Redaction in Action

[andrewducker]

Chatting to spidermonster yesterday and he forwarded me bits of a BBC article that started

Gen Caldwell said Wednesday night was the first time US forces had "definite unquestionable information" they could strike the target without causing collateral damage to civilians.

and finished

They were followed "very shortly thereafter" by US ground forces, who "swept through the site and identified six persons that had been killed in that strike at that time". The dead included a woman and a child, and two others still to be identified.

Which makes sense only if you don't count Iraqi children as civilians.

I then popped over to the BBC to see this for myself. To find that some articles mentioned the child, but the one that he'd sent me the clipping from didn't. And then, when I went back to look at the article that mentioned the child it had been updated to read

On Thursday he said the six bodies included a child, but on Friday he said his information had changed. There were three dead men, three dead women, and no children.

All of which makes you wonder. It really does...

Comments

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

demonising, hmmm. How, exactly, might one go about demonsing, taking three recent examples, the 14 year old girl who kicked in the head of the gay nail bomb survivor "like a football", laughing, until he dies; the 13 year old in peckham who stabbed a guy in the heart at a bus stop for his mobile phone; the one that raped the 8 and three year olds. What exactly would demonising these people mean?

All I know is that psychopathy is a _human_ trait, one that, if its there, usually emerges pretty early (pre-pubescently). Its not uncommon, and people with it tend to be OK about hurting other people, or even enjoy it. I really dont know what it would mean to demonise them. They are what they are.

[andrewducker]

That's overly essentialist to me. While I believe that people have tendencies, I also think they can changed and be changed.

There are terrible people out there, and generally I feel sorry for them. Albeit not as sorry as I feel for the people who they hurt.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

we're waaaay off topic i guess, but i think the evidence is largely against you. Traits are stable and not a lot to do with enviroment, will or change. There may indeed be some enviroments that encourage and others that supress the supression of traits. Like, say , gayness: its much easier to be gay in big western cities these days, so more people will express the trait BUT that doesnt mean that A. if trait isn't expressed in a small african village that it isnt there or B. that you could change someones orientation if you wanted to. Believe me, the behaviorists and the christians have tried.

Same with psychopathy, anti-socialness. Its probably more suited to working class inner cities, or the army, so more expressed, but they also reckon its highly over-represented in the top echelons of buisiness and politics. You really do need to be a bastard to succeed in some enviroments. And please, save your sympathy. I dont think they need it, and they certainly wouldnt want it.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

that supress the supression of traits.

should read: supress the expression of traits.

[andrewducker]

Gah.

We're not going to agree on this one, I know. When it comes down to it, I empathise with people even if they're unpleasant and you don't - it's come up a few times now. I suspect we'll just have to agree that we disagree :->

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

oh probably you are right; Ive become a curmudgeon with age and will no doubt be capmaigning to bring back hanging soon...I didn't used to believe in human badness, now I'm almost overly sensitised to it.

[andrewducker]

Don't worry too much about it - we'll just get you a subscription to The Spectator and the Daily Mail.

But yeah - the change to have less empathy for scary violent people seems to be common with aging - people become less idealistic and more realistic as they get older, I suspect.

[andrewducker]

Being a bastard, maybe. Bludgeoning people to death? Less so.

It's the expression of the trait that we were originally talking about, and I firmly believe that the conditions of poverty and despair that tend to characterise the background of those people it's most expressed in isn't a coincidence.

There are many people who have changed from being violent and unpleasant, found a reason to change their lives and become better people. I'm sure there are people who are beyond help, but I'm not convinced it's more than a tiny percentage who are completely lacking in empathy.