IGX

Subquestion: "Is Twitter the colorectal cancer of the Internet?"

Milo Yiannopoulos took a pounding from Twitter's banhammer the other day, after he flamed the black chick from Ghostbusters, and bickered back and forth with her over God only knows what.

I admit to not paying much attention to this before, having only become aware of how much politically-charged action is happening on Twitter since Trump threw his fascist hat into the ring replete with promises that he'd "make America great again" if we elected him President.

Not long after that, I found out about Milo.

When I was a kid, my dad would watch 60 Minutes, and when I was a teen, he'd listen to Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy on the radio. That was the extent of the reach a pundit had- TV and radio shows.

Nowadays we have Twitter. Opinions can spew forth in 180 character bits, and we can access them 24/7 from our computers and mobile devices.

I don't want to believe that somebody's political opinions could be influenced by Tweets, but when I look at it objectively, I see a really fucked-up picture being painted.

How much of our opinions are being swayed by these dipshits? Should you be fitted for a tinfoil hat for believing that pundits on Twitter can dance you right up to the ballot box like a marionette and make you vote for whichever douchebag politician they're in some way, shape, or form in bed with?

Am I insane for wanting to unplug completely, and live in a converted shipping container out on the bayou, with no TV, Internet, or electricity, where I can fish all day and feed the bastard's who come bother me to the alligators?

There's a whole generation coming up that is even less capable of thinking for themselves than our generation is. Tweets probably carry a lot of weight with them.

Take the important factors into consideration. First and foremost, make sure to have enough alligators.

I worry that we are being played by "reality," i.e. -the stuff that people cherrypick and then present as the true story.

The useless and (I assume) negligent cop who just shot the black therapist in the leg says almost nothing about "how the police really are."
But I see some of my black FB friends seizing on that as if that is the essence of Black & White relations.

Another symptom: Laura Ingraham's "Nazi Salute."

I will admit that my view of the police has changed significantly, in the wake of all these shootings. For the better.

Instead of being outraged, I looked at the data. Cops don't kill people anywhere near as often as other people kill people, and that's a statistical fact.

Cops have hard jobs. They have to deal with the motherfuckers who kill people, on a daily basis.

Kenny X wrote:I will admit that my view of the police has changed significantly, in the wake of all these shootings. For the better.

Instead of being outraged, I looked at the data. Cops don't kill people anywhere near as often as other people kill people, and that's a statistical fact.

Cops have hard jobs. They have to deal with the motherfuckers who kill people, on a daily basis.

I am in a rather nice hotel in downtown Louisville. Last night I came across three white Louisville cops (2-male / 1-female) dealing with a young black man who clearly didn't belong here. There were two other black guys outside who were involved in the situation in some fashion as well. I went outside to get some air and a few minutes later, the guy the cops were dealing with was led out in cuffs.

These cops treated him (despite the arrest) and the other two black guys outside with the utmost curtesy. They even came back and shook hands with the two black guys who didn't get arrested. It's an anecdote based on a single incident but these white Louisville cops were nicer making an arrest than I ever imagined. If the arrestee resisted, it could have been a very different outcome but what I saw was really impressive.

Kenny X wrote: Cops have hard jobs. They have to deal with the motherfuckers who kill people, on a daily basis.

As a fire fighter, people were almost always glad to see me.

On the other hand, cops almost always got flak, friction, or resistance when they arrived. They're usually delivering bad news to someone.

All cops aren't bastards and all black men aren't criminals. The more polarized we get, the more we don't see things that way.

I don't know if she's a pundit or not but, damn, Megan Kelly is looking hot at the convention.

I bet a lot of MRA fanboys think Anita Sarkeesian is hot. Bet they want her to strap one on and show em how hot she can be.

That wasn't directed at you.

johno wrote:

Kenny X wrote: Cops have hard jobs. They have to deal with the motherfuckers who kill people, on a daily basis.

As a fire fighter, people were almost always glad to see me.

On the other hand, cops almost always got flak, friction, or resistance when they arrived. They're usually delivering bad news to someone.

Up until the age of 40, I made exactly two good decisions.
1. I quit drinking.
2. When I was #199 on the NYPD list, I didn't become a cop.

Edit: Because the last few weeks have really demonstrated what a thankless, no-win job that is.

Fundamental clue. Don't resist arrest or questioning. I've been questioned, stopped, etc. I carry blades, so it can get interesting. I show my hands and cooperate fully. I talked with a friend who set off an alarm in the warehouse of the company he works for. The cops arrived and he exposed his hands and talked calmly offering ID.. the cop was SO cool because he said, "criminals don't act like this".
There will be jerks on both sides, but keeping a calm attitude and NOT resisting is the key.

TomFurman wrote:Fundamental clue. Don't resist arrest or questioning. I've been questioned, stopped, etc. I carry blades, so it can get interesting. I show my hands and cooperate fully. I talked with a friend who set off an alarm in the warehouse of the company he works for. The cops arrived and he exposed his hands and talked calmly offering ID.. the cop was SO cool because he said, "criminals don't act like this".
There will be jerks on both sides, but keeping a calm attitude and NOT resisting is the key.

In high school I trained Muay Thai with two Ffx. Co. cops. Officer Joe Morton gave me some advice that has endured to this day- "Cooperate. Be polite. Be honest even if you have a dead hooker and a kilo of heroin in your trunk."

I'm always polite to cops and I never resist. And I've never had a problem.

The sad part, though, is that all that goes out the fucking window during debates lately because I happen to be white. Never mind the fact that many times, the cop I was dealing with was black, and from his perspective, he'd just pulled over a (possibly racist and violent) skinhead. Never had a problem. Not once.

TomFurman wrote:Fundamental clue. Don't resist arrest or questioning. I've been questioned, stopped, etc. I carry blades, so it can get interesting. I show my hands and cooperate fully. I talked with a friend who set off an alarm in the warehouse of the company he works for. The cops arrived and he exposed his hands and talked calmly offering ID.. the cop was SO cool because he said, "criminals don't act like this".
There will be jerks on both sides, but keeping a calm attitude and NOT resisting is the key.

Charles Kinsey from Miami, is on hold on Line 1.

I'd guess that most people are cooperative with the cops.

But some people think police commands are an invitation to debate, and that refusing to follow instructions or pulling away from a cop's grasp are Constitutional rights. The Prime Directive for a cop is to control the situation. Things will ramp up fast and get ugly to accomplish that.

Yes I Have Balls wrote:

TomFurman wrote:Fundamental clue.
...NOT resisting is the key.

Charles Kinsey from Miami, is on hold on Line 1.

Yeah, because anything less than 100% perfection from thousands of cops having tens of thousands of daily interactions is bullshit.
The cop himself virtually admitted he fucked up.

johno wrote:

Yes I Have Balls wrote:

TomFurman wrote:Fundamental clue.
...NOT resisting is the key.

Charles Kinsey from Miami, is on hold on Line 1.

Yeah, because anything less than 100% perfection from thousands of cops having tens of thousands of daily interactions is bullshit.
The cop himself virtually admitted he fucked up.

I never mentioned perfection, just saying that saying "just don't resist and you'll be fine" is not true and hasn't been, like forever. We just have cameras in cell phones now to show it.

johno wrote:

Yes I Have Balls wrote:

TomFurman wrote:Fundamental clue.
...NOT resisting is the key.

Charles Kinsey from Miami, is on hold on Line 1.

Yeah, because anything less than 100% perfection from thousands of cops having tens of thousands of daily interactions is bullshit.
.

Your sarcasm is asking the correct question.
What's the acceptable standard for inadvertently shooting unarmed non resisting person? So in their day to day, regular stuff, let's bookend it...they need to be about 80% correct. That's a standard a lot of people would say is doable.maybe not? I mean...put that into perspective for us. Given that cops are human, we already don;t expect them to be 100% perfect. of their "1000's"of daily interactions In fact in the low stakes part of their job we expect something far far less. We don't require they have a high IQ or that they even know the law.

In the cases like the above with extreme heightened (justifiably so) public interest on all sides, what's an acceptable error rate? Out of let's say 1000 of these confusing guns drawn, multiple officers on scene altercations, what's an OK number of times for a given department to fuck up? or a given cop? or the Police nationwide to the degree we can track those stats?

Kenny X wrote:

TomFurman wrote:
In high school I trained Muay Thai with two Ffx. Co. cops. Officer Joe Morton gave me some advice that has endured to this day- "Cooperate. Be polite. Be honest even if you have a dead hooker and a kilo of heroin in your trunk."
.

Shit advice.

Don;t speak to the police. Hand them your ID and shut your fuckin mouth.

A cops' first objective is to figure out what the fuck is going on...then decide if he needs to control the scene. To do this he will use humor, cleverness, congeniality, violence, empty threats illegal force, lies, intimidation and probably the most effective of all...He'll just ask you.

Do not be the fuck up that assumes the police are there to help YOU.We have an adversarial justice system of which the Police are on the front line. They don't trust what you have to say, do not trust what they have to say and Never Ever Ever speak to the fucking police. Cooperate silently, give them id, remain passive as you would with an untrustworthy dog. But only ever speak as a very last resort..and only then at little as possible.

Blaidd Drwg wrote: In the cases like the above with extreme heightened (justifiably so) public interest on all sides, what's an acceptable error rate? Out of let's say 1000 of these confusing guns drawn, multiple officers on scene altercations, what's an OK number of times for a given department to fuck up? or a given cop? or the Police nationwide to the degree we can track those stats?

Apparently, we're not tracking all the relevant data, like how many cops/what color shoot how many citizens/what color. We should do that.

Beyond that, cops are human, and will err. The key issue is how to deal with that. Given that many, and soon all, cop-citizen interactions will be filmed, I think more errors will be detected and then corrected. And I am pro-body cam for cops.

To answer your question about acceptable error rate, I don't know. It may vary by jurisdiction. Hopefully, with better information-gathering, departments that do better will be sources of "best practices" to serve as models for other departments.

Don't you work in the regulatory field? What is the acceptable error rate for the permitting process? Is that rate being improved? The path to improvement probably requires measurement and then enforcement of standards.


I do think the pressure is really on the cops now. And that's good. I just saw a 2015 video of an Austin PD officer slamming a tiny black woman to the ground. I also noticed how hard it was for him to cuff her, although he had 100 lbs of muscle on her. Controlling a resisting person is not easy and is not pretty. It doesn't look good on video.

Random thoughts, I'm in a hurry.

I think the answer in any regulatory context is zero. Based on the number of appeals I see, in most cases if the matter is of great weight, being wrong on the law happens very infrequently. If we are talking how often does an inspector miss a fire or life safety measure? Very very seldom. How often do the mess up on matters of less substance ? Parking space sizes or something...the acceptable error rate is still zero but the actual rate is probably close to 5% of all built projects.

The 10 cities with the largest police departments paid out $248.7 million last year in settlements and court judgments in police-misconduct cases, up 48% from $168.3 million in 2010, according to data gathered by The Wall Street Journal through public-records requests.

Those cities collectively paid out $1.02 billion over those five years in such cases, which include alleged beatings, shootings and wrongful imprisonment. When claims related to car collisions, property damage and other police incidents are included, the total rose to more than $1.4 billion.

Wonder who is paying for all this shitty policing....?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/cost-of-pol ... 1437013834

johno wrote: I just saw a 2015 video of an Austin PD officer slamming a tiny black woman to the ground. I also noticed how hard it was for him to cuff her, although he had 100 lbs of muscle on her. Controlling a resisting person is not easy and is not pretty. It doesn't look good on video.

i too saw this.

the woman lost her cool, got argumentative. what was her line? something like, "you can't pull me over because i had already stopped." like she was on home base in a game of capture the flag.

nonetheless, seemed to me the cop should have shown more restraint, patience, and didn't need to throw her down.

even if these incidents represent a fraction of a fraction of a percent of cop interactions, we now seen them daily, and every one of these scenes feeds black america's fear and anger.

life is reality tv, and it's fucked.

johno wrote: Apparently, we're not tracking all the relevant data, like how many cops/what color shoot how many citizens/what color. We should do that.

This. The media presents extreme cases, one side of the story at one time, and everyone gets the impression that it is how thing happen every day. Most stories on the news are about "how bad things are", and the occasional comprehensive reporting - that gives proper perspective and neutral view on things - gets way less attention than snippets of extreme events. It is true for every area of life, from police to medicine to the state of affairs in another country.

My solution is fairly simple: stop watching the news and reading newspapers. If anything serious and worthwhile happens I will find out. I will argue that most news and opinions are not important. That includes earthquake in Nepal, shooting in Paris and ISIS. I don't want to be distracted by so called news that I can do nothing about (except getting stressed) from real 3D events in my vicinity that I can influence. As the Buddhist adage goes: if you want to make the World better - start with yourself. In my case there is a lot of work to do about the latter before I should worry about Ebola epidemic in Africa.

Coming back to the police... Some jobs involve serious emotions and deal with our ultimate fears, and police is one of them. And yes, there are dickheads everywhere. Not forgetting the simple fact that it is not simple thing to be a person. We do all kind of shit we are ashamed of later. People misjudge, lose temper, make wrong opinions, get influenced by others, get caught in a situation, get scared etc. Except in the case of the police officer doing these mistakes can result in very dramatic outcomes. Life is messy.

johno wrote:Apparently, we're not tracking all the relevant data, like how many cops/what color shoot how many citizens/what color. We should do that.

a decent article on this topic, looking at some of the data that researchers have come up with:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why ... by-police/