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 -
re the hockey incident that was discussed here a few weeks ago, the player involved has been arrested for manslaughter. they haven't released his name yet, but there's no one else it could realistically be. just yesterday he was getting a standing ovation; life comes at you fast sometimes.
from a legal perspective, it looks like they'll argue for gross negligence, since your skates should never be that high intentionally, and he wasn't violently blind-side hip checked. it's unfortunate that the races of the players involved is turning online discussion about it into a shitshow.
it's a lot more unfortunate that somebody died because of unsportsmanship, that came off to me a little like norm macdonald's joke about his fear of what would happen to muslims if terrorists detonated a nuke somewhere
More options
Context Copy link
'There is an ongoing criminal investigation' is also a good post-hoc theory for 'why does the NFL not want anyone talking about this incident', which if I recall was the question we were discussing at the time.
More options
Context Copy link
Regardless of what happens in the legal case, that BBC article is a prime example of how the propaganda machine rolls. "A man has been arrested..." Literally no other references to this man. You can't make this stuff up.
They aren't saying who it is because the police haven't actually released the name. We can make assumptions about who it is based on what is actually known, but journalistic practices are generally against making such assumptions.
More options
Context Copy link
Alternative explanation: The media faces potential liablity for naming suspects before formal charges are filed.
So what's WaPo's excuse?
The excuse is that their Tweets and website expose them to potential liability in the UK. Because that is what happened to Bloomberg in the UK case mentioned in the links. They were found liable for an article posted on their website.
Note also that, while the WaPo does not identify the person arrested in their article on their website, they do say, nudge, nudge; wink, wink:
Obviously, they are trying to comply with the letter of UK law.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Let's be honest; that's total bullshit from hyper-risk-averse lawyers. Like, could there some day be a case somewhere that plausibly opens up some degree of legal liability? Possibly. This thing was on television. The guy had his name written on the back of his jersey, for the express purpose of identifying him. Their closest example of actual legal liability was one where they said he was charged, but he was not actually charged. Clearly, they're reporting an arrest and have confidence that an arrest was actually made. I cannot fathom how someone would construct any legal liability for them saying his name.
The article you link even goes on to say that news outlets actually do print names all the time, even though there is some scant vapor of possibly liability in an edge case somewhere. Sagan knows they wouldn't wrap themselves in the most hyper-risk-averse legal position if they thought it would promote their preferred politics. Would you make a prediction? After the police announce it officially, do you predict that they'll post a second article naming him or go back and alter this article? Or do you think they'll just wait and sit on it?
People who know more about UK law than you or I disagree with you
Edit >Clearly, they're reporting an arrest and have confidence that an arrest was actually made.
That's irrelevant. The law in the UK apparently draws the line at the point that charges are filed, not at the point of arrest.
There are literally no details in that article about the case in question or how wide-ranging the opinion in question is. Key language that could give an indication: "a person under criminal investigation has a reasonable expectation of privacy". This was on TV. His name was written on the back of his jersey so as to identify him publicly. He had received a standing ovation publicly, a public acknowledgement that everyone knows him. Many other articles named him at the time of the incident. You're going to need a hell of a lot more specifics than a broadly-worded summary article to say that this guy somehow has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the matter.
EDIT: You know enough about law, generally, to know better than to reason this poorly from such non-specific articles with glaringly obvious, gigantic gaps in their language.
Yes, this sort of thing is a little bit silly, but it is not really that unusual or unprecedented when UK journalism and UK law collide. I recall a decade ago, there was controversy about the use of injunctions and super-injunctions by the UK courts as essentially a tool to gag the press regarding the private lives of celebrities. To some extent these restrictions were a bad joke - everyone knew who they were about, because these injunctions did not restrict the ability of private citizens to talk on social media - and they did not apply at all to international media. And yet, the threat of being dragged into court and get rinsed for vast sums of money was very serious.
More options
Context Copy link
You seem to be arguing that the fact that his name was written on the back of his jersey is relevant. It might be, but you have no evidence of that, right? Because the first sentence of the article states a bright-line rule: " the Supreme Court ruled that a person under criminal investigation has a reasonable expectation of privacy prior to charge"
More importantly, the point is not that, under UK law, the publication of his name would DEFINITELY expose the BBC to liability. I am not familiar enough with the relevant case law. Rather, the point is that FEAR OF LIABLITY IS THE MOST LIKELY EXPLANATION OF THE FAILURE TO REVEAL HIS NAME. I have cited two sources from UK lawyers advising media outlets that revealing the name of a suspect before charges have been brought is a bad idea. Yet, you are convinced that the "real" reason is something else.
Let's test your "bright-line rule" with a hypo. Cameras are rolling, everyone is watching. Every station is broadcasting the most anticipated event of the century, live.
Some guy[EDIT: Scratch that. Not "some guy". A guy who is known publicly. Like, say, a guy who was introduced at the event. Like, "We welcome Mr. So-and-So, our honored guest! Please identify yourself for the cameras and say a few words, Mr. So-and-So."] shows up, right in front of all the cameras, and commits a crime. While he's being arrested on live TV, he looks directly at the cameras and yells, "MY NAME IS SO-AND-SO, AND I'M BEING ARRESTED FOR [CRIME]."Does this person have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his arrest until formal charges are filed? Let's further suppose that this person is either otherwise disliked or associated with folks who are otherwise disliked by the media. Do you think they all refrain from posting his name in the article about the hullabaloo on their website, their twitter accounts, etc.? You think all their lawyers will tell them that they have to refrain from doing so because of legal risk?
More options
Context Copy link
That is, at least one. Like, the particular one who was in the particular case, perhaps. That guy might have had a reasonable expectation of privacy with completely different circumstances. It does not say that "any" person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in their arrest regardless of the circumstances. I mean, the word "reasonable" is right in the phrase, which should be a pretty good tip off to a crack lawyer such as yourself that it's not a bright-line rule. It's a reasonableness rule.
As I said: "total bullshit from hyper-risk-averse lawyers". Here's the thing about how people use lawyers, though. When they want to do something, they say, "Your job is to figure out how we can do this with minimum risk." When they don't want to do something, they say, "Your job is to come up with any possible risk of doing this, no matter how small or unlikely, so that we can say that we didn't do it due to legal risk."
Again, I am not familiar with the nuances of UK law in this area, and as I said, there might not be a bright-line rule. But the term "reasonable" tells us nothing about that question. The Fourth Amendment forbids only "unreasonable" searches and seizures, yet Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is filled with bright-line rules and has been for decades.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Propaganda machine? What’s the angle supposed to be?
They're not saying who it is that was arrested because he's black
In the UK it's standard to not release names of people who are arrested unless they get charged. There is no racial angle here.
It was on TV. The guy had his name on the back of his jersey for the express purpose of identifying himself. His name is so publicly known that the OP mentioned him getting a standing ovation, presumably as an indicator of the fact that everyone knows. Like, I get that with just Joe Schmoe nobody arrestee, there are fine reasons to be cautious, but let's be honest. It's not like any news outlet on either side of the pond was waiting for formal charges to run with stories about Trump and Trump-adjacents being arrested.
It is of course, very silly that the press is pretending not to know who was arrested. Very silly and very typical for UK journalists.
More options
Context Copy link
Oddly, that article (link again) never actually says who was arrested. If you read through word-by-word, all you can say is:
Who could that man possibly be?? Any conclusion you could reach would just be wild speculation and couldn't be attributed to the Sun in any way, shape, or form.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is an obscenely good scissor incident.
The odds of a fatality happening in a hockey game are probably higher than you might think, but the odds of a black hockey player inflicting a fatal wound on a white player should probably be low given the base rate of how few hockey players in general are black.
Likewise, almost EVERY other incident I'm aware of where major injuries were inflicted by a player's skates, it was because the 'victim' was laying on the ice.
And I think that is what bumps my general estimate to it being intentional up just up over 50%. Note I'd feel somewhat similar if it were a white player that did this to a black player, the odds of that being the fatal interaction if you randomly pulled from the player pool are absurdly low compared to the odds of it being white-on-white.
But the incident is so divisive and dependent on your priors about all this, and I'd guess very few people even think much about the priors on injuries/fatalities during hockey matches, that it allows you to reach almost whatever conclusion you want.
There was the Matt Cooke/Erik Karlsson incident. I spoke about it here. One note is that this was controversial in its own right, also owing to the great skill of Karlsson and the poor reputation of Cooke, which may have played a similar intensifying role as the role of race in this incident. These are super tough situations to judge.
More options
Context Copy link
no it isn't a scissor incident - what - someone is dead because a dirty player made a dirty move with a deadly weapon attached to his feet. Has this ever happened before in the entire history of hockey? Or maybe is this guy just especially dirty for the first time because of affirmative action etc
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It really seemed like an intentional kick to me. I never got into hockey (just a few months as a kid) but I spent years skateboarding, skiing, snowboarding, some recreational ice skating, surfing. You get a good intuition on how the body corrects its balance. He is pushing with his center of mass forward in a way that appears purposeful to me. The leg going that high simply would never occur with that forward level of mass. He had previously used his kick technique here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1gFX1sxUv1Q , and was one of the most penalized players of the league.
I wonder how many people opining on the video spent long years as a child playing a balance-based sport. Because I would put my intuition at 90% or higher. But I could see how I wouldn’t be so sure if I lacked that experience, like how some people don’t know how to fall without damaging themselves — when you play certain sports you learn to fall well.
More options
Context Copy link
I was talking about this with some friends earlier tonight. My cousin's take is that he was trying to take a dive after the collision in the hope of drawing a penalty for interference and in the process he got his skate too high in the air. That being said, I doubt there was any intent to injured and charges seem a bit overwrought, regardless of what the actual legal standard is.
Or maybe he was trying to kick the guy to knock him over but not kill him? As I understand it that level of rough play is otherwise known as ‘Tuesday’ in hockey, even if the technique is unconventional.
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah. My interpretation was that he was diving/trying for some moderate rough play and landed the proverbial critical hit.
I don't think there was any intent of it ending as it did, but he also clearly made an abnormal movement for the sport
If you were trying to kill someone it's definitely an absurd way to go about it. I'd expect 95% of the attempts using this method to fail, straight up, so yeah. The Natural 20 roll is the only way this results in the guy dying.
But that doesn't mean it wasn't an intentional attempt.
I could perhaps envision his state of mind as wanting to kill someone and realizing that if he keeps trying this particular method of attack then he might successfully do so and retain plausible deniability.
But unless there is evidence that he was out to get that guy in particular I can't think of any other real motive for it.
Tempers flare and the game is rough by nature, so there is going to be a base rate of actual 'accidents' or range-induced incidents that don't include intent to kill.
I’d think it more likely that he kept trying this particular method of attack because up until now, it hadn’t been fatal, so he assumed it wouldn’t be going forward. Most people don’t think “There’s a 5% chance of a bad outcome from my action; therefore, if I do it 20 times, the bad outcome is almost certain.” They think, “I’ve done this 19 times before without a bad outcome; this must be okay to do.”
Right, the innocent interpretation is that this gave him some small advantage (at the risk of hurting someone else) and it kept working for him so he either underestimated or didn't care about the risks.
But that pushes it more towards reckless disregard which is still a homicide-type crime.
If he is completely innocent then one has to believe that he didn't mean to swing his leg up there and indeed had no/few other options.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link