The debate around the pic a teenage girl shot dead in Haïti turns bitter as a redditor implies it's her reward for looting. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
53 ups - 13 downs = 40 votes
60 comments submitted at 12:55:58 on Sep 26, 2013 by -SGN-
The debate around the pic a teenage girl shot dead in Haïti turns bitter as a redditor implies it's her reward for looting. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
53 ups - 13 downs = 40 votes
60 comments submitted at 12:55:58 on Sep 26, 2013 by -SGN-
>No, I'm really not trolling. Seriously. I want to know why I should sympathize with a dead black girl in Haiti caught looting chairs and paintings (not food, mind you) when a nation like Japan showed exemplary behavior in the midst of their natural disasters. Please, do educate me from the armchair of your computer desk.
Oh, man, this has to be a troll. Are they seriously comparing a country with widespread poverty and a civil war to a (relatively) wealthy first-world country with developed infrastructure and natural disaster planning?
>Are they seriously comparing a country with widespread poverty and a civil war to a (relatively) wealthy first-world country with developed infrastructure and natural disaster planning?
What is it about having poverty and a civil war (really? by what definition?) that implies that we shouldn't expect people to not steal durable goods after disasters? Are we supposed to assume that looters are on the brink of starvation or something?
>What is it about having poverty and a civil war
Economic stability.
Without a strong government body and with high corruption, power is divided and you've got a free market left unchecked.
What we don't see is how this little girl herself has been exploited. We can only speculate, but I'm pretty sure she didn't lead the same life as a little girl in a stable developed nation.
That makes comparison with Japan disingenuous.
>That makes comparison with Japan disingenuous.
Why? How does this explain why the Japanese don't loot?
It doesn't mean the Japanese don't loot, but loot less.
Japan ranks 17th on the corruption index, and Haiti ranks 165 (out of 174).
Corruption is a challenge to the power status quo, which limits everything from contract enforcement to constable enforcement. This creates barriers for business and economic growth, while also leading to the increased exploitation of others and violations of universal rights.
Japan on a whole loots less because most citizens are able to find a stable job and income. Haiti on a whole loots more because citizens are unable to support themselves, due to corruption and lack of enforcement.
I can understand why Haiti has a higher baseline rate of looting than Japan. That's not the relevant question, however. The issue is why in the face of social disruptions such as an earthquake or war, one country/culture is much more-likely to exhibit a noticeable increase in anti-social behaviors than another. Are there not comparable incentives in place to loot in Japan? "These people are much more desperate and have to do this to survive" is one story but not one which I feel is sufficient, especially when it's not the case that the people engaging in looting are not on the brink of starvation.
I accept the institutional story as being important in explaining the baseline level of loot, but ultimately it needs to translate into a cultural story as well. And try to address the endogeneity of institutions to this culture if possible.
It is relevant, especially considering you asked the open-ended:
>How does this explain why the Japanese don't loot?
Baseline or not, it's disingenuous to think that Japan has the same level of local law enforcement as Haiti during disasters.
Just as it's disingenuous to say that baselines do not matter - because if one baseline is higher than the other, it's intuitive to say they'll still be higher than the other in the midst of a disaster. Unless you have evidence showing otherwise between Japan and Haiti.
>Baseline or not, it's disingenuous to think that Japan has the same level of local law enforcement as Haiti during disasters.
So is that your answer? That there's the same underlying propensity to loot, but local law enforcement is more-effective in discouraging it? I don't really buy it, but it's an answer. But given your previous post I don't think you believe this
>Just as it's disingenuous to say that baselines do not matter - because if one baseline is higher than the other, it's intuitive to say they'll still be higher than the other in the midst of a disaster.
Right, and that's why I talked about increases in my last post. Is this really unclear, or are you just trying to ding me on semantic stuff? I mean, the underlying narrative is pretty well-known: In some places you see really shitty things happen after disasters that you don't see in other places. Presumably this is a story about informal norms given the breakdown in formal order. Japan contrasts to Haiti or even New Orleans. There are various tacks to trying to explain this.. one of them is to say that formal order hasn't really broken down, but I don't think you're actually asserting this so much as just throwing it out there as a possibility.
No, you can read my full answers here and here, rather than cherry picking something out of context.
It has become increasingly evident that you are not looking to discuss this issue with an open mind, but instead already have an opinion on the matter and are trying to find justification for it.
After reading some of your other responses on this thread, it's clear you have a case of confirmation bias regarding statistics and evidence, and are not providing any of your own for your own vapid opinion.
Until you do, this conversation is a waste of time.
>No, you can read my full answers here[1] and here[2] , rather than cherry picking something out of context.
Right, and I said that there's not a clear causal story between things like a corruption index score and looting in disasters.
>but instead already have an opinion on the matter and are trying to find justification for it.
As if you or anyone else in the thread doesn't have an opinion on the matter? And if I were looking to justify it, I'd be pinpointing the weaknesses in my stance and asking about those, not arguing with the random claims that others are making.
>After reading some of your other responses on this thread, it's clear you have a case of confirmation bias regarding statistics and evidence, and are not providing any of your own for your vapid opinion.
Again, I'll claim that you don't know what my opinion is and thus would be unqualified to evaluate the effectiveness by which I've argued for it. Factual evidence has not been introduced because a factual dispute hasn't been pinned down with any of my interlocutors. Instead, like you, they strategically substitute shiftiness and indigence for concreteness as the need arises.
This really isn't a hard concept to grasp.
Japan has social programs that are reliable, efficient and ready to help people out in the event of a natural disaster. The Japanese simply didn't have a reason to loot because they know that help is nearby and they will have food, clean water, shelter etc. provided to them very soon. Haitians don't have social programs like that to rely on, and know that their government doesn't care about them and will use the donations they get to line their own pockets. You had people who lost everyone and everything: their children, family, pets, home, precious items, everything except for the clothing on their back. And no one could help them because they too had lost everything and had to fend for themselves.
Japan is located in the 'ring of fire' and their infrastructure is BUILT to withstand very strong earthquakes and tsunamis. Japan's damage was nothing compared to what you saw in Haiti: much of the population lives in abject poverty and entire slums were destroyed and large parts of cities were wiped out. These people had NOTHING. The only way they could get food and clean drinking water, which they desperately needed, was to loot. Especially in the hours (and, in some areas, days) it took for help to arrive.
Haiti's police are terrible compared to Japan's. They aren't as well-trained, aren't held to the same strict standards, are more than likely not prepared to handle a disaster, and are very corrupt. What happens when you don't have a well-trained police force equipped with the knowledge and resources needed to keep a terrified, traumatized population in check? Crime and utter chaos. Lots and lots and lots of it.
The Japanese had social programs, nearby family members, a great healthcare system and shelters to fall back on. The Haitians had no social programs, entire families wiped out and some who couldn't afford to take in their now-homeless relatives, a healthcare system that amounted to small makeshift 'hospitals' (with constant supply shortages, inability to handle the sheer amount of patients, a lack of resources that made it nearly impossible to carry out major operations, etc). Many Haitians saw looting as the only way to get what they needed to survive.
Lack of education. The Japanese knew how to react in the event of a natural disaster. Haitians are poor, much of the population doesn't have access to a decent education and didn't know how to react accordingly. They didn't know that the bacteria in dirty water can give you cholera, they didn't know how to do first aid on their wounded friends and family and pets, they didn't have any food to eat, they just didn't know what to do! And, of course, their ability to react rationally probably would have been compromised anyway because 1) you're traumatized, and 2) that survival instinct kicks in. So what do you do? You go out and find what you need to survive - food, water, items etc. - in any way you can, so you don't freaking DIE.
So it's not a cultural issue. You see looting in every natural disaster, and the amount of it goes up depending on how poor the affected country/region is. Judging by your 'white guilt' post further down this page, it sounds more like you have an issue with the color of Haitians' skin than with looting itself.
>The Japanese simply didn't have a reason to loot because they know that help is nearby and they will have food, clean water, shelter etc. provided to them very soon.
They don't have reason to loot? Loot is loot. Are the Japanese free of material ambitions or something? Because I'd definitely call that a cultural thing.
Look, okay, your implicit point is that the Japanese presumably don't need to loot in order to survive. But I'm asserting this is also true of many Haitians - when I see a girl in decent clothes who doesn't look malnourished stealing artwork as part of a mob, I simply don't believe that she was motivated by an imminent threat of death or disability.
>What happens when you don't have a well-trained police force equipped with the knowledge and resources needed to keep a terrified, traumatized population in check? Crime and utter chaos. Lots and lots and lots of it.
As I said elsewhere, part of the focus on post-disaster looting is the assumption that this is reflective of what happens when you remove formal order. Effective policing breaks down. Admittedly not completely, but enough that you should have seen something in Japan were people predisposed to loot.
>You see looting in every natural disaster
Okay, so where are the stories about mass looting in Japan? Hell, let's not limit ourselves to Fukushima - let's talk about anytime in the post-WWII period. Can you think of anything?
>So it's not a cultural issue
What, you think the factors you explained leave no residual? That no cultures are more predisposed to condemn looting or other anti-social behaviors than others? I can throw out numerous studies that indicate otherwise if necessary.
>Judging by your 'white guilt' post further down this page, it sounds more like you have an issue with the color of Haitians' skin than with looting itself.
Nah, this is what I'm accusing others of.
You're right, the little girl should have returned to her 100k starting engineering position with Haitian Motors.
Oh so the idea is that if you don't make 100k/year than looting is fine. Got it.
The idea is that if you have no shot at a decent education, no shelter, no job, no parents because they've been killed by an earthquake or gunfire then maybe looting is a little understandable.
>Are we supposed to assume that looters are on the brink of starvation or something?
Do you understand the concept of a third world country?
It's always important to remember the difference between looting and finding.
>no shot at a decent education, no shelter, no job, no parents because they've been killed by an earthquake or gunfire
Yeah except if you read the article about this girl basically none of these things apply to her. Well, maybe the education thing, but that applies to everyone in Haiti, more or less.
Seriously, the white guilt rationalization here is pathetic (although maybe that doesn't apply to /u/genericblackmale.) I mean, just making up a story for her whereby her actions would be okay? Christ. Maybe we should start playing the same game next time a woman is gangraped in India, talking about how the rapists don't have decent education and shelter and blah blah blah. See how that flies.
Haiti is a shitty place but it's not so shitty that you can just assume that random children must be homeless and starving.
I just can't believe that you're trying to apply the same Randian sense of morality to a country where 3/4 of people live on less than $2 a day. So you you wouldn't go looting if there was an earthquake where you lived? Do you actually want a medal for that or something? I've visited Haiti before. We literally have everything and they have nothing.
It's not about "white guilt". It's about not being morally bankrupt in your own sense of superiority.
Don't bother.
They already have an opinion on the matter and are exercising confirmation bias to hold onto it.
The fact that they keep posting means that they are afraid that their opinion could be wrong, and are trying as many different explanations as they can to find one to support their fallacious stance.
>They already have an opinion on the matter and are exercising confirmation bias to hold onto it.
Confirmation bias refers to the overweighting of information that favors your motivated priors. Given that no one has offered new information in this discussion (well, except the guy who incorrectly claimed that 2/3 of Haitians were starving), just their own narratives of whatever facts in evidence, I don't see how I could plausibly be accused of that.
>and are trying as many different explanations as they can to find one to support their fallacious stance.
So what exactly would you say my stance is? Surely if you understand my motivations that well, you'll have no trouble simply stating my point.
I think you hate the idea of social justice so much that you'll go into threads on SRD just to intentionally disagree and argue with everyone there, regardless of rationality or relevance.
Any reddit user can read your unedited comments thus far to see that you're beyond any discussion, but are more interested in trying to sink your barbs into members of this community.
>So you you wouldn't go looting if there was an earthquake where you lived?
If I had immediate physiological needs to satisfy, maybe. Would I do so in order to make a longer-term profit, as this girl was intendeding to do by stealing and hawking durable goods as the opportunity had arisen? No. This isn't Randian morality - there is no sort of cohesive community on Earth where that sort of intercommunal looting would be tolerated. Because if nothing else there's an implication that anyone would've been justified in just turning things around and looting from her. Or killing her, maybe, since I'm not sure if you'd consider the condemnation of murder in the pursuit of loot "Randian" as well.
> there is no sort of cohesive community on Earth where that sort of intercommunal looting would be tolerated
\>Implying that Haiti amidst a natural disaster is a cohesive community
It's barely holding itself together on its good days.
>Implying that Haiti amidst a natural disaster is a cohesive community
I wouldn't call any country a community in this context. Except for the ones that are basically city-states. Even that's a stretch.
Haitians still have communities and social groups, obviously. And within those social groups, norms and values are inculcated. It's very unlikely that those norms include "it's okay to steal from your neighbors", however.
Oh hey a libertarian who assumes the whole world functions like the suburban enclave he was born into. How unprecedented.
You can't assume they're all starving. But if you assume that they aren't starving, you'll be wrong twice as often!
"Facing hunger" by these studies is a long way from actually "facing starvation". Conflating the two, ironically, betrays your own typical surbanite naivety. It's like the studies that show that millions of Americans face "food insecurity". Oh, that sounds really bad... so how many Americans die of starvation every year? Roughly zero. Whoops. The study shows that a much-smaller percentage of Haitians face actual malnutrition issues, but again malnutrition is not starvation.
Again, I don't want to downplay that Haiti has serious issues. But weak norms against looting is one of those issues, not an understandable consequence of deeper problems.
Oh hey, a libertarian moving the goalposts when his ignorance is exposed. How unprecidented.
Seriously? You implied 2/3 of Haitians were starving, and cited a study on the issue, and I informed you that "facing hunger" in these studies is not "starvation" - even your article doesn't claim as much. How is that moving the goalposts? Because you misused a term and I didn't want to play ball with it?
Hell, let's quote your own article:
>Despite the discrepancy, one public health expert said there's sufficient proof that at least some of the aid is reaching the population. Were it not, Richard Garfield said, Haiti would see mass migration and unrest.
>"Overall aid has gotten to people pretty well. If aid hadn't gotten to people that place would be so much more of a mess," said Garfield, a professor emeritus at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and now a specialist in emergency response at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "You'd see starvation and riots ... The absence of terrible things is about the best positive thing that we can say."
You're asking...why would a child from an impoverished, conflict-scarred country steal something?
No.
>What is it about having poverty...that implies that we shouldn't expect people to not steal durable goods after disasters?
The fact that you managed to ask this question with what I can only assume was a straight face is pretty amazing.
>Are we supposed to assume that looters are on the brink of starvation or something?
Poor people in Haiti? How absurd!
Seriously, you are putting an incredible amount of effort in pretending to be stupid just so you can mangle the Socratic method here.
TIL poor = starving
TIL that Internet Libertarians will pretend to be too stupid to understand a connection between poverty and starvation.
>a connection between poverty and starvation.
I truly had no idea.
An armful of paintings is not valuable enough to kill someone over.
Meh, depends on the painting.
'You loot, we shoot' is a very common tactic by homeowners to keep those vermin from cleaning them out. The US has had their share of problems with looters. During Katrina, Vancouver Stanley Cup, London Riots, Rodney King Verdict, Fall of Baghdad, etc. they come out of the woodwork, and rarely do you see them with food. It's universal behavior, and universally reviled.
If you read the story, she wasn't killed on purpose. The police fired bullets into the air to drive off the looters, and one of them fell on her and killed her.
sounds fishy to me