This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
https://abc7news.com/post/people-charged-felonies-san-francisco-could-released-due-lack-public-defenders/18054704/
There's a lot going on in this article. The San Francisco public defender's office is claiming that individuals must be released from incarceration if the office does not receive more funding to secure additional manpower. They also claim that this is due to frivolous cases being brought up by the DA, saying that their caseload has incr by 60% since 2021.
The DA claims that it is a cynical attempt to hold the city for ransom to secure more funding for the Public Defender's office.
It's interesting to me that the Public Defender's office chose 2021 as its metric, as I believe that represented the low-water mark of law enforcement activity in the US over the last decade.
Does anyone in the area have more context on this? It appears to be a very specific kind of infighting that seems very alien to me.
This seems likely, considering the literal demand is ‘more funding’.
Eh. Might be my inner defense attorney speaking, but I feel like this is most likely a last ditch cry for help as the result of years of budget cuts or at the very least stagnation with minimal adjustments for inflation. Nobody works at a PD's office to make a boatload of cash, because they don't. SF PDs do make a good amount (mid-high $100k range, and the new lawyers are definitely starting at the lower end) but in San Franciso that's equivalent to about $90k in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh chosen just because we had that lovely series on what Pittsburgh is like a little while ago so it should provide a reasonable point of comparison. Comfortable, but not insane money. When you consider the roughly $200k in loans they probably owe, it starts looking a little rougher.
No, people work at PDs offices because they are true believers one way or another. PDs run the gamut from principled civil libertarians all the way to foam-at-the-mouth ACAB people, but they're all there because they truly believe in the mission. They point out that their budget is 60% of that of the District Attorney's Office, which to me signals their complaint is likely justified. When you consider that the current "standard" for how much a Public Defender can handle in a year (set in the 70s before bodycam footage was a thing) is:
And that a felony case takes on average a minimum of 35 hours according to this RAND study that I have no reason to be skeptical of, and misdemeanor cases take a low end of 13 hours on average, you get an average workload, on the low-end, of about 5000-5500 hours a year. A 40-hour week workload is 2080 hours a year. If the SFPD's office is just sticking to the (outdated, wrong) standard, their PDs are horribly overworked. If, as I suspect, they are exceeding the standard, well... there's only 24 hours in a day.
Willing to believe this, but gestures at literally everything about the public school system when bureaucracies claim not to have enough funds, we should have a strong presumption that they’re lying for iron law reasons.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link