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How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

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Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#381

Post by jpindar »

vkou wrote: post #104
solotronics wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police are people too and when you escalate to violence and destruction you might get answered with force. Making this an us vs them and not having any proper form of discourse between the parties is causing the explosive reactions on both sides.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gu3qq1/cop_just_ca... Do any of the people who got gassed in this video look like they are committing violence or destruction? The cop who tossed the gas grenade is certainly committing violence, but that's about all I can see. > I'm not a tough person, I'm not an aggressive person, I'm not a violent person. I was just standing there quietly alongside other peaceful protestor…

>A little fucking ironic, isn't it, to have the police forcing tens to hundreds of protestors to not be able to breathe at this protest?

Also in the midst of a pandemic that kills by making you unable to breathe, and which is going get worse in the next few weeks because of all this.

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#382

Post by throwaway894345 »

sacred_numbers wrote: post #365
throwaway894345 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People haven't been voting, which is why it hasn't worked.

Let's look at the subset of people that vote. If they consistently vote and encourage others to vote, and yet their candidates never win, they are effectively powerless. For them it is no different than living under a monarchy, except for the vague hope that maybe eventually their candidates will win and their policies enacted. Eventually that vague hope makes things even more painful, since they know that their gove…

Not talking about national or even state elections here—talking about local elections. And if one can mobilize thousands in a particular locale to protest (to take off work and go out shoulder-to-shoulder during a pandemic no less), why can’t they mobilize enough voters?

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#383

Post by throwaway894345 »

majormajor wrote: post #315
throwaway894345 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt, but I don't see what this has to do with anything. The fact that opportunistic looting took place doesn't refute the fact that the American Revolution was overwhelmingly about independence and representative government.

"Protests of non-responsive oppressive governments and their agents that get accompanied by opportunistic looting" sounds like this last week to me.

Our government isn’t oppressive. There are actual oppressive governments. We have some bad police and a law that protects them too often. Mostly things are as good as they’ve ever been and getting better all the time. Everything else is the media money machine going brrrr.

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#384

Post by smnrchrds »

frogpelt wrote: post #44

I agree with almost everything Mr. Obama wrote. But... I feel the complete opposite of “hopeful” when I see these riots, when I see people so angry they will destroy their own cities. Because it accomplishes the exact opposite of they hope it will accomplish: 1. Those who side with heavy-handed police tactics feel vindicated for their prejudices. 2. The communities of those who feel unheard and left out are torn down…

> Just using common sense tells me that if you can name off the victims it means the problem isn’t widespread or systemic across the country.

> Name the police officers killed in the line of duty in the last ten years. You can’t there’s way too many.

First of all, the number of people killed by US police is an order of magnitude higher than the number of police officers killed in the line of duty. I have provided sources about this here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373468

Of course, not every death caused by police is unjustifiable. But let's keep the whole picture in mind.

Second, I don't think any reasonable person is arguing that police officers nonchalantly murdering random black citizens is the systemic issue. What is systemic is police misconduct and brutality, as well as bias towards minorities especially black people. In extreme circumstances, this can result in loss of life; but most of the time, it won't.

You may have heard of Heinrich's law. If you have not, please take a look at the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_triangle

The gist of Heinrich's law is that for each accident causing serious serious injury or death, tens of accidents had occurred previously causing minor injury. For each accident causing minor injury, there had been tens of accidents causing no injury. For each accident causing no injury, there had been tens of unsafe acts. To give an example, a drunk driver killing someone had probably driven drunk hundreds of time before. He had scraped the paint on his car a couple of times, and the rest, he had driven without any accident of any sort.

For every death on that list, how many people have suffered life altering injuries and permanent disabilities at the hands of the police, e.g. blindness [1] or paralysis [2]? For every person suffering life altering injuries, how many have suffered serious yet healable injuries, e.g. broken ribs, ruptured spleen, etc.? For every person suffering serious yet healable injuries, how many have suffered minor injuries, e.g. broken nose, broken teeth, bruises, cuts, etc.? For every person suffering minor injuries, how many have been harassed, targeted, unjustifiably arrested or carded?

This is the systemic issue people are protesting against.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/us/minneapolis-protests-p...

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/assault-charges-d...

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#385

Post by tryptophan »

chr1 wrote: post #287
systemvoltage wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big problem is that the elected after being elected, choose to not follow or dilute those promises. There is no accountability. So time and again, democracy fails as they just change their minds after being elected. There is this "damping" factor like a mechanical system, that takes the energy out of the people's hands and dampens it with lobbying, dishonesty, unaccountability and complete neglect for public inte…

The idea about presentations is very good, but it alone won't fix the problem. We need to be able to vote for individual decisions instead of people, and we on hn are best positioned to fix the democracy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23377423

This is a terrible idea. I don't want policy decided by which proposed law has the most "feel good points" or "best intentions" or best marketing campaign to get people to vote for it.

Popular vote is a tool for demagogues and populists and will quickly lead to tyranny of the majority type situations.

Whenever I vote in local elections there are some ballot initiatives, and it's ALWAYS feelgood shit like "give elderly widows whos' husbands worked as a teacher a 25% property tax cut". I vote no for everything out of principle.

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#386

Post by 082349872349872 »

mooseburger wrote: post #317
evmar wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MLK gave a speech at Silicon Valley's own Stanford and touched on this subject (the same one with the "riot is the language of the unheard" quote you might have seen circulating). https://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm See the bit starting with: "Now there's another notion that gets out, it's around everywhere. It's in the South, it's in the North, it's In California, and all over our nation. It's the notion that le…

Can't change the heart with rioting either, and are you sure you know whose hearts need to change, and what change needs to occur? I think you could erase all racism from the hearts of humanity and end up with basically the same world, there's no reconciling the self-celebrating narcissism of moderns with universal love. Can't take the mote out of your brother's eye until you remove the beam in your own. This applies…

> Can't take the mote out of your brother's eye until you remove the beam in your own.

When there are sympathy protests outside the US, this is exactly what the sympathy protesters are attempting to remind you all. The US has nice ideals, eg "and justice for all"

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#387

Post by Folcon »

I could be completely off base here, but I see a lot of discussion around how to elect the correct people when I personally think that a more important issue is "how the sausage gets made".

Politics is about compromise and deal making yes, but it should also be about looking at the problems that plague society and trying to find a solution that does the most good while incurring the least harm.

But when decisions are made that significantly affect the lives of a group of citizens is there any effort made to consult with them? Or do they just get to find out when their life get's turned upside down?

How much of the process is about what's convinient for who's currently in power or currying favour with them than trying to take apart problems that affect the citizenry and make a best effort at a solution?

Part of my thinking on this came from reading about and hearing how vTaiwan was used to try and decide how to legislate how Uber would be treated there.

Full disclosure, I've only read around the topic, I may get details or points wrong. I'm only mentioning it here because I've not spotted it being discussed and I think it's relevant.

An overview is here for you to look at [0], however please read around it yourself if you want more detail =)...

At a high level, they broke the process down into several stages: 1) Contact the stackholders and inform them a decision is being made and provide a place for engaged citizens to participate. This encompases fact finding as well as translating complex areas like legal information to be understandable to the general public. 2) Allow people to air concerns and highlight potential issues. Try and understand what groups exist and what they want, ensure that participants who will be significantly affected have a proportional voice. Treat this as a period of relflection so people can get a deep understanding of where things are. 3) Take subject matter experts as well as appropriate voices in industry and have them study what was produced in the prior stage, then have them put together a series of briefings and Q/A sessions designed to dispell common misconceptions brought up during the prior stage and put together a series of clear proposals that can be enacted outlining the pros and cons as such as feasible. This will help educate the public as well as give them a much clearer idea what the state of possible outcomes are. At this point the public are actively able to question and ask for more detailed information around the proposals on offer. 4) Take the proposals that were the outcomes of the prior stage and turn draft it into a law.

Note that I'm not saying tech is the solution here, just that we might want to think more broadly about what the problem is.

And now it's way past my bedtime, I'll respond to any replies after I get up =)...

- [0]: https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/building-co...

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#388

Post by brokenmachine »

devalgo wrote: post #69
simondw wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The office involved should be charged or arrested based on the circumstances and evidence Obviously. But they weren't, and given precedent, probably never would have been. That's why this is happening.

The officer in question has been charged with murder. The Minnesota Governor and AG were both advocating for charges basically since day 1 and well before the protests so it's not at all clear the turmoil influenced his arrest.

If I, as a citizen, went along with three cronies to murder a man, those three cronies would all catch murder charges as well.

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#389

Post by brokenmachine »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #111
simondw wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The office involved should be charged or arrested based on the circumstances and evidence Obviously. But they weren't, and given precedent, probably never would have been. That's why this is happening.

There's lots of precedent of officers being charged and arrested. Not often enough, and they are especially acquitted too often, but the public perception that they aren't charged is a function of media narrative, not fact.

The cop in question had 18 prior complaints against him.

I don't know about you, but if I had 18 complaints against me at work, I would probably have got in trouble by now, and I'm not talking about two "letters of reprimand".

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/01/us/derek-chauvin-what-we-...

Re: How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change

#390

Post by User23 »

austincheney wrote: post #362
yaj54 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@austincheney - Speaking as an American -- those in this country with the privilege of freedom have it because people have fought and died for it [0]. There actually aren't very many examples of people that have basic freedoms that have not at some point fought for it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War

I am aware more than most. I am a warrant officer in the US Army entering my 5th overseas deployment.

I thought that was mostly a navy thing these days. If you don't mind my asking, what kind of jobs does the Army have warrant officers do?
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