America is giving up on the pandemic?

That's exactly it. I've some friends who are on the whole rather apolitical, in fact I'd call them politically ignorant as it's not something they tend to invest any time into, but who either run relatively large social media pages as a side hustle or do so professionally on behalf of the company they work for.

From chatting to them over the last week or two, they've said they've been put in a place whereby they can't not post something in support of the protests in either case. The companies want to get info out to customers, however feel that if they post without the promo post first they'll be castigated for it. Those with influence pages want to retain engagement and are in the same position.

In essence, those actually supporting the protests have created an environment whereby they'll never be able to judge the true sentiment around their movement, as dissent or even public agnosticism toward it has been all but quashed. Something that, in my eyes at least, has dangerous potential.

Edit: I can’t reply to your reply, I think it is a new hacker news feature that’s trying to slow down these back and forths. I listed several ways we could control the data, and I’m not proficient enough in statistics to do all that myself.

One talking point is: per police interaction, an unarmed non-Hispanic Caucasian person has a 4 in 10000 chance of being shot while an unarmed African American has a 3 in 10000 ... so the only huge person actually has a higher level of risk per interaction.

Again, this is not my area of expertise.

I’m not suggesting what all these numbers mean. I am suggesting that when you bring numbers, it’s only fair to discuss different ways to view the numbers.

Statistics can be presented in any number of ways; data can be used to lie in any number of directions.

But if you're not going to come here with a counterproposal, you're only undermining the movement Black Americans have been struggling with for so long by stating obliquely that these numbers are a lie.

Edit per yours (sorry you've been hit by rate limits. I get the feeling):

> One talking point is: per police interaction, an unarmed non-Hispanic Caucasian person has a 4 in 10000 chance of being shot while an unarmed African American has a 3 in 10000 ... so the only huge person actually has a higher level of risk per interaction.

The unknown variable here is the number of police interactions by race and whether they were the initiator or the intended target (or suspect, if a crime had taken place). That's why it's normally just reduced to shootings by police.

If you have the details and the exact breakdowns, it'd be helpful. But the BJS doesn't seem to discriminate between whether someone initiated the contact or whether they're the target of law enforcement action.

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Also, thank you for engaging.

Politicans politicize all that they can in order to use it as ammo against their opposition. The mainstream media creates and editorializes narratives in the name of garnering and sustaining attention and therefore advertising dollars.

If you're engaging with either, you have to approach it with skepticism, try to find balancing viewpoints, and make the best decisions for yourself, your family, etc. as a result.

Unfortunately, in the current case, healthcare professionals have allowed themselves to become tools of the above parties and have massively discredited themselves and their institutions in doing so. We're now even at a point where someone could rightfully be completely confused as to whether something as small as buying/wearing masks is a fruitful endeavour or a waste of effort, which is a dire state for us to be in.

Yes, obviously the novel coronavirus is still here, and it is still a huge concern. This doesn't mean that people who are fed up with generations of police brutality and have taken to the streets to pressure their local leaders to put an end to it are somehow being hypocrites. They are simply demonstrating that ending police brutality is a much more important issue, one they are willing to risk their own health for (not just from the virus but also from tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper sprays, LRADs and more).

At the end of the day, humans are complex and everyone's calculus is different. I have friends who want to protest but have decided not to because they are immuno-compromised. I also have friends who have gone to the protests, and have since been self-quarantining (including calling in sick if their employers have called people back to the office). I also know people, like you, who think protesters are being irresponsible since packed crowds will no doubt intensify the pandemic.

Instead of judging these groups, we should strive to understand where they are coming from and why they may have made those choices, based on sets of circumstances and experiences that will be unique for everyone.