JohnBonaccorsi
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JohnBonaccorsi has not written any posts yet.
JohnBonaccorsi has not written any posts yet.
Allow me to say first that I appreciate your extended comment even if I can't say I embrace all you've said in it. I can believe the personal experience you've described was, as you say, surprisingly stressful; but let's note that you came through it without, as I gather, either falsely confessing or changing your story. Every one of us lives with crime; every one of us lives with the possibility that, at any moment, he or she will be arrested for, or questioned about, a crime with which he or she has had nothing to do. Every one of us lives, as well, with the knowledge that some... (read more)
Reply to myself:
I hereby withdraw every negative thing I have said about Amanda Knox at this website. In the period since I posted the comment immediately above, I could not drive from my mind a remark my fellow-poster Desrtopa made in a post at 03 February 2014 07:39:06AM. In effect, Desrtopa asked whether I would fault a person for giving changed-stories because of torture; if I wouldn't, why would I fault the person for giving changed-stories under interrogation so harsh that its effect on the person being questioned would be tantamount to that of torture? At the time, I avoided answering Desrtopa's question.
Just a few minutes ago, I read... (read more)
Dear fellow-poster Desrtopa --
Something called a "karma problem" has prevented me from replying directly to your comment at 03 February 2014 08:52:06AM. In the hope you will spot it, my reply will be posted here. I'm afraid it's the last comment I'll have time for; your reply to it, should you choose to post one, will be the last word in our exchange.
... (read more)Suppose that you were living in a rather more paranoid country, where the government suspected you of subversive activities. So, they took a current captive suspect, tortured them, and told them they'd stop if the suspect accused you. If the suspect caved, would you blame them for accusing
Thank you for the additional information, about the way the investigation proceeded. As for the rest of your comment, well, you and I don't see things quite the same way. I'll add only that, in the minutes of video footage I've seen of her, Knox has never exhibited even a moment's dignity.
Knox's behavior was worse than mere calumny, whether Italian law recognizes that. The exchanges here and at websites devoted to discussion of the case are just a small consequence of her actions; she completely and permanently disrupted investigation of the brutal destruction of a young woman.
But convicting somebody of murder just because they made an incorrect or even deliberately false claim, would not serve the interests of justice.
I guess that depends on your definition of justice. I use the Sicilian model:
"--but I'm a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning, then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room."
Thank you, komponisto. Congratulations to you on this fine essay. I think I must have first encountered it in December 2012, when I first learned of Less Wrong and came to see what the site was. Though I didn't do much to absorb the essay at that time, it stayed in my mind; the news the other day about Knox's re-conviction moved me to read it again. My mental process in response to that rereading has, in a sense, been recorded here, in my last few days' worth of exchanges with Less Wrong posters. When I posted my first comment in response to the essay, I wasn't sure it would be noticed, because the essay was more than four years old. Fortunately for me, Less Wrong's participants were paying attention.
You couldn't imagine innocent people changing their stories - but it happens. So what does that say about the validity of your inference from your own imagination to the expected behaviour of other people?
I didn't see the above when I first read your comment; maybe I was busy forming, mentally, my reply, below, to the rest of what you said. I direct you to the comment I just posted, at 02 February 2014 11:49:15PM, in response to Wes_W.
I appreciate your alerting me to Komponisto's translations. If the information I've encountered at pro-guilty and anti-guilty websites had not given me identical impressions of the murder-room evidence, I might well be inclined to read those translations. As things are, my caveat that my sources are second hand is a minor one. From what I know, your assessment of the prosecution doesn't sound off-base.
After seeing your links to them, I took quick looks at "Privileging the Hypothesis" and "0 and 1 are Not Probabilities." I'm not sure I understand why you've suggested I read them, but I'll address what I'll guess you have in mind:
Suppose we say that... (read more)
I responded to what I regarded as a ridiculous question. I've said enough to indicate my view of the seriousness of false confession. Do you really find it difficult to believe I could come up with countless examples of behavior that, say, you and I would agree is mildly antisocial--my neighbor's failure to trim weeds that were partly obstructing our block's common driveway, for one? You're being pointless.
Of course. I can probably give you thousands of them.