How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

Is it not political violence when a black man is killed in the street without due process, treated differently than a white person would be?

I still haven't seen any evidence whatsoever that any homes have been looted or burned by protestors, or that anyone has been killed by protestors. Only "what if"s, like "what if the fire killed someone?" It didn't, but we have a very real case of a police officer killing someone -- shouldn't that be the most important thing we're focusing on here?

Everyone has pretty much universally agreed that what the officers did was unacceptable. Even other Police. The officer was arrested, why things didn't move sooner was a local matter to take up with that mayor and that department. It should have been handled locally, not all departments are the same.

But you end up in a situation of further tragedy where people start destroying property and assaulting others, and they screwed up by doing so. The message has been diluted, lost in all the noise. Expanding it nationwide hasn't broadcast the message positively.

It's juvenile and short sighted, the people are on their side, saying yes this was wrong, yes this has to stop, murder is unacceptable, etc. They are now looking at the situation with a different viewpoint, asking themselves if the police violence may be justified with this group, look at what they did to our community when WE AGREED with them and were willing to help.

That isn't a political thought, that is a rational thought. Destroying communities, rioting, looting, killing people, it never brings more people into your corner. America is a civil society that respects law and order. Much of America now is just happy they don't have to live around anywhere where this is happening, that is going to be the only takeaway from this tragedy now. The chorus on social media doesn't reflect that. The riots turned average Americans against this event.

A barrier, metaphorically, was quickly slammed up between people, and now it's just noise and chaos.

We may be able to achieve deterring physical escalation with serious penalties, but I don’t know if we will be able to solve the real possibility of the police community being rotten.

What do these cops do when these situations happen and there is no video recording of the encounter? They all back each other up and write up some bogus police report justifying the need for force. That’s exactly what would have happened if we didn’t get the recording this time around. These four cops would have straight lied.

Let’s say we effectively deter them from doing so with liberal use of cameras. I think if they are really rotten, they will find ways to drum up other charges.

There are two paths of discussion here, one path assumes the cops are mostly good and do bad things in very intense, escalated situations. The other is they are rotten, and do something bad in any situation such as wrongfully detain, concoct charges, forge evidence, or justify a violent escalation.

If we’re dealing with a rotten police community, where they operate with a clear power complex and mafia—esque collusion amongst each other, then we must confront that word, systemic.

Violence is just one by-product of a systemic problem. Lying, manipulation, imposition of unrestricted authority in any/all contexts, and so on.

If systemically there is a 20% prevalence of rotten behavior, numbers straight out of my ass of course, we’re talking 1 in 5 interactions are tainted with the public. We have to find out what the real number is, because I do believe that number exists and it ain’t below 10%.

Asking the police to provide us this data is about the same as asking the CCP for police data. We need serious transparency into this organization.

> You do not use violence in a democratic protest.

Tell that to the police. The current "don't use violence" rhetoric is cleverly being aimed at the protestors and seems to be giving a consistent pass to the other side's behavior. In many cases, these guys are suited up like shock troops, visibly excited and ready to bust skulls, and when they're unleashed they are going to find skulls (peaceful or not) to bust. This is a system that only knows how to use violent escalation to solve problems, and lo and behold, they're out there bringing on the violence. The protests are about police brutality, and the police are coming in and using the only tool they know: brutality. But it's OK because someone somewhere else is burning down a Target?

> To use it is effective acknowledgement that you either want to destroy the democracy or do not believe that it actually exists on the moment.

From your wording you seem to be agreeing that the police also "want to destroy the democracy".

This is the discussion I wanted to have, rather than being downvoted.

I actually agree with you, but given that the article was posted by mwseibel, I wanted to see what everyone's thinking was. Just because he's a significant YC partner doesn't mean he knows/has authority over HN. It's a valid discussion to have.

But what's the appropriate line? A hard line with no room for interpretation, even in significant events? Where does Coronavirus land in that then? It certainly affects tech/hacking, but it definitely is being tainted by politics and belief structures. Are the only valid articles ones that talk about remote work?

Similar thing related to civic action. Keeping politics out of HN is a good rule, but man, that line is never going to be discrete.