Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

pastebin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 266 posts

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#151

Post by thatswrong0 »

bane wrote: post #110
thedufer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't think any sane person could, in good faith, come to that conclusion after reading this. His point is that we don't do things like walk around in Hazmat suits to avoid diseases because that would be completely absurd, so why isn't it more absurd to shut down an entire major city for hours over a threat that is orders of magnitude less dangerous?

No, walking around in Hazmat suits would be completely rational. Logic dictates you need to start with the higher probability safety issues and start working down so long as a mitigation strategy exists for each type of event. Flu is the 9th leading cause of death in the U.S. A Hazmat suit is a perfect and completely rational barrier that completely eliminates that issue from your life - it's better and more full pro…

> Logic dictates you need to start with the higher probability safety issues and start working down so long as a mitigation strategy exists for each type of event.

This seems to hinge on the assumption that we should value our lives infinitely. This isn't particularly logical, however, given the fact that most people do dangerous things. If you are like most people, you probably want to maximize your total happiness over the course of your life, regardless of how long it is. Would you rather be miserable and live to be 80, or live happily until 50?

So if the cost of mitigating such an event happening results in a lower expected net happiness than the cost of of the event happening (including all future happiness) multiplied by the probability of it happening, it would make logical sense to not attempt to mitigate it.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#152

Post by [deleted] »

krapp wrote: post #99
cdash wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was it necessary for so many people to be hiding in their houses? I certainly have never seen an entire city shut down and hiding at home because a couple of murders were out there.

Probably, doing so makes it more likely that anyone the cops find outside is the suspect, while lessening the likelihood that a confrontation will lead to civilian casualties. Also, no one knew how many other bombs there may have been, so public areas still posed an unknown risk.

[deleted]

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#153

Post by scottkduncan »

mindcrime wrote: post #132
scottkduncan wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As we have discussed, the most logical starting point to address gun violence is the expansion of the background check system. Incomplete or absent background checks create a gaping hole in the wall between firearms and criminals. Loopholes in the background check system give criminals unprecedented opportunity to access firearms. This problem must be remedied quickly." - National Fraternal Order of Police President…

For another take on gun-control issues from the LEO perspective: PoliceOne’s Gun Policy & Law Enforcement survey was conducted between March 4 and March 13, 2013, receiving 15,595 responses from verified police professionals across all ranks and department sizes. http://ddq74coujkv1i.cloudfront.net/p1_gunsurveysummary_2013...

Well, it's an online opt-in survey so you have to keep that in mind. Also, they didn't directly poll on the question of background checks, which is the subject that gets the 80 - 90% approval rating in other polls. Instead they asked about the effect of "currently proposed White House legislation" and got a much different result.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#154

Post by cdash »

cjbprime wrote: post #141
cdash wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have to include the economical cost of shutting down a city for an entire day in the cost of the operation as well, I am not sure what that would be though.

Obviously it depends on the GDP of the city -- in this case, perhaps we could ballpark $100M. I'm not sure this adequately captures it, though; the bombers are said to have talked in front of their carjacking victim about planning to escape to NYC. Shouldn't we include some expected value term of the cost of shutting down NYC, in case they moved there and had to be hunted there too? Seems like the entire country/worl…

Yea I think you would have to include that, its obviously a very complex situation and next to impossible because it requires a lot of uncertainties if you were to try to base a decision purely on monetary value of a life.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#155

Post by codewright »

ck2 wrote: post #58
mindcrime wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks or database for guns. Background checks are already required for almost all gun sales, including ones at gun-shows. This whole discussion is a red-herring. And what the f%!# good do you think a "database for guns" is going to do? You think the terrorists buy their guns over the counter, with legit IDs and happily register them with the authorities…

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.

Silencers aren't illegal at all.

And really the proper term is sound suppressor, they're far from silent.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#156

Post by mindcrime »

reader5000 wrote: post #109
mindcrime wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks or database for guns. Background checks are already required for almost all gun sales, including ones at gun-shows. This whole discussion is a red-herring. And what the f%!# good do you think a "database for guns" is going to do? You think the terrorists buy their guns over the counter, with legit IDs and happily register them with the authorities…

You appear to be angry and marginally psychotic. Willing to bet you have numerous high powered assault rifles. God bless America.

You appear to be somebody who slanders random people you know nothing about, makes medical diagnoses you aren't qualified to make, indulges in lazy, stereotype driven thinking, and lacks the interest or ability to contribute anything meaningful to an otherwise interesting discussion. So I guess that makes us even?

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#157

Post by zanny »

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…

That isn't the kind of gun violence these emotional responses are trying to stop, though. Situations like Boston and Connecticut are planned incidents. They don't use silencers for the reasons you list because they aren't trying to conceal their crimes, they just want to kill as many people as possible, and silencers hurt accuracy.

People just ignore the slaughter of spouses and mass murder of the destitute on the streets in favor of only focusing on shooting sprees.

The emotional rage murder would be culled by stricter gun laws, but gangs and mass shooters will just go to underground channels to get their armaments if they can't try to get them legally.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#158

Post by krschultz »

homosaur wrote: post #97
InclinedPlane wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People talk about the "90%" or whatever support that universal background checks had among the voting public. However, ignoring the problems of legislating based on shallow polls, nobody seems to be talking about the 90+% of sherrifs and police officers who believed that neither universal background checks nor a so-called "assault weapons ban" would have any beneficial effect on gun crime.

90% is some BS fake skewed poll run by some organization with an anti gun agenda. It's not possibly accurate. You can make any poll say anything if you word the question skewed enough.

I own guns. My parents own guns. My brother owns guns.my cousin owns 15+ guns and is a police officer. My girlfriends father owns guns. Some of us belong to the NRA. My brother and cousin going shooting a couple times a month. In some cases, we own guns that would be banned under a lot of gun control laws. My cousins response to Newton was to buy an AR15.

Yet we all support background checks. I don't find the 90% number hard to believe at all.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#159

Post by RockyMcNuts »

As terrorists, these guys sucked. The Swedish guy, even the Columbine schoolboys had a much higher body count.

Still, in economic cost, it was a creditable effort, not on the level of 9/11 but not bad, for two presumed amateurs to shut down Boston for a day.

When you do that, you're giving these guys a lot of power.

Imagine if London had shut down every time there were IRA attackers on the loose.

One comes to expect an extremist point of view from RMS, but I find myself mostly agreeing. What the victims experienced is heartbreaking, and we should honor them by catching the bad guys, and also finding ways to make ourselves more resilient.

Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts

#160

Post by icelancer »

rdouble wrote: post #127
declan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't interject facts into this discussion! This is Hacker News, where we should just say what we THINK might be correct, or should be correct, without having any actual knowledge of the subject. That's what real hackers do, right? BTW it's worth pointing out that some countries like Finland do not regulate silencers/sound suppressors on the grounds that they reduce noise pollution and benefit public health by…

The post I was replying to is largely correct. Criminals don't have suppressors because there is no secondary market for suppressors due to regulation. That said, I would guess they wouldn't need or use them even if they were available.

Criminals don't have suppressors because they are a novelty and any gun-owner understands this.
Post reply on HN