The Other Seven Deadly Sins (part 1)

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Um..."Villain".

Someone is going to pay tomorrow. Someone as in rednecks.

Why limit yourself?  Smarmy fucking liberals can be every bit as apathetic.  They just wring their hands a bit more and moan about how awful it all is, while they sidle away.

[The Wizard]

Why limit yourself?  Smarmy fucking liberals can be every bit as apathetic.  They just wring their hands a bit more and moan about how awful it all is, while they sidle away.

There's only one in my town. He's my American Government teacher. And don't worry, he's probably going to get it worst of all.

[LMNO]

Thanks. Anything I can improve on? I'm going to be distributing this, so it needs to be as close to perfect as I can make it.

I hate to say this, but find a different representative.

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/03/27/05

Subsequent investigations of the Kitty Genovese case have shown that story to be greatly exaggerated... Moseley said he was standing over Kitty, trying to figure out a place he could take her to work on her, when he heard someone call out from the building across the street, "Leave that woman alone." He then realized that his car was parked where it could be identified. So he ran off, got into his car, backed it around 82nd Road, about half a block up, parked, and waited.

In the meantime, Kitty walked, however unsteadily, around to the back of the building. She collapsed inside a small foyer in the back of that two-story Tudor building. And 10 minutes later, Mr. Moseley came back, found her there, and that's where she suffered the wounds that would eventually kill her.

There was only one person who was in a position to witness that second attack, and that was a man who had an apartment, the entrance to which was at the top of the stairwell to that vestibule. He said that he didn't want to call the police because his problem was that he was inebriated; he had been highly intoxicated. So he contacted a woman who lived in the building and she did call the police.

The wounds that she apparently suffered during the first attack, the two to four stabs in the back, caused her lungs to be punctured, and the testimony given at trial is that she died not from bleeding to death but from asphyxiation. The air from her lungs leaked into her thoracic cavity, compressing the lungs, making it impossible for her to breathe. If someone suffers that type of lung damage, are they even physically capable of screaming for a solid half hour?

If you look at The Times article, it looks like there were two hands there. The first paragraph takes an entirely different tack than the rest of the story and the accompanying picture. What I think happened is that the reporter turned in probably what he thought was a very carefully written article, and the editor rewrote that first paragraph and tacked it onto the story. And it was that paragraph that people remember.

No one knows where the number for "38 witnesses" came from. All I can tell you is that there's a man named Charles Skoller, and he was the assistant prosecutor. He helped prosecute Winston Moseley. And he said he doesn't know where the 38 witness number came from. He said that the District Attorney's Office found only maybe five or six people who saw anything that they could use, and of the people he identified, there are only really two that I know of who actually saw any part of the physical attack.  And the only person who could be said to have ignored the plight of this young woman was that man at the top of the stairs.

So, yeah.  File under "it just bugs me".

[Eater of Clowns]

The Kitty Genovese case is usually one of the first cited for the "diffusion of responsibility" phenomenon, which is actually very common.  It's not that nobody cares, it's that the more people witnessing something happen, the less likely it is anyone will do something about it.  They'll all assume someone else will handle it.

That's why in CPR training, they teach people not to yell out "someone go get the AED (automated electronic defibrilator, I think)."  They teach you to point to a person, specifically, and tell them to find an AED.

The concept I like.  I can see apathy being one of the new deadly sins, but the deadly sins are very much something that people succumb to.  Diffusion of responsibility isn't so much a sin as it is a very basic level of reaction.

[LMNO]

Well, I know I'm in the minority on this one.  Everyone "knows" the Kitty Genovese case was an example of "diffusion of responsibility", so they use that as a shorthand.

Because it's used as shorthand, everyone knows what it's referring to.

What bugs me is that the actual Kitty Genovese case, not the one that everyone uses as shorthand, was not an instance of diffusion of responsibility.


So, we end up with two Kitty Genoveses.  One where 38 people watched or listened to her being murdered, and one where someone noticed and said something, another was drunk, and where Kitty's lungs were punctured so she couldn't scream.

I don't doubt that the diffusion of responsibility effect is real.  I've seen it in action.  What bugs me is that people are ossifying a lie to explain a truth.

[Eater of Clowns]

Well, I know I'm in the minority on this one.  Everyone "knows" the Kitty Genovese case was an example of "diffusion of responsibility", so they use that as a shorthand.

Because it's used as shorthand, everyone knows what it's referring to.

What bugs me is that the actual Kitty Genovese case, not the one that everyone uses as shorthand, was not an instance of diffusion of responsibility.


So, we end up with two Kitty Genoveses.  One where 38 people watched or listened to her being murdered, and one where someone noticed and said something, another was drunk, and where Kitty's lungs were punctured so she couldn't scream.

I don't doubt that the diffusion of responsibility effect is real.  I've seen it in action.  What bugs me is that people are ossifying a lie to explain a truth.

I can dig that.

[Luna]

Hrm.  Use it, move on to Gullibility, next, and riff off of this.

[Jasper]

I'm very interested in having a set of sins that are actually, you know, deadly.  Apathy kills.  Therefore, deadly.

[The Wizard]

I hate to say this, but find a different representative.

Goddamit. I checked that one. Guess I should have double checked. It's not that big a deal, there's another case I can use.

Thanks for the save, LMNO. Can't afford to have any mistakes on this one.

Well, I know I'm in the minority on this one.  Everyone "knows" the Kitty Genovese case was an example of "diffusion of responsibility", so they use that as a shorthand.

Because it's used as shorthand, everyone knows what it's referring to.

What bugs me is that the actual Kitty Genovese case, not the one that everyone uses as shorthand, was not an instance of diffusion of responsibility.


So, we end up with two Kitty Genoveses.  One where 38 people watched or listened to her being murdered, and one where someone noticed and said something, another was drunk, and where Kitty's lungs were punctured so she couldn't scream.

I don't doubt that the diffusion of responsibility effect is real.  I've seen it in action.  What bugs me is that people are ossifying a lie to explain a truth.

I'm going to scrap it anyway.I want facts to support my conclusions, not shorthand.

I'm very interested in having a set of sins that are actually, you know, deadly.  Apathy kills.  Therefore, deadly.

I'm going more for, damaging on both a societal and personal level, kind of thing. Kind of pointing out what I consider the things that hold us back as a species, though with an admittedly America-centric tone.

[The Wizard]

Okay, fixed the Kitty Genovese thing. Going to right up Prejudice and hopefully a couple other sins tonight.

[Placid Dingo]

Read 'opening skinners box' for some good research regarding the genovese case/diffusion of responsibility etc and ways to combat that inclination

/threadjack

[The Wizard]

Read 'opening skinners box' for some good research regarding the genovese case/diffusion of responsibility etc and ways to combat that inclination

Hmm. Interesting. Added to Amazon wish list.

[Phox]

Semaj, my piece on Kitty Genovese:

It bugs me, like LMNO. Because the fact that she did get up and walk inside made the few people who saw her (as LMNO has already provided evidence that it was 4 or 5 people), think she was oka,y or at the very least not as badly off as she was.

Even the drunkard DID contact someone to try to get her help. So, yeah, it bugs me.


I do like the rewrite, though you might want to change the the last paragraph a little bit. It just doesn't seem to flow right for some reason.

[The Wizard]

Semaj, my piece on Kitty Genovese:

It bugs me, like LMNO. Because the fact that she did get up and walk inside made the few people who saw her (as LMNO has already provided evidence that it was 4 or 5 people), think she was oka,y or at the very least not as badly off as she was.

Even the drunkard DID contact someone to try to get her help. So, yeah, it bugs me.

A good case of common knowledge turning out to be false, for sure.

I do like the rewrite, though you might want to change the the last paragraph a little bit. It just doesn't seem to flow right for some reason.

Hmm. Let me see...okay, I fiddled with it a little. How does it sound now?

[Phox]

Better.