Hacker News Reader

Comment by gt_ | Hacker News Reader

There’s definitely nothing new or different about privatizing criminal justice, and considering they are merely adding a middle-man to probation, it’s not radical either. This has been done many times. It results in cruel, unjust behavior hidden from public scrutiny and regulation. America has enough of this garbage as it is.

View on HN

Here you've crossed into name calling of the sort the site guidelines ask you not to do. Edit: actually you managed to break three guidelines: that one; the one about shallow dismissals; and this one: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

It's fine to disagree or be critical in a substantive way, as many others in the thread have done. But it's not fine to arbitrarily reduce a subject to something ugly and trivial in order to demean it. In addition to being uncivil, that's off topic, since when you do that you're not engaging with the actual thing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(Edit: I originally said "What's not fine is to spew reductionist bile"—but this also breaks the site guideline against name calling. Sorry! Not always the easiest rule to avoid breaking.)

I'm unable to spot the name calling you're referring to. The comment is on topic indisputably, and no reductionism is visible to me. You're being unjust to the commented. He's not uncivil at all too. It seems to me that you're failing here as a moderator in fostering discussion with diverse viewpoints.

"this garbage" is obviously name calling in the sense that https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html uses the term.

The comment makes two reductionist moves: it casually substitutes one thing for another as if the two were the same, in order to tar one with derision proper to the other; and it uses the modifier "merely" followed by something trivial in order to demean the subject. I don't know what you call reductionism, but to me that word is not only justified, the comment is a poster child of it.

That comment is making a deduction given the details of the business, and includes the commenters thoughts about it's future. WRT merely, when saying "they are merely adding a middle-man to probation", that's not reductionism if they're indeed "merely adding a middle-man to probation". WRT your citation of the guidelines, this interpretation might indeed be the strongest plausible interpretation of this business model that the founders have been explaining.

If I wrote yet another minimal lisp implementation in a weekend, and marketed it as if it was going to best Chez Scheme in all benchmarks, and someone came along and told "yeah but this is just a reiteration of sth. we already had, nothing new here, and your ways seem a bit shady", would we have to discount it as reductionism?

You might disagree what people think, but you should not think and decide instead of them. I appreciate the work you do as a moderator of this fabulous community, but in this case you're openly siding with one side of the discourse. Either do not do that, or add to the guidelines that "HN moderation will vouch for what HN companies are doing, disagreements on their busines models are unwelcome". And also, while at it, I can not vouch for the comment I'm talking about, and I would rather.

I post these things all the time. It isn't taking sides, except insofar as a moderator has no option but to make calls about things. Nor does it matter whose work it is or who owns the company: I say the same things in any context, as anyone with the stamina to slog through my comment history can see.

I guess furthering this thread is of no use so I will conclude my participation with a sincere invitation to reflect upon and reconsider your point on this particular situation. I understand your motives, but believe you've made a wrong call this time.

Many of the severest problems in the criminal justice system are those encouraged by perverse incentives in the legal system and the laws themselves. If someone is seriously interested in justice reform, the last thing they should do is introduce layers of profit motive and competitive business strategy to their reform project. Personally, I'd use stronger terms than garbage to describe the issues inherent in bringing private industry into this area of society.

Is definitely name calling (not to mention uncivil) to say that someone spews reductionist bile.

That's a good point! Let me see if I can find a more neutral way to say that.

I don't think it is possible to be cynical enough when dealing with private industry's involvement in this area, so on that note, here's how I think it will go politically.

Step 1. Allow Promise to amass a useful amount of people who are awaiting trial/convicted of minor crimes.

Step 2. Suddenly threaten to shut them down and immediately incarcerate all the people that Promise is keeping out of jail, unless they give your corporate donors access to their captive and monitored labor pool.

Step 3. If this goes well and makes everybody money, assist your donors in a corporate takeover of Promise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com