[seanhunter]

> Obvious plant nobody would be that stupid to store the valuables at home within the first six months after the „acquisition“.

Whenever you say "nobody would be that stupid" you have to pause and take a deep breath and realise that however dumb something is, there are for sure people who are stupid enough to do it.

Example 1 from personal experience: I was at my aunt's house and she had to rush a friend's husband to get medical help because he had drilled a hole in his own stomach with a hand drill while trying to put up a bookshelf.

The friend had been reading a book on medieval medicine so (rather than rushing her husband immediately to hospital) decided to try a medieval remedy on him so fed him some soup to see whether (in line with the medieval diagnostic routine) she could smell it after he had eaten it. She could indeed, because it dribbled out of the hole he had drilled in his stomach.

Now. You might reasonably say: "Noone would be so dumb as to drill a hole in their own stomach" or indeed "noone would be so dumb as to see a loved one who had drilled a hole in themselves and decide to feed them soup" but I can tell you from direct personal experience there are people dumb enough to do this.

Example 2 from personal experience[1]: A friend of my dad who was a highly capable chemical engineer and generally very practical guy (eg he made a motorcycle for his kids to play on using salvaged parts including a lawnmower engine and a frame he welded together himself) was a hobby parachutist. He broke his spine because he decided to modify his parachute himself on his wife's sewing machine in spite of having no previous sewing experience.

However dumb something is, there are people dumb enough to do it and even otherwise smart people have blind spots that make them incredibly dumb under the right circumstances.

[1] Just in case you think smart people can't do incredibly dumb things.

[ericyd]

The first story could literally be a sketch on a comedy show, thanks for the laugh

[dieselgate]

Reminds me of safety trainings where they show machine-shop accidents or people nailing themselves with an air-gun. It happens more than we think and is gruesome. Just a couple months ago saw a Dewalt framing nailer recall posted at home depot for accidental discharges without the trigger being held. Not the same as drilling into your stomach - and I see a black comedy element - but can't help but wince and cringe at the thought of it all and it's not genuinely funny to me.

[ericyd]

The drilling into oneself is not funny. The feeding an obviously seriously injured person soup to deduce the severity of their illness is funny as hell to me

[Tangurena2]

> Whenever you say "nobody would be that stupid" you have to pause and take a deep breath and realise that however dumb something is, there are for sure people who are stupid enough to do it.

Long ago, I graduated from a police academy. One of the things taught was that crooks, while clever at finding ways to make money, are rather unclever ("stupid" if you will) at performing that task. Which is why so many are caught.

The smart engineer who over-estimated his ability with sewing is a tragic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I'm reminded of the Dunning Kruger paper [0]:

> In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks and robbed them in broad daylight, with no visible attempt at disguise. He was arrested later that night, less than an hour after videotapes of him taken from surveillance cameras were broadcast on the 11 o'clock news. When police later showed him the surveillance tapes, Mr. Wheeler stared in incredulity. "But I wore the juice," he mumbled. Apparently, Mr. Wheeler was under the impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to videotape cameras.

Links:

0 - that paper itself: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/sasi/wp-content/uploads/sites/27...

[bitmasher9]

I think we often underestimate the intelligence of the criminal population for two main reasons.

1. The dumbest ones are most likely to be caught and have their stories told.

2. Law Enforcement often gets frustrated at chasing the smarter ones and use illegal methods catching them and the real story doesn’t come out in court.

[jermaustin1]

> the real story doesn’t come out in court.

I'm not saying this hasn't happened, but any competent criminal defense attorney (like a SMART criminal would have) would go to town on illegally obtained evidence. I'm not saying cops don't do warrantless searches/taps/etc., to gather unofficial clues, but if they can't get real evidence that stands up under scrutiny, the criminal walks.

I'm not sure if prosecution would move forward on such shaky ground in hard to prove cases.

[Schmerika]

> any competent criminal defense attorney

I don't think 'going to town on illegally obtained evidence' works as often as you believe it does [0, 1].

And think back - how many people went to jail for national and/or international scale warrantless wiretapping? How did we, as a nation, respond to Snowden's revelations?

> I'm not sure if prosecution would move forward on such shaky ground in hard to prove cases.

There are people on death row in the US even after being proven innocent and ordered to go free. Dignity in Ink [2] present similar cases every day - they're never going to run out of material.

0 - A major DOJ/GAO-era federal study found that illegal search/seizure issues accounted for about 0.4% of declined federal prosecutions and roughly 0.7% of dismissed cases after prosecution began. - https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/84544NCJRS.pdf

1 - Another study across seven jurisdictions found motions to suppress succeeded in under 1% of warrant cases, and only 1.5% of defendants went free because of successful suppression motions. - https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/search-warrants-mot...

2 - https://www.instagram.com/dignityinink

[itintheory]

Parallel construction is when they use illegally obtained evidence to construct a separate set of ostensibly legitimate evidence. Like, an illegal wiretap might lead to someone being in the right place at the right time to witness a crime.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

It is CIA. For better or worse, different rules apply.

[hylaride]

It would not surprise me to learn you sign away certain rights to sign up - arguably the way it should be for such an organization.

[kshacker]

Only if such evidence was made public

[HlessClaudesman]

Are you telling me that Luigi Manglone was not foiled by a eagle eyed McDonalds employee?!?

[mrandish]

Near as I can tell Luigi nullified all his carefully planned evasion and escape routing by deciding at the last minute he really needed a coffee from the Starbucks across the street from where he was about to shoot his victim and didn't keep his hoody up. If he'd worn a long-billed baseball cap, dark glasses, kept his hoody up and skipped Starbucks he'd probably never have been caught.

His evasion and escape plan was actually pretty good and he put a lot of effort into being hard to trace by arriving and departing NYC via bus and staying in a hostel, which makes it surprising he screwed up the easiest and most obvious things.

[wat10000]

On the other hand, smart people with criminal intent are more likely to find legal ways to profit. Why steal a hundred bucks from somebody when you can figure out how to steal a few bucks from millions and your only punishment is paying a fraction of your profit in fines.

[Ntrails]

> Law Enforcement often gets frustrated at chasing the smarter ones

and gives up, moving on to easier prey - and ideally getting them to plead to the other crimes I can't solve as part of a nice plea deal. Great for the stats.

[Tangurena2]

The really smart ones leave people wondering if a crime really happened at all. It doesn't even need to be Oceans 11/12/n++, it can be simply "are you even sure the money is missing?"

[lab14]

I mean, you see smart people all over the world talking to imaginary, supernatural, all powerfull beings asking for favors via prayers, like that would have any effect on their lives.

[randusername]

> like that would have any effect on their lives

Prayer is more than begging favors from imaginary friends, even if that is the stereotype and there is some truth in it. Like meditation, journaling, and other contemplative practices, it is a mechanism for putting the day-to-day in proper context of some larger narrative. In a theological framework, then, it's about a narrative in which you aren't alone in your joys and sorrows.

I don't think intelligence and spiritual practice are mutually exclusive. I think you can be repulsed by the dogma, indoctrination, and irrationality but also recognize that there might be something redeemable in such popular frameworks for finding meaning and purpose in existence.

[WhitneyLand]

“Like meditation, journaling, and other contemplative practices”

The big difference is that meditation and journaling do not require a belief that you are communicating with supernatural beings.

“I don't think intelligence and spiritual practice are mutually exclusive.”

That’s a low bar. At the least we know supernatural/religious beliefs are negatively correlated with scientific training and scientific eminence.

[wat10000]

It may be more than begging favors from imaginary friends, but it does include begging favors from imaginary friends.

How many people would agree with the statement "prayer works"? How many of them consider that to mean actual concrete effects taking place outside the person making the prayer? It's a lot.

Maybe prayer is, for some people, just a way to organize your thoughts or whatever. But for a huge number of people, it's a way to literally influence outside events.

[LEDThereBeLight]

Prayer does work, through the mechanism of putting your thoughts in perspective and context and sharing them outside yourself. Whether or not people understand the reason “why” it works doesn’t matter.

[Hikikomori]

I think the difference is if its personal and spiritual. Compared to "thoughts and prayer" for the dead children in the latest school shooting, and continue to do nothing else.

[alphawhisky]

I think most people would argue that's just being a moral person. Jesus was a humanist, after all. I find that these days, the folks looking for community won't really build for others, and the folks looking to build for others are extremely hesitant to join a community. You tell me why and which group are better Christians.

[aj_hackman]

As outlined in John 1:1, Jesus is in fact God himself, and God is something far greater and more magnificent than a humanist. The message of the Bible is a total inversion of humanism, teaching us to believe in God alone rather than ourselves for deliverance from the necessary and ultimately temporary problems of evil and suffering. It's full of stories of human beings attempting to fix things on their own and failing spectacularly (which is ironic given the history of the church).

[alphawhisky]

Forgot the holy spirit, doofus. The God in you and me. The reason Jesus told us to love one another. You will never be righteous with such a shallow and disconnected interpretation of God's will.

[aj_hackman]

I have offered you a theological counterpoint to your claim, and you may take it or leave it, but you may not call me names and continue in any kind of meaningful dialogue here. It is beneath us both.

"For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:20

[IAmBroom]

I am an atheist, and have been for over 50 years.

You are a childish embarrassment.

[vladms]

In medicine, placebo was proven to have a positive effect. Maybe we will learn about similar effects about other things.

Now, if only we would convince everybody that those supernatural beings don't work through representatives that everybody must listen, that would already be an improvement!

[prewett]

Why wouldn't supernatural beings work through representatives? For one thing, they are presumably only going to work through people that are committed to their (the beings') agenda. And why would supernatural beings necessarily be populist? Until the Christian revolution, the dominant thought was that the supernatural beings were elitist; all of the heroes in Greek mythology were nobility of some form.

[IAmBroom]

A myriad Christian monarchies have believed in Divine Right. The Christian revolution had no effect on this idea.

[tejohnso]

I get your point, but prayer can be akin visualization and practiced focus, which can indeed have an effect on one's life.

Then there's the type of prayer where you straight up beg for things from FSM for five seconds and move on with your day. Probably less helpful, that.

[lab14]

i'm OK with meditation, as it doesn't require believing in superatural, all powerful beings

[jack_pp]

Newton believed in God, ask an LLM what famous scientists believed in God, take a step back and ask if you think you are smarter than those people.

[throwaway173738]

Just as OP’s derision isn’t a reason for disbelief, “smart people” expressing belief isn’t a reason to believe.

[jack_pp]

It should at least be a reason to not be snarky about the subject.

[dingdingdang]

Yes, it worth aiming for common sense as a bare minimum, chaos and entropy only grows when things we don't understand are casually derided/attacked.

[stickfigure]

Newton spent more of his life working on alchemy than math or physics. Shall we all start searching for the Philosopher's Stone? Why not?

[jack_pp]

He was also a heretic, but what he was most certainly not, was an atheist. All I'm saying is that if some very smart people strongly believe that we're not just star dust that should at least make you question your own belief that there is no higher power.

Maybe put it to the test, even though you feel dumb for doing it, pray for something small that you would not otherwise expect to happen in the immediate future. see what happens

[stickfigure]

People who are otherwise smart often believe dumb things. History is littered with them. Which is why appeal to authority should always be regarded with skepticism.

This prayer example illustrates a series of fallacies and human biases. Confirmation bias, survivorship bias, apophenia, post-hoc reasoning... many ways we know our brains trick us.

Try this pre-registered, with large numbers and control groups.

Or just read the literature from people who did. Prayer does nothing.

[NuclearPM]

It made more sense to believe this stuff back in the 1600s.

[mullingitover]

It also made sense to say you believed in God, because if you did anything else people would do things like burning you alive. Even now, although it’s not usually as violent religion is frequently very coercive.

[paulryanrogers]

Guessing the downvotes are because you said 'imaginary' about things folks consider very personal and are mostly unfalsifiable.

[Filligree]

I feel like that says more about them. Feeling good about the existence of something, or bad about its absence, does not count as evidence.

[irishcoffee]

> Feeling good about the existence of something, or bad about its absence, does not count as evidence.

Isn't the inverse also true?

[Filligree]

Sure, but nonexistence is the default. Has to be the default; most possible things do not exist. In this case we have no evidence for, so we stay with the default.

[irishcoffee]

You're making the "if a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it" pontification? If so, I disagree with you.

[ecshafer]

Here comes the /r/atheism level hot takes. In this moment, I feel euphoric.

[nojs]

that was a fantastic story, thanks