[SGVLUG] Off-topic - Hans Reiser article - murder trial

[Joel Witherspoon]

Well said. So well said it may end up on a website.

Thanks for it, I'm better off having read it.

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 1:18 PM, Dustin Laurence <dustin at laurences.net>
wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> I've not said much about this trial because I didn't find it to be a
> very pleasant topic, but now that Hans has not only been found guilty
> but has actually *shown* himself to be guilty I guess I will.
>
> Frankly, I always thought the case against Hans was strong. I don't like
> the idea that, hrm, "one of our own" committed murder, but I thought
> that it was about as good as circumstantial cases get and absolutely
> grounds for prosecution. And this is what bothers me about some of the
> comments from the Linux community: Hans was sometimes made into
> something of a tragic figure being scapegoated because he was
> "different." "Different like us" was meant to imply "this could happen
> to any of us, because society hates us." That was a mistake. Are we so
> paranoid that some sense of grievance or other against society was
> stronger than the fact that all evidence suggested he had been busy
> covering up murder? That isn't just sad, it is scary, because it
> suggests that the popular stereotype of computer enthusiasts as
> maladjusted, socially incapable misfits has a stronger basis in reality
> than we like to admit.
>
> It also gives the lie to our own ethos. Theoretically, technical people
> have learned the hardest lesson of all: that the universe is what it is
> regardless the stories we tell about it. The reason the challenger
> accident was a story of engineers vs. managers is because managers are
> trained to manipulate social reality, and tend to think *all* reality is
> social reality, while engineers are trained to manipulate physical
> reality and therefore recognize that it is not subservient to social
> reality. Yet in this case, quite a few of us behaved as the NASA
> managers: they allowed techie social reality to blind them to what the
> physical facts were saying: that Hans Reiser had in all probability been
> covering up murder, and therefore in all probability must have committed
> it (or been an accomplice, but no one argued that theory that I know
> of). That did not constitute proof and would not justify simply assuming
> guilt (we are all still committed to the idea that freeing the guilty is
> preferable to convicting the innocent, I hope), but it should have been
> a strong warning not to make Hans a martyr or symbol regardless of how
> much we wanted him to be innocent.
>
> Unfortunately I thought the Salon article was pretty accurate, and
> consistent with what I suspected of Hans' character. It hurts, sure, but
> sometimes the universe is just that way. I am glad that Hans revealed
> the location of Nina's body; I hope he doesn't get a lighter sentence
> for it, but it does prove that the jury verdict was accurate and I think
> that's important. I'm sorry that it may bury the Reiser filesystems, but
> I for one don't value filesystems over either a life or over the correct
> functioning of justice. If Hans had gone free, it would have damaged
> every one of us, not so much because a human being died at the hands of
> her ex-husband (that is true, I am just not arguing the point) but
> because it would have damaged the rule of law. I applaud the jury for
> reaching the correct verdict, and (though it doesn't matter) would
> support a stiff sentence (including the death penalty).  I say that not
> because of the murder itself, but because Hans made clear just what the
> Salon article reported; he has no remorse and believes that nothing is
> his fault and everything is the fault of everyone else. He shows signs
> of lacking some of the innate inhibition against taking another human
> life. That makes him a very dangerous person that, I suspect, could and
> would kill again. I do not care to see him on the street for a long,
> long time, and would not cry if that was "never" either because of a
> life sentence or the death penalty.
>
> I could add a diatribe about how it is postmodern Western culture that
> teaches people that they have no responsibility or guilt, that this is
> the inevitable consequence of a very sick, disfunctional society that
> believes with Plato's Socrates that all evil is caused by bad education
> or ignorance, and that only traditional ethics has any chance of doing
> otherwise, but I shall refrain.
>
> Sadly,
>
> Dustin
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFIdRzzqg5VKIBY7TIRAliJAJ9VJNPbJpf7UAZzXxOXgtYKX2gwFwCfc3mT
> Ty+oPZ2mAHHFY4S8Cdlo+2I=
> =Qrcg
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.sgvlug.net/pipermail/sgvlug/attachments/20080709/0979c0b5/attachment-0001.html