think that's up to those most affected by the crime to decide.
      - renewiltord 8mo ago
        > How are gangs of thieves reasonably justified as part of culture? Surely civil society frowns on theft? Theft is considered acceptable in coastal elite culture so long as it is from a multi-store chain. I haven't yet figured out how many stores transforms a chain from independent (theft-unacceptable) to corporate (theft-permitted, perhaps even encouraged). It is somewhat underspecified but at a sufficiently franchised operation, it is considered moral to steal. > The resulting life in prison without parole sentence is probably just, but as with the Las Vegas story, I think that's up to those most affected by the crime to decide. In this case, the person most affected did not make a statement as to his intended outcome. This is probably because he was killed in the commission of his crime, but we have no peer-reviewed studies that have proven that so we must consider it speculation.
- viraptor 8mo ago
  > the SF Bay Area has thieves like this because it's part of local native culture You mean like Coast Miwok or Pomo?
  - renewiltord 8mo ago
    I’m with you but local culture is to run arbitrary tests to see if you’re a “native” or not. The tests usually go back to high school or something.
ghaff 8mo ago
Outside of some bad areas of some cities, in New England leaving property in cars is perfectly normal.
jasonfarnon 8mo ago
not "fault" in the sense of legal or ethical blame, but "fault" in the sense of stupid vs. smart thing to do
- thih9 8mo ago
  But it’s not a stupid thing to do either - if anything, normalizing crime sounds not optimal.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - elzbardico 8mo ago
    There’s no such thing as normalizing crime by simply taking sensible steps to protect yourself from it.
    - thih9 8mo ago
      For a society that does this long term, giving away your rights is literally how crime gets normalized.
JKCalhoun 8mo ago
Lived in the Bay Area for over two decades. Yeah, leaving a visible item in your car is just bait for the smash-and-grab crowd. It sucks but once you know it, it would be like thinking you can just leave your wallet sitting on a counter.
- aikinai 8mo ago
  You can also do that in high-functioning societies. In Japan people leave their purses, phones, etc to hold their seat before ordering in a café, going to the bathroom, etc.
  - whateveracct 8mo ago
    In Japan, they also had to segregate subways by sex to deter groping. And the men just got on the woman cars anyways. High-functioning society lol.
    - boingus 8mo ago
      In Japan, there's so little crime that they make an effort to crack down on things like creepshots. The desire to tackle stuff like that is more than most countries do, where it's swept under the rug and ignored. In America, you can proudly say you grope and molest women and it's considered presidential behavior.
      - justinator 8mo ago
        Love to live there but chances they'll let me are roughly 0%. It's convenient (for them) that racial discrimination isn't a crime in Japan.
        lostlogin 8mo ago
        The way ethnic minorities are getting treated in the US at the moment implies a race to the bottom. How many days is it since the last state sanctioned shooting?
poulsbohemian 8mo ago
Ahem. There are neighborhoods in the US where you leave nothing in your car because otherwise your car will become a target. It's often "the rule" in these places that you also leave the doors unlocked because that way "they" won't break your window trying to get in. They open the door, see there's nothing of value to steal and move on. In other places in the US it's (still but fading) normal to leave your car doors unlocked because "everybody knows everybody and no one would steal from each other." Code switching is knowing which of the neighborhoods you are in and how to adapt.
- cptcobalt 8mo ago
  The point of the comment is that this is not something we should have to tolerate or worry about in a seemingly high-trust society.
  - poulsbohemian 8mo ago
    I totally get and respect the perspective of the parent poster, I'm just keeping it real that the US is generally not a high-trust society. If it were, we wouldn't have disclosures and disclaimers and limits of liability for everything we do all day long.
    - mlrtime 8mo ago
      >I'm just keeping it real that the US is generally not a high-trust society. Completely false, you mean Urban areas are not high trust. I live in a place (In the US) where kids walk to school, don't lock bikes and our downtown has free umbrellas to take and give back whenever there is rain.
edm0nd 8mo ago
It 100% is if you live in or operate in a high crime area known for vehicle break-ins. Like OP of the comment.
- srj 8mo ago
  Sure but in a less broken society thieves would be apprehended and theft risk would be low. Instead the police do nothing and honest people live like a school of fish trying not to stick out for fear of the nearly-authorized property theft rampant in SF. In many parts of the world, including major cities, it would be okay to leave your belongings in a locked car.
  - Spooky23 8mo ago
    Cool, leave your MacBook on the front seat then.
    - Amezarak 8mo ago
      I regularly leave my backpack with my laptops in it in the front seat of my car in the south US and nothing has ever happened in ten years of doing this. It's crazy to me other people just live with this. Dramatic action is needed and possible.
      - sejje 8mo ago
        Same. I try to remember to lock the door if I'm in a bigger city. I don't own the key to my house, it's not something we think about here (US, south).
    - plingamp 8mo ago
      Shared this in another comment, but my luggage was in a locked truck, nothing visible from the back windows. They broke in by smashing the windows, unlocking the door and using the latch to fold the back seats down to expose the trunk.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
matwood 8mo ago
I grew up in a small city in the US and was taught early on to never leave any property in view in your car. The US also has a worse issue than other parts of the world because people often leaves guns in their cars.
- sitzkrieg 8mo ago
  did you feel really smart putting that totally made up "because people often leaves guns in their cars" in there?
  - rdtsc 8mo ago
    > did you feel really smart putting that totally made up "because people often leaves guns in their cars" in there? I can’t tell if you think people obviously do leave guns in their car, and GP should know better than add the phrase in, or, that nobody does, and GP should know better. I can tell you have seen people do both in different parts of the country.
  - matwood 8mo ago
    Not made up at all. In large parts of the US people leave guns in their cars all the time. It ends becoming one of if not the largest source of stolen guns. https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-thefts-from-cars-the-largest-source-of-stolen-guns-2/ https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-thefts-from-cars-th...
  - I_dream_of_Geni 8mo ago
    You obviously didn't Google this, since there are states in America where the people are PROUD to show off the guns and gun racks in their trucks. Yes, they proudly display these guns. (Texas, looking at you)
- sejje 8mo ago
  Why does people leaving guns in cars make the stealing worse?
  - lostlogin 8mo ago
elzbardico 8mo ago
Fault doesn’t necessarily imply guilty. People need to understand that. “I should have known better” means while I am not guilty of what happened to me, I could have avoided it by not doing X. So, the real world is messy, and next time I will ac accordingly for my own good. It is not smart to die or have your things subtracted just because you want to make a point of how things should be, a point that nobody will care about.
- Terr_ 8mo ago
  I often like to highlight the difference words that we tend to smush together and treat as synonymous. For example, something can be your responsibility but not your fault, or vice-versa. Responsibility is literally just the duty to respond.

I imagine they see it the way I do: the SF Bay Area has thieves like this because it's part of local native culture. You get the good with the bad. Sort of like going to the elephant graveyard and being eaten by hyena pack. Sure, it's not your fault for walking around graveyard and getting eaten by hyena. But this is where hyena is. I have lost (and sometimes recovered) many items to these hyena. Ultimately, they are not people or anything. They're like hyena. You don't say it is fault of hyena. It is animal and local culture is animal lover. Why stress about it? Like many, GP decided that he leave hyena here and go elsewhere where it is people and not animal.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
trollbridge 8mo ago
But the thieves actually are people, not "wildlife". And there is no reason to tolerate this kind of quality-of-life crime. Nobody is better off for it.
- renewiltord 8mo ago
  One way or the other, local culture is to do this. Yes, I agree it’s a negative sum choice. But they like it. It’s the same school of thought where a prison abolitionist didn’t report her gang rape: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/why-i-didnt-report-my-rape/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/why-i-didnt-report... It’s a coastal elite view. As for whether they’re people and not wildlife as you put it, I suspect I’m more right than you are. Some of them have almost been acquitted because after killing people while robbing them it was offered as an explanation that they are too stupid to know that killing was bad. https://sfist.com/2024/09/20/sf-jury-convicts-two-for-2017-murder-of-photographer-on-twin-peaks/ https://sfist.com/2024/09/20/sf-jury-convicts-two-for-2017-m... > Decuir and Mims were convicted last year of armed robbery, but a jury deadlocked on the first-degree murder charge, leading to this second trial… Attorneys also argued that she had a low IQ…
  - opello 8mo ago
    > One way or the other, local culture is to do this. Yes, I agree it’s a negative sum choice. But they like it. It’s the same school of thought where a prison abolitionist didn’t report her gang rape: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/why-i-didnt-report-my-rape/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/why-i-didnt-report... How are gangs of thieves reasonably justified as part of culture? Surely civil society frowns on theft? I read that article and I can (somehow) appreciate an ideal of prison reform so strong that it precluded reporting a crime--I think anyway--however, I did not see an explanation of what sort of remedy or justice this practitioner of a belief "in the abolition of police and prisons" would prefer. What is the appropriate punishment for such a crime? This is missing in the perspective presented. There is a description of a want for the perpetrator to change but no mechanism described for forcing the person to begin to change, just a reconciliation that every situation is different enough to avoid prescribing a template solution. In the theft context, tolerating people that steal seems to enable theft. Humans can reason and are a product of the choices they've made. One ideal of the courts is exposure to alternatives, in the case of your deadlocked murder case, there are annoying factors from my arm chair: perhaps first-degree was too high a bar, the use of IQ in a legal setting in 2023 is annoying because without knowing how it was measured it should be assumed culturally biased and pointless, what levels of decision making abrogate personal responsibility--in managing a disease or making choices that lead to finding oneself in a particular setting. The resulting life in prison without parole sentence is probably just, but as with the Las Vegas story, I think that's up to those most affected by the crime to decide.
    - renewiltord 8mo ago
      > How are gangs of thieves reasonably justified as part of culture? Surely civil society frowns on theft? Theft is considered acceptable in coastal elite culture so long as it is from a multi-store chain. I haven't yet figured out how many stores transforms a chain from independent (theft-unacceptable) to corporate (theft-permitted, perhaps even encouraged). It is somewhat underspecified but at a sufficiently franchised operation, it is considered moral to steal. > The resulting life in prison without parole sentence is probably just, but as with the Las Vegas story, I think that's up to those most affected by the crime to decide. In this case, the person most affected did not make a statement as to his intended outcome. This is probably because he was killed in the commission of his crime, but we have no peer-reviewed studies that have proven that so we must consider it speculation.
viraptor 8mo ago
> the SF Bay Area has thieves like this because it's part of local native culture You mean like Coast Miwok or Pomo?
- renewiltord 8mo ago
  I’m with you but local culture is to run arbitrary tests to see if you’re a “native” or not. The tests usually go back to high school or something.

ghaff 8mo ago

Outside of some bad areas of some cities, in New England leaving property in cars is perfectly normal.

jasonfarnon 8mo ago

not "fault" in the sense of legal or ethical blame, but "fault" in the sense of stupid vs. smart thing to do

thih9 8mo ago
But it’s not a stupid thing to do either - if anything, normalizing crime sounds not optimal.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- elzbardico 8mo ago
  There’s no such thing as normalizing crime by simply taking sensible steps to protect yourself from it.
  - thih9 8mo ago
    For a society that does this long term, giving away your rights is literally how crime gets normalized.

JKCalhoun 8mo ago

Lived in the Bay Area for over two decades. Yeah, leaving a visible item in your car is just bait for the smash-and-grab crowd. It sucks but once you know it, it would be like thinking you can just leave your wallet sitting on a counter.

aikinai 8mo ago
You can also do that in high-functioning societies. In Japan people leave their purses, phones, etc to hold their seat before ordering in a café, going to the bathroom, etc.
- whateveracct 8mo ago
  In Japan, they also had to segregate subways by sex to deter groping. And the men just got on the woman cars anyways. High-functioning society lol.
  - boingus 8mo ago
    In Japan, there's so little crime that they make an effort to crack down on things like creepshots. The desire to tackle stuff like that is more than most countries do, where it's swept under the rug and ignored. In America, you can proudly say you grope and molest women and it's considered presidential behavior.
    - justinator 8mo ago
      Love to live there but chances they'll let me are roughly 0%. It's convenient (for them) that racial discrimination isn't a crime in Japan.
      - lostlogin 8mo ago
        The way ethnic minorities are getting treated in the US at the moment implies a race to the bottom. How many days is it since the last state sanctioned shooting?

poulsbohemian 8mo ago

Ahem. There are neighborhoods in the US where you leave nothing in your car because otherwise your car will become a target. It's often "the rule" in these places that you also leave the doors unlocked because that way "they" won't break your window trying to get in. They open the door, see there's nothing of value to steal and move on. In other places in the US it's (still but fading) normal to leave your car doors unlocked because "everybody knows everybody and no one would steal from each other." Code switching is knowing which of the neighborhoods you are in and how to adapt.

cptcobalt 8mo ago
The point of the comment is that this is not something we should have to tolerate or worry about in a seemingly high-trust society.
- poulsbohemian 8mo ago
  I totally get and respect the perspective of the parent poster, I'm just keeping it real that the US is generally not a high-trust society. If it were, we wouldn't have disclosures and disclaimers and limits of liability for everything we do all day long.
  - mlrtime 8mo ago
    >I'm just keeping it real that the US is generally not a high-trust society. Completely false, you mean Urban areas are not high trust. I live in a place (In the US) where kids walk to school, don't lock bikes and our downtown has free umbrellas to take and give back whenever there is rain.

edm0nd 8mo ago

It 100% is if you live in or operate in a high crime area known for vehicle break-ins. Like OP of the comment.

srj 8mo ago
Sure but in a less broken society thieves would be apprehended and theft risk would be low. Instead the police do nothing and honest people live like a school of fish trying not to stick out for fear of the nearly-authorized property theft rampant in SF. In many parts of the world, including major cities, it would be okay to leave your belongings in a locked car.
- Spooky23 8mo ago
  Cool, leave your MacBook on the front seat then.
  - Amezarak 8mo ago
    I regularly leave my backpack with my laptops in it in the front seat of my car in the south US and nothing has ever happened in ten years of doing this. It's crazy to me other people just live with this. Dramatic action is needed and possible.
    - sejje 8mo ago
      Same. I try to remember to lock the door if I'm in a bigger city. I don't own the key to my house, it's not something we think about here (US, south).
  - plingamp 8mo ago
    Shared this in another comment, but my luggage was in a locked truck, nothing visible from the back windows. They broke in by smashing the windows, unlocking the door and using the latch to fold the back seats down to expose the trunk.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]

matwood 8mo ago

I grew up in a small city in the US and was taught early on to never leave any property in view in your car. The US also has a worse issue than other parts of the world because people often leaves guns in their cars.

sitzkrieg 8mo ago
did you feel really smart putting that totally made up "because people often leaves guns in their cars" in there?
- rdtsc 8mo ago
  > did you feel really smart putting that totally made up "because people often leaves guns in their cars" in there? I can’t tell if you think people obviously do leave guns in their car, and GP should know better than add the phrase in, or, that nobody does, and GP should know better. I can tell you have seen people do both in different parts of the country.
- matwood 8mo ago
  Not made up at all. In large parts of the US people leave guns in their cars all the time. It ends becoming one of if not the largest source of stolen guns. https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-thefts-from-cars-the-largest-source-of-stolen-guns-2/ https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-thefts-from-cars-th...
- I_dream_of_Geni 8mo ago
  You obviously didn't Google this, since there are states in America where the people are PROUD to show off the guns and gun racks in their trucks. Yes, they proudly display these guns. (Texas, looking at you)
sejje 8mo ago
Why does people leaving guns in cars make the stealing worse?
- lostlogin 8mo ago

elzbardico 8mo ago

Fault doesn’t necessarily imply guilty. People need to understand that. “I should have known better” means while I am not guilty of what happened to me, I could have avoided it by not doing X. So, the real world is messy, and next time I will ac accordingly for my own good. It is not smart to die or have your things subtracted just because you want to make a point of how things should be, a point that nobody will care about.

Terr_ 8mo ago
I often like to highlight the difference words that we tend to smush together and treat as synonymous. For example, something can be your responsibility but not your fault, or vice-versa. Responsibility is literally just the duty to respond.