Comment by syngrog66 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by syngrog66 | Hacker News Reader

agreed

unless -- based on personal experience -- if it's treated as suspicious by the local police/neighbors, even if its a skinny, geeky-looking, white male who goes out walking alone late at night.

if I had a nickel for every time I've been harassed by police or local do-gooders, I'd have a lot of those nickels. and I'm not even of the demographic that PC-ness says should be oppressed. (ostensibly: black+male, or male+gay, or non-white, or female, or mean-faced, or weapon-carrying, etc. in reality: straight white male, innocent, no weapons, not in a gang, no drugs, etc.) "why are you walking alone at this time? why are you looking at things? implied: are you a terrorist? a pedophile? explain immediately!"

We do not (always) live in an intellectual-friendly culture. At least not in the USA, 2017. We (might, often) live in a small-minded, hyper-stereotyped, very ignorant local culture. Obviously it depends on precisely where you live. SF on Friday at 8pm? very different than Kansas, small town, Wednesday, etc.

not even joking. (And I submit this knowing it's not a HN-hivemind/PC-aligned viewpoint, and thus will be downvoted. I do not care anymore.)

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14542573 and marked it off-topic.

I wanted to give you some feedback that I find this behavior to be passive aggressive and toxic. I shared an opinion and a perspective, based on actual life experience, which was related to the topic at hand, the comment I was replying to. I wrote it in good faith. And then, from my perspective, you parachute in and sabotage it.

I appreciate that you acted in a way that you think is trying to improve matters.

But any normal person, in RL, would consider your action to be an attack, and passive aggressive. It's chilling and toxic.

Well, you know, statistical method. Likelihood of you being a rapist or a burglar scoping their next target are higher in the eyes of the cops if you walk by yourself at these hours.

I've been stopped by the police in the small hours when I've been outside but my friendly demeanor and easy-going attitude -- "What's up?", "Sure, here's my ID", "Nothing in my pockets except keys, some cash and a phone, take a look", "I work most of the nights and sleep at day" -- usually quickly gets me out of the occasional awkward cop situation.

I am not mad at them, they're trying their best. It's better than having no cops on the streets at all.

Grumpy dudes in bad mood should be able to walk around public streets without being harassed too often. Unless they are noisy or otherwise their behavior suggest they are the problem. If I had to deal with cops and pretend I am in friendly mood and have easy-going attitude, it would take joy away from walks significantly.

Guess I am lucky that I live in area where going by walk somewhere is not considered bad behavior.

(I am also lucky to live in fairly low crime area, so I can walk without being afraid of being robbed or harassed by dudes or worst.)

Agreed. It's just that I am naturally more friendly and since I've had a big "violence career" -- I grew up in a small town FULL of bullies and had to learn to stand up for myself very early -- I learned how to avoid conflict by being outgoing and friendly (I am a pretty big dude physically). Two or three minutes of mediocre acting goes a long way and I don't deem it a big sacrifice.

I completely agree the grumpy people shouldn't be assumed to be criminals by default but what I described is an agreeable compromise for me.

Maybe get a dog? When I was younger, I got away with all kinds of sketchy "roaming around at night in the suburbs" activities with "Hey, I'm just a responsible teenager walking the family dog"

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