mcherm

joined 2 years ago
[–] mcherm 22 points 5 days ago (6 children)

I have two arguments to defend jury nullification. First of all, in our system "jury nullification" is NOT a policy. It is the name for the inevitable fact to that members of a jury can decide to vote "innocent" without being subject to some kind of interrogation.

My second argument is this: I think jury nullification is actually a good policy, because the only thing it produces are delays unless fully 12 out of 12 randomly selected citizens think this application of the law is completely unfair. If the citizenry believes a law is unfair with that much unanimity it probably IS unfair.

[–] mcherm 8 points 1 month ago

Well, I have certainly seen the opposite. I have seen a number of cases where a parent has chosen to leave a significantly bigger portion of their estate to a disabled child because that child would need it.

Ethics is not an area in which there are right and wrong answers -- just ethical principles that do or don't appeal to you. For me, I think parents should have the right to decide how their wealth should be distributed without any "must be even for all children" constraints. But I would never choose to leave my least able-bodied child less for that reason.

[–] mcherm 29 points 1 month ago

Yes, exactly. I don't think there is anyone in the world who knows me and believes that I, specifically, deserve to be killed. I think almost every person feels the same way. The rare exception being someone who has intentionally profoundly harmed or killed people.

[–] mcherm 25 points 2 months ago

No.

Starting a war is astonishing unwise.

Also, what will happen with South Korea's strongest military ally (the US) in less than a month?

[–] mcherm 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Actually, banks are a heavily regulated industry and they have to comply with strict non-discrimination requirements including making all reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities.

If you know someone who uses a screen reader and is therefore unable to use HSBC's app, encourage them to file a complaint with the appropriate regulator (in the US, try https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/ ).

Banks are very attentive about listening to their regulators.

(Of course, it's possible that what HSBC did still works with commonly used screen readers for the blind because they actually thought of this.)

[–] mcherm 98 points 3 months ago

Because Donald Trump is above the law -- laws simply don't apply to him.

(Or at least that is how much of the country is acting, INCLUDING the US Supreme Court.)

[–] mcherm 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Hear hear! Whenever society picks out a particular minority group and says, "THESE are the ones it is OK to look down on and mistreat" it just makes me want to defend and support that group.

These days I am a strong supporter of furries, never-Trump Republicans, and trans folk.

[–] mcherm 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Interesting. The way I work, variable naming is one of the key areas that I would never want to outsource to an AI -- careful choice of variable names is a key part of code quality for me: unimportant things should have neutral, non-distracting names while mportant things often cause me to break out a thesaurus for just the right word.

[–] mcherm 2 points 5 months ago

LOL -- good point. I guess the correct answer is zero. 😃

[–] mcherm 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

One.

I'm thinking of a comic made to tell the story of a relationship, culminating in a wedding proposal.

The definition of success is different for different cases.

[–] mcherm 43 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If two states disagree, what alternative would you suggest? "Flip a coin and move on" or "Just give in to the other side" are solutions that are likely to be abused: one rogue state can wreck havoc by making unreasonable demands. Going to war over it seems worse than spending millions in court. The courts ARE our inexpensive, fair way of resolving disputes (even if they aren't as inexpensive as we might like).

 

For the past ~2 weeks or so I've stayed away from reddit (which used to occupy one to two hours a day of my time). I stopped by today for one final nostalgic use of RIF.

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