De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer • Hacker News Board

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#721

Post by celticninja » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

andreygrehov wrote: post #707

michaelt wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The officer responsible was arrested, yes. But in the meantime, we now see videos of cops following humvees through residential neighbourhoods and shooting at unarmed people on their own property. As a result, people are more concerned about police brutality than they were a month ago, rather than less

Of course, because there are at least 5 types of protesters, all with different goals. There is no way to control this salad peacefully. 1. Peaceful protesters against police brutality (including peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters). 2. The radical wing of the Black Lives Matter, who believe that the time of peaceful protests is over and that the only way to change the situation is to use violent methods, especial…

Ok some huge generalisations going on here, people can have many facets to them, so a peaceful protestor might become part of the radical wing after watching their friends get attacked by police when peacefully protesting.

When has antifa ever been archistic?. They are anti-facist, they dont want to bring down the state, unless that state is a Fascist one (I know Trump is bad but the USA is not a facist state currently).

So pigeonholing people is pointless and no one needs to control anything. Control implies a hierarchy, a hierarchy means you can go after the leaders, the point now is to raise so much awareness that you cant just go back to how it was last week.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#722

Post by wetmore » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

yazan94 wrote: post #642

californical wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it's related to the fact that the protestors a few weeks ago were carrying lots of guns openly. I genuinely wonder what would happen if a majority the people protesting today were all carrying AR-15's

Honestly, it is funny to me that the group most dedicated to standing up and fighting against a tyrannical government and refuses to believe that the military would be called in against peaceful protesters is still standing on the sidelines and watching the violence unfold. The day they realize that they and the BLM movement are mostly on the same side for this issue (anti government heavy-handedness) will be the day…

That realization won't happen as a result of racism and intentional division.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#723

Post by celticninja » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

0xBA5ED wrote: post #520

0xddd wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And did those arrest and charges come before or after multiple days of protests? At this point the protests have snowballed into a larger frustration over police conduct (and I'm sure other issues), which only gets reinforced with each instance of force being used on those who are assembled peacefully.

The officers were fired the next day. Chauvin was arrested 3 days later.

You say that as if that is what should have happened and its all ok. He was sacked, whoop de do. He should have been arrested, that he was arrested 3 days later means they could have arrested him immediately but if this hadnt kicked off he would likely still be patrolling now looking for his next victim.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#724

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

xphilter wrote: post #665

RhysU wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not purposefully misreading. I am reading. I was gobsmacked by how ironic the proposal was and felt compelled to point it out. To show that this stuff is hard even when folks are entirely well-meaning. I did notice the absence of race or color and you will note my comment does not include any notion of race. You added race. I did note judging by appearance. You added age, out of nowhere. Using appearance to trea…

It reads to be that you’re being purposely obtuse. Any security is going to take into account the appearance of a person. Undoubtedly you understand what that means in practice in America—-that appearance has been boiled down to just race: “be on the lookout for a black man.” It’s lazy and should be called out so that police are forced to do work and learn the difference between a non-violent angry person and a viole…

[deleted]

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#725

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

fttx_ wrote: post #410

jimkleiber wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A universal problem with "leaderless movements" is that they quickly devolve to the lowest common denominator level. Anyone can put out their slate and call themselves an "activist"... I appreciate this part a lot. It helps me realize that movements also have brands they need to manage and have similar struggles to companies that are trying to manage brands at various levels of centralization—e.g., the challenge of…

This is definitely a known problem, and one which lots of people have spent lots of time thinking about. As you say, social change movements face many of the same struggles as companies, including maintaining brand alignment and quality control across a network of distributed actors. For this reason, social change movements often adopt (and adapt) the same management tools and techniques that large companies have dev…

For this reason, social change movements often adopt (and adapt) the same management tools and techniques that large companies have developed for their operations.

Going by the praise he had for his organization and the people helping him, MLK had something like this.

And poorly coordinated and structured movements aren't really suited to doing anything well, even just attacking things and ideas.

When exploited by organized outside forces, they do one thing really well: Create disorder, chaos, and disdain.

I believe it was Thomas Carlysle who said something like, "Revolutions are started by idealists, prosecuted by fanatics, and co-opted by scoundrels."

Tim Pool recently quipped in one of his videos that some copies of the Antifa handbook have explicit instructions to "pretend to be BLM" for cover.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#726

Post by yters » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #422

y2kenny wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on that? I can't really read the mind of either of you ("you know as well as I do"... what do you guys know?)

Theorising on alternatives to the contemporary Western legal system have been done for the last century by leftists, and a lot of that gets put into practice on a small scale where it can be. I've been involved in some of it myself. Part of the goal is to prevent creating permanent organisations, such as the police and the court and the prisons, that have a structural incentive to protect themselves against a communi…

why dont you think the dictatorship is the outcome of implementing at scale? e.g. if private property must be eliminated to have a commune, and most people wont give up their private property willingly, what other way is there to eliminate private property at scale except via dictatorship and martial law?

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#727

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #636

stcredzero wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that being said, black lives matter in particular suffers from (in my opinion) a lack of leadership and organization. A universal problem with "leaderless movements" is that they quickly devolve to the lowest common denominator level. Anyone can put out their slate and call themselves an "activist" and it's inevitable that some dim person will come along and try to make a name for themselves by taking things fart…

The tradeoffs between traditional and leaderless movements are a lot like the tradeoffs between centralised and decentralised systems in tech to be honest. On the one hand, the latter avoid the weaknesses of the former, in that they can neither easily be 'taken over' by outside forces nor provide a single point of weakness for their enemies to target. And that's useful for both software and protest movements, since i…

On the one hand, the latter avoid the weaknesses of the former, in that they can neither easily be 'taken over' by outside forces nor provide a single point of weakness for their enemies to target.

In situations where mob mentality can take over and chaos can create a "fog of war" this is not true! Even though most of the protesters want to remain peaceful, the amplitude of sowing chaos, and its potential to spark additional chaos within mass rally situations, are providing extremists that "single point of weakness."

Basically, against an organized opponent that wants to create chaos, mass rallies are kind of like packing together certain isotopes of uranium atoms. Even if most of the units are "inert" (in that most of the people want peace,) if enough individuals with activation potential are densely packed enough, you can still get the chain reaction.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#728

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

xphilter wrote: post #665

RhysU wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not purposefully misreading. I am reading. I was gobsmacked by how ironic the proposal was and felt compelled to point it out. To show that this stuff is hard even when folks are entirely well-meaning. I did notice the absence of race or color and you will note my comment does not include any notion of race. You added race. I did note judging by appearance. You added age, out of nowhere. Using appearance to trea…

It reads to be that you’re being purposely obtuse. Any security is going to take into account the appearance of a person. Undoubtedly you understand what that means in practice in America—-that appearance has been boiled down to just race: “be on the lookout for a black man.” It’s lazy and should be called out so that police are forced to do work and learn the difference between a non-violent angry person and a viole…

[deleted]

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#729

Post by bobmaxup » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #535

bobmaxup wrote: post #409

Why not make universal laws that apply to anyone that can be proven to injure another human being with economic deterrents? For example, if you hit a man in the face, cause bruising, lets say that costs $1,000 across the board. $1,000 for any hematoma, $5000 or any broken bone. $25,000 for a GSW, $100,000 for a life-threatening injury, etc. To take it further, if you discharge a weapon at another human being, the fin…

Because that would be either insane or pointless? You think people who shoot at people are thinking about money?

Yes, I think people who at shoot people consider the consequences to their immediate actions, like everyone else. Unfortunately, there is rarely a significant cost to the individual cop in most acts of police violence, and many are more likely to shoot a second time.

https://theconversation.com/police-officers-accused-of-bruta...

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#730

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #718

ikeyany wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If rioters are aligned with protestors in your mind, then aren't cops who murder innocents also aligned with good cops?

perhaps if i saw protesters actively stopping violence and looting instead of just spectating and filming and cheering, as well as comments supporting violence getting flagged on hn otherwise, plenty of people may not be personally willing to risk themselves by being violent, but are happy to stand by as others are violent anyways, i hope the protesters look forward to trump 2020, because that is the current trajecto…

[deleted]