Comment by s_q_b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by s_q_b | Hacker News Reader

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One problem is that, even if you have your device GPS tracked, it can be hard to get the police to intervene, especially in large cities.

Someone once stole my iPhone 5. I had find my iPhone enabled, and the phone was locked down. The thief began texting me from his own phone, demanding ransoms ranging from $100-$1000 for the return of the phone, while aggressively threatening to throw my phone into the Potomac.

So I called the police.

I reported the theft, and the address of the thief's residence, and the fact that the phone was tracked by GPS. They transferred me to a Detective, who told me that they would file a stolen property report.

Throughout the week, I continued to receive increasingly erratic messages from the thief. The one consistent message was that if I didn't pay, he was insistent on throwing my phone into the river.

So I arranged to meet him at my bank at the Dupont Circle branch (a busy location with guards.) I would make out a check to cash for $200, he would give me my iPhone, and I would stick around until the check was cashed.

So when he arrived (we arranged to meet via picture exchange, so I had that as well as evidence), the thief approached me at the bank door. There was a police car immediately outside the bank, and I shouted to the officer "HELP!"

The man ran.

I went to the officer and said, "That man stole my phone!" Instantly, he jumped in his vehicle, told me to hop in the passenger seat, and we took off down P street. The officer stopped the car, sprinted after the thief, and he obeyed the cop's order to stop.

The man was taken to jail for theft and resisting arrest.

I said I didn't want to press charges as he was obviously severely disturbed. I asked if he could be given rehabilitation or treatment. They said they would place him on a 72-hour psychiatric hold.

As far as I know, that maybe only got him a shower, a few meals, and three days in a psych ward at GW Hospital, but I thought it better than anything else I could do.

I still wonder if I could have done something else to help the guy.

But the real moral of my story, is that even with a GPS beacon, it can be very very difficult to get the police to recover stolen property.

You're a good person, and you also shared an effective way of retrieving stolen property that I'd never thought about before.

He's a good person. Me and a million others would have pressed charges. Are we bad people?

A morality in which someone steals something from you, and then also incurs moral obligations on you to address their mental health issues, isn't really scalable. If you want to help him and go above and beyond, more power to you and my blessings upon you, but it is a bonus, not an obligation.

You speak of "their mental health issues", as if psychiatric disorders are a purely personal burden.

I would no more refuse to help a mentally ill person than I would refuse to perform CPR on a person having a heart attack.

They didn't choose to be this way.

It took longer for a virtue signaller to show up on this post than I expected. I expect most of them reached my second sentence and noticed I already pointed out that you had the option of helping them if you like, just not an obligation.

So are you saying pretty words to make yourself feel better while trying to put me down, or do you actually go and seek out mentally ill people to help out on some regular basis? And given how grand your words are, I'm not going to be satisfied with merely giving some people a buck every so often.

I fully expect those are empty words. I am not impressed. You are not virtuous for saying them.

I'll repeat: It makes no moral sense for someone committing a crime against you to create obligations on you. It is a bonus above and beyond what you are obligated to if you help them.

There was no obligation to me, just an opportunity to help.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," is a good secular rule as well as religious.

I believe we'd be better off as a society if more people simply helped, as best they can, when the situation presents itself.

But you're not obligated to help, in my view, or especially not to seek out opportunities to help.

I suppose I just don't see it as an imposed obligation, but a chance for charity, even a little bit.

As far as morality goes:

Theological: Failure to help is a sin of omission, as it violates the Golden Rule. (Christian version, but there are many other examples in the major religions.)

Political: Locking someone up with other criminals creates a greater cost to society than psychiatric treatment.

Secular: Unreciprocated generosity relieves suffering. It can also lead to an improvement in reputation.

We could discuss each moral foundation in detail, from St. Augustine to Singer if you'd like.

As for my personal experience with mental illness:

I was able to convinve my cousin, who was in full blown psychosis, to get to a hospital (way harder than it sounds.)

I spent most of my childhood helping to care for my uncle, both physically and mentally disabled.

Also, I do volunteer work regularly for the homeless, many if not most of whom are mentally ill, in my home city of Washington.

Answering your (perhaps rhetorical) question is hard without being there to see the actual guy.

Morality is situation specific, OP was there, perhaps if you were there you would have done the same.

There may have been other people whom most anyone would press charges apon.

Revenge is a dry & tasteless dish against some. Some deserve justice, some need only pity and help. Rehabilitation is logically better than punishment. One case is unlikely to alter overall deterrance. Thus each case should be judged on its merits.

Perhaps the guy's obvious disturbance was a ploy to fool the OP, luckily the cops could assit in this judgement with assesment.

This is the failure of Zero tolerance, when it produces obvious injustice. Equally this is the greatness of a judiciary who weight not only guilt but intent and circumstance.

The only bad or anti-social thing, is abrogating personal responsibility. Such as avoiding Jury Duty. Asimov's 1st law shows both an action or inaction that cause harm are equivalent.

Either the thief is prevented from committing further crimes, or more people will have their property stolen by him.

There is a cost to refusing to press charges, paid by his future victims.

Based on this logic, he should have been killed rather than arrested. No future victims!

If we're going to play "absurd conclusions" game, my move is to declare that we should kill everyone. No future victims, ever!

You're assuming the thief is a rational actor.

I assure you, he was not.

I'm describing what will happen. Motives are irrelevant to the point I was making.

But you're not describing what will happen. You're speculating based on your axiom that all offenders are recidivists.

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