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Train burglaries in LA

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Re: Train burglaries in LA

#351

Post by pfranz »

metaphor wrote: post #70

Are other cities that operate major Class I freight rail seeing the same looting issue, or is this just LA/UP "market disruption" that hasn't caught up with the rest of the country? EDIT: To be sure, I wonder because my city is both HQ and a significant hub for one of those F500 major Class I freight rail operators, but I haven't heard of such brazen exploits happening locally...yet?

Its hard to say with just anecdotes, but this random person says it's not just Los Angeles. Another commenter mentioned a conductor-friend out of Louisiana is seeing similar things.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/s2sjxj/los_angeles_th...

I wonder if this is an evolution of the security cat & mouse game with shipping switching to have more random items people ordered directly to their home? Similar to porch-pirates being more of an issue today than 30 years ago.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#352

Post by desdiv »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #65
basementcat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Berkshire Hathaway owns Burlington Northern and not Union Pacific.

I believe they've invested in UP in the past. I don't know how to look up how much.

From 2007:

>A May SEC filing revealed Berkshire owned 10.5 million shares of Union Pacific unp and nearly 6.4 million shares of Norfolk Southern nsc.

>Berkshire omitted those investments from a quarterly summary of its stock holdings filed earlier this month because the SEC allowed the company to keep them confidential, so it's not clear how much Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern stock Berkshire currently owns.

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3550477&page=1

Berkshire's 2022 ownership of UP (if it exists) is less than 1%.[2]

[2] https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?s...

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#353

Post by dusted »

jedrek wrote: post #248
brobdingnagians wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are situations that make it more likely that people will steal, but I don't think it is wise to off-load all of the responsibility to society. Some people will never steal even to save their own life, because they have principles which guide them in that direction. I think it is important to recognize that our society has less respect for property laws and is more accepting of dishonesty, theft, and general lac…

> Some people will never steal even to save their own life, because they have principles which guide them in that direction. Are you sure there are, or do you think there are based on a Disneyesque view of morality?

I'm thinking the same thing. Not stealing to save your own life is just plain stupid.

Stealing because you're dirt poor and want more, while ethically and morally wrong, is understandable.

Stealing even though you could easily afford to buy, that's either a mental illness or a character/education/culture flaw.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#354

Post by dusted »

mngnt wrote: post #145
dusted wrote: post #102

My observation from the comment sections to this post-apocalyptic video is the following: People focusing on how to prevent the theft of these cars, funding police, armed guards on trans, better security. I think this is an interesting perspective, it's very "American", it's like it has been accepted by these commenters that rampant thievery is a perfectly natural part of life and so, must be worked around rather tha…

The cause is the same as it always has been: it is easier for some people to get to the desired standard of living by stealing/other crime than by working. Why crime us going up? Because of higher desired standard (every body needs an iPhone, brand name shoes and hats), more difficulty with earning a wage (largely, difficulty getting a job at all) and decreased difficulty in crime (defunding police, more aesily avail…

I'm pretty sure most people would prefer a standard of living where they don't need to steal.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#355

Post by q1w2 »

hownottowrite wrote: post #350

I wonder how many of these items are being resold on Amazon and Walmart Marketplace.

It's all very well organized. The initial thieves operate in gangs that pull as much off the train as possible and throw it to the ground.

The collectors below look for (ie. boxes that have a lithium/ion battery warning on them), and they break open those boxes and remove those goods.

Those high value goods are then sold to a fencer who will list them online as new from a 3rd party seller.

The remaining lower value goods are then picked over by other community members.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#356

Post by dusted »

thinkingemote wrote: post #211
buran77 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When risking getting caught stealing is more attractive than working then it's safe to say the working opportunities for those people aren't worth almost anything. People take the easier option. You choose "lock your trains well" despite knowing the answer will be "crack those locks well" because it was the easy answer. The view is simple. Eventually the train will be a rolling mountain of steel protected by an army.…

These types of crimes are generally opportunistic. Opportunistic crimes are committed by people who literally don't think of any future, they don't see any risk, only the chance of a reward. Prison is not on their mind. Similar types of crime would be most house burglaries where entrance is easy, pick pocketing and street mugging. For house burglary the way to deter opportunistic criminals is to harden down the house…

But think about that, in your average day, how many opportunities did you have to steal or otherwise break the law. I'm guessing, A LOT, and how many did you take advantage of? (I speculate, none, because your standard of living is such that it's not an attractive option to you).

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#357

Post by log4shelled »

buran77 wrote: post #157
kqr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. There's so much focus on short-term solutions for crime – even outside of the US. Taking a leaf from Deming, we have a system, a process, a society that creates a certain, relatively stable, number of criminals per year. Trying to address specific criminal acts or specific criminals is just meddling that can backlash as easily as it can help. When you have a stable source of trouble, it makes no sense to try…

> Indeed. There's so much focus on short-term solutions for crime – even outside of the US. There's an old nugget that if anyone could time-travel they'd go back in time and kill Hitler. Nobody would go a few more years back to educate him. People are not educated to look at the big picture but to react in the moment. Stop the theft as it's happening. Shoot. This goes best with societies where taking a life is consid…

Hitler was significantly more educated than most modern progressives. From wikipedia:

  He read newspapers and pamphlets that published the thoughts of philosophers and theoreticians such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gustave Le Bon and Arthur Schopenhauer. Georg Ritter von Schönerer became a major influence on Hitler.  He also developed an admiration for Martin Luther. During his time in Vienna, he pursued a growing passion for architecture and music, attending ten performances of Lohengrin, his favourite Wagner opera.
It is a fallacy that murderous racists are simply uninformed, that they just weren't in school on that day in the fourth grade where your teacher tells you to be nice to people. Some of the authors he was acquainted with were vocally against anti-semitism. The most dangerous monsters are highly educated people.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#358

Post by q1w2 »

dusted wrote: post #102

My observation from the comment sections to this post-apocalyptic video is the following: People focusing on how to prevent the theft of these cars, funding police, armed guards on trans, better security. I think this is an interesting perspective, it's very "American", it's like it has been accepted by these commenters that rampant thievery is a perfectly natural part of life and so, must be worked around rather tha…

This is very naive.

I love my kids more than I love Pacific Rail Company or Fedex.

As I get older, sure we're secure, but I still worry about money for the mortgage and the kids' college fund.

If there was actually ZERO chance of getting caught because there was ZERO enforcement, I would absolutely steal to make those worries go away.

When I was young and single, I would not have.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#359

Post by barrenko »

another_story wrote: post #233
barrenko wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just education, it's shitty parenting. You'd recursively have to educate Hitler's parents, and to do that you have to educate their parents etc. ad nauseum. Pretty soon you'd blow your stack. Naive interventionism is worse than just whacking Hitler.

Do people really grow up to be their parents? Did you?

Why do you think Hitler was Hitler?

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#360

Post by q1w2 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #2

I'm reminded of recent realisations in the evolution of whales. The great size and efficiency of whales came about due to increased ocean productivity --- more available food, though often at widely-separated distances, an efficient feeding mechansism (lunge feeding), which could onboard vast quantities of krill in a single act, and the lack of any credible predators, allowing great whales to focus their evolutionary…

It also reminds me of certain episodes of the The History of Rome and The History of Byzantium podcasts where they depict the collapse of complex systems when the breakdown of security occurred.

During times when Roman security was good - the economy could develop complex systems of trade, which developed coinage, mathematics, architecture, and all sorts of specialists and artisans.

When security was no longer reliable due to the influx of raiders, piracy, and hoards of barbarians, all of those complex activities ceased.

The most complex aspects of society are always the first to collapse when security disappears.

...and eventually a "fend for yourself" attitude permeates society - which becomes a feedback loop, and it's no longer the externalities that are destroying security - but internal actors.

We were lucky to have a safe and stable society for so long that we are shocked to see mass looting. Once it's gone though, it is takes generations to rebuild that.

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