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Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

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Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#111

Post by homosaur »

sergiotapia wrote: post #3

>4 people killed in a week is not a lot compared with the background level of deaths in the US. It's not as many as in the Texas explosion. Car accidents in the US kill around 100 people a day, and surely grievously injure hundreds more. ============================ Difference being of course, one was a deliberate attack on human life, and the other a very _very_ unfortunate accident. Stupid comparison to make for th…

If you expected anything from Stallman other than to say something socially tone deaf and head slapping, well... you don't know much about RMS.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#112

Post by zobzu »

grinich wrote: post #62
ck2 wrote: post #4

It took hundreds of police and probably millions of dollars to catch a teenager who didn't even bother to leave the area or go into hiding - and even TWEETED after the event. If we were attacked by real, organized terrorists, we are screwed. I really do not get all the celebration and back-patting, it's disturbing. Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks for guns, the most basic bill fa…

> I really do not get all the celebration and back-patting, it's disturbing. This is way less about a real accomplishment, and more about what people need to feel. After the bombings, people felt vulnerable and scared. And for the police, I'm sure also embarrassed and angry. Catching this kid is the vindication they all needed emotionally. I'm just glad they didn't get overzealous and kill him, as most manhunts end.…

I'm also a little surprised at the "WE GOT HIM" and the "its the suspect". Pretty obviously everyone behave with this as 'hes guilty', so he's not a suspect anymore.

While he very well may be, everyone is supposed to be innocent til proved otherwise by trial and judgement. That goes for everyone. Murderers, thieves, rapists, politicians and rich dudes alike. Oh, and you and I. Hopefully.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#113

Post by fein »

mindcrime wrote: post #79
ck2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we bother to have laws at all if people are going to break them? I mean look at all the silencers people have to get away with murder - oh wait, they don't - because they are illegal and highly regulated.

oh wait, they don't - because they are illegal and highly regulated. OR, it could be because they're expensive, ineffective, don't last, and hurt accuracy. Or because most murders are not planned out in advance, in excruciating detail, by criminal masterminds (or even the crooks in episodes of Columbo). Somebody who finds out their spouse is cheating on them and decides to kill them in a fit of rage isn't going to ca…

It should also be noted that in some European countries, suppressors are required when shooting in a close enough proximity to a neighbor that the loudness could be an inconvenience.

Suppressors are dead easy to make out of household products as is, they just aren't worth more than 2 shots. Likewise, any individual sent as the imaginary "hitman" that everyone seems to believe exists, would probably be aligned with a group with enough finances to either buy legitimate suppressors, or procure them from the black market.

The only people that cannot purchase automatic weapons and restricted modifications (suppressors, grenade launchers, etc) are the poor. The legal roadblocks are overcome (perfectly legally) with money.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#114

Post by cinquemb »

ihsw wrote: post #86
grinich wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really do not get all the celebration and back-patting, it's disturbing. This is way less about a real accomplishment, and more about what people need to feel. After the bombings, people felt vulnerable and scared. And for the police, I'm sure also embarrassed and angry. Catching this kid is the vindication they all needed emotionally. I'm just glad they didn't get overzealous and kill him, as most manhunts end.…

I think it's an odd coincidence this happens immediately following my comment six days ago: > Law enforcement agencies are being lambasted time and again (whether it's valid criticism or not is irrelevant), and they continue to ignore claims of how ineffectual they are. Someone needs to stand up and say "We are here for you and we support you" otherwise it stands to reason that there are dangerous undertones forming.…

But when hear people cheering "USA" in the after math, it makes you think in a couple years we will be having our own Nuremberg Rallies.

Questioning the State™? Thats a no-no.

But then again, i'm just a lowly peasant, what could i possibly know about anything?

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#115

Post by potatolicious »

marknutter wrote: post #65
tkahn6 wrote: post #35

> 4 people killed in a week is not a lot compared with the background level of deaths in the US It's not every day that people have their legs blown off while enjoying a public social event. There's an expectation of danger while driving a car. There is no expectation of danger while spectating at the Boston Marathon. It's not complicated.

> There is no expectation of danger while spectating at the Boston Marathon. There also is no expectation of getting struck by lightning while spectating at the Boston Marathon, yet that is much more likely to happen than getting hit by a terrorist's bomb.

Yes, which is why we don't hold large public events in the middle of a thunderstorm. And when a thunderstorm rolls into major public events, we do evacuate them.

Unless you're trying to say that the odds of being struct by lightning while spectating the Boston Marathon, on a clear sunny day, is high.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#116

Post by mindcrime »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #96
mindcrime wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plant safety cuts into profits, left to itself management will not encourage safe working practice - there must be meaningful oversight by an outside agency. Yes, because it's obviously good for business to have your plant blow sky high, destroying the entire surrounding neighborhood and killing most of your employees. If I were a plant manager, I'd make sure to put doing all that right at the top of my TODO list. Or…

> Yes, because it's obviously good for business to have your plant blow sky high You know how this is - most often poor working practice has no immediate consequence. Perhaps a critical patch is installed a few days late, and the website does not get hacked, no adverse consequences most of the time. At some point someone will run the numbers, and conclude that good safety practice isn't that necessary. That's a recip…

At some point someone will run the numbers, and conclude that good safety practice isn't that necessary. That's a recipe for disaster. Most everyone here should be familiar with the Challenger explosion and the runup to it.

That's a fair point in a sense, and I'm not arguing that it isn't beneficial to have some independent eyes looking at things and helping avoid bias. I would argue that it's not necessarily required to regulate that sort of thing and make it the job of government to try and prevent every possible contingency though. I think working to develop a voluntary certification process, something akin to ISO9001, where being certified would be a "badge of honor" and - eventually - all but a prerequisite to doing business, would be preferred.

In an ammonium nitrate plant there is a risk of explosion; they quite simply do not belong anywhere near a town.

That was definitely a sub-optimal design, for sure. I'd be curious to know the history of how that setup happened, actually.

OTOH, to play devil's advocate a little bit... how often do ammonium nitrate plants explode? One could probably argue that the industry actually is very safe if you look at it over the long-run. Or not... I don't actually have those statistics. Just a point of discussion.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#117

Post by bane »

tedks wrote: post #85
bane wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

going to be used as an excuse to further degrade civil rights nationwide in the coming years I don't necessarily disagree, but I look forward to RMS's anti-terrorism proposal.

You can read his political notes and get a pretty good grasp. But to use a metaphor, it's possible to find a bug without knowing what the patch is.

if I'm not mistaken RMSs concepts about security are to have essentially none.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#118

Post by cjbprime »

ck2 wrote: post #105
cjbprime wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the maximum reasonable spend to catch a bomber, for an efficient force? $1M? $100k? The US has a "value of a statistical life"[1] of around $7M, and they had already killed 4 people and injured over a hundred more, so $50M seems like it would be very easily justified. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

So you are saying the 27 people killed by a bomber in Iraq today were worth less than the 4 killed in Boston? My point was this was one person (okay, two brothers originally) what would have happened if it was a team of people who were organized and actually secretive and didn't use twitter or live out in the open?

> So you are saying the 27 people killed by a bomber in Iraq today were worth less than the 4 killed in Boston?

No, the United States Government is saying that, by using the Value of a Statistical Life that they use. So I'm telling you that (by their own terms) they can justify spending a lot of their money on catching someone who has killed several people and intends to kill more.

I do not agree that it makes sense to value US lives at $7M each and developing world lives at apparently less than $2000 each (the approximate price of saving one according to GiveWell). But that's what the link I cited says is the case here.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#119

Post by rdouble »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #104
rdouble wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ordinary citizens are generally not as well armed Not sure how accurate that statement is in America.

I said generally. Also, even with someone who religiously carries a gun as much as possible it would be unusual for them to carry a full-sized duty pistol and the ammunition that most cops do (stereotypically a Glock 22 w/ a 15 round magazine and 2+ additional magazines, a total of 45 or more rounds). Certainly some folks do but I'd doubt that number is even in the double digits throughout the entire US, excluding of…

Most concealed carry people I know use a normal sized 9mm. It's only been very recently that mouse guns have become trendy. Kahr has only existed as a company since the mid 90s. However, I wasn't talking about concealed carry when I made my comment.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#120

Post by platz »

anon808 wrote: post #67
platz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong. The saddest thing is the loss of life and limb.

The whole point of those rights is to avoid massive loss of life and limb in the long run. I think there's a reason the us has been relatively stable over a long period of time, and it has everything to do with civil rights that serve as another check to the power of the government. As the balance is tipped in the favor of government power over civil power, the chances for large scale loss of life and limb (civil war…

I'm not very convinced by by your slippery slope argument with regard to the US, at least in domestic affairs. (foreign is another matter)

It's probably not a good idea to mix the emotional with the analytical, but when it happens, the emotional wins; we're human beings.

I hate to get moral/philosophical, but utilitarian motives, in the eyes of societal norms, usually is the loosing position. The canonical example of this is the man waiting by the railroad switch who must decide whether to divert a train to certain doom or let the train run over an individual. According to society the man must always divert the train.

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