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You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

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Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#181

Post by pelario »

Nadya wrote: post #172
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Headlines like these are obviously created for sensationalism It isn't. Depending on whose numbers you use, the statistic is either actually true or sufficiently close that disputing the difference is pedantry. The reason the headline is shocking is that people expect there to be relatively few police shootings yet, if the GWoT rhetoric is to be believed, rather a serious problem with terrorism. The fact that the p…

>It isn't. Depending on whose numbers you use, the statistic is either actually true or sufficiently close that disputing the difference is pedantry. Sensationalism in this case is saying that 0.00003% > 0.0000009% and expecting people to care. Both scenarios are so absurdly rare as to be disregarded, even if many people are more afraid of terrorists than the police and statistics say it should be the other way aroun…

Again, it does matter: when to reduce the 0.000000009 the government is increasing the already many times larger 0.000003, it does matter.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#182

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Nadya wrote: post #172
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Headlines like these are obviously created for sensationalism It isn't. Depending on whose numbers you use, the statistic is either actually true or sufficiently close that disputing the difference is pedantry. The reason the headline is shocking is that people expect there to be relatively few police shootings yet, if the GWoT rhetoric is to be believed, rather a serious problem with terrorism. The fact that the p…

>It isn't. Depending on whose numbers you use, the statistic is either actually true or sufficiently close that disputing the difference is pedantry. Sensationalism in this case is saying that 0.00003% > 0.0000009% and expecting people to care. Both scenarios are so absurdly rare as to be disregarded, even if many people are more afraid of terrorists than the police and statistics say it should be the other way aroun…

> Both scenarios are so absurdly rare as to be disregarded

That's the point. The comparison is interesting because it puts the GWoT in the correct context. It's something to point to when some absurd overreaction to terrorism is proposed -- the police are literally more likely to kill you than the terrorists. Spending less money militarizing the police will make us more safe.

Even if the difference in safety is negligible, it takes the safety argument off the table. And the safety argument is the only thing justifying the civil liberties violations and the billions of tax dollars they're wasting.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#183

Post by Lawtonfogle »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #157
ianpurton wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The location and speed of all trains is also known." Just need an app that alerts you to oncoming trains.

You got one inbuilt. It's logic goes something like if myself.is_near(train_tracks) and (myself.can_see(train) or myself.can_hear(train)): myself.risk_of_oncoming_train = True

risk_of_oncoming_train is a boolean? Sounds more like something that would be representing a chance, so I would be expecting something like a floating point number.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#184

Post by JupiterMoon »

briandear wrote: post #122
RobertoG wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are going to sing that song: if somebody is going to kill 10 million people tomorrow is, necessarily, somebody with nuclear or biological weapons. As a non-American I would feel a lot safe if you just dismantle yours.

American has used nuclear weapons twice in history. Fearing American nukes is ridiculous and not based on any rational thought.

A counterpoint is that the US is the only country in the world ever to use nuclear weapons. (I don't think that this actually makes the US more likely to use them again.)

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#185

Post by ZeroGravitas »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #157
ianpurton wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The location and speed of all trains is also known." Just need an app that alerts you to oncoming trains.

You got one inbuilt. It's logic goes something like if myself.is_near(train_tracks) and (myself.can_see(train) or myself.can_hear(train)): myself.risk_of_oncoming_train = True

Apparently this doesn't work as well as you'd think. I just read a depressing article about the number of people that pose for photos on train tracks, when celebrating big life changes like marriage or graduation, and then get hit by trains.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/taking-ph...

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#186

Post by JupiterMoon »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #183
JupiterMoon wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got one inbuilt. It's logic goes something like if myself.is_near(train_tracks) and (myself.can_see(train) or myself.can_hear(train)): myself.risk_of_oncoming_train = True

risk_of_oncoming_train is a boolean? Sounds more like something that would be representing a chance, so I would be expecting something like a floating point number.

I was thinking that being hit by a train is a situation that I want a 0 probability of. So personally if the probability is non-zero I would immediately act to reduce it to zero. Hence a boolean does the job for me.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#188

Post by dang »

lpgepk wrote: post #105

Your source does not support your claim. The only thing worse than people who spew lies are people who do so with footnotes that imply that you're not lying. American police officers are out of control. That's not a "meme" that's being "promoted" it's an actual fact that some authoritarian assholes (read: you) are attempting to discredit and hide. You should be ashamed of yourself.

> authoritarian assholes (read: you) [...] You should be ashamed of yourself.

We banned this account for egregiously breaking the HN guidelines.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10471437 and marked it off-topic.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#189

Post by crpatino »

briandear wrote: post #122
RobertoG wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are going to sing that song: if somebody is going to kill 10 million people tomorrow is, necessarily, somebody with nuclear or biological weapons. As a non-American I would feel a lot safe if you just dismantle yours.

American has used nuclear weapons twice in history. Fearing American nukes is ridiculous and not based on any rational thought.

1. Last time I checked, 2 > 0.

2. Actually, 2 > 1 also. If the goal was to demonstrate unsurmountable military power and Hiroshima had already happened, what's the point of Nagasaki?

3. Given the past record of violations to international treaties, it can be argued that if the Russians had not developed the capability to retaliate in kind, N >> 2 by now.

Re: You're Eight Times More Likely to Be Killed by a Police Officer Than a Terrorist

#190

Post by crpatino »

a3voices wrote: post #51
nkrisc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're just playing semantics. There is still some chance it could happen during routine police activity, if that's the game you want to play.

Well perhaps from quantum mechanics there's also a chance that the moon is made out of cheese, but it's not really worth thinking about. The chance that police will kill 10 million people from routine activity is like that. It's not realistic.

Let's assume it is non-zero, but negligible.

Would you say that chance has increased, decreased or remained the same over the last 30 years?

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