How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by hackinthebochs » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

devalgo wrote: post #62

vkou wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nationwide protests and all of the public outcry could have been enough. We've had protests, for separate occasions, happen years and years and decades ago, and it has not been enough. At which point will it be enough? How many more protests will it take? How many more decades will it take? Is anyone still on the fence on 2020 about whether or not bad cops are being protected by their peers and superiors? Do you ha…

1992 LA Riots caused over a $Billion in damage and 63 people died. Given that the scale of those riots far surpassed anything we're seeing now and given that nearly 30 years later another instance of police brutality preceded the current turmoil isn't it clear that your approach has failed?

Credit assignment is a hard problem. Let's not trivialize it with post hoc fallacies.

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

#72

Post by kajumix » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

jakkyboi wrote: post #53

kajumix wrote: post #35

"I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness... But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices —…

They're both necessary for change, it's just often that direct action forces policy

A policy or law that enforces a certain behavior that contradicts culture, would, by definition be undemocratic. A policy or law that enforces a certain behavior that is already present as a strong cultural norm, would be redundant.

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

#73

Post by mmsimanga » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

slyslacker wrote: post #66

mmsimanga wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an American. Can you share one or two reforms that you would like implemented. It is hard to grasp what is really going on from a distance.

Significantly expanding police training, and greater coverage of topics such as nonviolent de-escalation, community outreach, implicit bias training, and how to work with mentally ill individuals. Greater accountability through body cam programs, and community oversight boards for police departments everywhere. De-militarization of police, because right now, the police can legally buy surplus military gear and use it…

You suggestion make sense to me, why haven't they been implemented? Is it lack of political will or lack of money?

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

#74

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

HorizonXP wrote: post #4

META: Not sure why this was flagged/dead? I just vouched for it. Is it because it's political and not strictly about tech/hacker news? I'd argue that current events have a direct impact on all of us and this absolutely warrants discussion. Furthermore, I'm not sure I know of any instance where a President has disseminated writing like this. It's an interesting change, since it means that former Presidents can continu…

We can't pretend to maintain a strict separation between politics and tech, but this article is nothing but a direct call to specific political action. I generally hammer the flag button on that kind of thing, even when it's a good cause; I don't think HN is or should be a space for political organizing.

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

#75

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #14

eanzenberg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s just the media narrative you’re seeing. Not reality.

Which parts are the media narrative? The “imperial presidency” is part of an ongoing trend of increasing executive power for decades. High unemployment from Covid is objectively true. Ineffectiveness combating Covid at a Federal level is hard to debate...

We used to have media that tried to be objective. They produced an Overton Window that was pretty centrist.

Those days are gone. Now we have Fox with a clear bias or slant, CNN with a clear bias to the other side, and NBC somewhat more centrist but still not objective. (If you want relatively unbiased US news, try Reuters.)

That's bad enough. But people don't just get "news" that way; they get it from Facebook and Twitter. The "news media" is now the people that you subscribe to, whether or not they know what they're talking about. If they feel like the system is failing, the narrative you see will be that the system is failing, whether or not it actually is.

Then you have people trying to manipulate that feed. Start with the two political parties. They try to get the feed to say "You have to elect us!" One way to do that is to manipulate the feed so that it indicates that the system is failing because of the other party. There are also far-right and far-left activists, who want to manipulate the feed so that people think that the system is failing due to both parties, so that people will turn to the extremists as the only hope.

And then you have foreign disinformation campaigns, deliberately trying to destabilize the US. "Your country is failing" is a great narrative for them to foster in order to destroy peoples' faith in the viability of institutions.

Look, the system isn't in great shape. The imperial presidency was a thing clear back with Nixon. It got beat back with Watergate, but it's been growing again. Competence in government has also been... let's be charitable and say "not always as evident as we would prefer". But it seems to me that there is a media narrative (or mostly "meta-media", if you want to use that term for Facebook and Twitter) that is far stronger than the circumstances warrant.

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

#76

Post by mmastrac » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

devalgo wrote: post #59

mmastrac wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot condone violence nor encourage it, but you have to admit that the first few protests and property damage drastically influenced the quick arrest of an officer that may not have been arrested or even fired if it didn't happen. The non-violent protests of Colin Kaepernick were mocked and used to rally the other side and just weren't effective. The problem here is not the violence, but a policing system that is…

>The MLK quote is trotted out pretty often, but "a riot is the language of the unheard". Trotted out by ignorant woke dummies. In his 1967 Stanford speech MLK also says: "Let me say as I've always said and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and…

You cherry-picked just the MLK quote and added an ad-hominem which isn't a very productive argument.

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

#77

Post by solotronics » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #30

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #15

> So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. Taboos around violence for political are one of the crucial building blocks for a functioning democracy. If those taboos are broken, even for a good cause, you set a precedence that violence works. And the next cause won’t be as good. One only has to look at the lessons of the Roman Revolution that started with the murder of Grachus, and ended w…

The police were breaking those taboos constantly last week. I've seen them casually macing people (not to move them, or to make arrests - they didn't occupy that space, they just sprayed the front of a line down, because they could) tossing tear gas and flashbangs into non-violent crowds (again, without any intention of occupying the vacated space), and shooting non-lethal projectiles at people who were sitting on th…

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.

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

#78

Post by Avicebron » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #55

kajumix wrote: post #35

"I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness... But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices —…

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…

I like this idea of a transparent democracy. It seems that if we are to be surveilled and held accountable by inscrutable decisions. Then we should have the right to surveil back. Heck, maybe to be elected one has to wear a body cam in all non-top secret non-personal decision making sessions of legislating. Might end lobbying pretty quick.

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

#79

Post by Press2forEN » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

mwseibel wrote: post #29

I think it’s time for America’s leaders to stand up and organize our citizens in order to make long lasting policy changes. Citizens are paying attention. I want there to be a great American debate about what these changes should be. The world is watching and the American system is being tested. Let’s meet the challenge and be the example we want to see in the world. Clearly America is nowhere near perfect but with e…

> I think it’s time for America’s leaders to stand up and organize our citizens in order to make long lasting policy changes.

Ok, and one third of the people support those policies and one third doesn't, and both thirds will fight each other tooth-and-nail. What then?

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

#80

Post by austincheney » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

kajumix wrote: post #35

"I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness... But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices —…

> Voting and democracy should not become a device to placate the dissatisfied masses into silence, make them lineup for ballot, to choose a lesser evil who, in most likelihood, will turn out to be a egotistical power-seeker.

What else should you expect when people are limited to only two political parties? It could be worse with only one political party.