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Investigation: Police Shootings

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Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#181

Post by gozur88 »

gherkin0 wrote: post #176
sliverstorm wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a cohort of people who believe that policemen's lives are essentially forfeit, and thus any level of mortal risk to them is reasonable.

I don't think that policemen's lives are "forfeit," but that it's their duty to not have self-defense as their very top priority, which entails taking risks in some situations that we wouldn't expect of other people.

Clearly the cop doesn't have self-defense as his top priority, or he wouldn't be in that situation at all. He'd make sure he was somewhere else when the possibility of violence manifested itself. Like, say, I would.

Police officers shouldn't be shooting people on the off chance that a suspicious bulge might be a gun, but it seems pretty unreasonable to expect police officers to put their self-defense as the very lowest priority and wait until bullets actually come out of a gun-like-object being pointed at them before shooting.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#182

Post by shkkmo »

tptacek wrote: post #173
shkkmo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't intend to engage in a semantics debate and I did read your comment carefully. You might carefully re-read your comment to see how I got that impression. > we don't prosecute people for errors. We prosecute them for doing things intentionally, or, as I said, for causing grave harm recklessly. We usually don't prosecute for intentional errors. That is precisely the problem: we are far to lax with incompetent/r…

You asked why the lack of criminal prosecutions for automobile fatalities wasn't a "failure of justice". I answered, and answered again, and now answer yet again: because our system of justice generally avoids prosecuting people for things that aren't crimes .

Your argument appears to be:

1) We don't prosecute people for things that aren't crimes.

2) Thus our system and standards for prosecuting people for things that are crimes is just.

I don't see the step from 1) to 2). I would guess you are making the following assumptions that I would disagree with:

a) We do a adequate job of enforcing the current laws. (Prosecutions tend to be fairly rare due to low priority and lack of investigative resources)

b) The current laws on the books are just. (The standards for recklessness are weighted toward DUIs and tend to exclude other types of intentional misconduct.)

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#183

Post by harryh »

shkkmo wrote: post #179
harryh wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 60% drop since 1972 looks pretty good to me.

It looks less good when you compare our numbers vs. those of other countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... We have higher traffic related death rates per capita than any other 'first world' country, including coutries with similar geograhpy such as Canada and Australia. We have higher traffic related death rates per distance than any other 'first world' country (other than New Zeala…

Interesting! I wonder why that is? I don't have a good hypothesis.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#184

Post by jdmichal »

shkkmo wrote: post #177
jdmichal wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your entire argument is centered around the semantics of "war on car fatalities"? In that case, there's not really anything for me to add, other than that I think you are taking a very uncharitable [0] view of the original post. [0] http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html

I noted that a set of statistics was being misused as evidence for the specific claim being made and added a source that supported that claim, abeit less strongly. That was 'uncharitable'? You then 'charitably' missed my point twice, and argued against a strawman. You followed that up by 'charitably' accused me of only arguing semantics rather than responding to any of my actual points.

I'm pretty sure I understand your argument fine. Allow me to attempt a summary:

The original graphic shows that driving is less dangerous now than ever before. However, it does not take into account the prevalence of driving, which is also higher. Therefore, the original graphic is "misleading", because "traffic fatalities" is the combination of the danger of driving and its prevalence.

Given this current understanding of your point, my only argument now is that I believe that is an uncharitable view of the original post. I argue this because the view is entirely based on that singular interpretation of "war on traffic fatalities". A charitable approach is entirely based on attempting to view an argument with suspension of your own beliefs and interpretations in order to understand the other party's. Through such, common understanding can be worked towards.

I'm also sorry that you feel that I have been uncharitable to you. I honestly do believe your argument is entirely centered around the semantics of "war on traffic fatalities". The information you provided in your graphic is very good, and the point you are making is not wrong. I didn't have any issues at all until your response to cbr's original post, which is where I feel you began arguing semantics over content. I feel this way because cbr was also not wrong, and if anything was an equally good summary as what I stated above. And yet you still seemed to take an issue with it.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#185

Post by [deleted] »

shkkmo wrote: post #58
harryh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is our war on cars? We do have a war on car fatalities. It's been remarkably successful: http://www.donerdesigns.org/_/rsrc/1376697199749/other-cause...

That graphic is rather misleading. Our success in reducing traffic fatalities is rather mixed and not nearly so dramatic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._traffic_deaths_as_fr...

[deleted]

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#186

Post by spikels »

shkkmo wrote: post #108
cbr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first graph shows that we have made driving far less dangerous over time. The second graph shows that driving has become far more popular over time, popular enough to outweigh this effect until the early 70s. The recent improvement in car accident rates is pretty impressive.

Yet it is misleading to support the claim of a "war on traffic fatalities" with a graph that measures something else. The first graph show we have made driving far less dangerous per mile . The second graph shows the likelihood that any given person will die due to traffic.

This a very dishonest argument. Fatalities per km travelled is the standard metric of safety for a good reason.

Are you against hospitals too? Deaths in hospitals have skyrocketed since they were invented.

You are being a pedantic jerk. Read this:

http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

Here are some more reasonable discussions of the issue:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the...

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/a-m...

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#187

Post by DanBC »

tptacek wrote: post #172
DanBC wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not surprising when people describe the police as a fascistic brutal regime.

I'm not sure how you can extrapolate that from one person's insensitive comment about the police.

Because it's not just one person's insensitive comment, is it? It's a pattern of repeated behaviour. "I am the law, don't fuck with me".

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#188

Post by tptacek »

DanBC wrote: post #187
tptacek wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you can extrapolate that from one person's insensitive comment about the police.

Because it's not just one person's insensitive comment, is it? It's a pattern of repeated behaviour. "I am the law, don't fuck with me".

Clearly every police who believes "I'm the law don't fuck with me" fits the bill you describe, but I don't think we're close to establishing that every police believes that.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#189

Post by tptacek »

shkkmo wrote: post #182
tptacek wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked why the lack of criminal prosecutions for automobile fatalities wasn't a "failure of justice". I answered, and answered again, and now answer yet again: because our system of justice generally avoids prosecuting people for things that aren't crimes .

Your argument appears to be: 1) We don't prosecute people for things that aren't crimes. 2) Thus our system and standards for prosecuting people for things that are crimes is just. I don't see the step from 1) to 2). I would guess you are making the following assumptions that I would disagree with: a) We do a adequate job of enforcing the current laws. (Prosecutions tend to be fairly rare due to low priority and lack…

No. You've shifted the goalposts. You began the thread by trying to argue that a lack of prosecutions for vehicular fatalities was evidence of injustice. But it isn't: it's evidence for the fact that most traffic fatalities don't involve conduct we recognize as criminal.

Now you'd like to litigate whether we should pass laws that criminalize more kinds of driver error. I'm not interested in that discussion, and I don't have to be, because it's not germane to the argument you made up thread, except in a Calvinball kind of way.

Re: Investigation: Police Shootings

#190

Post by melted »

DanBC wrote: post #187
tptacek wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you can extrapolate that from one person's insensitive comment about the police.

Because it's not just one person's insensitive comment, is it? It's a pattern of repeated behaviour. "I am the law, don't fuck with me".

Yes, that's how things are done in this country. You can fuck with them afterwards, in the court of law. When they're enforcing the law, fucking with police is the stupidest thing you can do. They have families to come back home to as well. I don't see what's so "insensitive" about that.
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