Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–159 of 159 posts

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#151

Post by perl4ever »

kbutler wrote: post #129
perl4ever wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unreasonable to equate the states that got hit first, with the states that watched it happen and smugly refused to learn from others' misfortune.

As opposed to the absurdity of claiming the deaths are from "our president and his sycophant governors"? But I wouldn't equate them - the goal of the early policy was to flatten the curve to avoid overwhelming the health care system. That appears to have been accomplished - it looks like these later surges will not match the deaths-per-detected-case or deaths-per-population seen in the New York area. Part of that is…

If NY had such a terrible response, that's all the more reason why tens of thousands of additional people didn't have to die, if all the Republicans who hate Democrats had learned from it, rather than following leadership engaged in gaslighting people.

Saying the states run by non-sycophants did terribly is an indictment of the Republicans, particularly the ones at the top, because of the chronology.

You can say Newsom as well, should have learned, but that doesn't make it better for anyone else.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#152

Post by djaque »

collyw wrote: post #143
djaque wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're falling for a strawman. Spend some time looking at the nuanced proposals for policing reform that go by the name "defund the police" and I am guessing that you agree with them a lot more than you think you do.

Having seen the bodycam footage from the police that has emerged recently, I think everyone supporting BLM have been falling for a strawman. George Floyd appears to be high as a kite, does practically nothing the police ask him to. The police appear to be pretty reasonable.

Eight minutes and fourty six seconds.

There is no excuse for holding your knee on a person's neck for eight minutes and fourty six seconds. There is no excuse for doing it after he says that he can't breathe. There is no excuse for doing it after those around you tell you to cut it out. There is especially no excuse for continuing to do it for minutes after he became motionless.

Honestly, I'm not sure how else to explain to you that you should care about other human lives even when those people are high or not in the best place in life. George Floyd was murdered by a police officer pinning him in a choke hold for eight minutes and fourty six seconds and "he did drugs" or "he didn't listen to the police" is not a sane explanation.

I'm really not sure what else to tell you when you believe that it's "reasonable" for the police to choke a man to death for eight minutes and fourty six seconds because he was "high as a kite".

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#153

Post by kbutler »

perl4ever wrote: post #151
kbutler wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to the absurdity of claiming the deaths are from "our president and his sycophant governors"? But I wouldn't equate them - the goal of the early policy was to flatten the curve to avoid overwhelming the health care system. That appears to have been accomplished - it looks like these later surges will not match the deaths-per-detected-case or deaths-per-population seen in the New York area. Part of that is…

If NY had such a terrible response, that's all the more reason why tens of thousands of additional people didn't have to die, if all the Republicans who hate Democrats had learned from it, rather than following leadership engaged in gaslighting people. Saying the states run by non-sycophants did terribly is an indictment of the Republicans, particularly the ones at the top, because of the chronology. You can say News…

Thank your for recognizing that California and Newsom fit in the same general pattern as the widely derided, Republican-governed, late-surging states.

I think the data above show that neither an R nor a D by the governor's name is significantly predictive of a state's performance, (but may be predictive of media coverage).

Instead, mistakes have been made. But we've learned some things (but not really very much yet). Flattening the curve worked to delay infections and, well, _flatten_ the curve - not reduce total infections. We also seem to be getting some benefit from partial herd immunity at lower percentages of exposure than expected - probably because people are isolating and social distancing more, and possibly partial immunity from exposure to previous coronaviruses, and better treatments and policies are helping.

These things are all helping states experiencing this later surge have a more moderate experience (and helping early states keep things controlled), and are much more significant than the governor's political party.

So demonizing "sycophants" and "gaslighting" is not productive. Focus on behaviors and results, not politics.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#154

Post by perl4ever »

kbutler wrote: post #153
perl4ever wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If NY had such a terrible response, that's all the more reason why tens of thousands of additional people didn't have to die, if all the Republicans who hate Democrats had learned from it, rather than following leadership engaged in gaslighting people. Saying the states run by non-sycophants did terribly is an indictment of the Republicans, particularly the ones at the top, because of the chronology. You can say News…

Thank your for recognizing that California and Newsom fit in the same general pattern as the widely derided, Republican-governed, late-surging states. I think the data above show that neither an R nor a D by the governor's name is significantly predictive of a state's performance, (but may be predictive of media coverage). Instead, mistakes have been made. But we've learned some things (but not really very much yet).…

>Thank your for recognizing that California and Newsom fit in the same general pattern as the widely derided, Republican-governed, late-surging states.

I was acknowledging that having cases grow later indicates they also did something wrong, not that they did the same thing wrong as others nor for the same reasons.

CA nor NY can not absolve the Republicans, no amount of failure by their enemies can absolve them of leading their own people to destruction.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#155

Post by kbutler »

perl4ever wrote: post #154
kbutler wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank your for recognizing that California and Newsom fit in the same general pattern as the widely derided, Republican-governed, late-surging states. I think the data above show that neither an R nor a D by the governor's name is significantly predictive of a state's performance, (but may be predictive of media coverage). Instead, mistakes have been made. But we've learned some things (but not really very much yet).…

>Thank your for recognizing that California and Newsom fit in the same general pattern as the widely derided, Republican-governed, late-surging states. I was acknowledging that having cases grow later indicates they also did something wrong, not that they did the same thing wrong as others nor for the same reasons. CA nor NY can not absolve the Republicans, no amount of failure by their enemies can absolve them of le…

Rather than absolution via perceived failures by political opponents, maybe we can grant some compassion?

The more important thing is that these later surges, which are not unexpected, are looking less deadly https://covid19-projections.com/estimating-true-infections/#...

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#156

Post by happytoexplain »

klyrs wrote: post #150
syshum wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He retweeted a supporter video in which the person clearly said "Dead Politically" that was taken out of context by the media and other perpetually offended left wing people ironically in the exact way the person in the video said it would. The cancel culture of the perpetually offended is simply insane

Sorry, what cancel culture? Who got cancelled here? Did you "never" hear him say the words "the only good democrat is a dead democrat," or are you actually familiar with the video that was originally mentioned that you previously denied the existence of? And what does "politically dead" mean, anyway? Does it have anything to do with cancellation?

I know you're forming a rational argument, but of course what it "means" is obvious from the video: It's just the arbitrary punchline in the typical bit: "I'm going to support [murder|violence|hatred|oppression|racism|sexism] against my political enemy - but it's just a joke! If you criticize me you're dumb!" He could have chosen anything for the "it's just a joke!" part - he happened to choose a strained analogy.

However, note well that, aside from his obviously being immoral, it doesn't ultimately matter what he "meant" as much as what his crowd heard, and how they reacted. This particular crowd's lust for killing democrats is above board, and this may be a tiny sample, but it mirrors the stream of hatred and desire for violence that we normally only hear in such undisguised words on the internet - and occasionally in person - from "normal people" (i.e. not leaders or other speaking personalities).

I sometimes wonder if there are leaders who, upon doing or saying something evil, hear the reaction of their constituents, and feel any remorse/disillusionment when they realize exactly how "not a joke" the hatred is. Another example was the guy who viciously attacked the journalist who was persisting aggressively - did he feel any guilt inside? What about when he saw his constituents explicitly applaud his violence in the following days?

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#157

Post by juniper_strong »

DanBC wrote: post #145
Tycho wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to consider the stochastic nature of crime and policing. The size of the population, the size of the force, behaviour altered by substance abuse, the prevalence of deadly weapons, the mental toll of dealing with criminals every day, the presence of organised crime, the antagonism, the heat of the moment, the type of personality needed to want to do the job: of course you are going to end up with some bad enc…

> of course you are going to end up with some bad encounters. That is the price of having police. > The price of not having police is the constant and imminent danger and cost of crime. We all have to avoid certain parts of our cities. Women can’t walk safely at night even in the “safe” parts. And yet many countries don't have police forces that are pathologically violent, and don't have no-go zones in their cities.

If you look up "Gun Ownership" on Wikipedia, it claims there are around 850 million guns owned by civilians in the world, around 400 million of those 850 million are in the US.

Whatever your politics are, you can't begin to understand crime and policing in the US until you internalize those numbers.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#158

Post by perl4ever »

kbutler wrote: post #155
perl4ever wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Thank your for recognizing that California and Newsom fit in the same general pattern as the widely derided, Republican-governed, late-surging states. I was acknowledging that having cases grow later indicates they also did something wrong, not that they did the same thing wrong as others nor for the same reasons. CA nor NY can not absolve the Republicans, no amount of failure by their enemies can absolve them of le…

Rather than absolution via perceived failures by political opponents, maybe we can grant some compassion? The more important thing is that these later surges, which are not unexpected, are looking less deadly https://covid19-projections.com/estimating-true-infections/#...

Yesterday, there were 9 deaths in NY from COVID-19, compared to 77 in Florida and 103 in Texas. Positive % for tests is way down too.

Something like 50,000 people have died nationally since NY got things under control in early June.

That didn't have to happen. It wouldn't have happened if, say, Cuomo was running the country. Because whatever mistakes were made in NY, it was turned around starting in early April. At that point, the national death toll was about 150,000 less than now.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#159

Post by kbutler »

perl4ever wrote: post #158
kbutler wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than absolution via perceived failures by political opponents, maybe we can grant some compassion? The more important thing is that these later surges, which are not unexpected, are looking less deadly https://covid19-projections.com/estimating-true-infections/#...

Yesterday, there were 9 deaths in NY from COVID-19, compared to 77 in Florida and 103 in Texas. Positive % for tests is way down too. Something like 50,000 people have died nationally since NY got things under control in early June. That didn't have to happen. It wouldn't have happened if, say, Cuomo was running the country. Because whatever mistakes were made in NY, it was turned around starting in early April. At t…

> It wouldn't have happened if, say, Cuomo was running the country

That's an amazing contention, especially if you look back at Cuomo's statements and policies over the course of the epidemic (Lunar New Year, nursing homes, etc.). He's so much wiser than 3-6 months ago?

How many of those 50,000 deaths throughout the country since June are because NYC was "the primary source of new infections in the United States" by May? (New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/us/new-york-city-coronavi...)

I think you give the governors' actions both too much credit and too much blame and an apparent partisan difference on who gets which (apologies if that's not intended).

My view of the data is that NY's density as well as mistakes allowed unmitigated & rapid spread of the virus, until the exposure and immunity reached levels at which the transmission is less likely & the most vulnerable population has been exposed/infected/died/recovered, making our efforts to limit propagation more effective. See https://coronavirusbellcurve.com/estimating-the-herd-immunit... and https://coronavirusbellcurve.com/#statesherd

The virus continues to spread throughout the country, but the curve is flattened, minimizing the death toll from the infections (though it is still high!) More drastic interventions can slow that spread, but won't stop it.

And remember that the collateral death toll (as well as non-fatal cost) of the mitigation actions is increasing as well - CDC/NYT reported on approx 50k (37%) "excess deaths" beyond covid-reported deaths - possibly from delayed medical care, despair, etc., as well as possible misreporting. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronaviru...

Post reply on HN