Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would argue that most people contribute out of guilt rather than compassion.
[Citation needed]
Not for opinion which "I would argue" flags this as such.
Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers
321–326 of 326 posts
Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's this widespread misconception that there are things the police can't do to you because some text somewhere says so. In reality, it's just a question of what they want to do, and whether they can get away with it. For example, if an officer insists on seeing your ID even if the rulebook says you don't have to show it, he can escalate until he gets his way. A police officer can saw off your leg and feed it to s…
That's why I support things like dash cams and cameras on police officers themselves - if they're not trustworthy, they need to be monitored and harshly dealt with.
They're never dealt with harshly though. Their idea of a punishment is a paid vacation (=suspension), after which the thug is free to do his thing again.
Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US, yes. In China, not so much. For all the correlations which are greatly attenuated in China, it is safe to conclude that inequality is not a significant cause of the corresponding phenomenon; instead, causation goes the other direction and/or a third factor causes both.
Also Edwardian England is a compelling counter-example. Read "The Classic Slum" by Robert Roberts. British society around 1900 was massively unequal and lots of people were desperately poor. But their homicide rates were 100X lower than the rates seen in the contemporary ghetto. The poor working class areas of England during that period had intact families, schools that provided discipline, strict policing, and stron…
It's probably worth noting that the people living in those Victorian slums were largely homogeneous, and also homogeneous with the rest of the culture.
Likewise, the least-diverse states in the U.S. are also at the top of the list for lowest crime-rate.
Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
The justification is not "experience" and "statistics". The justification is that it works well. Just like the language of an email can help identifying spam, skin color can help identifying illegal immigrants. I would say that 99% of all spam I receive is written in English, whereas about 80% of my personal emails are in German. Thus, even though there is nothing wrong with that language in general, English words ca…
> I would say that 99% of all spam I receive is written in English, whereas about 80% of my personal emails are in German. You're missing some important numbers here for this to be meaningful: Base rates. If you're getting 10 spam emails per month, and 99% of them are in English, but you're receiving 1000 legitimate personal emails per month, and 20% of them are in English, that's a total of 210 English emails on ave…
That's why I said "one factor of many". If you have ten factors like that and combine them, you'll get an excellent spam filter. That's how Bayesian spam filters work. They combine a number of factors that are not very significant on their own, but using all of them adds up.
Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no drug war in the Congo, or Nigeria, Liberia, or Ethiopia. These are places, though, that most people, if they had their druthers, prefer to leave. So of course, end the drug war. But the elephant in the room doesn't go away if you ignore it harder. Eppur si muove.
By "elephant in the room" you mean "black people" right? If you're going to be racist might as well own it. You were doing a better job of that in some of your other racist comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8970505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8472737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8468011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8468451
I do. Your point, pussy?
Re: Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
If testosterone has nothing to do with incarceration rates, what mechanism do you propose for why men are in jail at much higher rates than women? (Structural) sexism? Poverty? Poor fashion sensibilities?
First, Even if testosterone plays a role in male incarceration rates, your conjecture that a 15% increase in average testosterone can explain the severe racial disparity in incarceration rates in unsubstantiated. Even if "X causes Y", it does not follow that "15% more X causes xx% more Y". Second, there are tons of alternative explanations (e.g. socialization). Nature vs. nurture is adolescent-level stuff, and obviou…
The genetic term is non-zero. It discomfits, I know. But that doesn't make it less true.