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Comment by 27182818284 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah this is very dependent on where you live.

I was pretty shocked when a co-working survey asked if you felt you could leave a smartphone or laptop alone. Where I'm at, you can leave these alone without fear—it hadn't occurred to me that it is a serious problem (which obviously it is and always has been)

In my area, you can leave a Retina MacBook Pro out and not expect it gone. (If you work for a company where your laptop has serious data, then of course that stuff should be on lockdown. Most people I know with stuff like that have it locked away in secure cabinets, etc and don't leave it out.)

Anyhoo, yeah students can leave a MacBook Pro Retina, walk away for coffee or to use the restroom and then come back to it. The probability of it being stolen exists, but it is tiny. (Also the culture is such that if someone took something, it wouldn't be a surprise for others to be like, "Hey! What are you doing?!" )

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There was this thing on TV where a black male actor was cutting a bike chain with a saw or something like that. Many people confronted him. He said "The bike has been here for a long time." And they told him: "It's not your bike. You can't just take it."

Then they showed a white female actress doing the same exact thing. A couple people asked her what she was doing. She said to one person "I'm stealing the bike." They offered to help her.

I don't trust those things on TV. They seem so easy to slant in a direction that suits the producers. That's not to say that a bias wouldn't exist in that scenario. However, it's not like you can conclude that most people would stop a black man from stealing a bike, but help a white woman do the same, from the sample set that they CHOSE to show.

I think you could conclude that from common sense. People are much more racist then they think they are.

That's very true. It wouldn't be too surprised if the whole show was fake. Especially after finding out about Breaking Amish.

I think it is this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7i60GuNRg

Among many issues: * contrary to the narrator's statement, the two males are not dressed similarly * they speak differently * there is no black female control

And of course, being a TV show, there is no systematic statistical analysis.

Now, TBH even with more rigorous protocol I suspect the conclusions drawn would be similar, but as it stands, this "experiment" is not altogether useful.

That was disturbing watch, but not necessarily because of the racist aspect.

I felt 70% of the reason why the Hispanic guy was confronted by people was because he was a much smaller than the white guy.

Had it been similarly sized black guy, nobody would've dared scolding him.

It's socially unacceptable to be racist, but we think being 'sizist' is ok.

Uh, are you really saying that big black people are not victims of racist abuse?

It sounds like he's saying "people are more likely to intervene if they think they could take the other person in a fight". If you're afraid because of a size differential, you're more likely to stay silent (not "you" specifically, but the societal "you")

I am in the bay area (east bay, not SF) and frequent a couple of local coffee shops to do some work. Thankfully, the places I go don't have quite the turnover a busy area like SF does, and there are a lot of regulars. People kind of keep an eye out for each other and their stuff when they leave to use the restroom. In 2 years I haven't seen or heard of anyone having anything other than a bicycle stolen.

Of course I know that doesn't mean someone won't drop in, swipe something and run out, so I still occasionally will take my laptop with me and leave my (otherwise worthless) backpack on the chair and coffee on the table. But if I see a few familiar faces nearby I don't feel too bad about leaving the laptop on the table for a couple of minutes. Of course, I'm rocking a 4 year old off-brand PC... not exactly a desirable item. A high-end machine or anything Apple and I might handle it differently just because of the value.

The cell phone is another matter, as I feel like those are a much easier and somewhat more desirable item for thieves. I don't even leave that on the table while I'm sitting there, it stays in my pocket at all times unless I'm talking.

What area would that be? Color me skeptical.

the Midwest.

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