cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
8d ago
You are allowed to defend yourself and others in this country from threats of deadly harm with lethal force. A vehicle driving at someone is a deadly threat. This is already the law of the land.
cjet79
8d ago
Using a car as transportation is not something I'd say qualifies as intending to use a deadly weapon.
Using a car's physical mass, and the threat of that physical mass to intentionally obstruct others? That is definitely crossing into weaponization territory.
Also what happens when Good's obstruction is determined to be illegal? If she is on foot the authorities can use their bodies to arrest and restrain her. If she is in a vehicle they need her to cooperate and leave the vehicle. If she decides instead to flee in that vehicle she has now created a hazardous car chase scenario. Even if she had not nearly run someone over and no one had shot her, she still did the wrong thing by driving away.
I doubt she was thinking through any of these things, but thats exactly the problem she escalated the danger of the situation for others by adding her vehicle to it. The fact that she was ultimately the one to get killed feels a little harsh to me, but if anyone was going to die that day for what happened I'd have most preferred it to be Good.
cjet79
8d ago
This feels so very true and depressing. I am a fan of capitalism. But man can it suck in some ways.
I remember seeing this process at the company I worked at between 2013 and 2020. Trips to visit coworkers in other offices became harder to justify. Nights out with co-workers used to be expensed or paid for by higher ups, and they did that less and less over time. Some of the fun co-workers that weren't necessarily as productive got kind of pushed out. The way per-diem worked shifted from a flat amount to having to submit all your receipts of meals. Amenities in the kitchen area became slimmer. It felt like the company was nickel and diming us constantly. Which was saving them a bit of money, but was mostly just making us miserable.
It led me to a big realization about politics and management at the time. That a good manager has two competing priorities. The first priority, which is their job, is to save the company money, or make sure that the company resources are being used efficiently. But the second priority, which is never spoken of by the company, is that the manager needs to save their people from the grinding destruction of all that is human and fun for the sake of the first priority. Managing that second priority is called "politics". Its a dirty word for the company and those who lose out by having a manager that sucks at it.
Politics is the desire to place the preferences of humans over the preferences of inhuman competitive forces.
The extent to how much an organization can get away with diverting resources to politics is a sign of how rich the organization is. An organization that is perfectly efficient with no waste or politics is probably a miserable place to work. I imagine Amazon warehouses are somewhat like this, where they have optimized things such as bathroom break frequency. An organization that is all politics can also be a miserable place to work, or an amazing place depending on whether you are on the winning side of the politics. Non-profits and some government organizations are both a bit closer to being 'all politics'.
cjet79
8d ago
The equal blame incident.
I'm libertarian. I'm pro immigration. I'm generally not a fan of the institution of policing and think it is run badly in many ways. I also think the average protestor belongs in a mental institution.
All of that to say I think this is generally a no one is at fault incident. Or at least one where everyone's culpability balances out in ways that they are all equally to blame.
Good went to a protest with the intent to use a deadly weapon (a car) to obstruct police officers in their duty. This is a risky thing to do. It endangers yourself and endangers others. Cars are not toys. They are about equal with guns in terms of killing people in the US each year Source. And the same holds true for police officers, where gun and car deaths in the line of duty are about equal Source.
I hate litigating specific incidents, because 99% of the time the main "this could have been prevented" turning points happen before the incident. I can think of at least two major ways Good could have prevented this (not going to the protest, or getting out of her vehicle to protest). I cannot think of any specific policy that police or ICE could have that would have prevented this. Officers are allowed to defend themselves from bodily harm or attacks on their person. Just like people in general are allowed to defend themselves from bodily harm or attacks on their person. The officer was not trying to create a situation, they were moving around the vehicle not trying to stay in front of it. If you are around police officers you should be aware that they have a heightened sense of "someone is going to attack me". Don't pretend like you are going to pull a gun on them, or pretend to charge them like you are going to beat them up. Don't nearly run into them with your vehicle. Unless you want to get shot. All of these things are also advice for how to treat a member of the public that might be carrying a firearm. People dying is a tragedy. But doing something dangerous towards someone carrying a gun and then getting shot is what I consider "accidental suicide". Its a tragedy if someone runs out into a street at a not-crosswalk and gets killed by a vehicle, no one is really at fault. Its an accidental suicide.
I've mostly been describing why Good is to blame. So why do I call it an equal blame incident? Well police and law enforcement still have some level of duty to exercise restraint in the use of deadly force. I do think the officer could have exercised that restraint here. I do not like that we have to treat police officers like wild animals or rabid dogs that might attack at the slightest provocation. Its not true for most officers, but its true for enough of them that I feel comfortable invoking the "accidental suicide".
To summarize, Good placed herself in a dangerous situation, and then did something that could be perceived as attacking an officer. The officer could have exercised restraint, but I would not expect that restraint of a private citizen.
Longevity and scissor statements
I have been surprised by the longevity of this incident in the news cycle. I mostly consider it a boring incident. As I said above I hate litigating specific incidents and asking could have been done in a split second of thinking for things to turn out differently. My rule of thumb is that something always went wrong long before someone had to make a split second life or death decision. In this case it doesn't seem like either side is strongly to blame. Good made more bad decisions leading up to the incident, but she died as a consequence which feels a little too heavy for her level of bad decision making. If the officer had died instead I'd say it was clearly Good's fault.
But I'm realizing now why I should not be as surprised by the longevity. You don't go to battle over a culture war incident if you feel like it is a losing ground. In an alternate world where Good had struck and killed a police officer with her vehicle I'd bet the story would be buried. Or at least no more talked about than the incident where 15 armed people tried to shoot and attack ICE agents (its still insane to me that this happened).
In all battles you only want to commit when you feel you can win. In the culture war winning means being morally right. Battles take two to tango though. So major controversies spring up when both sides feel like they are in the right. In this theoretical model the most battled over topics will always be scissor statements. The likelihood of "battles" is also helped along by however distorted the view of reality is by the partisans. If partisans had perfect perceptions of reality then only truly 50-50 incidents would spark up any controversy. But if they have something like a 5% bias for their side then incidents that are 45-55 would also spark up battles. The wider the gap in perception the more things become battles.
But I think reality can still partially penetrate partisan perceptions, so even when they have noticeable bias towards their own side they can notice a slightly losing argument. So they'll drop the topics where they feel that they are losing. Meaning that even if with partisan perceptions distorting reality a 50-50 incident is going to stick around much longer.
cjet79
9d ago
The AI songs are fun for like five minutes and then they cause the same glaze over effect I get with text AIs.
cjet79
9d ago
This feels close enough to trolling and one of your few previous posts was also trolling. And this gives off alt account vibes. Permaban, unless other mods care to speak on your behalf.
cjet79
9d ago
I enjoyed Graveyard keeper as well. I can't remember now if I finished it though.
Travellers Rest is still in early access, my gut was saying to wait for more updates and stories, but it fit my gaming needs at the time so I purchased anyways. I think waiting if you can would be a good idea.
cjet79
11d ago
I got travellers rest. It's a top down game where you own and manage a little tavern.
You grow crops, make beer, wine, spirits, and food. You can build guest rooms for people to stay in.
It's got stardew valley vibes all over. It's a nice relaxing game while I'm trying to get through an awful string of sicknesses.
cjet79
12d ago
Glad your Tolkein comment got nominated, I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. I do really like Tolkein's approach to writing fantasy / fiction. "No this is not a complex metaphor for the real world. I wrote a different world and I tried to make it internally consistent."
People who don't believe him on this point confound me. Most authors that write in metaphor whack you over the head with it. And if they don't whack you enough within the chapters of the book, they certainly do afterwards in their interviews and explanations. The most straightforward clue that Tolkein was not writing in metaphor was that he says he was not writing in metaphor.
cjet79
12d ago
Your perspective is missing "I placed myself with a deadly weapon (a car) in a situation where it could be used as a deadly weapon"
Without that caveat I'd say both Fields and this lady have much more defensible reactions with their vehicles.
But vehicles are shitty deadly weapons. They are endangered by people to the sides of the vehicle, but they are deadly against people in front of and behind the vehicle. So self defense is much harder to justify.
Kyle Rittenhouse brought a deadly weapon to a protest and then managed to kill three people only in self defense. Ironically if he had been in a vehicle his body count likely would have been higher and against people in front of the vehicle and not his direct aggressors to the sides of the vehicle.
cjet79
12d ago
I remember analyzing that at the time. I know those streets in cville. GPS would never take you that way. He chose to drive down that street.
I think if she had hit and killed the officer instead of getting shot and killed shed be getting a murder charge like James Fields.
And if someone had shot James Fields on that street as he was accelerating down it towards a crowd they would have been in the right.
cjet79
13d ago
I agree it's bad policy to have an officer stand in front of a vehicle. The escalation is one factor. But it also just blatantly puts officer lives at risk in a totally unnecessary way.
They have vehicles nearby, they have the persons plates, and even eye witnesses on the person driving. If they make a run for it they are fucked and not getting far.
If something is going to be placed in front of the vehicle it should be a police vehicle.
cjet79
13d ago
Veritasium has a video out about how the best chip making machines are made: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MiUHjLxm3V0
Pretty fascinating the level of sophistication, accuracy, and engineering involved in the process. They have a nozzle that sprays 50k tin droplets a second, those tin droplets are then hit three times with a super laser to produce the exact x-ray they need.
cjet79
14d ago
From my experience at university the student preferred professors were not preferred by the university because each group just had a different idea of a good professor. Nothing to do with affirmative action. Teaching quality vs grant proposal quality.
Multiple axis of "merit" just makes the problem worse, because it just means that are more "qualified" people for the position, even if they are only partially qualified.
cjet79
14d ago
What's even more interesting is how this culture war intersects with the political one. For example, there was a post here recently about meritocracy that bothered me much more than what I normally see here. It seems to be exactly the same almost nihilism that I'm reading into the defenses of Gino. The mindset in the comment is so similar: that there's no actual point to the positions you give people, no actual value these positions produce that might vary based on who gets them. Really it's all solely a zero-sum way to assign people status. Just pick the game you're going to have people play to get assigned and then stick to it fairly.
The example post is at +25, so clearly there are a lot of people here who buy the "everything is solely a status game" viewpoint. I'm biased here to the point that I can't even imagine arguments why this viewpoint is at all reasonable, either in the Gino case or in comments like the example---does anyone want to explain? Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this?
Its possible for a job to be both meritocratic, and selected by status games. It happens anytime a job can be done to a sufficient degree by a large pool of candidates. There has to be some kind of alternate selection criteria. Some of these jobs might even adopt what look like anti-meritocratic sorting mechanisms.
Imagine a toll booth operator job where you basically just need to watch cars drive by and pay automatically. Maybe sometimes you hit a button to let someone through when the automated payment system gets messed up and should have let someone through. Generally you are doing nothing for 8 hour shifts. Almost anyone could take this job. 100 people apply for the position, you only have one opening to fill. If you were interested in the public good you yourself might implement a restriction like 'no smart people can have this job, they can actually use their brain to help the world instead'. If you were selfish and corrupt you might offer the job up for auction, that some percentage of the pay ends up going to you instead of the actual job candidate, or you just get a flat up front payment. Or maybe you have to sit in the toll booth with this person so you just pick the funniest and most likeable person. Even if you just decide to draw the name out of a hat, the final process for selecting the job candidate is not meritocratic.
So what happens when the job is much harder like "Harvard professor" and there are still 100 candidates for just one position. I'd imagine its much of the same thing, the job candidate is going to be picked on non-meritocratic factors, because the merit based filters have already been applied and they were still left with a large pool of candidates. Its also my belief that the larger the candidate pool left after merit filtering, the less a job will look like it is "merit based", regardless of how strict the merit based filtering was. A million qualified candidates applied for one professorship position and you know whoever gets that position got it because of political connections / nepotism / race favoritism / etc. Three qualified applied candidates for one professorship position, and you feel that they probably gave it to the most qualified person.
cjet79
15d ago
I'm a parent of three youngish kids, my initial reaction is sort of "eh ya I get it"
Not that I really agree with them. But kids are a radically different gear speed than career.
All the instincts that probably serve very well in a career, like caring about time / productivity / efficiency are negatives when it comes to being around kids.
Kids eat slow, they do things slowly, they get distracted easily, their play isn't working towards anything specific, etc. At a young age their accomplishments are existence and survival.
It's tempting to say that the dad should learn how to slow down and get to the level of his kids. But I think that's his decision to make, and there will be trade-offs. He might get worse at his current job role. And if it's bad enough he will lose the position and resent the kid for it. The kids will speed up eventually so he will miss their younger years as a father, but being bored with them as toddlers doesn't mean being bored with them as school age kids.
cjet79
17d ago
I removed your first post according to mod history. I don't remember why or even if I definitely meant to. I'll undo that now. Sorry it upset you, we do have lots of alts of banned users that persistently join and cause the same problems. Sometimes we are trigger happy.
cjet79
18d ago
Ya bronze age was nuts. I think I listened to the hardcore history episode about the sea peoples and bronze age collapse.
cjet79
18d ago
I like interesting historical theories. Especially with an element of the fantastical. Ancient apocalypse series is full of them.
Another one I read somewhere was about how "dragons" might have been real. A large winged predator that was hunted to extinction at the end of the last ice age as they clashed with human populations.
Anyone have any fun ones they've read recently?
cjet79
18d ago
I remember there being some fun magic mods that really opened up the variety of spells. That and I was always a pack rat so I liked having mods that increased carry capacity. Which led to stores running out of gold too fast, so I'd get a mod for "investing" in stores that would allow you to upgrade merchant gold capacity.
Half my modded playthroughs were abandoned cuz I just kept adding new mods to tweak things.
Stealth archer gameplay is fun. It's cliche too but whatever, lean into it.
As I've said before I don't like litigating split second decision making. Most of your post is that.
The only real person with the ability to make decisions beforehand that could have prevented this is Good. She could have chosen to exit her vehicle at the protest or to turn off the engine. The other possibility that I just thought of is that ICE starts using armored vehicles and just starts ramming through obstructing vehicles. I don't want ICE to adopt that policy, do you?
She choose to use a vehicle to obstruct other vehicles and to drive in an area with pedestrians and people on foot. Her obstructing vehicles is part of the reason there were officers on foot in the first place. Unless she thought it would just be a perfect statement where she gets to obstruct a law she doesn't like and the result is that ICE just politely sits in their vehicles going no where and letting her obstruct them?
Your truck example is the false equivalence. Try using your truck to block the entrance to the police parking lot or your body to block the entrance of the front door. Those are equivalent.
Or line your truck up with the pedestrian exit to the police station and rev the engine like you are about to run them over. You will be treated like you are holding a shotgun. They will aim their guns at you and tell at you to get out. If you instead start moving the truck towards them they will unload as if you had lifted the shotgun into an aiming position.
In your example they get out of the truck. I suggested that was one of the things Good could have done to deescalate the situation. The equivalent would be leaving your shotgun in the trunk of your car. A weapon that you do not currently possess is of course far less threatening in the immediate situation.
If a policy relies on people making split second complex judgements then the policy sucks. I already put some fault on ice for being too willing to use deadly force. But that is because I hold agents of the government to a higher standard than I do individuals. And I think any individual would have been justified in using deadly force against a vehicle in this exact situation. In the US they'd also be legally in the clear, in Europe, which doesn't believe in self defense, probably not.
What policy changes would you suggest that could have prevented this? Being reasonable in the sense that any policy that amounts to "be ineffective anytime someone uses this tactic against you" is a non-starter.
I say this as someone that disagrees with the goals of ICE. But I do not see a policy that would have lead to a guaranteed better outcome here.
More options
Context Copy link