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The Serial Swatter

nytimes.com

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Re: The Serial Swatter

#21

Post by cstross »

jgrahamc wrote: post #10

Many of the comments here about about the SWAT teams and militarization of the US police force, but the story I read is that this guy (and others) went after women gamers because of their gender. Just the other day a woman programmer told me of some of the threats and abuse she'd suffered essentially because she's a programmer, a woman and has a public profile. I find this so depressing.

I'm kind of startled that this type of crime isn't prosecuted as attempted murder.

(If I go out and try to hire a hit-man to kill someone, that's how the prosecuting authorities would deal with me. If I try and trick someone else who is armed into killing someone for me? That's a very short step from paying an assassin -- there's just less money involved. That the armed someone in question is a SWAT team doesn't clearly change the nature of the interaction. QED: attempted murder.)

Re: The Serial Swatter

#22

Post by maroonblazer »

karmacondon wrote: post #13
jgrahamc wrote: post #10

Many of the comments here about about the SWAT teams and militarization of the US police force, but the story I read is that this guy (and others) went after women gamers because of their gender. Just the other day a woman programmer told me of some of the threats and abuse she'd suffered essentially because she's a programmer, a woman and has a public profile. I find this so depressing.

My first thought in response to your comment was "Well, most jerks are men". But I was reading about Berkson's Paradox [1] earlier and I think it might apply here. There's probably an even distribution of bad behavior between both men and women, but the selection bias in programming and technology limits the sample so that it skews towards males who behave badly. This doesn't add much to your comment, other than offe…

Perhaps I'm misreading Berkson's Paradox but I'm not sure that explains all of it.

We know men engage in risk-seeking behaviors more-so than women, in aggregate. Couple that with teenage men/boys being more likely to be socially isolated and all the other factors associated with the adolescent/pubescent lifestage (hormones raging, identity issues, etc) - again, in aggregate - it's easy to see why you'd get more males than females engaging in this kind of behavior.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#23

Post by dahart »

karmacondon wrote: post #13
jgrahamc wrote: post #10

Many of the comments here about about the SWAT teams and militarization of the US police force, but the story I read is that this guy (and others) went after women gamers because of their gender. Just the other day a woman programmer told me of some of the threats and abuse she'd suffered essentially because she's a programmer, a woman and has a public profile. I find this so depressing.

My first thought in response to your comment was "Well, most jerks are men". But I was reading about Berkson's Paradox [1] earlier and I think it might apply here. There's probably an even distribution of bad behavior between both men and women, but the selection bias in programming and technology limits the sample so that it skews towards males who behave badly. This doesn't add much to your comment, other than offe…

> There's probably an even distribution of bad behavior between both men and women...

We're talking about sexual harassment, not just jerks or any old "bad behavior". There is not an even distribution of sexual harassment.

http://news.msu.edu/media/documents/2011/03/1205ff7b-5b6c-40...

http://www.aware.org.sg/training/wsh-site/14-statistics/

Re: The Serial Swatter

#24

Post by onewaystreet »

jMyles wrote: post #17

It seems to me that the fault lies entirely with the state. If it is violently intruding people's homes on the basis of this sort of report - which ends up being false - then obviously it needs to change the nature of what evidence can be regarded as sufficient cause to do this. After all, say-so alone isn't supposed to be sufficient evidence to conduct a search. From the 4th amendment: > The right of the people to b…

SWAT is only called in when there is an imminent threat. The problem is that the swatters can make up whatever story they need to. There's no good way for the SWAT team to actually confirm the story without going in.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#25

Post by api »

diego_moita wrote: post #15
jgrahamc wrote: post #10

Many of the comments here about about the SWAT teams and militarization of the US police force, but the story I read is that this guy (and others) went after women gamers because of their gender. Just the other day a woman programmer told me of some of the threats and abuse she'd suffered essentially because she's a programmer, a woman and has a public profile. I find this so depressing.

This is also what I read. What I found most disturbing there is the pattern of a fragile and weak person being abused and returning all that abuse into others that are weaker than him. It reminds me an Israeli writer (Amos Oz, if I remember correctly) saying that many times the mind of the opressed is an mirrored inverted version of the mind of opressor.

Thanks for that reference. This is also very close to the true non-westernized definition of karma: evil is essentially a virus that spreads from perpetrator/teacher to victim/student. If the victim does not consciously decide to stop the disease, they go on to reenact it in the perpetrator role. Karma isn't a penalty for evil but a description of the cycle and how it is perpetuated; there is no penalty except continued eternal entrapment in the cycle.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#26

Post by joshuaheard »

jMyles wrote: post #17

It seems to me that the fault lies entirely with the state. If it is violently intruding people's homes on the basis of this sort of report - which ends up being false - then obviously it needs to change the nature of what evidence can be regarded as sufficient cause to do this. After all, say-so alone isn't supposed to be sufficient evidence to conduct a search. From the 4th amendment: > The right of the people to b…

Exigency is considered an exception to the 4th Amendment requirement of a warrant. So, for instance, someone calls in a hostage situation, or someone shooting with a gun.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#27

Post by bigguy4u »

When you walk into an anonymous message board and the first thing you declare is your gender, you shouldn't be surprised when other people think you are attention whoring.

Tits or gtfo is the perfect counter, since you want to a special snowflake, then we will treat you as your polar opposite - a generic bag of skin and meat worth nothing but a masturbation aid.

Downvote all you like. The truth hurts doesn't it?

Re: The Serial Swatter

#28

Post by gotchange »

iSnow wrote: post #16
jgrahamc wrote: post #10

Many of the comments here about about the SWAT teams and militarization of the US police force, but the story I read is that this guy (and others) went after women gamers because of their gender. Just the other day a woman programmer told me of some of the threats and abuse she'd suffered essentially because she's a programmer, a woman and has a public profile. I find this so depressing.

I am going out on a limb, I don't think the behavior in the article is "simply" misogyny like with the programmer you mention, i.e. attacking women in techy jobs, it's more like sexual harassment by guys who don't have a girlfriend but some technical skills (and no moral compass). I believe it starts with 4Chan's "tits or GTFO" whenever a woman identifies as such. In the end, guys like this one try to extort as much…

I don't think that sexual gratification has anything to do with his behavior. He's a sadist psychopath who enjoys torturing his victims and inflicting as much pain as he could on them but he picks women due to their natural response "tend and be friend" in these situations unlike men with their "fight or flight" response in confrontations. He knew very well he would face a violent reaction if he tried any of these sick mind games on any grown up male.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#29

Post by cmdkeen »

cstross wrote: post #21
jgrahamc wrote: post #10

Many of the comments here about about the SWAT teams and militarization of the US police force, but the story I read is that this guy (and others) went after women gamers because of their gender. Just the other day a woman programmer told me of some of the threats and abuse she'd suffered essentially because she's a programmer, a woman and has a public profile. I find this so depressing.

I'm kind of startled that this type of crime isn't prosecuted as attempted murder. (If I go out and try to hire a hit-man to kill someone, that's how the prosecuting authorities would deal with me. If I try and trick someone else who is armed into killing someone for me? That's a very short step from paying an assassin -- there's just less money involved. That the armed someone in question is a SWAT team doesn't clea…

The problem is that would involve the state conceding that SWAT teams don't exercise sufficient restraint in choosing when to utilise deadly force. It very much should be heavily prosecuted but that is why it can't be attempted murder. Much like why the police can't "shoot to disable" it's to do with the legal implications of what you are admitting.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#30

Post by jMyles »

joshuaheard wrote: post #26
jMyles wrote: post #17

It seems to me that the fault lies entirely with the state. If it is violently intruding people's homes on the basis of this sort of report - which ends up being false - then obviously it needs to change the nature of what evidence can be regarded as sufficient cause to do this. After all, say-so alone isn't supposed to be sufficient evidence to conduct a search. From the 4th amendment: > The right of the people to b…

Exigency is considered an exception to the 4th Amendment requirement of a warrant. So, for instance, someone calls in a hostage situation, or someone shooting with a gun.

My point is: if it's so easy to create fake exigency via a phone call, then we can't really consider a phone call, in the absence of any other evidence, sufficiently exigent to warrant such an exception.
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