Well, it looks like he finally did it! https://pthorpe92.github.io/humor/How-to-get-on-hackernews-f...
Edit: He says he posted this literally yesterday. LOL
How I got here
191–200 of 373 posts
Re: How I got here
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://smart.ojp.gov/somapi/chapter-5-adult-sex-offender-re... > Sexual recidivism rates range from 5 percent after three years to 24 percent after 15 years. Also, I wouldn't put murder and rape in the same sentence. There are some situations where murder reasoning might be debatable even if still wrong (self defense against and archenemy that promised to assassinate your family, for example). But rape? There's no r…
> But rape? There's no rationalizing rape other than mental illness. 20 year old having sex with a 17 year old isn’t mental illness.
This obviously isn't what he's referring to and isn't illegal in most states.
Re: How I got here
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But rape? There's no rationalizing rape other than mental illness. 20 year old having sex with a 17 year old isn’t mental illness.
Rape is also about consent, not just age. As an aside, I learned the other day that in Brazil the age of consent is 14: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_South_Ameri...
14 is pretty average globally speaking. It's 16 in most U.S. states, with exceptions often going down to 14 when there is an age gap of 4 years or less. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_...
Re: How I got here
#194As a former software engineer for over a decade and current corrections officer in a max level state facility, this is a very interesting topic. My facility has a large college presence within it. While there are problems with it, I think overall it is probably a net positive for the staff and inmates. At the same time, I don't believe that we have more than maybe a small handful of nonviolent/drug offenders; anybody…
Thanks for more first hand insight, from a related but different perspective.
I'm curious: what led you to leave software engineering? SWE to corrections officer sounds like a rare journey.
Re: How I got here
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a purely moral/ethical perspective, this doesn’t withstand scrutiny. The foundational ideas underlying the justice system are inherently religious (in the literal sense) in that they depend on a world view that takes at face value the notion of free will, and assumes that all causal factors are under the control of the perpetrator. The more we learn about the mechanics of the brain, the less we have a reason to…
Your entire response relies on subjective claims. None if it is objective, factual, or falsifiable in the sense of say, physics. So, in effect, what you're saying is, "I have a better opinion." I disagree. The Judeo-Christian viewpoint that you deride got us this far. The last 30 years of peace and prosperity (which was created by and from the societies founded in Judeo-Christianity morality) has given way to a mindr…
First, all claims about moral or ethical stances are subjective. So, too, the appropriate punishment. We have no accepted theory of consciousness and more scientists than ever have aligned with the idea that free will is something we experience, but not something that exists the way we think it does. But until we make some scientific breakthrough, all of these ideas are ultimately in the philosophical realm, which is why we need to reexamine them regularly.
Over the course of history, we’ve held deeply flawed beliefs as societies that all “got us $this far”. The reasons we’ve kept evolving/progressing is that we’ve changed our models of understanding when new data indicates it’s necessary. Humans stopped sacrificing children. We stopped believing in the geocentric theory. For the most part, we stopped accepting slavery. We don’t carry out a myriad of bizarre ritual based on the color of people’s hair, etc.
Many modern institutions are associated with religion because religion was pervasive during their inception. But there is no reason to cling to faith-based beliefs just to preserve the underlying principles and human wisdom that still have utility. And when the religious dogma we’re talking about is one that involves how and when we remove the most sacred of all human rights - how we imprison other humans, we better be adjusting our views to match our current understanding of the world.
And bringing up specific cities with lax policies is unrelated. A system can have teeth and enforce its laws while treating offenders as humans and avoiding punitive behaviors that are inappropriate. The issues are orthogonal.
> Incarceration works. Retribution within the confines of the law works…All I care about are outcomes.
This depends highly on your definition of “works”, and what outcomes you hope the system achieves.
The primary reason we lock people up is to protect society from people who act in ways that are considered unacceptable. This has downstream effects: deterrence and a sense of justice. But fundamentally, the point is to reduce the crimes committed to begin with, and to prevent known offenders from continuing to break the law.
There is plenty of evidence that the current system in the US creates criminal behavior on top of whatever issues it solves, and if we’re primarily focused on outcomes, not feeding the system seems just as important as trying to make sure the people who are there are less likely to end up back in.
Re: How I got here
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But rape? There's no rationalizing rape other than mental illness. 20 year old having sex with a 17 year old isn’t mental illness.
Rape is also about consent, not just age. As an aside, I learned the other day that in Brazil the age of consent is 14: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_South_Ameri...
The stark reality is that there’s a difference between rape (the crime) and rape (the action).
You can be convicted of the crime for a lot of reasons other than lack of consent. A common example of that is a 20 year old with a 17 year old in many states.
Re: How I got here
#197What blew my mind is that ~667/100000 or ~.67% of Americans are incarcerated according to the numbers in this post and the population according to the German Wiki page for the US. Wikipedia says it's .531% on the English language website, .629% on the German site. (Don't know which year for either or if juvenile detention is counted on German site.) That is A LOT! A LOT!
The last time this topic came up on HN (not that long ago, a matter of weeks), I dove into the rabbit hole a bit. Turns out that the lion's share of the difference in incarceration rates between the US and other countries comes down to sentencing. Crime-for-crime, the US doles out a lot more time than e.g. Western European nations.
A lot of people think it's drug crimes. Not really. Just the same old crimes as everywhere else, punished with 2-3x the amount of time.
This is basically what US voters have asked for up until recently. Being tough on crime is a feature for a politician. Three-strikes laws, etc.
Re: How I got here
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've moved lots of times. In terms of crime, the SF bay area was by far the worst. The Bronx was second-worst, but I hear it's gotten a lot better since I lived there. Portland has gotten pretty bad over the past few years but at least I can legally carry a gun there. When you're 5'6" and 120lbs, criminals will target you.
You should try Europe or Australia. The worst I've ever experienced is having someone break and enter while I wasn't there. I have lived in what could be considered less than savoury areas in Sydney and have stayed all over Europe and the world (as a digital nomad, currently at 45 countries). And you won't feel the need to carry a gun...
I wasn't born in the US. I've lived in other countries. There are other disadvantages to places like Europe or Australia (or Japan or China, where I've also spent time) that make the tradeoff not worth it to me. The biggest issue is that you'll always be a foreigner. Even if you jump through the hoops to become a citizen, you won't be accepted the same way that Americans accept immigrants. US conservatives are painted as disliking immigrants, but that's only true for immigrants who don't culturally assimilate. Conservatives have no problem electing immigrants like Winsome Sears, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Young Kim. The mayor of Helena, Montana is a refugee from Liberia. The state with the most foreign-born governors is Georgia. Anyone who claimed that these people aren't "real Americans" would be shunned and shamed across the political spectrum.
There's also the issue of employment and compensation. My skills are worth far less in other countries. I make over $250k/year in compensation, and my taxes are low enough that I've managed to accumulate "fuck you" money before the age of 40. I could retire, but I want to maximize my family's quality of life. It'd also be nice to have an aircraft and a cabin on some land in the middle of nowhere. My chances of accomplishing those goals in another country are much lower. (I'll probably have the cabin in a few years. The aircraft... well, we'll see.)
If I wanted to move to an area with low crime, I could choose from plenty of places in the US. I don't live in those places because, similar to other countries, I'd have to take a massive pay cut. As remote work becomes more commonplace, that could change.
Re: How I got here
#199> kicked out of my parents house for being a stupid 17yr old That's child abuse in my book. If you are a parent, you are responsible for your children. That's it. No age limit. Nothing. They need a place? You are responsible for providing them a place to live. This isn't to say you have to be responsible for their crimes, but you should never be allowed to force your child out of your house. YOU brought them into thi…
That's pretty harsh. Children turn into adults, and not all of them turn out great. As a parent my responsibility is to get them to adulthood with as much chance of success as it is possible for me to provide. At some point they do absolutely become responsible for their own decisions. Do I ever want to find out what it would take to throw my own child out of the house? Of course not. Am I going to toss them out when they turn 18? No plans to. But this idea that you should be responsible for another adult for the rest of their life just because you created them...? That's silly.
Re: How I got here
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was 24. People do things they're not proud of in desperate situations See that's the thing. Did you read one word in the post about him being remorseful or apologetic to the people he might've killed by selling them U-47700, a drug that's essentially unstudied in humans? I didn't.
The thing about writing public apologies is that there's no way to differentiate them from crocodile tears. You can't tell whether the person posting it genuinely means those things or is saying them because they know other people will read them. Obviously, anyone who causes damage to another human being, if they aren't a sociopath, feels remorse. Of the entire post, perhaps 3 sentences talk about the specifics of cr…
I have to imagine that if someone in that position talks enough about their past they get a little tired of having to apologize all over again to every new person they talk to.