"I learned that you should go straight to the person you're upset with rather than go to authorities."
This is bullshit and dumb advice. If someone steals my bike and I find out who it is, I'm not going to go to his apartment and beat him to death in the middle of the day (smart money on confronting a scumbag not leading to a productive conversation).
Fuck that. The reason we have "authorities" is because we have people that can't figure out how to live in a society. Why should someone not use the framework that we've invented to resolve issues?
edit: Whoops, I forgot that the internet is the place in which "snitches get stitches" and no one reports serious crimes to the police because there's a batman in each of us.
Yeah, but there are second order effects. You've heard the terms "tattletale" and "snitch". They developed in reaction to a police force that is seen as outsiders, and as violent and arbitrary. If you invoke the "authorities," you're punished by your peer group, because the authorities tend to make the whole group's life more difficult.
Instead of invoking "the authorities" you're left with direct confrontation, or often a makeshift internal justice system mediated by insider "elders" of some stripe.
Anyway, your position is understandable, but it also betrays a middle class privilege that most inmates don't experience.
Sure, this advice might be helpful in the context of "you're in prison, the person that slighted you is also in prison," but outside of that, it's advice that only serves to aid the aggressor.
Also, why are you suggesting that my position is "middle class privilege" when you're suggesting that you understand ad-hoc prison justice systems?
> Sure, this advice might be helpful in the context of "you're in prison, the person that slighted you is also in prison," but outside of that, it's advice that only serves to aid the aggressor.
I've actually found "deal directly with the person with whom you have the issue" is a good default rule in most areas of life (work, social, etc.) even where the issue is the kind of thing for which there is an available authority.
Recourse to authority when that fails, or when there is a specific reason in the immediate case to believe that dealing directly will be ineffective or involve intolerable risks is still part of the equation, but not the default action.
A thousand times this. When did it become wrong to bring up issues with the persons involved? This is one of the things I have noticed as a growing personality traits largely in the younger generation, where all conflict is avoided through passing all responsibility up to whichever higher authority is around. So we have given the authorities the power to create systems like this and still haven't realized that sometimes, when that person who you have an issue with, is prone to violence, lies, and numerous other skullduggeries, you have to walk into that confrontation either armed yourself or with some visible external backing. I would venture to say our police state national security apparatus is quickly falling under this category.
It's a false dichotomy. There's no solid rule. Sometimes going to the authorities is the best course of action, sometimes a direct approach, and sometimes going to a third party. It depends on the situation.
Because when anyone else reports a crime, bad things tend to happen [at a statistically higher rate]. Everyone suffers, including you. Or maybe nothing happens at all because first responders don't get there fast enough, or they choose not to do anything once they arrive. Or maybe they do the right thing, and you (or your family) suffer when the guy you called the cops on comes back and kicks your ass, or breaks your sister's leg.
Last on the list of possible outcomes is that the cops stop the "bad guy" and everyone is hunky dory.
Contrast that to the white/middle class historical experience of police being generally helpful and protective. Middle class white people call the police (predominately other middle class white people), and good things happen. Then they wonder why everyone doesn't just call the police when they need some help. That's privilege.
There are portions of society that believe, sometimes with good cause, that bringing police into an interaction will result in a negative outcome for all involved, not just for the perpetrators.
That said, please stop perpetuating a strawman argument. You've taken the most extreme interpretation of the original statement, propped it up and vilified it. Considering all the possible ways you could have interpreted the statement, I think you are doing the writer a disservice.
I'm not perpetuating a strawman. The reason why there's a secondary justice system (normally in which the aggressors are the victors) is because people allow it to exist.
I learned that you should go straight to the person you're upset with rather than go to authorities.
Your response:
This is bullshit and dumb advice. If someone steals my bike and I find out who it is, I'm not going to go to his apartment and beat him to death in the middle of the day (smart money on confronting a scumbag not leading to a productive conversation).
So it appears you are interpreting "go straight to" as "confront with violence"?
There are any number of circumstances where going to the person you believe responsible may be beneficial over including the authorities. For example:
1) You are wrong in who you think perpetrated the crime. Involving the authorities may cause great harm to that individual, event if they are found innocent. Talking to them first may clear up misunderstandings.
2) It was a misunderstanding. Maybe there wasn't even a crime, what you thought you saw/experienced wasn't the case. Getting a fuller picture may result in your reassessment of the situation.
3) You don't think the punishment meted out will fit the crime committed, and you want to give them a chance to make amends. Maybe they are young, and you can speak to a parental figure to try to resolve the issue.
4) You have some relation to them or people close to them that you would rather not sour.
That isn't to say don't go to the authorities. Of course there are cases where you go directly to the authorities. I doubt the author would dispute that.
The real world is a place of nuance. I feel confident asserting that you know this to some degree. Acting like it isn't doesn't do anything useful, least of all lead to a conversation that has much benefit.
Are you suggesting that the victims of police indifference and misconduct are actually to blame for those? That doesn't really contradict the "privilege" diagnosis.
Because the outcome can be different on the person filing a claim. I am sure that in the majority of the world a daughter of rich businessmen/politician/high ranking police officer will get a lot different treatment and have her taken seriously by the the police while reporting sexual assault than some poor girl from the ghettos or working poor background. (I really really hope that I am wrong in that assumption)
Sure that's the right choice when confronting a possibly desperate criminal, but realize this: you are hiding behind a system. If you are a white male then this is often the default choice because most systems in this country were designed by us for us. If you grew up as a black male in America then you will probably think twice about involving the authorities because past experience shows a lower base probability of it working out in your favor.
More generally, working out issues directly with other human beings is a core skill that will serve you through your whole life. Institutions and systems might be there to keep the peace, but they are big, slow and calcified to do things a certain way. As an empathetic individual you are much more empowered to work things out with other individuals by gauging their perspective and where your mutual interests lie. As the article describes, prison is a microcosm of this where you may literally live or die by your ability to navigate these waters, but make no mistake, you can use these skills every single day of your life, and geeks are often some of the worst in this area.
Amen. Reality isn't as meritocratic or simplistic as the parent commenter believes. Authorities don't always care and sometimes enjoy tormenting people.
Also, dependence upon authorities is tantamount to learned helplessness. Handle most of your own shit, because creating work for other people won't win you any friends... It also would look weak. And if there's one constant of human nature , it's that weakness invites aggression. Further, I'd hazard a guess that behind bars, friends are the most important currency, whether they are guards or inmates... You want enough so you don't get fucked with.
Uh, you could also respond to me. I don't think that reality is a meritocracy or simplistic. Authorities often don't care, I get this (I live in New York).
It's not about dependence on authorities, it's knowing that if you're in a situation in which your options are "go to the police" or "take care of this myself," you're not really dealing with even minded people.
If you're in jail, sure, by all means, go try to resolve a personal issue yourself. But that's not the sort of things you could even go to authorities for.
I think you're being pedantic. To the surprise of absolutely no-one, this axiom (like all axioms) can't be applied universally.
This advice was doled out in the context of earning "respect". As such, it's more applicable when working within a persistent social construct (schoolyard, office environment, family, etc) - and not random strangers who you will likely never meet again (bike thieves, DMV clerks, magazine subscription salespeople, et al).
I'm just making a barely-educated guess, but I think the reasoning goes, the 'authorities' are the enemy. If in prison the currency is respect, yes you are disrespected if something of yours is stolen, but the "disproportionate response" of going to the authorities (read: the people who took your freedom) is orders of magnitude worse.
Prison isn't the most reasonable place. If the school bully steals your lunch money, your best bet is generally to stand up for yourself. After all, nobody likes a snitch.
The edit quip was necessary. I thought that hackernews would be safe from the "internet tough guy" syndrome, but I guess not.
I mean, I-get-it. The poor tend to go to jail at a higher rate than their more well-off counterparts for various reasons, but the "don't snitch" bullshit just keeps criminals safe to keep hurting their communities.
That "don't snitch" thing holds true in most prison cultures, the same as it does in many military, and business settings.
You're new to a surrounding situation about which you know very little, and your peers, be they inmates, soldiers, or executives, could be engaged in illegal matters which are connected to larger, more organized criminal ventures.
You "rat" on someone you see doing wrong, but the people you just "ratted" to are involved in the larger criminal endeavor, so the people you "ratted" on are the first to know that you did so...
Meh; I agree with that advice for many situations, and playing "tough guy" has nothing to do with it.
You're missing the prereq of building some skills at dealing with people -- not "confronting" them, not attacking them (verbally or physically), but by simply showing them simultaneously that you have a spine but no chip on your shoulder. Then you give them a clean way out of the "misunderstanding" (or sometimes an actual misunderstanding). It's all psychology, and practice.
I'm not an expert at this, but I see people around me all the time doing it so disastrously wrongly that I feel like an expert just by comparison. I have two neighbors (two middle-aged couples) who have been miserable for a couple of years now because they had a minor disagreement (one's improperly-connected waste water system was leaking into the others' property) which they "addressed" by only going to the authorities -- via lawsuits, petitions to regulatory boards, etc. -- instead of resolving it between themselves.
In the end one of them "lost" and one of them "won", but they're both stuck living next door to someone with a virulent hatred for them.
If either side had any real skills at managing conflict this would never have happened.
Most conflicts that happen do not need to involve the authorities -- especially the ones that start small and escalate until the authorities get involved (intentionally or not).
The bar to what kind of conflict merits appealing to authorities first (instead of direct dealing first) is higher if you're in prison, I imagine, but still -- most everyday conflicts start below that bar.
Interpersonal conflicts with co-workers, non-scary problems with neighbors (more "they make a lot of noise at 2am" than "they set my dog on fire"), vandalism, etc..
Another example -- while my wife was in school we lived in a slightly rough neighborhood, and once someone threw a large rock at the front of our house... something about as heavy as a few bricks. It would have easily shattered the window, if it had hit it; instead it broke a bit of siding dropped onto the porch.
I could have hidden and called the police; I could have run outside screaming and threatening the kids that were around. But I thought about it first. I was a faceless white guy to them -- at work much of the time -- and someone was showing off how bad they were and attacking my house.
So instead I went out and spent 20 minutes making myself not a faceless white guy. I talked to everyone I could find -- mostly kids, a few adults -- and just explained what had happened, explained that I wasn't trying to find who had thrown the rock, just wanted to be sure everyone knew what had happened and that it was a dumb idea. I was a dumb kid, once; my dumb mistakes had included setting an empty house on fire, accidentally; so I knew how this kind of stuff happened, but it needed to be stopped before anyone got hurt.
I met a bunch of people (and talked about lots of things other than rocks thrown); afterwards it never happened again, and I felt a hell of a lot safer than if I had just stayed in the house and called the police (who wouldn't have been able to do a damn thing anyway, of course, except their presence would have turned me into a faceless, scared white guy).
All of this has little to do with snitching, with rich/poor (though that is relevant to how useful the authorities are to you, of course...), and more to do with the respect you get for honest dealing, if you can do it intelligently.
That's a bit of an extreme example. Think about this in the context of an office environment. Often times it is better to work out issues with someone directly. It commands a lot more respect and often times helps to cut through red tape.
A lot of the time if you go to your boss over a problem with someone that you work with, they view you as a "tattle-tale" or somebody that is too weak to stand up for yourself.
I hardly think that office disagreements are the sort of thing the advice is meant to deal with.
Also, be careful with taking your own advice on this one. If you keep working with someone personally instead of formally, you're giving him/her the chance to manipulate a situation against you.
>> "This is bullshit and dumb advice. If someone steals my bike and I find out who it is, I'm not going to go to his apartment and beat him to death in the middle of the day"
It seemed to me he meant if you have an issue with someone go to them and work it out before taking further action. e.g. you hear word someone has a problem with you. Go to them directly and try to resolve the situation. It could be a simple misunderstanding. If you go the authorities straight away you will make an enemy for yourself for sure.
I doubt people are stealing each others bicycles in prison.
You should try to broaden your arsenal of social interactions. Sure, tattling and beating people to death have their place, but there are one or two other methods for resolving conflicts as well.
if arnor.knows(a_hole, stole_wallet) and (a_hole not instanceof psychopath or a_hole.physical_strength < arnor.physical_strength)
arnor.confront(a_hole)
if not arnor.has_wallet
arnor.punch_in_face(a_hole)
// When violence enters the picture, things get ugly.
goto tattle
else
[lbl] tattle
arnor.tattle_on(a_hole)
Cute, but when you're confronting someone, the situation can always turn violent. Let's say that you confront someone and end up punching him/her in the mouth and get a cut on your hand. You could get a serious infection or a disease, even though you "won."
Really? You don't confront a colleague about not doing what he promised, but you go to your boss, because it could turn violent? You don't confront your neighbour about the noisy party, but you call the landlord, because it could turn violent? You don't confront your teammate about not giving enough passes, but you complain to your coach, because it could turn violent?
You are showing quite a lack of imagination in applying the maxim you complain about in your top-level post.
Kidding aside, I would be extremely unlikely to resort to a violent act in the case of a stolen wallet. If a_hole won't give it back, it's really not that big of a deal. Reprint photos of wife and kids, Visit ATM, Cancel some credit cards, register a hold with a credit bureau, and move on with your life.
That doesn't make you a caveman, it just means that we have a very different perspective on what winning and losing is. People who resort to petty theft have their own set of problems. They are rarely winners in any way that I would envy them. There is a point to be made in the fact that letting someone get away with theft sets a precedent that it is tolerated. That is certainly wrong and a clear hole in my outlook which I have yet to resolve.
You misunderstand the intended purpose of the article. You're not supposed to see these anecdotes of prison experiences and morals and interpret them as lessons that you should have learned and didn't. The point is to spread understanding, to offer a glimpse into the minds of those who have experienced prison, especially those whose previous lives were so different from life behind bars.
You're right, directly confronting the perpetrator rather than seeking help from the authorities is often inappropriate in "normal life", but the point is that prison changes people. Before prison, the convict would choose to respond to a conflict as would you and I you and I, and believed that was "correct". But prison changed him in that respect so completely that he recognizes that he changed and fully believes that it's for the better.
I agree 100% with you. The best response is always to call the authorities. I really don't see the benefit of going toe to toe with a criminal.
Also, I'm shocked by the responses you are getting telling you that you are wrong. Do people really want to confront a criminal. I grew up in a ghetto in Brooklyn, NY, I'm Hispanic, and my family always calls the police.
Getting into an argument directly with someone has too many times ended with somebody in the hospital or the cementery.
Yeah, I don't understand most of the responses. I hope that the responses are either from people that:
a) Don't think that he's saying "here's advice for life" (and if they do, don't realize that this is advice for how to respond to crimes against you)
b) Are scoping his advice to "while in prison, and because you're stuck there with violent morons anyway, don't make yourself a target"
c) Are out of their depth and/or don't realize that criminals are willing to resort to violence over even being told to not yell on a crowded subway. Further, don't realize that even short fistfights can result in serious consequences to both parties.
d) Just have no idea how the world really works and see things from this weird rose-tint of (based on responses to me) "minorities will get often get arrested for reporting crimes, so they shouldn't report them" and don't really understand that "don't snitch" just results in higher crime rates in affected areas due to inadequate police spending.
I'm in Brooklyn too and I've witnessed some pretty aggressive fights over petty (non-criminal) bullshit. Why give a shit if a criminal respects you? I get that within jail, it's more important, but how is the system supposed to improve?
"...don't realize that this is advice for how to respond to crimes against you"
I missed that in the answer by Anonymous on Quora. Can you point it out? Anyways, seems like you've attached a meaning to this that most people haven't and now you're making all sorts of assumptions about those that didn't attach that same meaning.
I completely agree with you. In jail, if you're not a mafia boss, your prime target is to get out safely asap. That may be advice to live by while you're in prison with "violent morons" because they made that rule. That's the rule of "violent morons". Not a very good source of rules, I think.
Because you're reading it different than most people, just like the parent comment.
"I learned that you should go straight to the person you're upset with rather than go to authorities."
Person you're upset with doesn't = potentially violent criminal. It could be a co-worker and the choice is to express yourself to them like an adult or immediately go to HR.
Living in a society is about being able to reason with others.
Instead of trying to skirt issues and involve authorities in hopes to solve problems, it usually is better to confront the person themselves.
Your example went straight to an extreme. It doesn't have to be theft, or murder, or an assault that makes you "upset" at them. Maybe you feel wronged because they said something in public that you wanted private.
Authorities have their place, but many problems can be solved by not involving them. I'd also say that many more problems are caused because people didn't want to confront one another.
>Maybe you feel wronged because they said something in public that you wanted private.
You cannot go to authorities with "he called me a butt."
The issues here are a subclass of "crimes and wrongs that authorities would address." My example is not going to an extreme. Have you ever confronted a criminal? How did it go? Do you see where it could have gone worse?
I once confronted the guy that broke into my car and stole my stereo. He gave everything he still had back (he didn't have the CDs anymore).
For what it's worth, I only went to him directly after the police shrugged it off and wouldn't pursue it. I gave them his address, description, other crimes he had been involved in (drug dealer), etc. They didn't care, and when the crime happened couldn't even be bothered to lift a couple of prints.
I was so angry when he said "sorry man, I figured your insurance would cover it, no hard feelings". But, looking back, he was just dumb as hell and stealing from a friend of a friend you met once made sense to him...In this sort of situation, handling the issue directly worked out for me better than going to the police.
Public order offence here; UK. But I don't see how it makes sense to do that over a little tiff, or even how it could be practically enforceable unless the policeman was right there. I mean what are you going to do; film all your life incase someone says a mean word to you?
Well, in my country's case, you could have a witness willing to testify as to what he heard. Happens quite a few times, especially from litigation-trigger-happy people.
Let's take one situation as an example. You're a woman experiencing domestic abuse in a mandatory arrest jurisdiction (means if the cops get called for a DV case, somebody is getting arrested). Your abuser also happens to be charismatic. You call the cops, your abuser cuts his own hand with the knife and convinces the cop that you were the aggressor, you're going to jail. Also, maybe you have trivial amounts of drugs in the house. Etc.
Google: "net widening effect"
--
Hell, I'm white and middle class, but I used to look like a hooligan and the one time I called the cops (when someone I invited over to the house stole all of our laptops and a bunch of cash) I ended up spending the day locked in an interrogation room under suspicion for being an accomplice to the person that robbed me. (Somehow the cops became convinced that I arranged the robbery of myself to pay off a drug debt that I owed this person, because he was a known drug dealer and I invited him into my house)
try and go to the guardian when you're in prison because a guy insulted you and you'll probably be seen as a snitch for the length of your sentence. Trust me, I've seen the whole Oz series (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118421/)
Nice. At least one person can see the irony in people trying to disagree when all they have for research is "I read something about this on the popular user-content website Quora."
We have authorities to stop psychos who think the only way to solve that issue themselves is to beat the thief to death.
That aside I think your advice is cowardly and people should learn to solve their own problems. Sometimes that includes learning to communicate with others.
How do you think confronting people normally goes? Have you ever been in a fight? Even if you "win" a fight, you don't have anything to gain. Throwing punches can lead to infections and serious injuries (including death).
It's not cowardly to not respond to disrespect with formal means.
Man, I don't think you understand how these cultures work. But if you don't understand it by now, then you probably aren't going to learn it from a HN post. So... good luck with that.
The 'authorities' does not just mean 'the police/government'. In most situations in life there are 'authorities' and the point is that you shouldn't immediately involve them.
You confront a colleague about not doing what he promised and don't immediately go to your boss. You confront your neighbour about the noisy party and don't immediately complain to the landlord. You confront your teammate about not giving enough passes and don't immediately complain to your coach. In general, you solve the problem on your own, directly with the person you have a problem with, before asking someone else, usually someone with more authority, to do it for you. That is the point of the maxim.
I think the quote means: "I learned that you should go straight to the person you're upset with rather than go to authorities [in prision]." Are you saying this quote is bullshit when it applies to the world outside prison, or inside prison?
I'm also very surprised at peoples responses to this. If I have a serious crime committed to me I'm not going to confront a potentially dangerous individual. It simply isn't worth the risk. Why put yourself and your family at risk just for the chance of securing some kind of respect from a criminal?
I think part of this disconnect has to do with the kinds of crimes that people actually end up in prison for.
One of the largest single sources of arrests and convictions are the drug war -- I will not call the police if I see someone buying, selling, or using drugs. A lot of people on the other hand, will call the police because they see something "suspicious" and that suspicious behavior might not even be illegal.
In addition, lots of crimes occur with context, and sometimes the context muddles what true justice would be. If you don't know the context behind what you're seeing, it's easy to think the police will help when the reality may be anything but. If people are stealing because they or their loved ones are hungry, are the police really the best option? People seem to be more content to call the police than they are to take difficult steps to try to ensure that people are fed and cared for, and that's a problem. I want to live in a world where people are able to have good relationships with their neighbors, to know how they're life is going, and be able to offer support for them if they need it -- and all of those should be easier and come more natural than calling police on their neighbors to externalize the problem.
I could see someone hassling someone else, but for all I know they're stepping up to someone who has consistently attacked or harmed them or their loved ones. At some point - seeing someone who is being sexually assaulted, seeing people who are surviving domestic abuse, etc. - I do believe there's a moral imperative to help the person who is being victimized and if calling the police is the best way to do that then by all means. But in my view these crimes are the small minority of crimes that fill the jails and prisons, or that the police get called about.
Anyhow. Obviously there are times when I think everyone is best served by calling the police. If I had to choose between "see something, say something [to armed police who will then involve themselves with violence]" and "stop snitching" my preference would be stop snitching. Things are often more nuanced than either allows, however.
If it's a stolen wallet or bicycle I'm not going to call the police (unless necessary to get a report for insurance purposes) and it's not my job to play detective and find the perpetrators. I do believe that the police usually make bad situations worse, but that doesn't mean I don't believe there are bad situations where they can help.
This is bullshit and dumb advice. If someone steals my bike and I find out who it is, I'm not going to go to his apartment and beat him to death in the middle of the day (smart money on confronting a scumbag not leading to a productive conversation).
Fuck that. The reason we have "authorities" is because we have people that can't figure out how to live in a society. Why should someone not use the framework that we've invented to resolve issues?
edit: Whoops, I forgot that the internet is the place in which "snitches get stitches" and no one reports serious crimes to the police because there's a batman in each of us.