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Train burglaries in LA

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Re: Train burglaries in LA

#391

Post by diggitydog6767 »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #342
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…

Firstly, I think it's interesting and very American-centric that people disparage this thinking and believe it is an American thing. This is very normal in large parts of the world. Go to the Philippines and security guards are regularly armed -- search the internet and the first photo has two men with pump action shotguns guarding a McDonalds. Go to Thailand and see people put up big walls around their property with…

No post body was provided.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#392

Post by dredmorbius »

hansel_der wrote: post #386
q1w2 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reliab…

> hoards of barbarians you mean the citizens of neighbouring states (mainly nowadays france and germany) that refused to be colonized/enslaved?

Throughout most of history, any given culture was prone to call any surrounding culture "barbarians", or equivalent terms. The meaning was more akin to "foreigner", though there were also often connotations of ethnic or nationalistic superiority.

This was the case amongst the Romans, previously the Greeks, also Persians and other tribes and cultures of the Middle East / Western Asia. And similarly in China.

Nationalistic identity and senses of superiorty may be wholly unjustified on factual basis, and I tend to think that they are unjustified myself. They're also highly prevalent across times and cultures until quite recent times.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#393

Post by dredmorbius »

sgjohnson wrote: post #220
yed wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like it's already a federal crime of it's own with possible prison time: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1991

IANAL, but States are not "within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States" In this context "the United States" means the federal government. States are also within the jurisdiction of the state government, and therefore not within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States. This is the exact same reason why the US president can only pardon federal crimes.

The conditions are ORed, not ANDed:

Whoever, in any Territory or District, OR within or upon any place within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States

(Capitalisation for emphasis by me.)

The crime depicted is a federal one under US law.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#394

Post by dredmorbius »

wiseleo wrote: post #199
Ansil849 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average time needed to get into a container (X) needs to be > average time train pauses (Y). This seems like it should be a solvable problem. For example, just thinking out loud, what about some sort of container door hinge mechanism which takes five minutes (or an adjustable amount of time) to open the door?

Let me introduce you to 12" hydraulic bolt cutters. They cut through the toughest bike U-locks. No lock survives them. If the lock is stronger, there are stronger hydraulic cutters. Containers tend to be protected by puck-style locks. There are specialized hydraulic tools for defeating those also. There are also, of course, blowtorches. The only solution is armed escort for trains through slow zones.

If the locks are sufficiently armoured, thieves will simply defeat hinges or latches, or go straight through the sides of boxes.

Weakest point of entry.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#395

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

skinkestek wrote: post #343
galgalesh wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - stealing must also not be accepted It's a bit more complex than that, in my opinion. This is also about whether people respect/love society. When you feel connected to society and feel thankful for what it gives to you, you will be much less likely to exhibit antisocial behavior. In my opinion, this lack of connection to society is caused by 1. The US being a lot harder on its participants than in the Norden coun…

Agree to a degree. What I write about above however is that even in the Nordic countries where everyone has all reason to be thankful people steal a lot.

Which people? Since when? Could there be a pattern?

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#396

Post by nomel »

xorfish wrote: post #257
eloisius wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>maybe drug clinics that administer drugs to addicts for free onsite That is an interesting idea. All kinds of ethical issues for handing out free heroin, but why not take all the confiscated drugs, test them for safety and hand them out for free at clinics with some damage-reduction safe guards like daily per-person limits, offer rehab and mental health services, etc? Turn addicts into informants without even trying…

Heroin itself is much less damaging to your body than more popular drugs like tobacco or alcohol. Making it harder for addicts to get heroin or a replacement will only increase the energy they will spend on getting it. This makes it nearly impossible to get to a better place in their life. It is mostly getting the drug that has a negative effect on holding down a job, not the drug itself.

It’s much more damaging to the mind and ability to have a functional life.

My sister was a functional alcoholic for 25 years. When she started heroine, everything changed, and she overdosed within 2.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#397

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #299

People robbing rapid testing kits for the global pandemic from cargo trains entering LA sounds like something from a dystopian cyberpunk novel.

Lacks autonomous armed drones swarming around the train, "disencouraging" anyone who doesn't belong there to stay off the tracks.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#398

Post by xorfish »

nomel wrote: post #396
xorfish wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heroin itself is much less damaging to your body than more popular drugs like tobacco or alcohol. Making it harder for addicts to get heroin or a replacement will only increase the energy they will spend on getting it. This makes it nearly impossible to get to a better place in their life. It is mostly getting the drug that has a negative effect on holding down a job, not the drug itself.

It’s much more damaging to the mind and ability to have a functional life. My sister was a functional alcoholic for 25 years. When she started heroine, everything changed, and she overdosed within 2.

Alcohol is really bad for your mind. I don't think there is sufficient evidence, that heroin is worse than alcohol for your brain.

She couldn't have been a functional alcoholic for 25 year if alcohol were an illegal substance.

There are plenty of people who have a normal life on methadone or heroin if it is provided to them.

As already stated, if you are an addict, getting the substance is the highest priority. Making it harder to get just makes them use more of their resources to get them.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#399

Post by cloverich »

Cymrukicks wrote: post #278
oefrha wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_People committing thievery_ more often than not aren’t rational actors capable of assessing risks at least somewhat accurately. There, exact same argument with a term you prefer.

Hard disagree. The majority probably >95% of _People committing thievery_ will have assessed the risk to reward before doing it otherwise what would be the point? even if just for momentary excitement. They just have very little to lose if they get caught. The problem is so many people are being pushed out of decent society in terms of rewards for work and wealth increase. you even have people who expect to go to pri…

Earning a criminal record has an extremely high cost even if you are poor. Actually, especially if you are poor.

Re: Train burglaries in LA

#400

Post by cloverich »

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #274
nitrogen wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are orthogonal. A society split between middle class workers and billionaires still has inequality without poverty. A society of 100% poverty has no inequality.

Some people define poverty as being in the lower X percentile of wealth. > https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07... "Two commonly used measures are: people in relative low income – living in households with income below 60% of the median in that year; people in absolute low income – living in households with income below 60% of (inflation-adjusted) median income in some base year, usually 2010/…

That's good to know. I had similar feelings about wealth. At one point my wife and I were in the bottom 10% or lower, because of our student debt. Yeah when we graduated medical and dental school we had pretty negative net worth. But... does it really make sense to claim we had no wealth? Or that someone who made 20k a year with no debt should trade places with us? I think wealth and inequality studies are important, and if they don't address this issue they are misleading, even meaningless statistics.
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