Comments on: Bobbies, thugs and dynamism

By: Grant

Grant — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 16:03:16 +0000

Dave, thanks! Grant

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 15:10:17 +0000

Sorry, if you click on the trackback link just above the comments, it's summarised there, otherwise it's here.

By: Stephen Karlson

Stephen Karlson — Fri, 20 Aug 2004 16:44:26 +0000

‘Twould be easier to give you props for that characterization if readers could link to it here (or visit the main site, http://coldspringshops.blogspot.com, and scroll down to the post titled LIFE IMITATES THE ONION)

Cheers, and happy fall term.

By: Grant

Grant — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 22:18:17 +0000

Stephen n has an interesting response to this blog at Karlsohttp://coldspringshops.blogspot.com/

By: Grant

Grant — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 16:24:28 +0000

Dave, thanks for the details, Best, Grant
(where’s the track back?}

By: dave

dave — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:55:23 +0000

Rather than a crackdown on crime, this is very much a crackdown on a particular group of people – those who in Edinburgh are known as ‘Neds’ – Non-Educated-Delinquents. To caricature [and this *is* a caricature, not an academic analysis], they are a [mostly] working class group who have few or no social skills and who are not very respectful of middle class mores and who really don’t care if you know it either.
[A slightly longer version is in the trackback...]

By: applied randomness

applied randomness — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:49:04 +0000

The NED – a very brief intro

Rather than a crackdown on crime, this is very much a crackdown on a particular group of people – those who in Edinburgh are known as ‘Neds’ – Non-Educated-Delinquents.

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 18 Aug 2004 15:58:53 +0000

Steve, thank you, it occurs to me that we have groups for parsing the social world: those who believe that permission is a “slippery slope” towards choas and those who think it is mostly benign because the benefits of tolerance are greater than the costs). The former group fears this kind of dynamism and the latter promotes it. And I guess everyone finds the community that matches their fear/tolerance ratio. In a general sense, I think it’s true that the nay sayers have almost always been wrong. There were those who said that we were courting the end of civlization by giving the vote to women, by ending the big trusts, by enduring things like street fairs, they have been proven wrong. My preference is I guess the libertarian one. (So what am I doing in Connecticut?) Thanks.

By: steve

steve — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 20:55:27 +0000

There is a version of this same problem in private governance in condominiums. If you allow a “reasonable” amount of variation and individual idiosyncracy (planters in front of the door, or holiday decorations, for example), then the door is opened to less palatable variations. Trying to engineer legally defensible distinctions about what is tasteful and what is not is pretty much hopeless, so each individual deviation from the rules must be specifically authorized by a board vote. On the other hand, if the default is set the other way, so that deviation is allowed unless expressly prohibited, you avoid sterility but risk losing curb appeal and coherence (doors painted different colors, etc.) Finding the right balance is tricky.

By: I Speak of Dreams

I Speak of Dreams — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:24:42 +0000

More on Over Policing

There’s suspicion that the story of the confiscated book, which has been featured both in BoingBoing and Interesting People, is…bogus. However, Grant McCracken has written a very thought-provoking post on the tradeoffs of over-policing.