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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   22339 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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I can recall the following instances from high school where I was either aware of or partially complicit in theft:

Sounds to me like you just hung out with a particularly bad crowd. Nobody I knew growing up was anything like this (and I come from a rather poor background, probably much lower class than yours).

Plural of anecdote is not data, personal experience not necessarily representative, etc.

The point isn't that it's representative. I did not hang out with a particularly bad crowd or anything; these were normal, middle class kids who all thought the whole thing was a big goof. The point is that normally good kids from good families occasionally make stupid mistakes when they're younger but grow out of them and are otherwise successful, law-abiding members of society. So when I hear people here unironically spouting moronic ideas like mandatory hanging for petty theft, I want them to at least pause and consider the possibility that they might be signing the death warrant for someone close to them, and for countless other people who aren't the complete trash they assume members of certain groups are.

So when I hear people here unironically spouting moronic ideas like mandatory hanging for petty theft

Why do you keep blatantly misrepresenting what I actually said? At no point have I advocated for execution of teenage offenders with no significant criminal record. In fact, I have repeatedly and explicitly clarified this point, including in this very thread. It’s very easy to make somebody look “moronic” if you just lie about what they said, but do you have an argument against my actual beliefs?

Another data point: my good buddy at Google is in charge of [major thing that hundreds of millions of people use]. When he was in High School, there was a time when he was stealing regularly from retail stores. He was addicted to the thrill. Got caught, got community service. Lots of people know/knew him, but I'm pretty confident that only a handful are aware of this fact. The poor, white culture he and I came from (and I would bet you too, if you're a white American) views being a thief as shameful, so there's huge social pressure to keep it secret.

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