Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police • Hacker News Board

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#21

Post by quinndupont » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 10:52 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #11

So here's HN in 2012: the Hiring Thread, which leads this month with a chorus of comments about how effective HN has been for finding people awesome jobs or companies awesome candidates, is at the bottom of the front page just a few hours after submission. Meanwhile, "Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police" is at the top. It's unsurprising. The kinds of people who are interested in Occupy protest tacti…

Huh, suddenly very important political discussion is "off-topic"? I'll admit, it isn't standard fare for HN, but I'd say, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#22

Post by hugh3 » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 10:52 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #11

So here's HN in 2012: the Hiring Thread, which leads this month with a chorus of comments about how effective HN has been for finding people awesome jobs or companies awesome candidates, is at the bottom of the front page just a few hours after submission. Meanwhile, "Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police" is at the top. It's unsurprising. The kinds of people who are interested in Occupy protest tacti…

Entropy always wins. Mountains erode, eggs rot, and social news sites get filled with rubbish.

My new year's resolution: no more commenting on things on the internet. Bye bye, everybody!

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#23

Post by Symmetry » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 10:55 PM UTC

Anechoic wrote: post #7

"Get the music blaring [...]" This piece of advice will get people fined (and possibly arrested) for violating noise ordinances in many municipalities. You're better off marching silently.

They're already violating a lot of ordinances - a few more won't matter much.

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#24

Post by coderdude » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 10:57 PM UTC

quinndupont wrote: post #21

tptacek wrote: post #11

So here's HN in 2012: the Hiring Thread, which leads this month with a chorus of comments about how effective HN has been for finding people awesome jobs or companies awesome candidates, is at the bottom of the front page just a few hours after submission. Meanwhile, "Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police" is at the top. It's unsurprising. The kinds of people who are interested in Occupy protest tacti…

Huh, suddenly very important political discussion is "off-topic"? I'll admit, it isn't standard fare for HN, but I'd say, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

Per pg, very important political discussion has ALWAYS been off-topic on HN.

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#25

Post by groks » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 10:59 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #11

So here's HN in 2012: the Hiring Thread, which leads this month with a chorus of comments about how effective HN has been for finding people awesome jobs or companies awesome candidates, is at the bottom of the front page just a few hours after submission. Meanwhile, "Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police" is at the top. It's unsurprising. The kinds of people who are interested in Occupy protest tacti…

Maybe "hackers" are less interested in "getting a job" than they are in "subverting authority". It's good you are here to keep them in line.

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#26

Post by dmix » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 11:05 PM UTC

Symmetry wrote: post #23

Anechoic wrote: post #7

"Get the music blaring [...]" This piece of advice will get people fined (and possibly arrested) for violating noise ordinances in many municipalities. You're better off marching silently.

They're already violating a lot of ordinances - a few more won't matter much.

I imagine thats how tons of kids justified breaking into stores during the Vancouver hockey riots.

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#27

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 11:06 PM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #16

tptacek wrote: post #11

So here's HN in 2012: the Hiring Thread, which leads this month with a chorus of comments about how effective HN has been for finding people awesome jobs or companies awesome candidates, is at the bottom of the front page just a few hours after submission. Meanwhile, "Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police" is at the top. It's unsurprising. The kinds of people who are interested in Occupy protest tacti…

Perhaps it's just that one submission is five times older than the other, as of this comment.

It's a few hours old, and arguably the most productive recurring thread on the site. Subjectively (but you can take my word for this), the hiring thread used to be pinned to the top for a day --- I presume this was not because of something 'pg punched into a REPL.

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#28

Post by drewcrawford » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 11:15 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #11

So here's HN in 2012: the Hiring Thread, which leads this month with a chorus of comments about how effective HN has been for finding people awesome jobs or companies awesome candidates, is at the bottom of the front page just a few hours after submission. Meanwhile, "Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police" is at the top. It's unsurprising. The kinds of people who are interested in Occupy protest tacti…

I actually have the exact opposite point of view:

1) To the best of my knowledge, I've never gotten a gig out of the freelancer thread in the past six months, although I am a full-time freelancer. The thread is essentially a list of facts and does not expose me to any new ideas, which would be forgivable if I consistently got gigs out of it, but I do not. As for its cousin the Hiring Thread, I am not nor do I know anyone actively searching for full-time employment (quite the opposite, I know dozens of desperate employers who are desperate for a reason). Job inquiries seem to follow me everywhere I go: to developer events, to my various inboxes, to my phone, etc, and many developers in the tech hub in which I live share the same sentiment. This may be a local phenomena, but it is my experience.

2) I am not an occupier (and FWIW not really a fan). The article was not overly political. It discussed protesting from a tactical point of view and exposed me to a new idea (which may very well be an old idea to others). It is of personal interest because I have been working on pathfinding lately, and this is, essentially, a distributed pathfinding implementation. I wonder if there is a reasonable attack on this kind of strategy or if the strategy is applicable to other protests (Arab Spring, etc.) I think that the discussion quality and level of improvement to my life is going to be a lot higher on this article than on the hiring thread.

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#29

Post by dotBen » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 11:16 PM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #5

I don't know if this is a difference between UK and US police tactics, or if it's specific to Portland - I also don't know if it's the case that the difference was caused by not caring as much or just by not being as successful: UK police have done a much better job in the past, and rendered this article nonsense. The key difference: > Since we had no clear destination, the police were unable to get ahead of us and s…

As a Brit now living in US, I came here to mention Kettling too. (Kettling is when the police entirely surround a protest group and will not let anyone enter or leave for many many hours).

Unlike the other comment on this sub-thread, I don't see any reason why Kettling wouldn't work here in the US (sadly) if the police used it. The density of the streets in UK doesn't come into it when you consider the Kettling that took place in Oxford Circus, London during May Day riots a few years ago.

I think the issue for Kettling in the US is that police here rely more on aggression and fear of attack (the heavy infantry, as the OP puts it) then strategy and tactical superiority. As the OP observes, this then goes horribly wrong for the Police when they are forced to assert that aggression physically on protestors.

The other issue for Kettling here in US is constitutional rights. In the UK the police will Kettle a crowd for hours - which in real terms mean they will not let you out even if you decide to give up protesting. This is frankly as a punitive action more than anything else. My guess is constitutionally the police might not be able to do this to undetained, unarrested citizens.

Re: Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police

#30

Post by tobtoh » Sun, Jan 01, 2012, 11:23 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #11

So here's HN in 2012: the Hiring Thread, which leads this month with a chorus of comments about how effective HN has been for finding people awesome jobs or companies awesome candidates, is at the bottom of the front page just a few hours after submission. Meanwhile, "Occupy Portland's Dec 3rd Tactic to Neutralize Police" is at the top. It's unsurprising. The kinds of people who are interested in Occupy protest tacti…

From your comment, I'm still not clear what your exact objection is to the article. You appear to be complaining that an 'Occupy' thread is rated higher than a 'hiring' thread, yet don't explain why you feel that the Occupy thread doesn't 'gratifies one's intellectual curiosity' the way a 'hiring' thread does.

I recognise that the 'hiring' thread is valuable to some people on HN and am glad that the post appears, however for me, the 'hiring' thread does very little to 'gratify my intellectual curiosity' - I'm fortunate enough to have a job and so the thread has almost zero value for me personally.

The 'occupy' post did satisfy me intellectually - I don't have a position on the politics either way, but the explanation of 'battle tactics', how they developed by non-military people and how they can be used 'on the street' was intellectually interesting.