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Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

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Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#121

Post by designdesign »

jeffdavis wrote: post #63

Are we saying that: (a) police are a net good, but slack is aiding/encouraging particular bad behaviors; or (b) police are a net bad and we should just deny them anything that enables them to do their jobs; or (c) police are a net good, but it's bad PR to associate with them

B and C probably both fit - police aren't inherently a net bad, but the policing system in america produces too many bad outcomes to lend blanket support to; it's arguably unethical to profit from such a problematic body of work.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#122

Post by microcolonel »

ryanSrich wrote: post #108
xwowsersx wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why though? Is there not a legitimate role for policing in a civil society? And if there is, don't they need to coordinate and collaborate just like any other organization?

> Is there not a legitimate role for policing in a civil society? Look around. Most Americans would say no to this question. I don’t think they’ve thought through the consequences of that, but I guarantee a random poll would show most Americans want to abolish or >70% defund the police (which is effectively the same).

> Look around. Most Americans would say no to this question.

How is it possible to conclude this? There have been polls the last few days where more than half of respondents of both parties support sending the National Guard to quash the rioting and looting, and a significant proportion of Democrat respondents think the Federal government should send the U.S. military to do the same.

If you live in a place where people broadly do not support the police as an institution, you live in an odd place.

Now, given recent events on the top of the national consciousness, there is broad concern that some very bad police tend to be protected in many police departments, but that's an entirely different opinion.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#123

Post by tom_ »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #114
nkozyra wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is a great deal of sentiment that the approaches used in the United States are excessively militarized, racially unjust and insufficiently transparent. Using a problematic customer like that as a marketing highlight is just not a great idea.

What's the alternative though? Pretending that if you needed protection due to crime coming your way/your family's way... you wouldn't call 911? I feel like this entire movement is really taking away credit from the "ok" and "good" cops. How many cops are there in America? Ok, some of them aren't perfect. They are racist/dicks/thirsty for power. Why does this mean as a citizen I should feel less safe because we want…

You appear to be arguing against a point that wasn't made.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#125

Post by jeffdavis »

JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #85
jeffdavis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your city had a ballot initiative to defund and disband the police department, would you vote for it? EDIT: I'm a little confused about the downvotes. If the answer is "no", then what's the problem with police using slack? Isn't it just a basic tool for communication? Is selling them radios also bad? I should also say that my answer in my city would be "no".

As someone that lives in Oakland, I don't see much of a difference in terms of quality of life between when the police were beating people or killing people at BART stations compared to the extended amount of time we've lacked a police chief and the police as a whole basically disappeared. I'm white, so the interaction with society during the completely corrupt OPD wasn't really ever a concern for me. I expect plenty…

I agree that police are the last line of defense rather than the first. Many places would be quite peaceful without police, though it might depend on the timeframe. Bad actors can do an awful lot of damage, and you really don't want Hobbesian traps to develop[1]. Once they do, you'll start to have very fond memories of the police.

If disbanding police forces makes it very far in the political discourse, then gun control will be dead as a concept in the U.S. Even felons (who have served their time) have some rights, and without police to protect them, it would be inhumane to deny them self-defense. It's arguably inhumane even with police.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbesian_trap

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#126

Post by wvenable »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #114
nkozyra wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is a great deal of sentiment that the approaches used in the United States are excessively militarized, racially unjust and insufficiently transparent. Using a problematic customer like that as a marketing highlight is just not a great idea.

What's the alternative though? Pretending that if you needed protection due to crime coming your way/your family's way... you wouldn't call 911? I feel like this entire movement is really taking away credit from the "ok" and "good" cops. How many cops are there in America? Ok, some of them aren't perfect. They are racist/dicks/thirsty for power. Why does this mean as a citizen I should feel less safe because we want…

> I feel like this entire movement is really taking away credit from the "ok" and "good" cops.

I feel the response to this movement shows that there are fewer good cops that anyone would have expected. They protect their own at the cost of citizens they should be protecting. They lie. They cheat. They assault and murder without consequence.

> Even if there were 1,000 police brutality related deaths a year (there aren't), police would still be a huge net win for society, no? Am I missing something?

Yes. You're missing the fact that it doesn't have to be this way. That police don't have to work entirely without consequences. They don't have to militarized. This is not required for them to do their jobs. And it can be changed.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#127

Post by anigbrowl »

usaar333 wrote: post #69
steffandroid wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how you could look at the events of the past week and come to any other conclusion.

Someone can be quite concerned by police violence and brutality, but still view them as essential for a stable society. (The advocates of reforming police organizations go in this bucket)

Indeed, but they've had many years in which to deliver and have manifestly failed to do so. Reform should of course be the first recourse when you discover a problem, I don't bulldoze my house if if I discover a leaky pipe or a crack in the wall. If you know there are massive persistent problems and you keep saying 'now's not the time, let's reform this slowly and carefully' then at a certain point you're just procrastinating in hope that the problem goes away.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#128

Post by dathinab »

jeffdavis wrote: post #63

Are we saying that: (a) police are a net good, but slack is aiding/encouraging particular bad behaviors; or (b) police are a net bad and we should just deny them anything that enables them to do their jobs; or (c) police are a net good, but it's bad PR to associate with them

I think the current action of work was "it's bad PR". And just that (no notion of good and bad).

My personal take is:

Police is conceptually good, but in practice can be be anything from net bad to net good. And while you can give a label per country. Differences in the same country (and state) can be huge. If many bad cases exists there is dangerous failure in the system. While for view cases is most often a human failure. Lastly it's currently net bad to be associated with police for PR, independent of wether police is net good or net bad in the US.

Tbh. If I'm not wrong then the problems in the US are much deeper and systematic then "just" degrees of police violence. I still remember that since states used or still user a KI system to decide about bail cost and possibility which had a very clear bias against black people. Not because it was made intentionally with a bias but because the data of all cases of recent years was subtly but consistently biased against black people. And there are many other things wrong. Some not specific to black people but anyone which had not much Mony. Bring them all together and you have defacto systematic discrimination.

Edit: Spelling on a phone can be hard. ;)

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#129

Post by ardy42 »

jeffdavis wrote: post #65
ardy42 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t get it. Are we now advocating that police is overall more of a force of evil than good? Legitimate question. Police, in the abstract, are still a force for good. But it's becoming clear to more and more people that the police we actually have commit an intolerable quantity of evil acts.

If your city had a ballot initiative to defund and disband the police department, would you vote for it? EDIT: I'm a little confused about the downvotes. If the answer is "no", then what's the problem with police using slack? Isn't it just a basic tool for communication? Is selling them radios also bad? I should also say that my answer in my city would be "no".

> If your city had a ballot initiative to defund and disband the police department, would you vote for it?

It would depend on the specifics. I can definitely imagine a situation where the "company culture" of a department is so corrupt that replacement would be preferable to a destined-to-fail reform attempt.

Some kind of law enforcement is necessary, but no specific police organization is.

Re: Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech

#130

Post by athenot »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #114
nkozyra wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is a great deal of sentiment that the approaches used in the United States are excessively militarized, racially unjust and insufficiently transparent. Using a problematic customer like that as a marketing highlight is just not a great idea.

What's the alternative though? Pretending that if you needed protection due to crime coming your way/your family's way... you wouldn't call 911? I feel like this entire movement is really taking away credit from the "ok" and "good" cops. How many cops are there in America? Ok, some of them aren't perfect. They are racist/dicks/thirsty for power. Why does this mean as a citizen I should feel less safe because we want…

> if you needed protection due to crime coming your way/your family's way... you wouldn't call 911?

There is a set of the population for which this is a reality. In time of need, their call for assistance gets met with presumption of guilt, leaving them worse off than if they had not called for help.

> Even if there were 1,000 police brutality related deaths a year (there aren't), police would still be a huge net win for society, no?

Yes, unless you belong to the group from which those 1,000 come from.

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