Earlier quoted context omitted.
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We're just going to call more and more things faschist until the word has lost all its meaning
At this point it's just a synonym for "type of authoritarianism I don't like".
Getting arrested in Japan
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Re: Getting arrested in Japan
#32Holy shit this is horrible. It really shows the true cost of having a disciplined public society. People love to hate on SF, and the homelessness. But I think it’s a society that prioritizes individual freedom which allows for both this outcome and the entrepreneurial environment we see.
You are not supposed to be in jail, and you are not supposed to enjoy it if you are. It makes sense to optimize society for law obiding people.
Right, but there's a core conceit we use in the US (mostly) that you are innocent until you are proven guilty, and if you are wrongfully accused (as was evidently the case from the author), you should perhaps NOT be put into such a grim set of living conditions with essentially no rights.
In this case, the author evidently _was_ a law abiding person, so the optimization failed, senselessly, likely out of a systemic effort to strike enough fear in the populace to over-index towards avoiding the possibility of this sort of situation. (Much like Singapore caning people for minor offenses.)
Whether or not you agree that such draconian punishments or processes are effective or fair is a different discussion, but this person was LITERALLY not supposed to be in jail, so how fair is it that they were removed from polite society for over a month in such poor conditions and at considerable expense?
Re: Getting arrested in Japan
#33Seems like it's not pleasant, and the author says in theory it could be as low of a bar as getting into a heated argument; but the author never discloses his actual charge, which I think is critical context. If he stabbed someone and got this treatment, it would be very different than if he had a loud but normal argument you might see in any big box store in the US. That he doesn't go on to protest why he got locked…
Arrested not convicted.
In the US, it's seen as a God-given truth that no innocent person should ever be punished. Partly because it was founded (in part) by oppressed minorities fleeing states where the were constantly harassed by authorities. (Irony - the US's approach hardly fixed the issue).
But is it OK to risk punishing a few innocent people if it greatly reduces the amount of suffering caused by crime?
Re: Getting arrested in Japan
#34Re: Getting arrested in Japan
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Re: Getting arrested in Japan
#36Re: Getting arrested in Japan
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#39Re: Getting arrested in Japan
#40Holy shit this is horrible. It really shows the true cost of having a disciplined public society. People love to hate on SF, and the homelessness. But I think it’s a society that prioritizes individual freedom which allows for both this outcome and the entrepreneurial environment we see.
You are not supposed to be in jail, and you are not supposed to enjoy it if you are. It makes sense to optimize society for law obiding people.
> You are not supposed to be in jail
Especially If you’re wrongfully arrested. “Optimizing society for law abiding people” means the opposite of what you think it means.