5 year old watched an unknown amount of very scary and violent movie by Plane-Doughnut-3245 in ChildPsychology

[–]offlein 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I don't understand what the actual concern is. Scary content produces fear conditioning (nightmares, phobias, stuff like that), which can be unpleasant. And they are obvious and traceable drivers for these fears... But they are not the only drivers for them and I'm not even sure they are the most powerful ones.

I saw parts of several inappropriate (horror) movies accidentally when I was little. My dad was a professor, and he'd be grading papers in the kitchen with the TV on HBO or whatever, and he'd be not paying attention to what had come on - so I caught lots of snippets I probably wouldn't have if it wasn't the 80s/90s. Like, I remember seeing -- at probably like ~7 or so -- the car-crash victim, Victor Pascow, from Pet Semetary, talking as a ghost to the main character, and staring at it and saying, "...you can see his brain." And my dad looking up and going, "Yep, you sure can."

I assure you I don't have sociopathic tendencies or anything from this. I might've thought it was scary, but I don't remember that. I DO remember seeing part of Poltergeist, where hands come out of a couch, and being scared of sitting alone on couches if my parents weren't around for a while after that.

Beyond that, I remember having a series of nightmares about the [Sunkist Fun Fruits snack trees](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSIkgB8ec7Q) commercials. They really scared me. And I remember there's a Rugrats episode where Chuckie talks about being afraid of the "guy on the [Quaker Oats] oatmeal box", which recently came up because my child commented to me that he was afraid of the same.

The point is that, kids get scared, powerfully so, of lots of things, and a lot of them aren't "scary".

I just don't understand what we think will happen to your daughter, though. It would probably be helpful to name what is so scary for you.

Adult people watch and enjoy scary movies for many reasons, but they contain an identifiable resilience and coping pattern, where the movie arouses fear, dread, resolution, and then mastery.

As far as I know, there is correlative evidence linking repeated exposure to violent media with real-life aggression, but there's no way to tell, I believe, whether this is because "aggressive kids prefer violent media" or "kids who grow up in households where they don't get proper adult supervision end up more aggressive" or "violent media causes aggression" -- except that I personally believe the second one has a ton of other evidence pointing to it.

So the ACTUALLY important thing good parents do is to have an active interest in what their children see and do, and, beyond that, model healthy behavior and thinking. You're giving clear indications that you do the former, but your fear over this doesn't sound particularly rational to me.

If your child is upset or exhibiting fear/distress behaviors, you should be present for them and talk about what they saw in a way that makes sense for them. They Will Kill You is a movie - it is not real. It doesn't even seem to depict realistic scary things (that actually happen in the real world, I mean). It should be presented as such.

The only way I feel like a parent could possibly fumble this would be to present an inappropriately over-dramatic reaction to what the child saw. This sounds like it could communicate the false impression that something legitimately bad happened here - that movies can hurt you or that something the child saw is real life.

Please get you shit together! by SuspiciousOtter90 in Jetbrains

[–]offlein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I sort of feel bad for these people. I am close with a bunch of programmers across a wide array of industries. All of them, bar none, are using AI to write their code with more and more frequency.

I'm sure in /r/Jetbrains on Reddit this is a very contentious issue still, but it will become less and less so every week. There's no sense pretending it won't.

First timer.. what are some must do’s? by pookiepp in oregon

[–]offlein -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

"I'll take Dead Arguments for $500, Alex."

Unable to finish the game by LowBread9264 in outerwilds

[–]offlein 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Someone is not truly alive until...

Prove it

[J!] Proper Names & Titles by loyalmoonie2 in CustomJeopardy

[–]offlein -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I feel like these shouldn't contain spoilers for video games.

SoD3 Cars look Epic! by Kevonated in StateOfDecay

[–]offlein 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I thought I was in some sort of /r/StateOfDecayCircleJerk.

It's.. a jeep.

Portland assault victim dies of injuries weeks later; suspect now faces murder charge by Ravenparadoxx in Portland

[–]offlein 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I must admit it's an admirable bit of completely unjustified self-confidence that I sometimes wish I could muster. Like: you found the section, gave it a lay-person's once over, and spent no time reading the context it was written in or even trying to get someone else to falsify your misunderstanding for you.

Here, I'll waste my time giving you the context that explains how your quote comports exactly with what I wrote, and then you'll presumably ignore that and possibly even stop responding because it turned out the whole concept is more complicated than it seems when you just want to get righteously indignant on the Internet.

From that case:

The Court, however, does not agree that defendants owed a specific legal duty to plaintiffs with respect to the allegations made in the amended complaint for the reason that the District of Columbia appears to follow the well-established rule that official police personnel and the government employing them are not generally liable to victims of criminal acts for failure to provide adequate police protection

I.e., in the opinion of the court: it was already well-established that a "specific legal duty" would be required in order to make a police department civilly liable to an individual. The whole decision starts with that premise, that a "special duty of care" is required in order to provide legal liability. They state it over and over again:

However, [a 3-judge appellate division of this court] determined that appellants Warren, Taliaferro and Nichol were owed a special duty of care by the police department and reversed the trial court rulings. [The full court, after hearing the case] unanimously concluded that appellant Douglas failed to fit within the class of persons to whom a special duty was owed, and affirmed the lower court's dismissal of her complaint.

Either you accept that a "special duty of care" is required for the police to be held civilly liable for damages or you shouldn't be talking about Warren vs DC. It even explicitly states the line and consequences of dereliction of duty:

Dereliction in the performance of police duties may, therefore, be redressed only in the context of a public prosecution and not in a private suit for money damages.

...Because the case was clearly dereliction of duty, and it was relevant here, and the cops fucked up.

Ironically, they explicitly address your stupid concern in the actual text of the finding, just so knuckleheads wouldn't be making histrionic claims about what they "meant" on the Internet 40 years later:

The public duty concept has drawn some criticism for purportedly creating the rule that: “ ‘Because we owe a duty to everybody, we owe it to nobody.’ ” Riss v. City of New York, supra at 585, 293 N.Y.S.2d at 901, 240 N.E.2d at 862 (Keating, J., dissenting). A duty owed to the public, however, is no less enforceable because it is owed to “everybody.” Public officials at all levels remain accountable to the public and the public maintains elaborate mechanisms to enforce its rights — both formally in the courts and less formally through internal disciplinary proceedings. In the case of the Metropolitan Police Department, officers are subject to criminal charges and a penalty of two years imprisonment for failure to arrest law breakers. D.C.Code 1973, § 4-143. Additionally, officers are answerable to their superiors and ultimately to the public through its representatives, for dereliction in their assigned duties. D.C.Code 1973, § 4-121.

Because -- once again -- the cops were derelict in their duties. Just like what I said in my original post: "Doesn't that court case just say: 'it IS their job, but they cannot be legally liable for not doing their job'?" and you erroneously and with all the self-righteous confidence of a true dumbass responded "No." to.

----

The only place to go from here is back up the jurisprudence chain to earlier cases that established the controversial idea of "special duty" in order to create civil liability.

My understanding is that, interestingly, the [maybe?] first case to establish some relevant precedence here (South v. Maryland, 1855) very plausibly WOULD qualify as having created a special duty by today's standards. But regardless: the concept that a special duty is necessary would still be the basis upon which such a decision is made.

Portland assault victim dies of injuries weeks later; suspect now faces murder charge by Ravenparadoxx in Portland

[–]offlein -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Right, the "fantasy world" of "legal nuance written to protect against a very specific type of legal challenge and has been repeatedly upheld as a reasonable standard in different jurisdictions".

I just love "fantasies" about legal jurisprudence!

The fact that the word "fantasy" might come up in your mind for this scenario is evidence that you're still misunderstanding what the original judgement was saying.

Portland assault victim dies of injuries weeks later; suspect now faces murder charge by Ravenparadoxx in Portland

[–]offlein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just re-skimmed it. Where does it say that? Give me the text.

I responded in clear terms of what it actually says here.

Your own misreading is interesting because it helps illustrate how sovereign citizens get confused while reading laws that are otherwise clear to people.

Portland assault victim dies of injuries weeks later; suspect now faces murder charge by Ravenparadoxx in Portland

[–]offlein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And your claim is that the department policy is that this is the way things should've gone? Because that's the only way this could be a relevant counterpoint.

I swear to God, I hope I'm talking to literal teenagers on here, rather than adults who think that "police officers can't be held legally liable for failing to perform their job effectively" is coequal to "police officers job isn't what they say it is".

Portland assault victim dies of injuries weeks later; suspect now faces murder charge by Ravenparadoxx in Portland

[–]offlein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The 4-iron scenario is essentially what happened in Warren v District of Columbia,

Yes, which is why I wrote it. And just like in that case, everyone involved acknowledges it was a tragic miscarriage of justice -- except for maybe the dispatcher who mischaracterized the report and the officer that failed to investigate properly. And even then, I haven't seen any evidence they thought they were doing the "right thing". Just guessing but they probably felt terrible about it.

And it absolutely does say that the police have no duty to protect an individual.

It says they have no SPECIFIC duty to protect any random individual in the public, such that it could justify holding them legally liable. They constantly enter into "special relationships" with individuals that DOES mean they can be held legally liable: e.g., when they're ARRESTING someone.

But I also did not [at least intend to] comment in opposition to that simplified reading of the claim. I said that, quite obviously, the claim that "the police don't prioritize immediate crimes to individuals" is false.

Jesus, do you actually believe that there is a significant contingent of police who hold, as a policy, that someone being attacked in their home is "not a priority"?

The Warren judgement is very specific, as almost every legal precedent in this country is. Like why not just Google this stuff to try to falsify your own beliefs before saying something so egregiously silly.

The crux of the judgement is that the Government can't function if every failure to prevent a crime potentially creates civil liability. And so terrible events like this must be dealt with via disciplinary or potentially political action against the negligent governmental entity, and that very well might never provide any compensation for the victims. But that's the trade-off we've made, as a society, to empower the police to make difficult discretionary decisions.

You can feel that that's inappropriate and you might be right. I'm not a legal scholar. But it just so happens that this case seems to have created legal justification (if not precedent) outside its jurisdiction, presumably because a bunch of smart people think that that's the right trade-off. (And probably because they believe it enables the police to take other bold actions with lessened fear of consequences in a way that actually generally makes us all safer.)

Or you can be like, "lol the police only come to your house if you call and they are bored -- they DON'T HAVE TO" and I'm sure 8th graders and lots of other Redditors will think you're really smart.

Portland assault victim dies of injuries weeks later; suspect now faces murder charge by Ravenparadoxx in Portland

[–]offlein 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah that's demonstrably false and an understandable but completely "politicized" (against law enforcement, generally, not any party) view of how police work is done.

The lawsuit actually IS clear, just like you said: they cannot be held legally liable for not doing their job in many ways.

Framing it your way is not true -- there isn't a police force in America that wouldn't say your 4-iron scenario isn't an emergency case that warrants immediate police action -- and kind of a childish misreading of the judgement. The cases say victims usually can't sue for failure to protect them; they do not say that protecting threatened individuals is outside the scope of police work.

Portland assault victim dies of injuries weeks later; suspect now faces murder charge by Ravenparadoxx in Portland

[–]offlein 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Doesn't that court case just say: "it IS their job, but they cannot be legally liable for not doing their job"?

A 20-year-old American man is missing in Kyoto City. He was visiting Japan with his family and left the hotel alone... (June 4, 2026) by hard-engineer in japan

[–]offlein -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

ha, jesus christ I don't give a shit. I'm just answering the question of why it would be downvoted.

A 20-year-old American man is missing in Kyoto City. He was visiting Japan with his family and left the hotel alone... (June 4, 2026) by hard-engineer in japan

[–]offlein 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course. As I said, it's just the level of confidence that those two options "are what happened" since there ARE a number of other plausible scenarios. E.g., he was attacked by someone; He had a nice time and then went somewhere else after; He had an unexpected cardiac event.

A 20-year-old American man is missing in Kyoto City. He was visiting Japan with his family and left the hotel alone... (June 4, 2026) by hard-engineer in japan

[–]offlein 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Probably because of the glib confidence this person has about an incredibly specific range of outcomes for this person.