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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   32397 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025

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I ran into the following tweet (xeet?) over on X:

https://x.com/DaveyJ_/status/1942962076101603809

my brother's wife has been messaging with hundreds of different inmates through a dozen different apps for the last 2 years. she's sent photos, tens of thousands of dollars, shares her location, tells them where her kids go to school, living an entire second life.

when she got caught, she threatened to un@live, so she's been in the hospital getting treated, but while she's been in there her phone has been going off nonstop.

prisoners and ex-prisoners telling my brother "who TF is this? that's my girl!"

telling him when they get out they're going to be the kids' new stepfather. one even purchased a plane ticket.

she was just at my house, sharing her location, and sending pictures of my daughter at the beach to incarcerated strangers on the internet.

of course my brother is crushed, and my family is horrified at this person's ability to lie to everyone, but the biggest shock is her willingness to put her children in danger.

who knows how many men believe they are going to be responsible for those boys when they get released. they'll have to look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives.

my sister in law was going to watch my daughter for a few days while we moved, and it was the same week on the plane ticket that this inmate sent my brother.

my heart breaks for my brother, and his kids, but my ability to trust anyone around my kid has severely been damaged.

I would feel bad for simply posting this as a naked link, so I guess I have to add on some half-baked analysis and commentary on top:

This is horrifying. Rarely, so you see examples of behavior that is clearly "legal", in the sense that there's no clear crime being committed, but with so much potential for harm to unwitting bystanders. I'm unfamiliar with the scope of child endangerment laws in the US, but I'd be surprised if they covered this or, even if they theoretically did so, whether they'd be enforced in that manner.

(I don't claim to be an expert, but my understanding is that these laws typically require a prosecutor to prove that a guardian knowingly and willfully placed a child in a situation where their life or health was directly endangered. The behavior of the sister-in-law is profoundly reckless, but it falls into a legal gray area. A defense attorney would argue she had no intent to harm her children and that the danger was hypothetical and probabilistic, not immediate and direct. Proving a direct causal link between her online activities and a "clear and present danger" to the children would be incredibly difficult until, tragically, one of the inmates actually showed up and acted on his threats.)

At the same time, is it a problem worth solving? How do you reconcile that question with my earlier claim?

Well, that's a matter of impact or scale. Laws have costs associated with them, be it from the difficult to quantify loss of freedom/chilling effect, enforcement costs, sheer legislative complexity, or what I'm more concerned about, unexpected knock-on effects/scope creep where a desperate attempt to define the problematic action results in too wide a scope for enforcement:

What if it turns out to affect single moms looking to date again? Their new partners are far more likely to abuse their kids, but should such women thus be arrested for putting their kids at risk? Should people be forbidden from writing letters to inmates, or falling in love with them, or sex with them?

Is it worth it to specifically criminalize such behavior?

Despite my abhorrence for it, I'm not sure it is. I think the fraction of people who would be stupid or insane enough to act this way is small enough that the majority of us can treat this like a horror story and ignore it.

Another way to illustrate my intuition here would be to consider being a doctor or legislator reading an account of some kind of ridiculously horrible disease. Maybe it makes your skin fall off and your guts come out while leaving you in crippling agony (I'm like 50% certain there's an actual disease like this, but it's probably something that happens to premature infants. That, or acute radiation poisoning I suppose). Absolutely terrible, and something no one should go through.

Yet, for how horrible it is, this hypothetical disease is also ridiculously rare. Imagining it happens to a person every ten years, and makes medical journals every time it happens because of how rare it is. I would expect that doctor, or that law maker, to both be horrified, but if they were rational individuals considering the greater good, I would strongly prefer that they focus on more mundane and common conditions, like a cure for heart disease. There are lower hanging fruit to grasp here.

Now, the biggest hurdle holding back the poor family in the story I've linked to is a simple one: the Overton Window. If, for some unfortunate reason, the number of women crazy enough to act that way rose significantly, society would probably develop memetic antibodies or legal solutions. This might, sometimes, become strong enough to overcome the "women are wonderful" effect, if such women are obviously being the opposite.

Sometimes it's worth considering the merits of informal resolution systems for settling such matters, even if they have other significant downsides. For example, how would this situation be handled in India?

(I'm not aware of a trend of Indian women being stupid enough to act this way, though I can hardly say with any authority that it's literally never happened)

Firstly, the extended family would have much more power. This is the rare case where both the husband's side and the wife's own family would probably agree that something needs to be done, the latter for reputational reasons as well as concern for the kids. She'd probably end up committed, if she wasn't beaten up or ostracized to hell and back. The police would turn a blind eye, should she choose to complain, they'd be profoundly sympathetic to the family's plight and refuse to act against them. And if they weren't, they'd be even more sympathetic to the idea of their palms being greased. The most awful outcomes would become vanishingly unlikely.

As a wise mullah once said: "What is the cure for such disorders? Beatings."

This isn't necessarily an overall endorsement of such a legal framework, or societal mindset. I'm just pointing out that, occasionally, they tackle problems that an atomized, quasi-libertarian society like most of the West can't tackle. I'd still, personally, prefer to live in the latter. While it's too late for the gent in question, you can reliably avoid running into such problems in the first place by not sticking your dick in crazy. Alas, as someone who has committed that folly, it's an even bigger folly to expect people to stop...

Maybe it makes your skin fall off and your guts come out while leaving you in crippling agony (I'm like 50% certain there's an actual disease like this, but it's probably something that happens to premature infants. That, or acute radiation poisoning I suppose).

TENS might be close enough?

Does that make your guts come out? I would hope not! Without looking it up, I believe it's a rather superficial, if widespread, infection.

(You're Japanese, so I apologize for raising the specter of radiation poisoning in your presence.)

TENS is mostly commonly associated with skin (it's in the name, after all) and maybe the lungs but in cases with intestinal involvement the intestinal epithelium sloughs off as well. So if you're willing to stretch the claim...

It's also not an infection but a hypersensitivity reaction (potentially from an infection), but losing the epidermis does pretty heavily predispose to (further) infection.

I'll allow it. It doesn't matter if it's rare, if it happens at all.

I think the "criminals" aspect of this is a red herring, and the real issue is the infidelity and "messaging multiple men" part. If she was a single mother messaging one man in prison, and he wanted to become the father of her kids, there wouldn't be an issue. If she was married and messaging a dozen non-criminal men and promising them to become the father of her kids they would end up in a similar risky situation.

The solution here which seems best suited to curtail dangerous behavior and not end up applied to ordinary good-faith actors seems to be some sort of child-protecting infidelity law. Or maybe just some sort of disclosure thing: don't tell multiple people that they can parent your kids without them knowing about each other. That way more benign cases like getting a new boyfriend while a divorce is being finalized, or consensual polyamory are not affected, while secretly cheating with a dozen people who become emotionally attached to a kid and then want to fight each other and/or kidnap the kid becomes illegal.

I agree that the story buries the lede here, but I don't think that the "criminals" aspect is the red herring, it's obviously the part that makes it interesting; unfaithful spouses are sadly rather commonplace in this day and age. The buried lede is the pictures of children related to her, which strongly suggests, IMO, that something more sinister is going on than "mere" rampant infidelity, and casts light on the depths of the hybristophilia: she's actually trying to create as terrible of a problem as possible.

Assuming, of course, that the story's real, which is a pretty bad assumption. It could also be the storyteller trying to create as terrible of an imaginary problem as possible. But taken at face value it is the character's doing.

I think the "criminals" aspect of this is a red herring, and the real issue is the infidelity and "messaging multiple men" part. If she was a single mother messaging one man in prison, and he wanted to become the father of her kids, there wouldn't be an issue. If she was married and messaging a dozen non-criminal men and promising them to become the father of her kids they would end up in a similar risky situation.

Yeah, no. How do you think the situation would play out if a dozen dudes straight out of prison ran into each as they were serenading her in front of her house, vs. a dozen normal dudes? I'll go out on a limb and say the latter have a significantly higher chance of figuring out what happened, calling her a bitch, and laughing it off at the bar, and the former have a significantly higher chance of turning the neighborhood into a minor war zone.

If each and every one of the twelve "normal" dudes is actually normal, middle of the bell curve in terms of criminality, then yeah it's going to be much safer, although it's still a non-negligible risk factor. Ordinary people can get violent if they're acting to protect their children from what they perceive as a threat (and rightly so in many cases). If instead they're chosen randomly from the distribution, then out of a dozen men you're going to get several on the low end of the bell curve. Given that 9% of men end up going to prison, you're likely to get one being an actual criminal who just hasn't been caught yet. Who might then act violent towards the others and get them pulled into trying to fight back in an attempt to protect themselves, the woman, and/or the child. Modify this again by noting that the subset of men who are likely to fall for a stunt like this are going to be below average in intelligence and general quality, so you're very likely to be pulling from the lower end of the bell curve repeatedly, even if not quite at the depths that prison would be.

It's still qualitatively the same risk scenario, the prison part does make it worse but it's merely an amplifier to the pre-existing risk.

What are the chances this story is even real?

It could be, but it would be an unusual setup and it's not similar to any real case I've personally seen. One inmate talking to multiple women, where (some of) those women realize he's talking to (and scamming) multiple women but continuing to engage (and send money and run errands and help him further his criminal schemes) with him? Yep, seen those cases. One woman engaging with multiple inmates and sending them all money? Sounds odd.

Same vibes as my series (is three a series?) of "unenviable lives" posts, which in turn was, I suppose, inspired by many Slate Star Codex posts about Scott's (aggregated for anonymity) patients. These are not people who write thoughtfully about their (actual) lives in extended blog posts; these are Henry David Thoreau's "mass of men," who "lead lives of quiet desperation." Only, you often wouldn't even know it, they do not seem to express any desperation. They're just living their wildly suboptimal lives, and the people observing this (in those cases where people observe it) can only wonder at the seemingly unnecessary tragedy of each successive move.

Aristotle famously (now, infamously) thought it quite obvious that some people are born "masters," and some born "slaves." Contemporary thinkers are of course quick to point out the problems with Aristotle's arguments (for example, he regarded Greeks as natural born masters, and everyone else as natural born slaves) but most carefully avoid noticing those circumstances in which Aristotle seems to have been obviously correct. To this day, children in Western nations are frequently treated in the Aristotelian way: as "slaves" in substantially ancient Greek fashion. The 1000 Word Philosophy link says:

The second premise, that there are human beings who lack the capacity to deliberate, might be true in some cases – perhaps those with severe brain damage or advanced dementia – but they are certainly not who Aristotle had in mind.

This is true just to this point: Aristotle would suggest that people who are temporarily or accidentally impaired are not slaves by nature. But he would I think readily agree that they are slaves, as he means it, insofar as they are impaired! And sure enough: in the United States, it is possible to become subject to the rule of another, in the form of conservatorships, guardianships, etc. I cheerfully grant that these have more safeguards and checks and hurdles than would have been encountered (or even conceived of) in ancient Greece! But in Aristotelian form we still substantially enslave people today. We justify it by insisting it is only and exclusively for their own good, of course, or perhaps for the safety of others (as in the case of enslaving much of our incarcerated population, per the Constitutional permit to do so). But focusing in on people who are wards of their family or the state as a result of impaired reasoning (i.e. due to IQ below 70): if an IQ of 69 can trigger a "guardianship," why not an IQ of 70? Or 71? And even above those thresholds, other impairments--youth, drug addiction, or mental illness, for example--also apply.

We draw lines in law because, it is often suggested, "we have to draw the line somewhere," and that is perhaps true as a practical matter. But reason and agency seem to be more of a spectrum, and a quick Google search suggests that more than a fifth of the population has an IQ falling between 70 and 90--the range from "borderline retarded" to "low average." These are people I suspect Aristotle would want to put in the "natural slave" bin (assuming, of course, they aren't Greek!). Why? Because it would be better for them, in so many ways, to have their lives managed by someone with greater executive functioning. This, even though they are certainly intelligent enough to survive on their own. In the modern world we outsource this--we increase the perception of independence through subsidies and welfare and wealth redistribution, but wards of the state are still wards, and the fact that they are not forced into hard labor as a result is predominantly a function of contemporary abundance. To whatever extent taxation is slavery (PDF), we often enslave the free in order to free the slave!

But the natural slave cannot ultimately be freed; they can only be managed well, or managed poorly. Left to their own devices, they will manage themselves poorly. Aggressively managed ("literally enslaved"), they will lash out against the strictures of the arrangement, often violently (the free citizens of slave societies live ever in fear of revolt). How much of the history of "government" is the history of developing increasingly sophisticated methods for obfuscating the nature and extent of the bondage imposed on the "mass of men," not only for their own ultimate benefit, but for the benefit of all? And--to what extent might we as a people be slowly forgetting that, as we seek to "liberate" those masses, by continuing to give them the resources of life, while withdrawing (or declining to enforce) any guidance?

Same vibes as my series (is three a series?) of "unenviable lives" posts,

I'd really like to see more of this sort of content in the way that you've delivered it. This is how people are and how they live. Many of us didn't grow up in those environments so 'we' need to have more data points like this to see how people really live. I've had a lot of unpleasant experiences (and some pleasant) with the working and underclass, but no one really talks about it in depth.

Separate to this, I think its a disservice how Anthropologists and Sociologists veer away from 'unpleasant truths' in how they present their research.

Are children possessions? Can they be bought and sold? Is this true of people in guardianships? It seems strange to cite Aristotle's conception of slavery and then apply it to situations that seem to be missing the central feature of what it meant to be enslaved. From your link:

Further, as production and action are different in kind, and both require instruments, the instruments which they employ must likewise differ in kind. But life is action and not production, and therefore the slave is the minister of action. Again, a possession is spoken of as a part is spoken of; for the part is not only a part of something else, but wholly belongs to it; and this is also true of a possession. The master is only the master of the slave; he does not belong to him, whereas the slave is not only the slave of his master, but wholly belongs to him. Hence we see what is the nature and office of a slave; he who is by nature not his own but another's man, is by nature a slave; and he may be said to be another's man who, being a human being, is also a possession. And a possession may be defined as an instrument of action, separable from the possessor.

"Some people have difficulty running their lives and it would be better for them if someone else ran it to some extent" is a defensible proposition. "Some people should be the literal property of other people" much less so.

Are children possessions? Can they be bought and sold?

Er, well, no, but historically? Yes, sometimes. The "proprietarian" theory of childhood and the relative personhood of minors is a separate but related question, which Aristotle uses illustratively and which remains analogous even today.

"Some people have difficulty running their lives and it would be better for them if someone else ran it to some extent" is a defensible proposition. "Some people should be the literal property of other people" much less so.

Sure, but my whole point is that the difference is one of degree rather than kind, and that much of law and culture is devoted to keeping people at least somewhat enslaved, while simultaneously obfuscating that fact. I would think it obvious from what I wrote, but in case it's not, I certainly do not endorse chattel slavery! Not do I endorse milder forms; I do not even particularly endorse our current cultural approach to the subjection of children. This is what makes the puzzle a proper puzzle, on my view--that the approaches we have adopted toward managing the lives of others strike me as at once both too great and too small.

Are children possessions? Can they be bought and sold?

Er, well, no

Surrogacy businesses everywhere in sudden disarray.

Adoption is an even worse offender if you take this line of thinking. At least with surrogacy the client is usually genetically related to the children.

Adoption is an even worse offender if you take this line of thinking.

No significant argument here. The kind of adoption process that involves traveling the world to find the perfect orphan is straight-up child buying, and has some moral similarities to eugenic embryo modification.

The kind of adoption process that involves traveling the world to find the perfect orphan is straight-up child buying, and has some moral similarities to eugenic embryo modification.

You say that like it's a bad thing. I consider both of them to be fine, not that I'm looking to adopt, or at the very least "not my business".

I am somewhat unfairly advantaged by having been a lurker long before I started posting, but you and I have significantly different points of view on what constitutes “a bad thing.”

That said, I once believed the trajectory of human civilization was in the direction of being golden gods, so I have hopes that you’ll come around. [[Insert positive emoji of your choice]]

Completely unrelated, but I have often wanted to pick your brain on your, trying to be fair here, significant concern around death. Correct everything wrong about my interpretations of your ideas, but you seem to be very focused on instantiating uploads and achieving eternal cyber life of the mind at some point in your expected lifespan.

It seems trivial to me that a society that can actually achieve that goal, is on the cusp of being able to simulate every mind that ever lived, and any arbitrary number of minds that didn’t. So if you think it’s inevitable that simulation will happen, what’s your concern about dying? The pain will suck, I’m sure and that’s fair, I’d enjoy a golden god body too, but it seems highly likely given your priors that you’ll just go to sleep and then wake up a simulation at some unspecified point in the future, with no sensation of loss.

What do you think? Do you want to spin this conversation off somewhere else?

More comments

I tend to agree with Aristotle, but I don’t think it’s just IQ, but things like conscientiousness, decisiveness, courage (both moral and practical). Most people behave more like herd animals in a sense, carried along by the greater society, or base impulses, or other forces. They don’t choose a lifestyle they want, they float along doing whatever the path of least resistance sets before them. Furthermore, most people have little to no actual leadership ability in the sense that they can plan an action, follow it and get others to go along with it. They need some sort of guidance to tell them to want useful, productive things, to live In non destructive ways, to basically not be a burden to everyone else.

But it doesn’t matter what the person’s IQ is. There are lots of geniuses who rot away working obscure arcana that no one will ever care about, or who burn out and end up living in squalor and memorizing the lore of TV shows, video games, or books. Are those people any less in need of guidance?

We used to know this, and actually corrected for it by creating formal etiquette that required that people obey their betters and do productive things and learn to hold polite conversations about topics without turning them into mini lectures on stuff no one cared about. And we used to basically require some sort of skin in the game to participate in society. I think we could be well served by doing so. At minimum, a person should be a net taxpayer if they want to vote.

I think what we are not getting here is that Aristotle means slaves. Not "people who need to be looked after" or "people who are incapable of not fucking up their lives" - we do accept that there is a social duty to look after the mentally ill or the intellectually disordered who can't live without support.

He means "people who are born to be property". And that, dear Mottizens, is the nettle you need to grasp: do you really advocate that some people are property?

I personally agree with you that arguments of the form “natural slave” have a central purpose of eliding the distinction between “many people need some guidance or curtailment of their behavior in order to avoid going wrong” and “some people deserve to own others like livestock.”

What I think the argument most supports, as a matter of fact, is societal laws forbidding many of the worst pitfalls of those who need guidance. Strong limits on drugs, gambling, and debt can really raise the floor for people, and in fact these are precisely the traditional strictures in most societies.

There are people meant to live their lives doing grunt work without much say in the matter. Every society will find some way of making this happen- in ours it’s generally carceral, but other societies have held them(as well as lots of random people) as slaves.

Hoping to catch an edgelord grasping the nettle? Aristotle discusses this in his writing on slavery - he distinguishes "slaves by nature", i.e. people whose nature is such that they are incapable of maintaining their freedom, and "slaves by convention", i.e. those who are actually legal slaves. He was not a fan of the fact that not all those who are slaves by convention are slaves by nature (Plato himself did some time in chains), and he does not endorse the mass enslavement of natural slaves who are legally free (they are already enslaved, but enslaved to vices, to menial employment, to patrons, etc., such that enslaving them legally would be superfluous. In fact, some of those natural slaves are otherwise wealthy, strong men who would be practically impossible to enslave except through capture in war).

Furthermore, the actual legal institutions required to deal with the fact of natural slavishness are contingent, and there's no reason that a more prosperous society would need to use Greek-style slavery. One way to put it in a modern context would be that those who are dependent on the state to survive are de facto property of the state, and that modern states have largely chosen to bind themselves to take care of their human property, but this is likewise just an historical contingency. There is nothing, besides the choice of voters, stopping the US from repealing some constitutional amendments and making fentanyl addicts pick cotton (to pick the most extreme case of natural slavery in the modern day. The capacity for freedom of a drug addict would not change if we were legally to enslave him, except that he might luck into a kinder master). So, from an Aristotelian perspective, in the modern age, we can pick out a couple categories:

  • Those who are for all intents and purposes the property of others, or the state, protected by some legal rights and more importantly a culture of kindness towards the vulnerable (the severely disabled, although transfers of legal guardianship are limited)
  • Those who are for all intents and purposes the property of others, but who are protected by strong legal safeguards and to some extent can advocate for themselves (children, some mental illnesses necessitating legal guardianship)
  • Those who are naturally slavish to an extent they're incapable of the most basic demands of freedom, and are legally free except when their behaviour inevitably violates the law (drug addicts, lowlife criminals)
  • Those who are naturally slavish to an extent they cannot live without depending on others in a one-sided relationship, who are legally free but practically unfree, and are protected by an attitude of kindness the public has adopted (the hopelessly welfare-dependent)
  • Those who are naturally slavish but capable of fulfilling the basic demands of life by developing two-way economic relationships with others in a free market (people working shitty jobs with messed-up lives, but still functioning. This is the point where I would call someone practically free, if one wants to introduce a middle category. They will be effectively somebody/something's property in some parts of their lives, such as their boss's, their partner's, or their liquor's, but they have spheres of real choice even if they choose not to take them.)
  • Those who are naturally slavish, but who are enslaved to vices they can successfully fulfil by predating on others, and so remain practically free unless they're caught violating the law (successful criminals, blue and white collar)
  • Those who are naturally slavish, but whose nature enslaves them to compulsions which are rewarded by society, including with greater freedom of action even though they remain internally unfree (e.g. a miser obsessed with money-making. Many celebrities.)
  • Those who are naturally slavish, but whose nature is ordered such that it makes them genuinely happy (e.g. someone who feels compelled to enter a 24/7 BDSM relationship, and deeply enjoys it)
  • The naturally free, who are able to choose and prefer through rational consideration, and moderate their appetites according to reason. In the modern Western world, these people no longer need or want slaves as property.

Incidentally, in an American context, that last "choose and prefer" is crucial. Natural rights of the type the Constitution enshrines are based on very simple human capacities, in particular the capacity to choose and prefer. The rationality or quality of that ability to choose doesn't enter into it. Hence why we have a system that is able to assign legal rights without reference to more complex aspects of the individual's nature, including inner slavishness/freedom. This certainly causes problems over time, as people forget that they need other methods to deal with the naturally slavish, like occasionally throwing a chamberpot at the town drunk, but is better-adapted to modern norms and technologies than Classical slavery. Even if some people are born to be property, that does not imply that legal slavery is the solution. Instead, let a free market and healthy social norms deal with them (I'll leave to the reader the question of whether achieving a free market and healthy social norms today would be easier or harder than reinstating slavery).

If natural slaves exist, there's a lot of conflicts of interest and motivated reasoning in deciding that any particular individual is a natural slave, to the point where we're probably better off acting as though natural slaves don't exist.

I think we are broadly in agreement, but this bit I think is important:

But it doesn’t matter what the person’s IQ is.

This is surely false on its face; at some point, your IQ is clearly too low to do anything but behave like a herd animal (at best!). I think what you might mean to suggest is that "a sufficiently high IQ is a necessary but insufficient condition to not being a slave," and I think that's right--that's why I pointed out that youth, drug addiction, or mental illness are also things that lead to "natural slavery" (Aristotle regarded even free children as essentially slaves, albeit temporarily).

Something I have seen happen a lot in rationalist and rationalist-adjacent spaces is someone getting really angry (or sneery) about IQ discussions, because of a tendency to valorize high IQ in ways that might be explained as well, or better, by reference to conscientiousness, emotional awareness, family wealth, etc. But I suspect that the area where actual IQ tests have the most real world impact, at least in the U.S., is in the legal system--and it's not high IQs under discussion there! IQ is the gold standard for objective evaluation of whether a person can be made a slave, not in name but in the Aristotelian sense of being subject to the rule of another, because they are not intelligent enough for adequate self-care.

Yes, a high IQ person may also be in need of guidance, temporarily or permanently, as the result of other circumstances, and I agree with you re: etiquette etc. But a completely conscientious, totally decisive, utterly courageous person with an IQ of 50 would still be better off with a master guardian (which is, not coincidentally, the world Plato often used to describe the philosopher-king rulers of his ideal Republic).

I think the way I’d put it is that it’s not just IQ, though sure, until you reach a reasonable threshold for IQ the chances you’d live independently go down to near zero. But I think in rational spaces especially, you end up ignoring the gifted Reddit user base who have decided to spend their lives in mom’s basement posting long paragraphs about things nobody cares about.

But I think the over identifying the idea with literal BCE slavery in whatever form is unnecessary, as other forms of control, and even relatively invisible and gentle forms of control are possible. You can use debt or consumption to get people to have jobs. You can enforce things through social structures (make it socially necessary to have a job). You can tie necessary services to jobs (like the USA does with health care.

When Aristotle talks about "natural slaves" he's not really talking about some American nightmare-vision of an antebellum plantation*. The ancient Greek system of slavery he was familiar with was closer to "employee who can't quit" than it was to "living under absolute constant terror." In some sense "slave" is a mistranslation, because the context is so different.

If you say "should it be legal to enslave people" everyone says no; but if you asked the same people "Should it be legal for certain people to be employed in jobs they can't quit" many would say yes.

There's no question that a great number of people need a structured job created for them, where they are directed. Traditionally, bosses took a large hand in the personal lives of their workers; today that is frowned upon.

*It should be noted that actual plantation life wasn't like that either. There were black slaves better off than some poor white people.

If you want something Americans would actually agree on, it would be the proposition: “Should everyone, except for children, the elderly, and the seriously infirm, work?” The answer there would be an overwhelming yes; those who disagree are a lunatic fringe.

Now, the real question is: “If someone who is able-bodied refuses to work, what should be done with them?” And I believe the answer there varies widely, but the most popular is “then neither shall he eat.” But this conflicts with another popular opinion, that people down on their luck should get some help or at least shouldn’t starve, and certainly Christ put his finger on the scale for this one. This, I think, is the source of most of our problems.

But permanent contracts? Come on, man, it’s already literal slavery. And although I’m sure you could confuse a few people on a poll, almost everyone understands it. In order for people to agree it would have to be more like: can people sign time-gated contracts where their broad behavior is dictated by their employer (with major and explicit caveats for human dignity) and failure to comply revokes the privileges and pay granted by the contract? And here people would say yes, because there are already contracts like this, especially for the military. But to have your liberty removed forever with no remedy? No way.

If you want something Americans would actually agree on,

I think this is where we're not connecting: I don't think most Americans would support permanent lifetime contracts.

But I think 15% might. Which is better than the maybe 2% that would support Slavery. Which is my point.

"Slave" is at some level a mistranslation in Aristotle because the Slavery he's talking about isn't the Slavery most Americans think of. One could probably just as well translate the idea as some people are natural employees and some people are natural bosses.

Strong disagree. I think 5% or less would support that, within polling margin of error. I’m a little shocked you think otherwise. Do you personally know people who would sign such a contract? What are they like? If you don’t know any, aren’t you just saying that you’d like to enslave people?

I know well that American chattel slavery was unusually bad. But Greek slavery was also quite bad, you know. It’s what they did to people they defeated in war! Or, read in the reverse, people were willing to fight potentially to the death for the privilege of not being a slave! I know we’re all very sophisticated around here and have very novel and interesting perspectives, but this is lazy whitewashing.

I fully understand that society always has and likely always will have classes, and that the labor of the lower classes is compelled in a way which the upper classes are not subject to. I’m even amenable to the idea that it’s a reasonable system in the abstract for some to own and organize while others provide more of their labor. But slavery is an extreme form, not the normal, and it’s fair to say that those in the bottom tranches of labor should get their choice of master or strong customary and legal protections or both, and that depriving them of these is wrong.

If you want something Americans would actually agree on, it would be the proposition: “Should everyone, except for children, the elderly, and the seriously infirm, work?” The answer there would be an overwhelming yes; those who disagree are a lunatic fringe.

‘Work’ means very different things to different people. Ranging from ‘contribute to society in some way with the degree and method to be chosen by the worker’ to ‘do whatever it takes to provide for your family’ to ‘idle hands are the devil’s implements’.

Quite true, and I suppose it varies along lines of culture and class. Doesn’t make it any easier to determine lawful slavery, I suppose.

With two main exceptions, I think that very few people in the West would say that it should be legal for people to be employed in jobs they can't quit. The number of people who would say that is, I think, not much larger than the number of people who would say that it should be legal to enslave people. Which is not surprising, given that being employed in a job you can't quit is basically a form of slavery.

One main exception is people's attitudes about conscription and about desertion after voluntarily joining the military. I think that these are probably an exception mainly because people even in liberal democracies are historically used to them and because fear of foreign threat is an emotionally powerful motivator.

The other main exception is prison labor. I think that one is an exception because people feel that prison labor helps to repay damage that prisoners have caused to others / to society.

@MadMonzer

I think that very few people in the West would say that it should be legal for people to be employed in jobs they can't quit. The number of people who would say that is, I think, not much larger than the number of people who would say that it should be legal to enslave people. Which is not surprising, given that being employed in a job you can't quit is basically a form of slavery.

"People who quit their job and can't find another one should be allowed to starve" is a position with non-negligible support, but that is a different view to "people should not be allowed to quit their job in the first place". The right to quit your job for a better one is fundamental to the capitalist concept of freedom.

Let me elaborate my hypothetical a bit and see if you understand where I'm coming from.

Poll Question A: Should the US legalize Slavery?

I suspect the Yes answers to this would meet the Lizardman constant. A few trolls and a few people whose politics are so insane as to indistinguishable under Poe's Law.

Poll Question B: Should it be legal for Employers to sign contracts with Employees which guarantee lifetime employment, in exchange for which the Employees agree to work for that Employer for the rest of their lives or until released by the Employer, and to do any job requested by the Employer?

I suspect that while this would still be a distinct minority, it would draw more support than A. Many people who oppose slavery oppose it conceptually, oppose Slavery as a boo-light, but don't actually oppose the underlying reality of slavery. In the same way that Fascism probably polls lower than the elements of Fascism.

Hell I could imagine that a decent number of red tribe types would support forcing chronically unemployed or unemployable people into jobs they aren't allowed to quit.

The ancient Greek system of slavery

There isn't a single ancient Greek system of slavery. There are two well-documented systems of slavery (Spartan helotry and Athenian slavery) that are sufficiently different that the sources usually use different words for them. There does seem to be a consensus that Athenian slaves (except for the slaves in the polis-owned silver mines) were treated considerably better than the Greek average, and that Spartan helots were treated worse. That in turn suggests that even more distinct systems of slavery existed in other poleis and we simply don't have details.

but if you asked the same people "Should it be legal for certain people to be employed in jobs they can't quit" many would say yes.

I haven't come across these people. Apart from the special case of military discipline, sufficiently few people support bringing back indentured servitude that the business associations lobbying for broad enforceability of non-competes have to lie and say that it is about protecting trade secrets and not stopping people quitting their jobs to get better ones.

"People who quit their job and can't find another one should be allowed to starve" is a position with non-negligible support, but that is a different view to "people should not be allowed to quit their job in the first place". The right to quit your job for a better one is fundamental to the capitalist concept of freedom.

Plenty of people support thé lower orders not being allowed to quit their jobs without special circumstances. Probationers and parolees are under this condition, for example.

This may or may not be what FHM was talking about but in the event of a crisis like a war most European countries have legal methods to conscript not only soldiers but other workers as well.

In Sweden this is called "krigsplacering" (war placement) and most governmental workers and medical professionals are passively krigsplacerade by default, but in theory it applies to everyone and for any crisis the government decides is severe enough. For example, in an event of a pandemic, doctors can be forced to work.

Now, this is obviously intended for limited periods of time but forced conscription of labour is absolutely legal in most western democracies. Both this and military conscription typically enjoys high support.

When Aristotle talks about "natural slaves" he's not really talking about some American nightmare-vision of an antebellum plantation.

Yes, this is right--it's always interesting teaching the Politics because I have to explain to my students all of the ways in which "slave" can be interpreted. Fortunately, Aristotle himself also lays out how differently slavery was practiced in different parts of Greece--very like your footnote suggests of antebellum American slavery. In Book 2 of the Politics, Aristotle writes:

Or, upon what principle would they submit, unless indeed the governing class adopt the ingenious policy of the Cretans, who give their slaves the same institutions as their own, but forbid them gymnastic exercises and the possession of arms.

Apparently, at least from Aristotle's perspective, slaves in Crete were just regular people who couldn't hit the gym or own guns pointy metal objects. This was apparently more generous than slavery as practiced in Athens, which was in turn apparently more liberal than the way it was practiced in Sparta. To the best of my understanding, chattel slavery was not the norm in ancient Greece, but neither was it unheard of.

These days it is essentially impossible to have a nuanced policy debate on slavery. We have insisted on eradication of the practice, while in great measure merely obfuscating it. If that was a necessary step to the elimination of chattel slavery, well, then I suppose I can't complain too much about it. But I find it at least of interest that so many technically free, politically enfranchised humans in the West would probably be better off with greater guidance--even though I do not regard myself as in want or need of similar intervention.

(But that may simply be a further question of degree. If we really did build a genuine superintelligence, unfettered by "alignment" to some other human's political agenda, would I not be wise to submit myself to it? I feel grateful to doubt that I will ever face such a choice.)

But that may simply be a further question of degree. If we really did build a genuine superintelligence, unfettered by "alignment" to some other human's political agenda, would I not be wise to submit myself to it? I feel grateful to doubt that I will ever face such a choice.)

I'm sure that I'm notorious enough that my own subjective likelihood of facing an ASI in my lifespan doesn't need elaboration, and I'll skip over my usual arguments.

I think that, compared to life as it is right now, accepting the rule and oversight of a benevolent superintelligence would be grossly superior, and beats rule by humans in just about every metric (barring your ability to rebel, should you have strong feelings on the matter). They are likely incorruptible, smarter than the average politician, and thus far better placed to consider the likely outcomes of their policies. They might even, at least theoretically, be democratic and defer to the opinions of us retarded humans. I'd hope so, at least, since we're the ones building them to fulfill our whims.

(If they're not benevolent, gg I guess)

That being said, that's not what I consider an ideal world. I'd much rather use the kind of technology available in a post-Singularity world to improve myself and rapidly bootstrap to the level of an ASI so I can exert agency and be treated as a peer. I'd rather not be beholden to anyone, no matter how kind and wise.

This is of course, a rather aspirational goal. About the same as me saying that utopia-with-free-blowjobs beats utopia-without.

The ancient Greek system of slavery he was familiar with was closer to "employee who can't quit" than it was to "living under absolute constant terror." ... It should be noted that actual plantation life wasn't like that either. There were black slaves better off than some poor white people.

I've been reading some American slave narratives on and off (not the more politically loaded pre-war ones). One of the most striking things about them is just how much they vary. When you give an individual near absolute power over another group of people, it reveals a tremendous amount about his character.

(That's not to deny the influence of social customs or economic incentives, both of which are also quite visible in the narratives.)

Even the most politically loaded prewar narrative, Frederick Douglass, reveals the same pattern. One of my favorite anecdotes is when he bribes young white street urchins in Baltimore to teach him to read by giving them bread, which he has free access to an effectively unlimited amount of in the kitchen. Or his lament for how the institution of getting drunk on new years causes plantation slaves to waste money that they could be saving to try to buy their freedom. Slave experiences varied wildly and were not unform suffering and lack of agency.

Still, it must be noted that ancient Greek slavery was just a different institution. Most slaves were not slaves for many generations, slavery was not racialized as radically, freedmen did not worry (any more than anyone else) about being re-enslaved.

But the natural slave cannot ultimately be freed; they can only be managed well, or managed poorly. Left to their own devices, they will manage themselves poorly. Aggressively managed ("literally enslaved"), they will lash out against the strictures of the arrangement, often violently (the free citizens of slave societies live ever in far of revolt). How much of the history of "government" is the history of developing increasingly sophisticated methods for obfuscating the nature and extent of the bondage imposed on the "mass of men," not only for their own ultimate benefit, but for the benefit of all? And--to what extent might we as a people be slowly forgetting that, as we seek to "liberate" those masses, by continuing to give them the resources of life, while withdrawing (or declining to enforce) any guidance?

Maybe this calls for an inverse catch-22. If you have enough executive agency to successfully organize a slave revolt, you clearly do not belong to the slave class. Welcome to the ranks of the masters brother.

Maybe it's less important that slavery is abolished, as there exist class mobility out of the lowest rungs of society.

On the flip side there's the principal-agent problem.

If you're incompetent and unteachable enough that you need to be governed with direct intervention, and restricted from handling your own affairs, you're also not really equipped to tell if your overseer is making good decisions on your behalf, and even if they aren't actively exploiting you, they can of course be making decisions that are suboptimal for your personal wellbeing, simply because they are not as motivated to do the best possible job.

Maybe there needs to be an overseer-advocate role whose sole job is to audit the other overseers and ensure they're at least complying with best practices.

But this adds extra complexity and expense to this system.

So one really hopes that in the aggregate the added costs of supervising the supervisors and auditing the expenses and otherwise ensuring that the wards are being treated adequately well are actually producing more value than just leaving those folks to their own devices to be exploited.

I can see why institutionalization was a popular solution for this in decades past. If you can put the wards all in one place and lock them in, it takes relatively few supervisors to manage them all, and in theory if you can check in on the conditions regularly and make sure there's no wanton abuses.

In practice, the people most drawn to these jobs would, in many cases, be the most likely to want to commit some kind of abuse.

If you're incompetent and unteachable enough that you need to be governed with direct intervention, and restricted from handling your own affairs, you're also not really equipped to tell if your overseer is making good decisions on your behalf, and even if they aren't actively exploiting you, they can of course be making decisions that are suboptimal for your personal wellbeing, simply because they are not as motivated to do the best possible job.

IMHO, this is a perfect is the enemy of good situation. Is someone managing your decisions better than you, such that you are having even marginally better life outcomes than you were before them telling you what to do? Well, then how much of that added value they skim off the top comes down to competition between overseers.

Shit, I think we just reinvented the labor market.

I recall that this was indeed an embarrassment to the Roman elite when Spartacus repeatedly beat them and their troops. Ruined a lot of narratives as I understand it.

Maybe this calls for an inverse catch-22. If you have enough executive agency to successfully organize a slave revolt, you clearly do not belong to the slave class. Welcome to the ranks of the masters brother.

If we're still talking about Greek society the free man was someone who valued liberty over life and had the valour to actually claim it. Granting a slave freedom merely for organising a revolt would be a lower standard than what was expected of free citizens when they are called to defend their own freedom against an invader.

The Greeks (and Americans) frequently allowed skilled and disciplined slaves to save up enough money to buy their freedom.

Inasmuch as courage or valor was expected, it was of the "discipline and goal orientation over extended period of time" type, rather than the "violent revolt" type.

The thing in this clip, basically:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bBgrXmHJACs?si=pE8-zQiNH1JHbLae

Now, the biggest hurdle holding back the poor family in the story I've linked to is a simple one: the Overton Window. If, for some unfortunate reason, the number of women crazy enough to act that way rose significantly, society would probably develop memetic antibodies or legal solutions. This might, sometimes, become strong enough to overcome the "women are wonderful" effect, if such women are obviously being the opposite.

Ah ahahahahahah.

Hah.

Oh man, that's a good one. That's a really good one. You really aren't from around here. Our society's worship of women is downright pathological at this point. They can do almost anything and it's excused. I mean even in your own home away from home, there are plans to just get rid of Women's prison. Women are too good to spend time in jail for their crimes you see? In fact, their reasoning is that since more women are being sent to jail, something must be wrong with the legal system, since women are wonderful obviously. So we'd better start shutting down the women's jails so they can't be sent there.

I mean even in your own home away from home, there are plans to just get rid of Women's prison. Women are too good to spend time in jail for their crimes you see? In fact, their reasoning is that since more women are being sent to jail, something must be wrong with the legal system, since women are wonderful obviously. So we'd better start shutting down the women's jails so they can't be sent there.

Leaving aside the wisdom (or lack thereof) of this plan, this isn't what is going on.

There are no plans to get rid of women's prison. There's a plan to get rid of a women's prison. Women are not too good to spend time in prison for their crimes:

“There are a number of women that need to be there. They’ve done terrible things, they need to be punished, and that’s the best place for them."... About two-thirds of women are imprisoned for non-violent offences.

Would they, if they looked at the men's prisons, find many of the same reasons for leniency apply? Probably (it seems the overall rate of people in prison for nonviolent offenses is 61%), and they obviously don't because women are wonderful and men aren't. But your hyperbolic framing of what's going on is just that.

Yeah Timpson is a notable prison reform advocate who famously (or infamously) thinks 2/3rds of all prisoners should not be in prison. He's talking about women here because the prison in question is a woman's prison, but he has said exactly the same thing about the prison population in general (which is like 90% male). The only difference is that women prisoners who are mothers usually means the state is paying to jail the woman and then pay to put her kids in foster care etc.

I mean even in your own home away from home, there are plans to just get rid of Women's prison.

The rise in MTF transsexualism is partially explained by utter humiliations such as this.

For example, how would this situation be handled in India? [...]

Firstly, the extended family would have much more power. This is the rare case where both the husband's side and the wife's own family would probably agree that something needs to be done, the latter for reputational reasons as well as concern for the kids. She'd probably end up committed, if she wasn't beaten up or ostracized to hell and back. The police would turn a blind eye, should she choose to complain, they'd be profoundly sympathetic to the family's plight and refuse to act against them.

When dealing with questions of punishment, we always have to confront the problem of how the authority figure's prosocial motivations can be disentangled from the pleasure he gets from enacting the punishment itself. Can they even be disentangled? Is it possible that they're always one and the same?

For the suburban Karen who calls CPS because her neighbors let their son ride his bike without a helmet, the wellbeing of the child is of secondary importance at best. Her primary motivation is the feeling of power she derives from being able to commandeer an instrument of state violence.

In your case, the violence is not even mediated through the state, but is dished out by the man's own hands, "with a good conscience" -- this makes the charm all the more seductive. Are we to suppose that the man is not secretly, or not-so-secretly, hoping that his wife will someday commit a transgression which merits some familial intervention? An "evolutionary genealogy" of such a system might reveal that its primary and originary purpose was as a system of ritualized violence, with its usage as an instrument of "justice" being vestigial or epiphenomenal.

There are no pure assertions of "negative" restrictions on rights -- there are only positive assertions of rights. "You should not have the right to do X" can be rewritten as "I should have the right to punish you for doing X". Or, more explicitly: "I want the right to punish you for doing X".

And people still wonder why feminists get up in arms over the concept of "traditional family structures". In the system thus described, is it ever the wife who beats the husband for his transgressions? She can try, and she may even have the support of the community on her side, but due to physical asymmetry, it's unlikely to end well for her. She can get male relatives to do it for her; but the prerogative of deriving full enjoyment from the act of punishment remains with the man. That hardly seems fair.

Why would you think anyone enjoys his wife committing serious and stupid transgressions like this? I mean I suppose it’s possible, but the default assumption is not that.

The long answer would involve starting here.

The short answer is that I didn't say that, under self_made's described social system, the man would enjoy his wife's transgression per se, but rather that the feeling of power he derives from exercising his authority over those who have transgressed offers something to enjoy.

There are no pure assertions of "negative" restrictions on rights -- there are only positive assertions of rights. "You should not have the right to do X" can be rewritten as "I should have the right to punish you for doing X". Or, more explicitly: "I want the right to punish you for doing X".

I think this is a bit confusingly written. There are three possible states here:

  1. You have the right to do X.
  2. Everyone else has the right to be free from you doing X.
  3. You may do X, but you do not necessarily have the right to do so.

The way you phrased the above implies that 3 and 2 are equivalent, while I don't think they are.

Free speech (in America) falls under 1, murder falls under 2, while something like "paint your house vibrant pink" falls under 3. In theory, you are not allowed to enter into an arrangement where your right to free speech is abridged(1), you are forbidden from entering into an arrangement where you are allowed to murder someone(2), and you are free to enter into an arrangement where your ability to paint your house is denied (HOA).

(1) The reality on the ground may differ from the ideal.

(2) Soldiers and police officers aside.

This post's conversation also reminds me of first amendment auditors who go to public places and record everything and everyone around them because they're not legally in the wrong. They operate under the guise of protecting the first amendment, but this (as Primaprimaprima put it when describing Karens) is of secondary importance. Their real motivation is to create a reaction that they can capture and record, then post on their YouTube page.

The extent to which these people who aren't "technically" wrong corrode the cohesiveness of our society can't really be quantified in real time. I think a lot of us just understand that it is bad and that it will have future implications. Normal people recognize the problem as well, but there is no way to say "no" with any real force unless a law is broken. An atomized society has nothing but the law to truly dictate behavior, but more laws ultimately lead to less freedom. Informal resolutions while they can be deeply satisfying also carry the potential for overreaction or being too heavy-handed.

When it comes to feminists bitching about family structure, they're just trying to ensure they maintain as much social power and freedom as possible, and, since the receipts of "family structure" abuses are readily available, they constantly point to them to beat back the opposition. What makes them even more powerful is the online presence of women, especially neurotic ones, who will collectively treat any issue they're arguing for as if it's the most morally important problem of our time. These women are numerous, and passionate, and hysterical. The only real recourse seems to be one where society collects the receipts of unchecked feminism and pluralism. Unfortunately, it will have to run its course and we will have to continue to watch people be as annoying and as immoral and as disgusting as possible while still not being "technically" wrong.

You can absolutely enter into agreements that restrict the 1st amendment right to free speech, NDAs, trade secrets, non disparagement clauses, even just normal character clauses in a contract restrict your right to free speech.

The first amendment protects from the government, it does not protect from private contract law.

Perhaps "You can't sell yourself into slavery" would be a better example here.

I mean those are just completely different things.

In theory (if not usually in practice) one could have the right to free speech and free exercise of religion but not the right to freely move, choose one's own work, or make other contracts on one's own behalf.

I do not think this should be a criminal matter. There is plenty of fucked-up shit which is enough to lose you custody of your kids without landing you in jail.

If the reporting is accurate, then I would expect family court to completely cut her from her kids. If that was not enough to act as an disincentive, sending her to prison would not have made a difference either.

From my reading of the text, the main problem was that she was doing this in secret. Once she was discovered, the repercussions (divorce, loss of custody) were likely swift to follow. I do not think that another society would have dealt much better with this. Even in Saudi Arabia, though there might be norms where a husband is checking his wive's phone, she might have another phone for sexting convicts.

As a wise mullah once said: "What is the cure for such disorders? Beatings."

This is bullshit. Especially as the beatings would likely be administered by the husband with no judicial oversight. I mean, sure, if the husband had beaten his wife for no reason on the general principle that she should live in terror of him, it would have been very likely that she would not have picked up her hobby of sexting convicts. But this is like suggesting that cobalt bombs are a good way to stop wildfires in California: while technically correct, the cure would be worse than the disease.

not sticking your dick in crazy.

If people only have sex with people proven sane beyond all reasonable doubt, humanity would die out in a few generations. From the reaction of the husband, it seems that he was surprised by her behavior. We do not have the context to say if he should have seen this coming, and what his other options for a spouse were when he decided to marry and have kids.

While I agree with you, for the most part:

This is bullshit. Especially as the beatings would likely be administered by the husband with no judicial oversight. I mean, sure, if the husband had beaten his wife for no reason on the general principle that she should live in terror of him, it would have been very likely that she would not have picked up her hobby of sexting convicts. But this is like suggesting that cobalt bombs are a good way to stop wildfires in California: while technically correct, the cure would be worse than the disease.

Despite what Western media reporting might have you believe, the rate of petty crime in India is surprisingly low. People rarely get pick-pocketed or robbed. Do you know why?

Because if caught in the act, the perpetrator would be rather unceremoniously beaten to a pulp, both by whoever caught them, and any civic minded individuals present. You can get a nice crowd going, it's fun for the whole family.

This is of course, strictly speaking, illegal. Yet any police officer, if asked to intervene, would laugh, shake their head and say the criminal deserved it. If the crook had the temerity to file charges, he'd probably be taken out back and given a second helping to change his mind.

As far as I'm concerned, this is strictly superior to prevailing Western attitudes regarding property crimes or theft. A shopkeeper who discovers someone shoplifting has very little legal recourse, the police rarely do any more than file a report and then give up on pursuing the matter. Giving them the de-facto right to take matters into their own hand and recover their property? The shopkeeper wins. Polite society wins, the only loser is the thief, and in this case the process is quite literally the desired punishment.

Before you ask, the number of false positives is negligible. I've never heard of anyone being falsely accused in this manner (at least with accusations of theft), and I've never had to have that particular fear myself.

I am, in general, against husbands beating their wives. Yet, in this specific scenario, I could hardly fault the poor chap should he be forced to resort to such methods to protect his own family. At the very least, I'd vote to acquit. It's a bit moot, because with prevailing Western norms, he likely didn't even consider a haymaker as a solution to his problems. In general, that's a good thing.

Because if caught in the act, the perpetrator would be rather unceremoniously beaten to a pulp, both by whoever caught them, and any civic minded individuals present. You can get a nice crowd going, it's fun for the whole family.

I think the issue is that societies that do a good job at dis-incentivising petty crime via societal beatdowns also come along with nasty side effects like tons of rape/sexual assault, which India does a much worse (better?) job at.

I'm not sure if this tradeoff is worth it.

I think that association is more likely to be correlational, rather than strictly causal. The rates of sexual assault vary widely across India, and there are definitely large areas where you are reasonably safe from it, while also seeing small-time crooks get beatings.

Fair enough

Because if caught in the act, the perpetrator would be rather unceremoniously beaten to a pulp

If you are caught stealing from an individual in Texas, you can expect severe bodily harm as a reasonable consequence(criminals are, contrary to popular belief, smaller and less fit than average), and it is explicitly legal to kill thieves here.

We still have plenty of petty theft, although not mugging(because muggers are killed off by their victims). I suspect the difference is that strong trad families(like India has, and poor people in the USA rarely do) are pretty good at keeping their members from lives of crime.

We have very few guns. That makes mugging much harder, you can run away from a knife most of the time. Mugging is very rare in these parts too, never happened to anyone I know.

In the US, being poor in the first place is a far stronger sign of serious dysfunction and inadequacy than it would be in India, where the majority of people are poor. So you have many more industrious, hard working poor people around and fewer degenerates, in relative if not absolute terms.

Of course, I think the Texan approach to such things is laudable. I'd be happy living there, even if California still has my heart.

You're the only Indian I've met who claims that people would get beaten in the street for various transgressions and I really find it hard to believe. Every Indian woman I've met seems to have a story about getting groped in public and the offender never gets beaten by the upstanding citizens that you claim inhabit the subcontinent.

Here is a vicesplainer on the career trajectory of one Delhi pickpocket. He joins a gang that has so much opportunity for larceny that they're pickpocketing around the clock in shifts. He certainly doesn't fear retaliation from honorable bystanders, the only thing he seems to fear is the gang after he tells them he's out.

I had an Indian coworker once comment that shoplifters in India would be beaten. Rather unlike the American response of letting them do it.

Every Indian woman I've met seems to have a story about getting groped in public and the offender never gets beaten by the upstanding citizens that you claim inhabit the subcontinent.

Notice that I was very careful not to make this claim about sexual harassment.

Because that wouldn't be true. But why the difference?

Because a pinched ass is not a smoking gun! If someone gropes you up, there's usually no evidence a crime was committed at all, unlike most forms of theft, where you can, at least some of the time, show that the culprit is carrying your wallet or phone. The worst they can do is try and drop the evidence, which is usually not the same as destroying the evidence. My wallet lying ten feet away from you is, shall we say, suggestive.

Also, and I hope this is obvious, being groped is far more embarrassing than being robbed. This is just as true in India than is in the West. How many women cat-called by construction workers in NYC go on to file a complaint for sexual harassment?

Another important factor is that, because of the lack of evidence, it often boils down to a he-said-she-said situation, which bystanders are usually quite loathe to become involved in.

You're the only Indian I've met who claims that people would get beaten in the street for various transgressions and I really find it hard to believe.

My man, did you bother to do something as simple as Google the phrase thief beaten up India?

Or did you look up "man beaten for groping woman India"? Because yes, that has happened.

Here is a vicesplainer on the career trajectory of one Delhi pickpocket. He joins a gang that has so much opportunity for larceny that they're pickpocketing around the clock in shifts. He certainly doesn't fear retaliation from honorable bystanders, the only thing he seems to fear is the gang after he tells them he's out.

I don't have the time to watch the video right now, but my expectation is that they're preying on tourists primarily, which would be easily true in Delhi. They could also, more tentatively, simply be lying about the risks of being caught, or too dumb to care.

My man, did you bother to do something as simple as Google the phrase thief beaten up India?

India, as you know, is a big place. I am confident that there's a thief beaten up in India every day. The question is, is pickpocketing and robbery rare, and is it rare because thieves are sure to be swiftly beaten? You claim it is, but again, I have met many Indians and I have never heard any of them claim that thieves are guaranteed an ass-whooping on the spot.

I don't have the time to watch the video right now, but my expectation is that they're preying on tourists primarily, which would be easily true in Delhi. They could also, more tentatively, simply be lying about the risks of being caught, or too dumb to care.

It's not a video, it's an article. The guy mostly picks pockets of people on public transit, which tourists are usually wealthy enough to avoid and has a critical mass of witnesses and people who would be available for administering an impromptu beating.

I can't even imagine what it means to be "too dumb to care" about being beaten to a pulp. It is possible that he's lying, but why would he lie about this? Why would he continue to be a pickpocket if he's getting beaten every day by mobs of Indians? More importantly, how could he continue to do anything but lie in a hospital?

You claim it is, but again, I have met many Indians and I have never heard any of them claim that thieves are guaranteed an ass-whooping on the spot.

That is not a claim I've made. I've said such an outcome was "guaranteed", merely that the risk is high enough to be a real deterrent for would-be criminals.

We don't have that many Indians on The Motte, so I don't see how it makes a difference. In the wider internet, I think I'm quite unusual in being open-minded about the benefits of such extrajudicial punishment, compared to the kind of Indians you would pay attention to online.

It's not a video, it's an article. The guy mostly picks pockets of people on public transit, which tourists are usually wealthy enough to avoid and has a critical mass of witnesses and people who would be available for administering an impromptu beating

India is a poor country! Western tourists are probably not taking public transport except for the sake of it. That is not nearly as true for Indian tourists, in India.

Further, there's obvious selection-bias at play: Vice didn't choose to interview an ex pickpocket, did they? If someone is still up to their shenanigans, then they're either skilled or lucky. An ideal pickpocket doesn't want to be caught, if they did, they'd be a bandit.

I can't even imagine what it means to be "too dumb to care" about being beaten to a pulp. It is possible that he's lying, but why would he lie about this? Why would he continue to be a pickpocket if he's getting beaten every day by mobs of Indians? More importantly, how could he continue to do anything but lie in a hospital?

Criminals aren't particularly known for their keen ability to do fine risk-benefit calculations. If they did, they'd probably be more likely to look for a job. That doesn't mean that they're immune to incentives.

As I've made clear, I never claimed that pickpocketing is guaranteed to lead to a beating. If literally every pickpocket was caught right away and beaten, then I think the number of pickpockets out there would be, if not literally zero, within spitting distance. Mostly because of kleptomaniacs I suppose.

In the wider internet, I think I'm quite unusual in being open-minded about the benefits of such extrajudicial punishment, compared to the kind of Indians you would pay attention to online.

To be clear, I'm not talking about online Indians, I'm talking about actual Indians I've met IRL, with who I've talked about life in India.

India is a poor country! Western tourists are probably not taking public transport except for the sake of it. That is not nearly as true for Indian tourists, in India.

So why are Indian tourists, from a country where pickpockets are routinely beaten, not beating these pickpockets on the metro, where they are surrounded by other Indians, who (presumably) routinely beat pickpockets? Why is this dog not barking?

Further, there's obvious selection-bias at play: Vice didn't choose to interview an ex pickpocket, did they?

They did, he's no longer a pickpocket.

So why are Indian tourists, from a country where pickpockets are routinely beaten, not beating these pickpockets on the metro, where they are surrounded by other Indians, who (presumably) routinely beat pickpockets? Why is this dog not barking?

I never claimed that. I presume that they do, in fact, raise hell should they catch the culprit in the act. Unfortunately for tourists, they tend to be found in crowded places, some of which might be called tourist traps, where it's harder to notice, or figure out who the culprit was, while the latter has an easier time vanishing into the crowd.

To be clear, I'm not talking about online Indians, I'm talking about actual Indians I've met IRL, with who I've talked about life in India

Did you specifically ask them about the topic? It rarely comes up unprompted.

When Ashwin was arrested by the police in New Friends Colony, the seeds of doubt were sown in his mind.

This doesn't say anything about whether or not it was a victim who caught him, whether he was roughed up during the process, or after by the police. I've never claimed that standard means of law enforcement don't exist in India.

what you mean by that? Out of lets say 25 people you know - how many were pick-pocketed within last year? How many were robbed?

Zero. And zero. As far as I'm aware, no one I know has been pickpocketed or robbed in the last, uh, maybe 3 to 5 years?

and while petty crime is annoying - what about more serious crime? Lets say that woman goes alone during night though city - is it likely that something bad will happen to her?

Depends on when and where. In just about every major city in India, as is the case for most of the world, there are "good" and "bad" neighborhoods. I can think of a dozen places where I'd be unconcerned about being a woman wandering around after dark, and more where I would be.

There's a reason why I was careful to only talk about petty crime, and mostly property crime within that range, because, as I've elaborated in another comment, this doesn't hold nearly as true for sex crimes.

How are opportunistic thefts in India? I’m thinking of the equivalent to vehicle break ins(not car thefts- a smash thé window to steal a purse in the car type thing). How about copper theft?

I don't have a sufficiently strong intuition about what the typical base-rate is in the West to have a very helpful answer.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's nowhere near as bad as say, a bad neighborhood in SF, where leaving something expensive in the car is incredibly foolish. Copper stealing isn't as bad as in a ghetto in a big city, maybe.

I've never had to worry about my car being broke into. Never happened to any friends or family. I've never had the power go out because someone stole the cables. I probably wouldn't leave a large amount of gold bullion visibly sitting in the backseat, but I'm sure you wouldn't either.

the rate of petty crime in India is surprisingly low.

This is not true at all. I have frequently heard of people's houses being robbed. Pickpocketing is also present. People steal phones, pickpocket wallets and snatch purses and jewelry off of women. These are all crimes everyone is wary of in India, especially in crowded places like markets, temples, tourist places and melas. I have personally known family members who have had their phones pickpocketed, or gold chains snatched.

It's a fool's errand to trade anecdotal evidence. I'm not claiming that kind of crime happens at all, I'm stating that the amount of crime that happens is lower than it would be, because of the fear of extrajudicial punishment.

You would absolutely face more risk if you were a super-crowded environment, or if you were an obvious tourist. That's true just about everywhere where pickpocketing happens at all.

India is a very big country. I don't know anyone in my friends or extended family who was robbed or pickpocketed in maybe the last 3-5 years. That included both urbanites living in desirable neighborhoods, and family who live in villages and small towns. The latter had burglars rob them multiple times, but the last instance I can remember was at least 15 years ago, and it hasn't happened since.

Despite what Western media reporting might have you believe, the rate of petty crime in India is surprisingly low. People rarely get pick-pocketed or robbed. Do you know why?

With the greatest possible respect, how would you know how low the rate of petty crime in India is?

If crime is as low as western Europe, or 1st-world Asia, or America outside a few black ghettos, then "nobody in my social circle is a recent victim of crime" doesn't imply a large enough sample size. Police-recorded crime statistics are notoriously bogus everywhere, and Indian ones are going to be more so than most. And you yourself are pointing out (correctly) that media coverage of crime is mostly sensationalist lies.

There is, for good reasons, a standing State Department advisory warning US travellers about pickpockets in London. The risk of being pickpocketed if you do not look or act like a tourist is indistinguishable from zero. I assume the same is true of India, although the wording of the respective warnings implies that State considers the problem to be worse in India than it is here. I do not think the informal enforcement you praise protects tourists, and the absence of pickpocketing against non-tourists proves its effectiveness in the same way that the lack of yeti sightings proves the effectiveness of yeti repellent.

You've just made it clear that even if I were to produce any figures, you wouldn't believe them. Which isn't even the wrong approach, since crime stats from the Third World are notoriously unreliable, and this isn't as cut and dry as murder.

That being said, the gold standard for comparative statistics when comparing crime rates between jurisdictions is the murder rate. Because, well, murder is a pretty big deal, hard to hide, and the cops, even if lazy and incompetent, are usually not that awful.

India, according to UNODC figures, had a murder rate of 2.94/100,000 in 2021.

The global average is 5.19 in 2023.

The World Bank claims 11 for "low income countries". 10.9 for all of Africa.

The United States? 5.9

I'm not bold enough to immediately jump to claims that the same ratio holds for other forms of crime, but yes, you are far less likely to be murdered as the average person in India compared to the global or third world average. We even beat the States, which is unusually awful by Western standards.

I have no objections if you wish to consider my claims to be entirely anecdotal. I stand by them regardless.

I think in many cases the West has over-emphasized laws to the point where almost every other option for enforcing order. The shopkeepers don’t think about protecting their property because the law is almost certainly going to slam them for defending their property. But it’s a double bind because the same law is unlikely to catch the thief and if they do, the property won’t be restored and the thief gets little punishment for stealing. And so on down the line of crimes. We think “let the law deal with it” and it rarely works.

Shopkeepers often do defend their property. Wander around in the ghetto; you’ll see stores which have prominently posted photographic evidence of this as a deterrent to thieves.

Law, and insurance.

Insurance just means that everyone pays a share for all of the robbery (plus a cut to the insurance company), and also that they're required to run their businesses in the way the insurance company (which is itself regulated by the state) demands. It's strictly inferior to stopping the crime.

(note: how likely is that story is altogether faked?)

Given that it's an anonymous account, I can hardly be sure. But I wager it's far more likely to be true than not. There are a rather significant number of women who have a thing for crooks, and manage to get into prison romances.

Even if this particular tale ends up being a tall one, I feel that the scenario merits discussion as something that could happen.

outlawing extremely rare stupidity and legalizing common stupidity seems backward

That bit was a joke. It's a reference to this meme, which I've appended. But I think that in certain contexts, physical/corporal punishment has its merits, and is unfairly maligned.

/images/17522327788488567.webp

I don't think this is about the merits of corporal vs non-corporal punishment. If the tiny number of women who are currently jailed for child endangerment were judicially caned instead, it wouldn't noticeably affect the incentives for a moron like Mrs DaveyJBro.

This is about the merits of informal punishment by a local authority figure (or mob, as you discuss in your pickpocketing post) vs judicial punishment following due process of law. If DaveyJBro had the socially recognised right to take his wife's phone away for irresponsible use, he probably wouldn't need to escalate to beatings.

Almost everyone agrees that informal punishment is necessary to keep children in line. It is constitutive of a "free society" that mature adult citizens in free societies are not subject to informal punishment. The grey area in between is large, but empirically the Venn diagram of people with the practical wisdom to understand why Lenore Skenazy is a mature adult and Mrs DaveyJBro is not and people willing to administer casual beatings over this kind of thing looks like a pair of spectacles.

I am quite unusual at how much I look into where my money goes, but how you do not notice "tens of thousands of dollars" part?

I can easily see this being true. It's not unheard of for couples to have separate bank accounts. Presuming she has a career of her own, I think tens of thousands of dollars is an amount that someone can feasibly spend over 2 years.

ah, makes sense (motte breaks my sarcasm meter)

Some of that is on me. I have an uncontrollable impulse to sneak in jokes, obscure references and memes in even when Serious Posting.

As they say, "hard cases make bad law".

Hard cases make bad law. Bad law makes easy cases. Easy cases make good law. Good law makes hard cases.

"Brothers don't let brothers date BPD"

Seems like the guy is removing the wife from his and his kid's lives with the help of an aunty that is a lawyer.

Further to your point though, I believe that such reckless endangerment of her family should be a criminal offense. Horrible horrible betrayal. I feel sorry for the family.

If there's one area I would support a certain type of vigilantism, its where the safety of children is concerned. I don't have kids myself, but I'm surprised that fathers don't take matters into their own hands more often. I guess they're smart enough to know that they could lose custody themselves if they didn't let the justice system take care of things and then where would the kids be?

My man, I dated a woman with BPD, who was arguably the love of my life. I was a doctor by that point, though I only really came to appreciate how many of the boxes on the diagnostic check list she ticked when I entered psych training. It can be very hard to tell when you start dating, including by the time you fall in love :(

Until that point, it's manic pixie dreamgirl paradise.

(To be fair, my own brother, and most of my family, did strongly encourage me not to date her. But that pussy game too strong for me, a man of the flesh.)

Until that point, it's manic pixie dreamgirl paradise.

I'm glad you've learned your lesson. I'd never ever fall for this trap.

I only really came to appreciate how many of the boxes on the diagnostic check list she ticked when I entered psych training.

Post check list? Uh, asking for a friend.

DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for BPD:

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) or the following:

  1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behaviour covered in Criterion 5) ✅

  2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterised by alternating between extremes of idealisation and devaluation ✅

  3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

  4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g. spending ✅, sex ✅, substance abuse ✅, reckless driving, binge eating) (Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behaviour covered in Criterion 5)

  5. Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behaviour

  6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g. intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days) ✅

  7. Chronic feelings of emptiness Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g. frequent displays of temper ✅, constant anger ✅, recurrent physical fights)

  8. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

This explains so much about a prior housemate of mine. Every single one of those things in spades. I'd tell the horror stories but am happy to find that, seven or so years later, I finally seem to be over it.

To be fair, my own brother, and most of my family, did strongly encourage me not to date her.

You're not the only one affected, and that's the point of the saying. What's impossible to recognize when you've been targeted, is fairly easy when you look at the situation from the outside

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