Yup. I think there's a variety of reasons. Wanting to feel like a hero releasing an innocent. Enjoying feeling angry at the injustice. Wanting to feel like a detective without having to do all the leg work and without merely retreading the same path the actual detectives followed. Wanting to feel like a lone voice in the wilderness unafraid to speak the truth. And of course money/attention from an audience which wants to feel these things.

You know we have control over all those regulations right? If they're law and it's okay for a relative few to be randomly caught and published, it should be okay for 100% to be punished, or it should've never been law in the first place. And the proper avenue is repeal rather than just trying to ensure most laws aren't enforced most of the time.

No, she knew that she had picked wrong the first time, and was merely following the lead of police. But she claimed it was her own identification and that she was sure of it. No person in that situation could be honestly mistaken about that. She had to know she was fudging the truth to the jury.

I'm not saying there can't be any differences, I'm saying I think it's unlikely that there's a statistically significant difference when it comes to major crimes. Why would a rich black guy in a wealthy area commit robbery or burglary? For fun? Does the commenter just mean white collar crime past a certain income level? That arguably makes it harder to believe. I can't remember the last time I read about a white collar crime committed by a black guy who wasn't a minister (and even then white evangelical ministers have elevated it to an art form).

I think he just threw that out there because he thought he could shut me up about arguing that genetics influence criminals by trying to trap me into saying black people are genetically predisposed to crime. Hence the Trumpian "they say". I'd also wager any serious study attempting to establish that would be unlikely to receive funding or see publication. Which means he's probably either referring to a far-right source or his own skimming of basic stats where he didn't really "control for" anything, assuming he wasn't outright making it up to see what I'd say.

> The point here is, correlation is not causation.

No one was saying it was. Guy above was claiming that even controlling for wealth and location, black people allegedly commit more crime. If that were true (which I very much doubt for a number of reasons), what would be the explanation? If men commit more violent crime than women when you control for pretty much any variable, what does that leave as the explanation?

> All this taken together means that more black people are poor, more black people are less educated, more black people are in prison, etc.

> But it doesn't mean black people are genetically inferior.

And no one said that. The guy above said that controlling for income and geography, it was still true. Which means even rich, educated black people living in wealthy areas commit more crime than rich, educated whites in the same area. As I said, I think that's bullshit, and I could list the reasons. But if it were true, it would seem to preclude much other reason but genetics. At least that I can think of.

Or you could summarize. I don't just read about any random topic someone puts in front of me without being at least somewhat sold on it first. It doesn't seem like anyone else knows what it actually involves either because everyone is just linking random websites and telling you to "look into it". No thanks.

I find that really difficult to believe, but if true for the sake of argument, how else would you explain that? It seems like you think this is some kind of "gotcha" argument, but the other guy's argument was that crime was a result of poverty/environment. Your alleged facts foreclose both of those. So what else could it be? You also said "commit more crimes", implying that we're talking about being actually guilty, and not just being convicted/arrested more (otherwise law enforcement misconduct or racism could be at work). But we are arguing about actual criminals here and what makes them that way.

Ah, well the good news then is that victims can already do that in many cases either by not reporting the crime, not pressing charges, or declining to testify, and they could hold that over the perpetrator's head to get them to meet and talk things out. And if they need government force to get the perpetrator to sit down with them then I dunno why you'd think they were being sincere in their contrition in that case. But I'd wager the vast, vast majority of victims want nothing to do with it and so it's all moot.

> No…that’s not at all how causality works. I’m not really sure how to help you through that one.

Definition of consequence: "a result or effect of an action or condition."

So to restate what you said: "If we accept the notion that crimes like robbery and burglary are the result or effect of poverty..."

> Yikes.

> OK, you have a good one.

Yeah, if you're not even going to admit the existence and influence of genetics on how a person behaves, we're done here. Though I am kind of morbidly curious to hear you explain why women around the world are considerably less likely to engage in robbery/burglary, no matter how poor.

> Neither my comment nor any of the links that I provided about restorative justice suggests that poverty inherently turns people into criminals, and suggesting otherwise just badly misses the point.

You linked a landing page to one site about restorative justice and I'm not about to read an entire website to figure out what you want me to take from it. The portion of your comment I quoted supposed that we accept the idea that robbery/burglary are consequences of poverty and/or lack of opportunity. If it's a consequence of poverty that means poverty causes it. But clearly it doesn't since 99% of poor people don't do it.

> However, unless you choose to believe the (completely unsupported) notion that criminals are simply born criminals, that means that there are many environmental factors at play.

That is what I'm saying, so we must not really be saying the same thing. There are many people who grow up desperately poor, or in abusive families, or suffer various traumas, etc, and they don't end up as violent criminals. In particular women are vastly less likely to end up that way. So clearly it must be something in their genetics, though it might only manifest itself in certain circumstances, e.g. if you're not rich. But it's just masked in the rich person. There's no need to steal if you can just buy, no need to rape if you can just pay call girls or woo a woman into marriage with cash. Little upside to criming, but a lot of downside.

I don't see how you mitigate that without making the poor person rich, which is equivalent to making everyone rich (because who wouldn't resort to burglary if one attempt was enough to cause society to make you rich?). Making them perform community service in lieu of prison is not going to change who they are. The only way to treat it is to in effect give them everything they want, or lock them away.

I think your approach rests on the assumption that rapes happen almost by accident. That they don't really know better. Everyone is inherently good or wants to be good, and some just stray from the path. If they were confronted with their victim's pain and you explained why it was wrong, they'll have an epiphany and refrain from doing it again. I think by and large they already know how wrong it is and they just don't care. Some perfunctory counseling isn't going to change their disposition, any more than "a better education system" is going to teach conspiracy theorists "critical thinking" skills that disabuse them of their beliefs. Something inside them is just fundamentally broken and it's probably beyond our abilities to fix right now.

Now, if you want to argue for some kind of early intervention system I think that'd be a great idea. Trying to predict and treat these kinds of behaviors in schoolkids before they crystallize could be worthwhile.

Then we're talking about freebies upon freebies. Even if it's particularly heinous and you're caught dead to rights, we're going to let you off with a warning and some counseling.

About the same as it is now. Punishment, deterrent, and a timeout period that prevents reoffense. And yes, prison does serve as a major deterrent for most people. It's merely that among the people it does not deter, it's not a question of scale - i.e. making it harsher does not succeed in deterring the undeterred.

In the future it may be possible to offer some alternative form of punishment like an implant that delivers some sort of medication to reduce aggression/sex drive, or at least something that allows police to not only track them but visually check in on them periodically, or perhaps have an audio receiver that a victim can yell for help from.

What we have now is an imperfect solution in an imperfect world. But going easier on them is probably going to hurt more than it helps. It can be hard enough to catch and convict criminals the first time (particularly for rape). Giving them 1 or more freebies just makes it so much harder.

It feels to me like you'd in effect be making it the rule that everyone gets at least 1 free rape or murder as long as you successfully refrain from doing it again. You just claim afterwards that you're "reformed" and don't repeat it - voila, you've been cured by counseling. I think there are a significant number of people who would treat it that way, keeping it in their back pocket.

And I say "at least 1" because I imagine people would be making excuses for the ones who "slipped" and re-offended. "He didn't rape anyone for 20 years, he was trying so hard and just had a minor lapse! He just needs to be topped up with a little more counseling".

> If we accept the notion that crimes like robbery and burglary are consequences of poverty (and/or a lack of opportunity in the area)

Would be kind of insulting to the vast majority of poor people who don't commit these kinds of crimes. Maybe it's fairer to say that shitty people like this exist among the rich and poor, but being rich just masks it (i.e. they are the type of people who would rob/burglarize if they were poor).

Waiting until 1938 to leave was probably a lot more expensive than leaving in, say, 1933. It didn't cost $300K to travel abroad back then. It probably involved smuggling and/or bribery, and may have been determined based on his ability to pay. It says in the article friends were urging him to leave earlier and he didn't heed them until it was almost too late.

Why stop at "cultural theft"? How about we try to figure out which land was first discovered by which ethnic group and return it all to those it was originally stolen from? I think they'd rather have wealth than trinkets. Generally when someone conquers a land they also get all the treasures that may be part of it, so at a minimum we should try to return those ill-gotten items to their true owners. The Islamic regime of present-day Egypt has pretty little continuity with Ancient Egypt where these treasures were produced.

Call me a philistine, but I prefer paintings that you couldn't toss on the floor of an abandoned building or place in the corner of a janitorial closet and have no one notice it was "art" instead of random garbage.

It doesn't literally have to be a painting of a photograph, right? It's just an aesthetic. If such a photo did exist, it would look more or less like it.

If true, there's nobody to blame but the people. They could throw these people out at any time. If they can't find ~500 honest, qualified people in the country on a regular basis then that's still an indictment of the people.

Politicians are generally not all that rich actually. And when they are, they usually earned it before entering politics. At least in the US. Richest congressman is Senator Rick Scott at $259 mil, whose company IIRC engaged in Medicare fraud, but he acquired all that wealth before becoming a senator. By the time you get to the 50th richest (out of 536) you're down to $10M. Median net worth is only $1M. With a salary of ~$175K and things like book deals/speeches for the more popular ones, it's not crazy to reach that level of wealth, especially with a spouse, while in office. Just investing $75K for 10 years (average length of service for Congressmen) would be enough to get one a $1M net worth.