Genuinely curious why you're intentionally misframing things this way. Is it political? Or you just don't like this guy for some reason? He's been robbed (from what I can see a dozen or more times), and in one instance called the police and held the criminal there until they arrived a few minutes later. Everything completely legal, above board, etc.

This is a perfect example of someone telling the truth in such a way to completely mischaracterize what really happened.

How could anyone asking questions about somebodythat bought a town be framed as being anything but political?

I’m sorry that you didn’t like my factual summary of events, but I provided direct references that were very easy to click on and read more about and I’m glad that you availed yourself to those resources.

Can you please be more clear with what you're trying to say then?

You obviously feel very strongly about pontifier and his past, given the amount of time you spent digging into his background, what is the point you are actually trying to make here? Be as direct as possible, please :)

I asked if the OP was the same person that was posting on Twitter, as what was posted there was a different tone from what was posted on HN. He answered in the affirmative.

I did not spend much time “digging into his background”, I clicked a link and read a few posts.

Why do you care? Be as direct as possible, please :)

TBF, there was an SWE on here a few years back and asked a sob story about how he cant find work and needs help, and a bunch of us pored over his request and posts, and it was only after I (and other) did basic DD - we found he was a convicted child sex offender.

:-(

So, we always want to help - I mean, FFS - people who develop tech/sw/hw/etc are actually looking at giving the fruits of their efforts out to the world, social support is no different...

But at times quick to help without judging the requestor past (HELLO PAC contributions :-))

I’ll bite - I only care because I think it’s important for others to see what your intentions are here. Now that I’ve answered your question, can you answer mine? :) If I wanted to, I’m sure I could Google some of your online identities and find a post your made in the past and then asked in a public forum if you’re the same person. I wouldn’t do that because I think it’s a bit creepy and impolite, but if I had a very specific reason for doing so, I might consider it. So I’ll ask again - what was your intention in connecting his identities here in such a direct way? You said something about “bought a town” and it being “political”, can you expand on what that means?

I actually misunderstood the wording, I’m now aware that he only bought 17 acres + 75 more properties in the area.

As for the weird threat of embarrassment… what? I literally just asked if he used the same username on both websites.

As for why I asked, I’ll answer again: his post on HN had a different tone from his posts on the bird site, and I wanted to know if they gave context to his post or were unrelated. For example, I do not own “braingenious” on twitter, and I wouldn’t want someone to mix me up with whoever that is.

I initially found this thread because someone mentioned it on Twitter. Spoiler: I did not go out of my way to gain any information.

As for how this relates to politics, I’ll refer to his own recent post about local politics affecting his project.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32474436

This has been a courtesy post because you have not answered “Why do you care?” and have failed to be direct. I will not engage with you any further.

I think I should TM Smooth-BrainGenius and sell it to anyone on twitter I can muster a nickle out of.

> I only care because I think it’s important for others to see what your intentions are here.

Always a losing strategy in my experience.

You seem far more obnoxious than the person you seem to be publicly drumming up hate for :)

Did you feel hatred for him after reading my post? That was not my intention. As I’ve stated, I was looking for clarity about posts with pretty different tones.

I invite you to not read questions directed at people other than you if you find them to be obnoxious.

> Did you feel hatred for him after reading my post?

No, why would I?

I don’t know either, that’s why I asked. If I were drumming up hate maybe you would’ve experienced it.

No, your attempt failed.

I am glad that we’ve agreed that I did not drum up any hate. Thank you for clarifying this.

Private bounty hunter businesses are harmful to society.

People who rob businesses are harmful to society. Fixed that for you.

It is also true that people who rob businesses are harmful to society. That is completely independent of the terrible outcomes caused by private vigilanteism.

vigilanteism implies he hunted him down. the trespasser came to his property.

the guy confronted him and held him there until the authorities arrived.

are you implying people should not protect their livelihood and let trespassers loot even if they could stop them?

why should those property owners who are fully in the right morally and legally do that when the trespassers are flagrantly breaking the law?

I'm not talking about him protecting his property. I'm talking about the bensforbars thing.

I see, but I don't find a problem with that either though.

Seems no different than crime stoppers, it's usually just a reward for information leading to an arrest, it's not an actual bounty. It's not excluding that, but he's most likely hoping someone who knows the person who stole it will rat for the money.

And I think you'll have to provide examples of the "terrible outcomes caused by private vigilanteism".

This is why I stopped commenting here. HN commenters have schizophrenia it seems like.

On the contrary, their lack is what's harmful to society.

If they are, then they should be illegal. If they are illegal, and this qualifies, then this guy should be punished.

None of this negates anything I said previously.

Our society is not perfect. A large number of antisocial things are legal. It is completely reasonable to criticize somebody for doing a thing that is both legal and also antisocial.

I feel for this guy. He is getting screwed by a high-violence region. But his approach to solving this problem makes the world worse, not better.

I think it's important to keep the specifics in mind as these things live and die on the specific details.

A criminal came to his private property and attempted to steal. He was able to keep the person there - for less than ten minutes - until that person was arrested. Presumably that person is in jail now or at least on probation.

Please explain how just letting this person steal leaves the world better than having him get punished for his actions. When victims of crime shrug their shoulders and just say "aw shucks" it incentivizes more crime, which makes the world objectively worse.

I'm not talking about him protecting his property. I'm talking about the bensforbars thing. Paying people to track down specific criminals is very different than protecting ones property in the moment.

> Paying people to track down specific criminals is very different than protecting ones property in the moment.

What is the alternative? Paying people to track down criminals is how law enforcement works almost everywhere.

There is a major difference between a state organization with shared ownership and management through democratic processes and private business. The police have enough problems as an institution. Private vigilantes are going to be worse.

There is a major difference between an organization with shared ownership and management through democratic processes and an institution several decision-makers removed from that. It is not clear that private investigators without privileges of monopoly on violence should be worse.

It's not illegal, therefore it's not a bad thing. And since it's not a bad thing, its not illegal.

did i get that right

You make him sound like some sort of violent vigilante kidnapper. Held an intruder at gunpoint after calling police.

Honestly looking into his issues, seems like he's getting dealt some bad cards after investing into a city that is letting him down.

Honestly, it looks like he isn't going about trying to work with the city very well. He also has videos on there of him lecturing public officials about how slow they are.

At the same time, he is trying to build a fusion generator, a science museum, an industrial space, and a few internet businesses that seem to need a secure facility. The planning commission probably has no idea what to do with him, and it doesn't sound like he is employing very many people from the local community. If I were on that city council, I would also be skeptical of the rich guy who bought a warehouse to play around but not actually run any serious business.

The "benforbars" site has all the hallmarks of a free-energy nutjob complete with comic sans font and MSpaint images.

Between that and the tweet whining about how hard email is to set up (!) this dude isn't qualified to run a Subway franchise, certainly not multiple internet companies.

I went through 6 months of his tweets and, yeah, he either doesn't have a grip on reality, has some sort of mental health issue, or is just constantly trying to run some angle.

- Yup, the free energy fonts and conspiratorial claims about video of his fusion reactor being suppressed

- It looks like he bought a bunch of people's property for pennies on the dollar, then raised funds from those same people to return their goods to them, then had them trucked across the country in shipping containers to be dropped at this derelict 'warehouse'.

- He claims to be solo creating a viable fusion reactor, which appears to be one of the umpteen intended uses of this warehouse

- Wonders why the town council isn't trying to help him, when in one of his own tweets admits that he didn't even bother to attend the meeting that was going to hear his issue.

- Thinks snipers are stealing from him.

- Apparently held a man at gunpoint

- Alleges, openly on the internet, that he's storing all sorts of valuable equipment and music media at this warehouse while admitting he isn't even in the state a good chunk of the time

- Tried to run for mayor of Provo, UT (population 117k) so he could "disincorporate the city"

- the whole benforbars thing

- Complaining about the inability to install minecraft on anything other than a linux machine (?)

- Various email/server complaints

Yeahhhh

It's very interesting to see how the things I've put out there are interpreted.

It feels like looking at myself in a fun-house mirror. There are probably huge pieces of these events that I'm not communicating well, or at all.

Thank you for your comment. I'll try to be better at communicating the meanings I intend.

FWIW you don't seem that unhinged to me. Best of luck in that town.

You still don’t see it?! Stop with the defensive attitude and just listen. There is value in listening to what is going on around you. Put your ego aside and realize that at least some of what is occurring is not just someone else’s fault.

I don't think you're being particularly charitable in this thread - at the very least you're misrepresenting what he's said publicly.

How can I run a serious business if I can't use the warehouse I bought?

Why can't I use it? Because the city won't let me.

I'm not the only one. This guy, Garland Trice, had his building demolished by the city because he failed to repair it. Why did he fail to repair it? Because the city would not give him permits.

It's SO RIDICULOUS here!

They've closed down the movie theater because they wanted to bring in their own theater. They drove a crypto mining facility away. They ran a tire recycler out of town...

If I hired 50 people, what would they do with no place to work?

I don't know much about this town, but I will say that your approach of yelling at people won't work. It rarely does. My suggestion is that you at least act like you care about their concerns. Go to their meetings. Even a few that are unrelated to your building permits. When their offices are open, go to ask them what they need to hear from you. Be nice. Ask people what they want. Make them feel comfortable. Be prepared to say "sorry" a lot.

Politics in small towns is about relationships. You need to build them if you want to build anything else. There's a reason you got this building for a deep discount: it's going to cost you a lot of time to get anything done. You didn't pay a lot of money for this building, and that was for a reason: you're going to have to pay in other resources.

Alternatively, if you're going to yell, you need to back it up with some persuasion. In this case, legal threats from actual lawyers (no pulling a C&D letter off the internet and changing a few things - you need your threats to be legit). That is going to get expensive very quickly, but it may work - small towns don't have a lot of legal resources and neither do their residents. The guy whose building got demolished for not doing disallowed repairs probably has a big payout waiting if he sues.

This is the best advice and perspective I've seen in this thread.

Yeah seems like it's all over the place, but certainly doesn't seem like the city is doing its job when there are multiple break-ins in short period of time of 1 property.

He made this site... he's offering people $100 per month per person they get sent to jail as long as they remain in jail http://bensforbars.com/

...

So? That's just encouraging people to assist the police when they can, which is what responsible people should be doing anyway. If you don't like criminals going to jail, that's a separate issue entirely.

The photo on his Twitter account has one of the websites listed in his HN profile (Crossies) in the background, so I'm assuming that's him.

Yeah, that's me.

You are not having a good time there are you? This is how people turn into Batman.

This is so offensive to Batman.

How does the vigilante business make a profit?