Spookykou
3d ago
I feel like a lot of the talk about Babbitt seems to assume that nothing short of lethal force would work. I think this is because currently our law enforcement uses basically no force when dealing with rioters so riots get out of hand. It is very easy and practical to use non-lethal force to crowd control unarmed people. If the police fully utilized the non-lethal options at their disposal to deal with rioters, rubber bullet, tear gas, water cannons, truncheons, handcuffs, etc. then I think that should be more than sufficient to control such hypothetical situations.
Spookykou
3d ago
So, if I had argued, for example, that Rene Good was fighting against a rightful authority, and Babbitt was fighting against an illegitimate authority, I would obviously be making an argument that could be very easily swayed by motivated reasoning, even if it could also be a principled argument in theory.
If Babbitt had been a leftists I would absolutely make the same argument, but I am not really sure how I can convince you of that, and I am not really sure which part of my argument feels like partisan hackery to you.
I accept that Babbitt was doing something illegal, that it warranted a response of force from the police, just that, as she did not seem to pose a credible threat to anyone, that force should be non-lethal.
Does that position really seem so devested from baseline reality?
Honestly, I think my position on both of these cases would be the 90%+ majority opinion of Americans if the politics could somehow be removed from them.
Spookykou
3d ago
I certainly support the police using force against rioters and ending riots swiftly, but I don't really put rioting into the category of things that get you summarily executed, in the same way that, being an active shooter would. I view rioting as a crime more in line with vandalism or assault. If you are assaulting someone with a knife, then the police are justified in shooting you, if you are assaulting someone with your fists, although it could still be deadly, I would prefer the cops to try and physically restrain and arrest you rather than giving you new holes.
Spookykou
3d ago
Sometimes police need to use lethal force to enforce the laws. Like, if a criminal is trying to kill the police, or other people, then obviously the police should use lethal force.
Sometimes police need to use non-lethal force to enforce the laws. Like, a naked man running down the street, or breaking up a drunken brawl.
If the police use lethal force in a situation that does not call for lethal force, that is bad.
I do not think Ashli Babbit was a case where lethal force was warranted. Renee Good is very arguably a case where lethal force was warranted, on grounds of self defense.
Ashli Babbit was a case where non-lethal force was warranted.
A rioter who is just a rioter should be roughed up a bit, thrown in jail, and fully punished under the law.
A rioter who seriously endangers the lives of others, might warrant a bullet, and if not, absolutely warrants all of the above.
Maybe this stance does not constitute 'innocent martyr and the other got what she deserved' but my position is that the office in the Good case should not be charged with anything and the officer in the Babbit case is a murderer.
Spookykou
6d ago
This case is a bit tough for me. The shot seems clearly more justified than the Babbitt shot. It seems to me at least reasonable that the officer could have thought the woman was trying to run him over, but personally my feeling is that the woman was simply trying to flee, recklessly.
The real reason the case bothers me is that, in the course of my life, I have often dealt with police trying to block off or redirect traffic. In two such cases the police (in my opinion) did such a poor job of this that I ended up driving into some area where I was not supposed to be. In both interactions the police were very aggressive and angry with me (at least at first; I'd like to think my genuine befuddlement wins them over in the end). While the situation is not perfectly analogous, I can't shake the mild fear that one of the officers could have believed that I was driving recklessly or intentionally into the blocked-off area, and viewed my action as a "deadly threat."
Ultimately, I think the police need to be able to use force to enact the law and take a very dim view of any sort of right to flee, but I can't help but wonder if the cop who murdered Babbitt would have murdered me for being confused and in the wrong place in my car.
Spookykou
6d ago
Explicate
Nothing too complicated, take your post replace your brother-in-law with Bandit (the Dad from Bluey) and you've got the argument.
Spookykou
1mo ago
I have tried (and mostly failed) to get AI to write fiction for me since I have mostly tapped out the prog fantasy space for fiction that I enjoy. There are several ways to get the AI to do more or less of it's 'own' writing. You can simply prompt it with something like, 'Edit this for spelling and grammar while changing as little as possible and maintaining my words and voice, minor technical errors are fine only fix things that are obviously mistakes : Paste Text. Whenever I use the prompting above, the AI changes almost nothing.
I have tried (and mostly failed) to get AI to write fiction for me since I have mostly tapped out the prog fantasy space for fiction that I enjoy. There are several ways to get the AI to do more or less of its "own" writing. You can simply prompt it with something like, "Edit this for spelling and grammar while changing as little as possible and maintaining my words and voice; minor technical errors are fine, only fix things that are obviously mistakes: Paste Text." Whenever I use the prompting above, the AI changes almost nothing.
The quote was what Chatgpt spat out when prompted in that way to edit this comment. I doubt anyone would flag the AI output as AI (unless they were familiar with my writing and shocked my the lack of mistakes).
Spookykou
1mo ago
Your impression is correct, that is what you will see if you drive an hour out from the city center of Beijing in any direction.
Spookykou
1mo ago
It certainly matches my experience from as recently as the 1990s early 2000s. Small town restaurants were generally pretty bad, and the general quality of random suburban restaurants has increased pretty dramatically in the last fifteen-twenty years or so.
I don't totally understand why this would be the case. I think cooking is 90% knowing a recipe, so in theory all you should need is print technology to quickly spread quality cooking instruction, but in practice that didn't work. Even cooking TV shows couldn't do it. I've no idea why wide spread internet usage would be the game changer when those others failed, but it really matches the timeline based on my own experience. Maybe it was just Yelp.
Spookykou
1mo ago
I am still not really seeing this, as far as I can tell you are simultaneously holding that most people are too stupid to interact with a hypothetical (but I did have breakfast) while also contending that the same people, if they could interact with a hypothetical, would understand how the host opening a second door changes the probability such that they would consistently get the Monty Hall Problem right.
You seem to leave little to no room for the, in my opinion far simpler explanation that people have a hard time intuitively understanding how the host opening the wrong door changes the probability of switching doors.
Elsewhere Skeletor describes his own experience, and it is more or less a perfect match for every person I have ever seen try and tackle this problem. Do you think that the secret real root of Skeletor's confusion was that he thought the host was trying to trick him?
I also did not intuitively understand the probability when first hearing the problem. My solution was to pull out paper and pencil and just simulated the problem 9 times, which quickly revealed that I would win by switching 6 out of the 9 times. My internal experience did not really feel like what you are describing, and my attempted solution is basically incoherent if I was concerned in the way that you describe.
Spookykou
1mo ago
I should have remembered where I was and refrained from commenting on anything approaching a 'logic puzzle' here. I am the stupid sort who just assumes things when interacting with this kind of puzzle, like that the rules are 'fair' or at least that the trick would not be, this. So I would never even consider the possibility of the puzzle formatted in such a way that the host only opens the second door conditionally on you having selected the correct door, as I would not even see the point in asking such a question.
In my defense, I have never once heard someone raise this objection(before now) when trying to solve the problem or discussing the answer, so it seemed totally out of left field for me. I take it your contention is that this is the primary area of confusion though, based on your comment. I guess it goes to filter bubbles, I associate with people who are stupid enough to be confused by the basic problem where as your circle could only ever be confused by the under-specificity in the description of the scenario.
Spookykou
2mo ago
Your description of the Monty Hall problem is new to me,
(is it guaranteed that he would pick and open a door regardless of what you do? If yes: switch;
I've never heard of a version of the problem where it is not guaranteed that the host picks a door and opens after you have selected your door.
People were still confused by it.
From the wiki
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?
After the problem appeared in Parade, approximately 10,000 readers, including nearly 1,000 with PhDs, wrote to the magazine, most of them calling Savant wrong.[4] Even when given explanations, simulations, and formal mathematical proofs, many people still did not accept that switching is the best strategy.[5] Paul Erdős, one of the most prolific mathematicians in history, remained unconvinced until he was shown a computer simulation demonstrating Savant's predicted result.
Spookykou
2mo ago
Spookykou
2mo ago
Don't ask women for sexual favors at work, avoid touching your colleagues without their consent, don't send unsolicited dick pics.
A guy got fired after being overheard joking about his big dongle at a conference.
Spookykou
2mo ago
FWIW in Japanese there is a suffix, -ne which basically means, 'isn't it so?', 'right?', this agreement seeking suffix is associated with feminine speech.
Spookykou
2mo ago
Interesting link. Does anyone else feel the author writes jokes exactly like ChatGPT?
Spookykou
2mo ago
Ever is a long time. Probably the single largest cohort of people here are disaffected liberals who would have been pretty seriously offended by those group chats 15-20 years ago, I certainly would have been.
Spookykou
3mo ago
I have never heard of Bessie Coleman before today educated in the public school system of Texas, and learning who she is, I think she is not worth celebrating or learning about.
Spookykou
3mo ago
I went to a Catholic church weekly for about 15 years and Jehovah's witnesses were never mentioned.
Probably, fire is pretty deadly even if modern electronics have gotten so safe that most people have forgotten.
More options
Context Copy link