‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#211

Post by mcphage » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #114

mcphage wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> particularly when these sorts of country towns are frequently mocked or derided by people like us You bring up a good point, because that's another thing these country towns are known for—having a lot of respect for big cities and the people that live in them.

The feelings of contempt are mutual, which is fucking stupid.

They are mutual, and it is stupid, but one of them is the subject of a thousand think pieces, and the other is, what, just treated like a fact of life? Have you ever read anything saying "hey country folk, maybe you shouldn't hate the people in the cities so much"?

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#212

Post by naasking » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

wtdata wrote: post #161

LyndsySimon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and if anything that supports my position. Minorities are statistically more likely to be both perpetrators and victims of violent crime. Members of those communities therefore are more likely than non-members to have a legitimate need to defend themselves.

But, gun ownership clearly correlates with gun related violence (i.e. violent crime). Less guns, less violent crime.

Correlation, not causation. Less violent environment leads people to wonder why they need guns, and so they give them up. Seems equally plausible as the contrary to me.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#213

Post by liability » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

neaden wrote: post #102

mieseratte wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing that makes this special is that the man killed was white From https://www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/ > Out of the 4,743 people lynched only 1,297 white people were lynched. Would not appear that being white and lynched are not necessarily unique, though perhaps for the time period.

the rest of my sentence was important too, I don't really appreciate you cutting it off to pretend I said something I didn't.

Surely you don't really believe that of the 1,297 white people lynched, all were innocent. His point remains then, there is no shortage of guilty white men getting lynched in American history. Lots of white murderers and rapists got lynched, sometimes after they were convicted in court, by mobs who were impatient or particularly enraged.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#214

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #134

That many people feel what the townspeople did here was wrong is fascinating to me. It seems many people believe in certain ideals, as dogma, to the extent that they expect other people to suffer or even die upholding those ideals. The rule of law is important, yes. But why does anyone expect a town to let themselves be maimed and murdered to maintain the rule of law? This is an insane expectation. The people defende…

to the extent that they expect other people to suffer or even die upholding those ideals

The key word here being other people. This is why I don't support 'nonviolent' politics; it basically encourages people to be punching bags in hopes of activating the conscience of people higher up the social scale...which is a lot better for the latter group than for the 'nonviolent demonstrators' getting brutalized. Turns out that people's consciences are pretty darn calloused these days, so if you're depending on on other people's empathy to solve your problems you're going to be waiting a long time.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#215

Post by naasking » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:32 AM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #134

That many people feel what the townspeople did here was wrong is fascinating to me. It seems many people believe in certain ideals, as dogma, to the extent that they expect other people to suffer or even die upholding those ideals. The rule of law is important, yes. But why does anyone expect a town to let themselves be maimed and murdered to maintain the rule of law? This is an insane expectation. The people defende…

> It seems many people believe in certain ideals, as dogma, to the extent that they expect other people to suffer or even die upholding those ideals

Good ideals are worth suffering and risk of death. I'm honestly surprised you think otherwise. Not saying this is one of those cases necessarily, just responding to the general idea that principles should never be dogmatic.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#216

Post by adamson » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

parsnips wrote: post #200

hinkley wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm hung up on the same thing, chief. Why per capita per square mile instead of per capita? Why do the miles enter into it? Because of more interactions? I'd like to see just the numbers per capita. I suspect they're fairly close.

Because violent felonies such as homicide proximity is the requisite factor in victimhood. ie The victim must be located near the killer. Given 1 homicide in 100k for 100sq miles called "rural" vs 1 homicide in 100k for 5 sq miles called "urban", your odds of being in proximity of a homicide are much higher in the urban area. 20 times more likely.

I live in lower Manhattan, and there have been many shootings within a mile of me in the past year, even a few within two blocks of me, but because the per-capita numbers are so low, I'm pretty unconcerned about being shot, and so it doesn't really bother that I'm near the shootings. I don't really see how standardizing by (people * area) does you any good in capturing public safety, or even perceived public safety

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#217

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #99

AndrewBissell wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you comparing a townspeople who faced daily threats of actual violence from a pedophile bully, and who watched him routinely evade justice in the courts, to lynch mobs who executed random people of a certain skin color for looking at someone's daughter the wrong way? "Credible threat" has an actual meaning beyond just "whatever people think a 'credible threat' is".

It was credible enough to them that they would kill another human being over it. The whole point of a lynch mob is that you get to throw out any objective standard of credible threat, and replace it with a subjective, heat-of-the-moment one, proposed by the thugs leading it, who know they will face no accountability for their actions. That's what happens when you normalize lynching. Shitty people will happily use it…

It was credible enough to them that they would kill another human being over it.

Perhaps, but the question was directed to you, not to them.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#218

Post by scarejunba » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

raquo wrote: post #95

scarejunba wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I don’t think he’s innocent, but all information about this is post facto. All those sources exist after he was killed. I’m less conspiracy theory about this, and more just remarking (pointlessly, I suppose) how information deteriorates over time. Some may even be true, but used as a tool to build the rest around.

He was convicted of attempted murder while he was very well alive. He was also charged for many other crimes for two decades, the charges just never stuck because he intimidated the witnesses. Plenty of information about his deeds was recorded prior to his killing.

Whoops, I goofed. This stuff is pretty well documented actually. I look like a conspiracy theorist now.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#219

Post by csande17 » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:59 AM UTC

parsnips wrote: post #199

jcwilde wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how "per capita per square mile" is a useful measure. _Anything_ measured in that way would show densely populated area vastly outnumbering rural areas, perhaps with the exclusion of things that essentially don't exist in cites, such as "number of farms per capita per square mile". The measure appears to be concocted specifically for Lying With Statistics™.

Should proximity to potential assailants not be taken into account?

The "murders per capita per square mile" metric really gets to the heart of the question on every American's mind: what percentage of face-to-face interactions are murders?

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#220

Post by nkurz » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 2:10 AM UTC

floe wrote: post #191

thaumasiotes wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I very much think socioeconomic status is more likely a better fit. Believe it or not, this exact question has been studied pretty intensively for decades. The predictive value of race is much higher than the predictive value of socioeconomic status.

Ah, then you should be able to provide some sources.

I think this is an excellent analysis with sources: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differe...

His conclusion is that on a county-by-county level in the US, race is the strongest predictor of homicide rates, with rates of single-motherhood being next strongest. Poverty is a reasonable predictor, but weaker than these and several others.

I read this closely a couple years ago, but only skimmed it now to remind myself of the conclusions. I'd be interested to hear peoples' thoughts on whether his statistical techniques are appropriately applied. I recall it was was convincing to me at the time.