The idea of having a moral compass is antagonistic to the worldview of a lot of people in tech, so they are instinctively dismissive or condescending to anyone who does.
for those unaware, even in deep blue New York, Riker's has been run as a Guantanamo-style prison camp where there is no civilian oversight over conditions or corrections officers. to me, the most appalling aspect has been the amount of people locked up indefinitely over misdemeanors and thrown into gen pop to basically die
> But several men have been on Rikers Island and in other city Department of Correction jails as their criminal cases snake their way through the court system for years — in one case a decade and counting — according to a list of the longest-serving detainees in city custody obtained by THE CITY.
> Even worse than that, they're locked up indefinitely before trial.
Not painting with a large brush but a lot of them are very dangerous and it seems, with reform bail they let the door open to a lot of violent crime, at least here in NY it's shot up through the roof. I'm definitely for reform but reform done responsibly and not rushed either, because I could see this backfiring even worse.
> Ten years awaiting trial is simply unacceptable.
That is clearly wrong and should not happen. However, many dangerous violent criminals (recidivists) get bailed out and continue their crime sprees. That is clearly something that should not happen. I'm all for reforming this system but this should be done responsibly.
> The data now reflect: 2 percent of the nearly 100,000 cases related to the state’s changed bail laws, between July 2020 and June 2021, led to a rearrest on a violent felony while another case was pending. That’s down from nearly 4 percent from the prior data set.
> Less than one-half a percent of cases led to someone being rearrested for a violent felony with a firearm — or 429 cases.
A lot of them are accused of being dangerous. They are not "dangerous" until actually convicted of a crime -- I do not hold an accusation alone as sufficient cause to imprison a human indefinitely.
They need to invest heavily in the prisons and jails, not just let them go as a short-term compromise. Investing in proper treatment of criminals would do a lot to reduce recidivism.
All of the actual solutions are hard and expensive but that's how it is. Thoughtlessly letting career criminals go so they commit 3 more crimes before the trial for the first one isn't the more compassionate move. To the net public at least.
Same deal with closing mental institutions in the 1980s without an alternative.
Can anyone help explain how things like this have not been changed yet due to the direct violations of the constitution? What happened to: 1) right to a speedy trial, 2) innocent until proven guilty, 3) no cruel and unusual punishment?
It seems to me the criminal justice system is openly and flagrantly violating the constitution, and has been for a long time.
Right, pretrial detention is clearly already at odds with the constitution, specifically "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". Your person has been seized without conviction.
Eliminating pretrial detention would force prosecutors to ensure the right to a speedy trial if, in fact, the accused is dangerous.
> In a 6 to 3 ruling, the newly-dominant rightwing majority of the nation’s highest court barred federal courts from hearing new evidence that was not previously presented in a state court as a result of the defendant’s ineffective legal representation.
If they're comfortable executing innocents, they're unlikely to care about timely trials.
it means that essentially the corrections officer union has gummed up any and all reforms passed through legislation (think video cameras in public areas, anti-violence training, etc.). this has led to a situation where there is a preventable suicide about once every 2 weeks in the prison and state officials are calling for federal intervention since they can't effectively change conditions; https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-man-dies-r...
Oversight could easily mean installing surveillance infrastructure to monitor guards as well as inmates. Making that public would offer even more accountability.
That the progressive nature of a city's electorate generally doesn't reflect in its police/corrections forces; civilian oversight is severely limited and pushed back against. The NYPD was openly at war with it's theoretical executive, DiBlasio, including doxxing his daughter.
I'm not sure it's a matter of political identity here, the police just push back against anything that makes them accountable, they want to be able to kill, maim, and hurt without being questioned.
If you believe Facebook is terrible, isn't taking a high-paid position there and gamifying their internal processes in your favor while not helping a floundering business plug the holes in its sinking ship the real way to take direct action? If several hundred people independently did this on their own (and perhaps not even intentionally), it could have a meaningful impact in taking down one of the worst corporations in human history.
You're essentially promoting the old "bringing them down from the inside" defense, which next to "I was only following orders" is the biggest lie we tell ourselves in order to sleep better
I don't want to work for FAANG for various reasons, but their negative externalities are either things I'd have no connection with or be in a position to push back against.
Sure, the bosses may say "do it anyway" and my only counter would then be to leave, but I expect most people in FAANG aren't actually connected to $relevant_controversy.
At least, that's my impression from (mostly) the outside.
That sounds like a rather depressing, unfulfilled existence to me. It's like someone getting a job with a military defence contractor, then sitting at their desk doing crossword puzzles for a decade.
I agree with most of your point but why be dismissive of the very evident reality of how corroded democracy has become in the Western world in large part because of how Facebook-poisoned certain demographics and their elected representives have become?
Two-thirds of respondents (67.2%, 95% CI 66.1%, 68.4%) perceived “a serious threat to our democracy,” but more than 40% agreed that “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy” and that “in America, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants.” Half (50.1%) agreed that “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States.”
Because frankly all of that stuff isn't really a big deal (and I knew I'd get a rise when I brought this up, couldn't help myself).
I've seen a coup staged firsthand, directly experienced it happening in a country I lived in, watched the tanks rolling down the road to the government district which they proceeded to occupy, and everything that came before and after.
In the US there are a lot of people with loony opinions out there, but fundamentally there's a military which is on the side of the elected government. There's an elections process which is too distributed to suspend or corrupt nationally (sure it can get screwed up locally and does). There's also a free media and Internet. These are the pillars that hold up both the good and bad democracies around the world.
People with a lot of anxiety will poke holes in all of those statements, they will list the ways the US is messed up because that's what they know. But it's just not the same as a country where the elected government actually falls. US institutions today are all vastly healthier today than the countries where that happens.
I think it's good to have some degree of anxiety because it pushes us to solve problems but the US just isn't having a civil war or having its civilian government replaced any time soon, I'd stake everything I own on it.
I'd recommend you take a long hard look around if you think fascism isn't possible in the US. The modern GOP is now predicated on a belief that the last election was stolen, and that they need to steal the next one to compensate. Fascism doesn't require a coup, and it's plausible that US fascism won't use one.
The US has always been fascist when it comes to international politics. First its reach was mostly limited to the Americas, but after World War 2 and the start of the Cold War, its fascist control spread across the globe.
It would be more of a surprise if the fascism they display internationally would never make it back to the US. After all, it is the same people making the decisions internationally and domestically, and the disappearance of the call logs from January 6th show that there are parts of the military open to negotiations.
Amazon has a pretty developed video and display advertising market for publishers called Unified Ad Marketplace; for our business, it's typically in second behind AdX/Adsense for revenue and impressions won. That said, I'm not seeing any revenue breakout from Amazon that specifies how much this side of the business makes.
WSJ's reporting is very good but their editorial board is maybe the most off-kilter in the entire industry; like 1/3rd of their op-eds are asking why the Supreme Court won't take up a case to allow employers to bring whips to the office.
I mean the billion-dollar per mile subways, the graft, the garbage collection, holding up mixed concrete deliveries (ruining it), etc., etc. it does not end.
David Corn was the first journalist to directly quote the Steele dossier in the lead-up to the 2016 election, in Mother Jones. We now know that the Steele dossier was propaganda.
