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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:this thread is bizarre because the op and friends are clearly aware the present system is not the end-all-be-all best that can possibly be done. after all, a rich scumbag's scumbag lawyer suffered consequences for his actions, which they are extremely concerned by. but they are still morally opposed to any structures that might give rise to a change in that system. The thread is bizarre because it's a baseless right-wing talking point being used to whitewash the abuses of power committed by a conservative authority figure, distracting the media conversation toward instead trying to prove once and for all that the left are the real amoral villains. That's why the OP seeks to falsely connect Sullivan's firing to his representation of Weinstein, and that's why as soon as that misleading framing was called out, the goalposts quietly shifted from "is it okay to fire lawyers for who they represent" to "is it okay to say mean things about lawyers who represent guilty people".
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Jun 12, 2019 21:44
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If we're actually planning on doing condition / response training on people, then the modern method isn't to use negative reinforcement at all ; it leads to evasive and unpredictable behaviors. You use positive reinforcement on the behaviors you want to encourage and very carefully do not reinforce or respond to negative behaviors in any way. E: okay yeah an opinion article from a lay housewife/author trying to sell her "how to train your husband like a dolphin" book is not proof that public disapproval of bad people is bad VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 21:45
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VitalSigns posted:I'll read the article, but I'm just going to say that it makes it hard to take you seriously when you repeatedly confuse negative reinforcement with positive punishment. Hey, I'm dredging up an article I read thirteen years ago on my phone for you during a work meeting! Don't hassle me on semantics! but yes, negative and positive reinforcement only, no positive punishment is the modern method. Works as well on people as on zoo animals. "Punishment" is an outdated modality, deserves to go in the dustbin of history right next to trial by ordeal.
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Jun 12, 2019 21:52
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I'm not sure that being really nice to people is gonna make them be nice to you in the context of a drastic power imbalance.
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Jun 12, 2019 21:54
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Main Paineframe posted:The thread is bizarre because it's a baseless right-wing talking point being used to whitewash the abuses of power committed by a conservative authority figure, distracting the media conversation toward instead trying to prove once and for all that the left are the real amoral villains. Uhh... there is definitely a link to be drawn between Sullivan joining Weinstein's team, student outrage sparking protests and sit-ins, and then Harvard declining to renew his term as dean. If you have sources that give more dirt on the matter then post them, because that should be good reading. But the thread is supposed to be about the general question rather than specifically Sullivan's situation, which just seemed like a good jumping off point.
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Jun 12, 2019 21:55
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OwlFancier posted:I'm not sure that being really nice to people is gonna make them be nice to you in the context of a drastic power imbalance. Also pretty sure ignoring bad behavior by powerful people is not going to work the way it does for a wife ignoring her husband. For lots of reasons, but let's start with the basics: something can't be a stimulus if the subject doesn't notice
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Jun 12, 2019 22:04
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Virtually everyone is a criminal of some sort - and virtually everyone is implicated, one way or another, in the various systems of totally unjust oppression that, taken together, constitute the society we live in. And tearing down the criminal defense bar is supposed to make things better? How asinine. Maybe give public defender services the resources and staff they need to give their clients the zealous advocacy they deserve. Maybe give people in administrative and civil proceedings a right to court-appointed counsel. So many self-described egalitarians just want to be in the secret police.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:08
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VitalSigns posted:
Yeah, it's a lay argument but generally most people are laypeople so yeah I went with that as the initial sell of the concept article because I don't know this thread's general level of expertise, lowest common denominator introduction. The core idea -- people are basically just trainable animals and about as responsible for their behavior as any other trained animal -- is the starting point, the rest follows from there. That said you're making a huge jump to leap from what I was saying to "public disapproval of bad people is bad." I'm not sure that discussing public disapproval of bad people is even the right question. There's either no such thing as "bad people" or we're all bad people; the whole notion of "bad people" vs "good people" seems medieval to me, like a discussion blaming disease on different balances of the vital humors. Similarly, "public disapproval" is a useful tool in some situations -- shaming can work great sometimes -- but it's messy and inexact and prone to error and bad responses, like all forms of punishment. As such it's neither "good" nor "bad" it's just a tool that exists. It's in a category of tools that are outdated -- punishment tools -- but that doesn't mean it's "bad," just that it's less useful, like the antique hand-powered drill I still have in the garage for some reason. In an ideal world we wouldn't have "punishment" as such at all. Just mandated therapy to ameliorate the behavior, or sanctions to prevent behavior recurrence (i.e. "this person cannot hold a position of authority until they have successfully completed anger management treatment" etc.)
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Jun 12, 2019 22:09
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:And tearing down the criminal defense bar is supposed to make things better? How asinine. Maybe give public defender services the resources and staff they need to give their clients the zealous advocacy they deserve. Maybe give people in administrative and civil proceedings a right to court-appointed counsel.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:13
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:Maybe give public defender services the resources and staff they need to give their clients the zealous advocacy they deserve. Why don't they get those resources and staff, do you think.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Similarly, "public disapproval" is a useful tool in some situations -- shaming can work great sometimes -- but it's messy and inexact and prone to error and bad responses, like all forms of punishment. Hieronymous Alloy posted:In an ideal world we wouldn't have "punishment" as such at all. Just mandated therapy to ameliorate the behavior, or sanctions to prevent behavior recurrence (i.e. "this person cannot hold a position of authority until they have successfully completed anger management treatment" etc.) Sure
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Jun 12, 2019 22:21
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That said you're making a huge jump to leap from what I was saying to "public disapproval of bad people is bad." I'm not sure that discussing public disapproval of bad people is even the right question. There's either no such thing as "bad people" or we're all bad people; the whole notion of "bad people" vs "good people" seems medieval to me The notion that behaviour is learned is not remotely incompatible with the notion that some people learn highly destructive behaviour and are thus "bad people"
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Jun 12, 2019 22:23
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VitalSigns posted:Why don't they get those resources and staff, do you think. not because of the private defense bar that’s for sure lmao
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Jun 12, 2019 22:25
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OwlFancier posted:The notion that behaviour is learned is not remotely incompatible with the notion that some people learn highly destructive behaviour and are thus "bad people" Morally bad vs bad in a utilitarian sense. My lawn mower is a bad lawn mower because it does a bad job of mowing lawns. Similarly some people (most people or all people to varying degrees) are broken and bad at the task of being people. That doesn't mean we punish them for it any more than I kick my lawnmower when it doesn't start. There are a lot of folks out there who don't deserve trials at all. They deserve commitment hearings.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:32
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Ideally. But that necessitates the construction of a society where that is possible, and you aren't going to get there by coddling the presently destructive.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:38
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The American criminal justice system is one of the most heinous injustices in the history of the modern world and if you think the people who get in its way to keep people out of its clutches are part of the problem - whoever signs their paychecks - if you think they are the problem, you’re an idiotic ultra left baby
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Jun 12, 2019 22:48
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:not because of the private defense bar that’s for sure lmao well no, because a system of justice-for-sale to the rich and powerful is a massive benefit to them and therefore they have an interest in entrenching it
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Jun 12, 2019 22:49
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:The American criminal justice system is one of the most heinous injustices in the history of the modern world and if you think the people who get in its way to keep people out of its clutches are part of the problem - whoever signs their paychecks - if you think they are the problem, you’re an idiotic ultra left baby if it's one of the most heinous injustices in history, then by definition the people entrenching and perpetuating that injustice for personal gain are part of them problem
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Jun 12, 2019 22:50
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:The American criminal justice system is one of the most heinous injustices in the history of the modern world and if you think the people who get in its way to keep people out of its clutches are part of the problem - whoever signs their paychecks - if you think they are the problem, you’re an idiotic ultra left baby So you think the justice system is bad but don't see any connection between how wealth makes you exempt from it and that injustice..?
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Jun 12, 2019 22:54
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OwlFancier posted:So you think the justice system is bad but don't see any connection between how wealth makes you exempt from it and that injustice..? OJ undoubtedly murdered his wife. Zero chance he didn’t. OJ’s constitutional rights were undoubtedly violated to such an extent (as a result of the racist-rear end LAPD) that there was no way for him to be justly convicted. OJ being acquitted was the right outcome. The same is true in virtually all criminal prosecutions - the accused is nearly always the person who “did it”, the police nearly always violated their rights unconstitutionally in the investigation. If OJ had gone to jail, I think the world would be a little bit worse place as a result of it. Do you think OJ Simpson should have gone to jail for murder, in spite of the racist prosecution?
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Jun 12, 2019 23:04
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I think maybe the effects of private legal practice are not "OJ Simpson not going to prison and nothing else" By the same logic, charles manson went to prison, therefore prison is good? Look do you think that maybe the reason why the majority of criminal prosecutions against the poor are mishandled might have something to do with the fact that the very wealthy are a: the people who run the country and b: have access to a private legal service that only they can afford and which provides for them a higher tier of legal system which means they have no reason to want to reform the one everyone else has to use? OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 23:08
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Ogmius815 posted:Here’s a good question: are posters like OwlFancier interested in the consistency of their reasoning? Are they interested in basing their positions on a set of more or less consistent ethical ideas? I ask because when I suggested we should consider universalizing our reasoning (a very common tool in ethical debate) I was accuse of playing Lord of the Universe who Makes the Rules. I don't know what you are expecting. D&D posters' brains just don't work that way. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 12, 2019 23:27
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Mate if you can't figure out that I just think wealth inequality is like, morally and practically extremely bad and that getting rid of it would mean getting rid of both the cause and effect of many of the evils in the world I dunno if that's on me.
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Jun 12, 2019 23:29
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Defendants have a right to competent and zealous defense. Eroding that right for anyone erodes it for everyone, both as a practical matter and also as a logical necessity. Addressing the inequality in our society by attacking professionals who keep people out of jail is pants on head idiotic, not least because all that inequality comes to be in a “legal” fashion.
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Jun 12, 2019 23:30
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:Defendants have a right to competent and zealous defense. Eroding that right for anyone erodes it for everyone, both as a practical matter and also as a logical necessity. Defendents absolutely do not have a right to a competent and zealous defence. People who can afford it have a right to a competent and zealous defence, that's the complaint...
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Jun 12, 2019 23:32
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OwlFancier posted:Defendents absolutely do not have a right to a competent and zealous defence. False. See Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) You’re right that public defender services are terribly over-burdened and don’t have enough resources. But that’s a deficiency with those services, not the private bar (which in most places is the same actual attorneys, just paid by people who can afford it) being “too good” at what they do. DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 23:37
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You're describing a completely fictional reality, rights that are not upheld don't exist, are you seriously suggesting that everyone gets a competent and zealous defence?
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Jun 12, 2019 23:39
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The solution to overworked public defenders (who aren’t “bad” - usually they are actually the best and most experienced defense attorneys around) isn’t to make the private bar (most of whom also serve or served as public defenders) worse.
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Jun 12, 2019 23:42
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Again you're completely ignoring the political reality that as long as the people who make the decisions have solutions to their problems that are not available to the wider population, you will never get improvements to the conditions of the wider population. Now I grant you there is the option of violently overthrowing the ruling classes but I'm sure that would be objectionable to you on the grounds of "you don't make things better for people by taking power away from the people who have it"
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Jun 12, 2019 23:44
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Harrison Bergeron was a parody. That’s all I can say.
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Jun 12, 2019 23:46
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I am not sure how a different lawyer getting OJ Simpson off for a good reason makes Sullivan not a scumbag, we're talking about two different people. Like maybe when the LAPD gets slapped for being racist to a black celebrity that is good, and when a different rich guy pays to subvert justice that is bad, and we can say "hey that good legal thing is good" and "that bad legal thing is bad" and we don't have to lump all legal things into a single undifferentiated category to say either they're all good or they all must be bad VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jun 13, 2019 |
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Jun 13, 2019 00:00
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VitalSigns posted:
The problem is that society hasn't evolved enough to the point you can just sit on a throne and tell us all what is good or bad unerringly so people have to make rules that generalize to cover both people you like and dislike.
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Jun 13, 2019 00:13
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OwlFancier posted:You're describing a completely fictional reality, rights that are not upheld don't exist, are you seriously suggesting that everyone gets a competent and zealous defence? That's not what the word "right" means. A legal "right" is a should, not necessarily an is. This is an incredibly important distinction that for some reason a lot of people fumble. The problem with the "rights that aren't enforced aren't rights" argument is that it invalidates the whole concept of legal rights. You only need to make "should" arguments when "should" isn't is.
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Jun 13, 2019 00:34
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That's not what the word "right" means. I'm not fumbling it, I am suggesting that legal rights that aren't enforced serve primarily to portray a non existent concept of universalism and ultimately to entrench the circumstances that create the actually existing lack of rights that people actually live with. Pointing to a book and saying "actually you do have that right it says so here" is loving useless, doubly so when you do it to prop up the system that serves to deliberately deny you those rights in practice. Legal rights are invalid if you live in a society that consistently does not uphold them. The law is a tool, not an end in and of itself, and like a tool you should judge it by its outcome, not by what it claims to be. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Jun 13, 2019 |
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Jun 13, 2019 00:37
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:The problem is that society hasn't evolved enough to the point you can just sit on a throne and tell us all what is good or bad unerringly so people have to make rules that generalize to cover both people you like and dislike. That's okay I don't think that's required. Nobody got up on a throne and said "hey white people stop calling black people the N word, or else" and yet by explaining why we think it's bad and wrong we have convinced more and more people to stop doing it and to stop tolerating it from others. So it's clear we don't have to wait for the king of the world to tell us what is good and bad, we can reason for ourselves and convince others in the meantime. Also worth noting that 100% of the people who did say and are saying " you can't judge white people for saying a word you don't like as though you're king of the world, or people will be silenced for saying anything someone else doesn't like" are horrible racist shitbags, so ya know think about whose side you're on
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Jun 13, 2019 00:45
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OwlFancier posted:I'm not fumbling it, I am suggesting that legal rights that aren't enforced serve primarily to portray a non existent concept of universalism and ultimately to entrench the circumstances that create the actually existing lack of rights that people actually live with. The law in its majestic equality permits the rich and poor alike the right to buy a million dollars worth of justice
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Jun 13, 2019 00:51
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OwlFancier posted:I'm not fumbling it, I am suggesting that legal rights that aren't enforced serve primarily to portray a non existent concept of universalism and ultimately to entrench the circumstances that create the actually existing lack of rights that people actually live with. Again, though, you don't shift the discourse or get anywhere by NOT making a strong "should" argument, and "people have the legal right to competent representation and they are not getting it, that needs to change" is that argument. Dismissing advocacy as "pointing at a book" is not just blind, it's actively harmful. It's surrender.
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Jun 13, 2019 00:56
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VitalSigns posted:The law in its majestic equality permits the rich and poor alike the right to buy a million dollars worth of justice Literally the quote about sleeping under bridges is basically 90% of how I view the law. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Again, though, you don't shift the discourse or get anywhere by NOT making a strong "should" argument, and "people have the legal right to competent representation and they are not getting it, that needs to change" is that argument. You can make a very strong should argument without appealing to any farcical notions of extant legal equality, I would suggest you can make a much stronger should argument without appealing to those lies. If your concept of equality and the imperative to secure it can't go beyond the bounds of legalism that's pathetic, frankly. A legalistic view of rights is such loving weak advocacy as to be very easily, as we are clearly seeing, used to justify the practical curtailment of such "rights" by arguing that because they exist on paper we don't need drastic changes to actually achieve them. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Jun 13, 2019 |
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Jun 13, 2019 01:07
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OwlFancier posted:
Legalism is the option that's practically available. Like, advocating for a legal right to be protected is concrete and specific. Fund public defenders. Set maximum public defender caseloads. etc. etc. etc. People talk a lot about "going beyond" practical measures but they always shut up when they get asked what specifically that means and how specifically it will make a concrete difference in people's lives. I have increasingly little patience for people who attack actual real measures that could really help people because we're all supposed to be focused on cloud castles instead.
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Jun 13, 2019 01:43
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What do you think the people pointing to supposed existing legal rights are doing if not complaining about real measures to improve people's conditions.
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Jun 13, 2019 01:46
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