The Criminalization of Everyday Life • Hacker News Board

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#191

Post by VladRussian2 » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:16 PM UTC

aestra wrote: post #26

WOW! The most shocking linked article is the kids who got arrested for waiting for the bus. They were excepted to plea bargain. That's right, the charges weren't dropped!!!!!! edit the DA dismissed the charges but the police chief thinks the arrest was justified. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/04/charges... Interview with the coach (he seems like a really nice guy): http://www.infowars.com/kids-arr…

about the most shocking. It went on to his permanent record.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/first-grade-boy-suspend...

"A 6-year-old was suspended from school in Canon City, Colo., after kissing a girl on her hand. School officials said the smooch was sexual harassment"

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#192

Post by kbenson » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:16 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #175

DanBC wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not completely free. They need to pay to store it, insure it, run it. They need to have staff (diverted from their other tasks) to maintain it and operate it and bureaucrat it. There's a hit to their public image too. When your home or car is burgled you don't want to see a tank. And, as toomuchtodo hints at, heavily arming a police force leads to those guns being used. Ignoring "bad guys" for a moment, shooting…

>It's not completely free. True but it's really no different than a truck or existing police vehicles cost-wise. And it's free. In fact it looks pretty similar to police vehicles already in use: http://i.imgur.com/DQFJESy.jpg >And, as toomuchtodo hints at, heavily arming a police force leads to those guns being used. Perhaps, but this is a vehicle, not a gun. It's just a big bullet proof truck.

Nothing is ever free, it's paid for at some point. In this case, it's our tax dollars, which could be spent on something more worthy. I know for my state, if I could direct all that money towards trade programs for prisons, I think that would be a much better investment towards serving the same goals, even if it takes longer to pay out.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#193

Post by mikesname » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:20 PM UTC

ahomescu1 wrote: post #106

puller wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do not want immigrants, they have problems enough with the ones they got recently

My bet is they'll take educated American immigrants happily.

That's not the case in my experience. Anecdotal, but I worked at a company where the brunt of the downturn layoffs fell disproportionately on people who needed work Visas, which have become much more difficult to justify in the current climate. AFAIK nothing's changed in that respect.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#194

Post by yodsanklai » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:29 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #61

I wish people would move beyond 1984 and quote more Foucault's Discipline & Punishment [1]. There is a much deeper-rooted problem in society than mass surveillance or militarization of police. It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance. We accept and welcome our controllers. Foucault wrote about the effects of prisoner mindset in society in the 1960-70s. Our subjugation and tolerance to au…

> It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance

This question has been posed long before Foucault. For instance in "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude" written in 1552 and surprisingly contemporary.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#195

Post by marcosdumay » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:39 PM UTC

csallen wrote: post #43

avmich wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, bothersome is the one above - that a police department chief is not about to turn down a free tank. If your police has such a mentality, you ought to be worried already.

Human nature is hard to change. Systems are (relatively) easy to change. Rather than worry about people being irresponsible, lazy, greedy, immoral, incompetent, etc, we should focus on building systems that work well and protect all involved despite all of that.

A very important part of a system that works well is making sure that the people with the worse character flaws don't get into power positions, and that the people in power get punished when they display those character flaws.

Or, in other words, stop blamming the system, and start making it work.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#196

Post by LekkoscPiwa » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:40 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #114

dmix wrote: post #61

I wish people would move beyond 1984 and quote more Foucault's Discipline & Punishment [1]. There is a much deeper-rooted problem in society than mass surveillance or militarization of police. It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance. We accept and welcome our controllers. Foucault wrote about the effects of prisoner mindset in society in the 1960-70s. Our subjugation and tolerance to au…

quote more Foucault's Discipline & Punishment Foucault's style is (possibly deliberately) obtuse, and his knowledge of history dubious at best, per Keith Windschuttle's book The Killing of History : http://www.amazon.com/The-Killing-History-Theorists-Murderin... . It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance Because it's easy, because most of the time it doesn't affect us, and because it's h…

So when in 1960s students revolted against the War in Vietnam, an average American knew all those things? I don't think so.

I'd rather draw parallel to Ancient Rome and its citizens. As long as there were "Games" in town and bread for free nobody cared. Once the Rome was on fire they woke up. For some time.

The situation is hopeless. The only solution is when US runs out of money. Goes bankrupt. Which is quite possible. Once USD isn't the world currency, the country defaults. And then there is no money for wars, no money for swat teams in every little town, no money for surveillance. Those things will still be there but on much lesser scale.

The US has currently the biggest debt of any empire in the history of the world. Impossible to repay. Once the world currency status moves from USD to Yuan, the Government will try to use all that military/police power to "maintain order", the thing is the policemen and soldiers won't have money, there will be no gas even for military, etc. Exactly like USSR when it collapsed -- bankrupted by all the wars and stupid policies.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#197

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:42 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #175

DanBC wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not completely free. They need to pay to store it, insure it, run it. They need to have staff (diverted from their other tasks) to maintain it and operate it and bureaucrat it. There's a hit to their public image too. When your home or car is burgled you don't want to see a tank. And, as toomuchtodo hints at, heavily arming a police force leads to those guns being used. Ignoring "bad guys" for a moment, shooting…

>It's not completely free. True but it's really no different than a truck or existing police vehicles cost-wise. And it's free. In fact it looks pretty similar to police vehicles already in use: http://i.imgur.com/DQFJESy.jpg >And, as toomuchtodo hints at, heavily arming a police force leads to those guns being used. Perhaps, but this is a vehicle, not a gun. It's just a big bullet proof truck.

As the parent post mentioned, the shape of the tool shapes the perceptions of the user. Giving militarily designed equipment to police forces might influence them to behave less like peace officers and more like military officers.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#198

Post by pyre » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:44 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #114

dmix wrote: post #61

I wish people would move beyond 1984 and quote more Foucault's Discipline & Punishment [1]. There is a much deeper-rooted problem in society than mass surveillance or militarization of police. It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance. We accept and welcome our controllers. Foucault wrote about the effects of prisoner mindset in society in the 1960-70s. Our subjugation and tolerance to au…

quote more Foucault's Discipline & Punishment Foucault's style is (possibly deliberately) obtuse, and his knowledge of history dubious at best, per Keith Windschuttle's book The Killing of History : http://www.amazon.com/The-Killing-History-Theorists-Murderin... . It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance Because it's easy, because most of the time it doesn't affect us, and because it's h…

> Most people (and voters) don't even know how many Senators their state has

It's sad/funny because this is the same answer for every state.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#199

Post by LekkoscPiwa » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:47 PM UTC

unclebucknasty wrote: post #183

dmix wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. In The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies - does Caplan do a good job of proving the inverse as an attainable goal? For example: a) that fully rational voters instating representative politicians into power will result in good policies (that benefit voters)? b) that it's possible for voters to become less ignorant and more rational on average, within the current system, in or…

Fully rational or merely fully informed? That is, a rational voter must first be an informed voter. But, there is a machine dedicated to disinformation . In the aftermath of Citizens United , we are seeing the rise of dark money to the point where billion dollar campaigns are imminent. Combine that with the consolidation of media, the fall of investigative journalism, and a 24 hour news cycle which has devolved news…

And it is possible to see "why" all these things have been happening once you understand that the country has been getting poorer and poorer for some time and more and more in debt. In other words, the USA in an Empire in decline. Each and every aspect of life in the US is a little bit worse every year. This has been a process since I believe 1973 when US went out of the gold standard. Rich nations, creditor nations, want a gold standard. Because they want their debt to be repaid in gold, not paper. Once the economy started going down and be more and more dependent on debt and cheap credit -- that's precisely when all the other things started going down.

The solution is bankruptcy, to be able to start over from scratch.

Re: The Criminalization of Everyday Life

#200

Post by joe_the_user » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:48 PM UTC

rolux wrote: post #123

jseliger wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

quote more Foucault's Discipline & Punishment Foucault's style is (possibly deliberately) obtuse, and his knowledge of history dubious at best, per Keith Windschuttle's book The Killing of History : http://www.amazon.com/The-Killing-History-Theorists-Murderin... . It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance Because it's easy, because most of the time it doesn't affect us, and because it's h…

That critique of Foucault is much too cheap. To any halfway competent theory hacker, it will sound like "But Python uses significant whitespace, and Guido van Rossum's knowledge of language design is dubious at best." It's hard to base a serious discussion on that type of argument. To me, one of the major takeaways from Foucault is his renouncement of the "repression hypothesis". In a nutshell, he proposes to underst…

To me, one of the major takeaways from Foucault is his renouncement of the "repression hypothesis". In a nutshell, he proposes to understand power not as a binary relation between oppressors and the oppressed, but as a much more molecular system that spans all sectors of society, and whose modus operandi is not primarily repression, but rather motivation (making someone speak, articulate desires, etc).

I know that's satisfying to some people. But it seems like not the useful insight given a state the clearly has asymetrically greater power than the populace?

To come back the original article, how the heck does "everything is power" illuminate a situation of Campus Security are using a fricken armored personnel carrier when their job is stopping underaged kids from drinking???