Category: Sociology

• An Overview of the Three Pronged Approach to Crime

  For as long as man has existed, so too has crime: One of the first stories in the Bible is Cain slaying Abel. As all cultures have been forced to confront this issue, all have created systems to handle it, be they formal or informal.

  And by crime, I mean true crimes, whose platonic ideal is well described by the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). These crimes, such as murder, theft, and assault have been an important part of legal codes since they began to be recorded.

  

  I have identified roughly 3 prongs, or lenses, which can be used to address crime:

  1. Personal Responsibility: Actions individuals can take independently.
  2. Pursuit & Punishment: Actions taken by the criminal justice system.
  3. Social Change: Actions taken by the community as a whole.

  These prong are interdependent, building on and strengthening each other. Neglect one facet, and the entire structure crumbles with the mildest jolt from willful and unrepentant criminals.

  There is not enough space to cover all the research and all of the arguments to be made, so this article will instead provide a general introduction to the series of essays which will follow, where individual points will be discussed in greater depth, including support with statistics and other useful sources.

  1. Personal Responsibility

  While we can influence others, ultimately all we can only control our own actions. Because our own actions are fully within our own control, this prong is the primary framework on which the other two hang.

  Make a Conscious Decision to Avoid Crime

  While this may seem juvenile or even naïve, ultimately, committing crime is always a personal choice,* and that people from every background can make this decision.

  If people can consciously choose not to commit crimes, that means that engaging in crime is also a choice. Once we acknowledge and internalize this, it is clear that criminals can be held responsible for any crimes they commit. Knowing that criminals are morally responsible for all crimes they commit is the most important concept for the reduction of crime. Without this belief, nothing serious or long-lasting can be accomplished.

  Reduce the Chances that You will be Victimized

  You cannot prevent others committing crimes, but you can take steps to decrease your chances of being victimized. There are reasonable, common sense measures which you can take to help manage your risk, such as locking your doors at night.

  In the end though, regardless of how much you decrease your changes of being targeted, they will never be completely eliminated. You can never act in some mythically “prefect” way that prevents you from being victimized, and to suggest so is blaming the victim for the choices of the criminal.

  Crimes in Progress

  Each crime is different, in unique circumstances, and the dangers involved are not always clear. Those involved in these situations should use their own best judgment, but there are some general principles to consider:

  • Interruption. An attempted crime is always preferable to an accomplished one.
  • De-escalation. “And first do no harm.” Avoid actions likely to make situations worse.
  • Aid and Report. If you cannot interrupt a crime, then you should seek help from authorities. This includes making police statements.
  • Use force, if needed. Though legality of force varies between jurisdictions, the concept of Estoppel allows us to understand that you are morally justified in using as much force as the criminal.

  A decision not to engage in any of the above ways of managing crime, or the inability to do so, is never a fault or defect of the victim.

  2. Pursue & Punish

  While we have the ability to completely control our own actions, it is naïve to think that this will prevent all crime. For this reason, all societies need system of justice, formal or informal. Though in reality Justice Systems function in diverse ways, their goals should revolve around restoration of victims, managing offenders, and deterring crime.

  Making Victims Whole

  Victims of crimes can become traumatized, with long term emotional, physical, and financial issues as a result of the crime they suffered. Justice systems should take serious steps to see that these damages are addressed.

  Stolen property should be recovered, costs passed on to the criminal, the victim should remain physically separated from the criminal, and minimum sentences should probably be about 18 months*.

  Assessing Criminals

  There is a small number of people, which we will call “disproportionate offenders” (sometimes called super-predators*), that make a career out of victimizing others. The percentage of crime that can be committed by only 2-3 people can be shocking.

  The intention of “Three Strike Rules” was to identify disproportionate offenders in a systematic and impartial way. In these cases, the only way to defend the public from them is physical separation.

  However, other criminals have committed heinous acts, but are unlikely to commit another, and sentences should reflect these facts.

  Deterrence

  Laws do not prevent crime, only the surety of punishment can do that. Most who claim that a “law” prevents them from doing something, are actually referring to the fact that fear of punishment for breaking the law is causing them to reconsider.

  Law, without punishment, has never been able to prevent crime. The purpose of laws is to justify the use of punishment. Written law prevents people from claiming they “did not know” something was inappropriate, while simultaneously establishing a reasonable punishment.

  Threats of draconian punishment are similarly ineffective if criminals feel they will never be punished. Additionally, overly harsh sentences or poor conditions can lead to juries finding criminals “not guilty” because they believe the punishment is too harsh.

  It is essential that criminals are hunted with the full force of the law, to show that crime will not be tolerated.

  3. Social Conditions

  It would be wrong to say that social conditions do not encourage or discourage criminality. It is wrong to say to say these forces create crime– they just encourage others to refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.

  Systemic Issues. There is no strong support for the idea that sexism, racism, or poverty create crime, when you control for other variables properly. Instead, we see things like childhood victimization, lack of access to entertainment, and frustration in the job market play a much larger role.

  Legal Clarity & Appropriateness. Laws need to be clear, easy to understand, and limited in number. All laws which exist should be enforced consistently, or repealed, to avoid legal “broken windows“.

  Public Trust. We trust those in positions of power to care for the most vulnerable among us. Because of their notoriety and influence, they should be held to the highest standards. When they seem “above the law”, they destroy public belief in justice, which emboldens criminals.

  Glorification of Crime. While “heroic” tales of criminals have always existed, modern expressions generally lack the sense that the criminal is on borrowed time, on the run, and soon to be punished.

  Conclusion

  In conclusion, there is no magic bullet to end crime, and many different factors intertwine with each other in significant ways. In future essays, I will explain give fuller explanations of different components, as well as actions that can reasonably be taken.

  Notes and Comments

  In no particular order.

  • My views on the purpose of law and prison are likely colored by my natural Conservatism. I welcome articles and papers from any political background, however.
  • For more information on the Non-Aggression Principle, my husband recommends Rothbard’s “Ethics of Liberty”, specifically the preface (pdf pages 43-45).
  • Belief in freewill is consistently associated with greater pro-social behavior (see section 3.1): therefore, determinism is an info-hazard.
  • The figure that it take “18 months” for most people to recover from psychologically traumatic events is not something I could find support for in literature. It seems the figure may have originated from Jordan Peterson’s clinical experience.
  • A “super-predator” has been defined in many ways. Here I am referring to a small group of criminals who commit a disproportionate number of crimes. For example, 4 men were responsible for 90% of bike thefts in the City of London. Homicide suspects in DC had been arrested on average 11 times before committing homicide. I am interested in any related reports or articles, or alternative names for this fact.
  • I welcome any papers arguing for or against 3 strike rules, or studies of their effectiveness.
  • Child abuse, even spanking, can lead to lifelong increased aggression and criminality.
  • Violent films decrease the crime rate on the days they are shown in theatre, because criminals are occupied and not drinking.

  May 22, 2024

  broken window theory, crime, criminal-justice, disproportionate offenders, estoppel, justice, law, non-aggression principle, three pronged approach to crime, three strike rule

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• Ingroup Preference is an Emergent Property

  

  Introduction

  I recently read an article which showed that LLMs prefer their own output above that of humans, which immediately struck me as an expression of ingroup preference.

  If you’re not familiar with the idea, ingroup preference is when you favor individuals from your own group. For example, being kinder, more likely to share resources, and less likely to judge them harshly.

  If you’re more willing to hire your friend, marry someone from your own church, or more willing to forgive your own sister, that means you have ingroup preference. If instead you’re more willing to hire a stranger, more willing to marry a foreigner, and more willing to forgive people of another religion, you have outgroup preference.

  Some people have argued that ingroup preference is a “social pathology”, though research indicates that has an important biological basis, and is required for healthy people and social systems. This recent research of LLMs also lends support to the idea that it is an emergent feature of culture: anything that has ideals, symbols, or archetypes will develop ingroup preference.

  Ingroup Preference is Biologically Adaptive

  Hamilton’s Rule

  Cooperation and self-sacrifice among animals has been observed for centuries, and often perplexed observers. A narrow understanding of natural selection would say that animals should only sacrifice their lives in protection of their own children — but that’s not the only case we see it in.

  We sometimes see cases where individual animals who have no offspring will sacrifice themselves so that other members of their families will be able to survive. This mechanism is called “kin selection”, and is the biological foundation of what we would label as ingroup preference and altruism.

  Mammals Require a Lot of Care

  Different animals have different reproductive strategies. Some release sperm and eggs into the water, never to be seen again. Some lay eggs but abandon hatchlings, and others feed their young for a few weeks. But among large, complex mammals such as whales, elephant, great apes, and humans it is very different.

  Pregnancy among large mammals is very “expensive” in evolutionary terms. Pregnancies are many months long, even over a year in some cases. Children are juveniles for many years and require close supervision.

  Human Children are Especially Costly

  Compared to other animals, pregnant women are more incapacitated by their pregnancy. Human brains are so large that they cannot reach full development in the womb — their heads would be too large to fit through the birth canal! When we compare the abilities of a newborn human to, for example, a giraffe, we can quickly see that compared to other animals, humans are born “premature” and require about 2 years of intense attention before they reach the level other animals have when they are born or within the first 6-8 weeks of life: speaking, running, and eating normal food.

  This huge amount of investment of time, energy, and resources calls for especially strong bonding between mother and child. Certain adaptations, such as initially favoring the father’s facial features, keep paternal investment high until the child is at least 5 years old. Children raised together form bonds through shared experience. Kinship links are pressed (siblings, parents, parent’s siblings, cousins) to care for offspring, which creates a large kinship network.

  Ingroup Preference Is Automatic and Healthy

  This kinship preference is so strong that when people seek friends and spouses outside of their kinship group, they still unknowingly choose people who are as closely related as 4th or 5th cousins.

  Since ingroup preference is natural and adaptive, we would expect to see those who lack it to be suffering in some way. And that’s exactly what the data shows: those with low or non-existent ingroup preference are less satisfied with their lives and more likely to suffer from mental illness.

  7 Pillars of Friendship

  The 7 Pillars Are Proxies

  Robin Dunbar (of Dunbar’s Number) has continued his research into how humans create their social groups. His research has shown that, as we would expect from Hamilton’s Rule, that family connections are privileged. Further, he has uncovered dimensions that control how deeply we are likely to connect with other people. He calls these the 7 Pillars of Friendship.

  One of the interesting observations you can make about these pillars, is that historically they would have been good proxies for determining if you were related to someone. I’ve written a short piece exploring this before. However, due to the advent of travel and information technology, these pillars have become disconnected from genetic relatedness and now function as measures of cultural relatedness.

  The Pillars Help Us Identify Ingroups

  The more pillars you share with others, the more likely you are to form deep, fulfilling friendships and speak to each other on a very regular basis. You are more likely to rate them as having good traits, even if you don’t know them. To put it another way, the more pillars you share with someone, the more you consider them part of your ingroup.

  When you struggle to find other people that you share pillars with, you become unable to fill in your social circles. This leads to isolation, feelings of loneliness and abandonment, and even depression.

  Ideals, Norms, and Archetypes

  Now we reach the point of the entire article, what made me feel compelled to write it in the first place: Weights in LLMs function like Platonic Ideals.

  For example, each culture has various virtues, norms of behavior, and story archetypes. These shape how people within a culture act and how they expect others to act. Not every member of the group has to agree with these virtues, norms, or archetypes — but those that don’t should reasonably be able to predict that most members do.

  For example, within a culture, there is some shared understanding of what a “hero” is: how he looks, how he speaks, why he acts, what he does, what he doesn’t do, and how his story ends. Someone from within that culture is most likely to create a story of a hero that checks all of these boxes.

  These little boxes are directly analogous to the weights that LLMs use both to create and to judge. If an LLM has within it’s weights some platonic ideal of an essay, it will attempt to create that perfect essay. When it reads essays that it has produced, it is more likely to consider those essays as approaching the platonic ideal.

  Interestingly though, the more sure an LLM is that it created something, the more likely it is to rate it favorably. The same can be seen in human works as well. For example, the LDS church did extremely well in the United States because it had a uniquely American origin story. People could clearly see the Church as a part of their own cultural story.

  This isn’t some offhanded observation either. Preference for things produced by your own group in an important part of social cooperation. It helps to keep money and effort within a local community, leading to increased wealth and prosperity.

  Conclusion

  In conclusion, it’s clear that ingroup preference is needed for healthy people and societies. It’s not just biological, but an emergent property for any system, human or mechanical, that uses symbols and ideals.

  Due to the negative feelings many have around ingroup preferences, this realization seems huge in relation to the research for my book. A strong defense of ingroup preference is essential to explaining the continuity and importance of Western Civilization.

  Notes and Comments

  • This article has been somewhat rushed, in an attempt to publish content more frequently. Consider it a rough draft rather than a final product.
  • The article on LLMs is difficult and somewhat confusing: Panickssery, Arjun. “LLM Evaluators Recognize and Favor Their Own Generations”, 2024.
  • For more information on the 7 Pillars of Friendship, Dunbar recently published a book geared towards a general audience explaining his research: Dunbar, Robin. “Friends”, 2021.
  • When I refer to Platonic Ideals, I am not using it in the sense of a physical object which resides on another plane, but instead a shared archetype within a cultural setting.

  April 24, 2024

  ai, emergent properties, ingroup preference, llm

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