The Testing Chat III: The Time of Great Chatting

[Questor]

Funnily enough, Adrian Schoolcraft tried exposing police corruption and so they broke into his house and dragged him into an insane asylum. Bakustra is right, though. Most cops are just complicit in ignoring crimes of other police. It is, after all, bad for your career/health to try and get them punished for brutality or corruption.

Exactly. Throw in the fact that the corrupt/brutal cops are the ones most likely to go after the people investigating them, and you have a very real problem that requires outside action to correct. I just have no idea how to correct that part, and haven't seen any that have worked either. Independent bodies that hire police force veterans become "captured by the system", and the incidents that they are investigating are too important and usually severe to allow a true careerist system to develop. You can't afford* to have trainees.

* Cost is an issue, but so are the learning moments that anyone makes when inexperienced.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Is the big difference in opinion here just that Questor reacts to "most police are complicit in deadly corruption because the system is currently set up that it's hard not to be" with "well see they're not so bad the deck's stacked against them" and everyone else is "people are being hurt and killed; the police need to step up and not make excuses"?

[Questor]

From my perspective (reduced to such soundbite-ish and insulting terms), its: "Cops are all human beings who deserve to be considered innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt," versus "Cops are all brutal monsters who should be considered guilty until proven innocent beyond any unreasonable doubt." There also seems to be agreement that the current system is broken and needs to be reformed, but I haven't really seen any discussion on how to do that other than generalities that make excellent talking points, such as "the police need to step up and not make excuses" while ignoring the fact that the issues mentioned about police departments are endemic to self policing institutions, and have not provided a mechanism other than "be better than the rest of us, and magically guess which people are better,"*

* My biggest issue is the number of people who would make incredibly insulting accusations if I decided to make these types of statements about any other group in the population. Just under 1 out of every 100 people who are employed in the United States are employed in a sworn peace officer profession. Trying to paint a picture of that entire group with any single brush is unfair. It might be justified, but it's still unfair.

Can I make sweeping, prejudicial statements about other groups that make up 1% of the population? What's the threshold where it becomes wrong? 1%? 5%? 10?

Sources: http://gregor.us/economics/total-employ ... lls-again/ http://www.bls.gov/ooh/about/ooh-faqs.htm

[Infinity Biscuit]

"Cops are all brutal monsters who should be considered guilty until proven innocent beyond any unreasonable doubt."

Is this actually, literally, what you believe the other people in the thread think and are expressing?

[Questor]

"Cops are all brutal monsters who should be considered guilty until proven innocent beyond any unreasonable doubt."

Is this actually, literally, what you believe the other people in the thread think and are expressing?

No, it's not. Its an insulting oversimplification. Exactly as I feel your portrayal was an insulting oversimplification of my point.

EDIT:

From my perspective (reduced to such soundbite-ish and insulting terms), its:

Further edit: A big part of the reason the final statement was structured that way was for prose reasons. I was deliberately creating a form "X are all [human beings/brutal monsters] who should be considered [innocent/guilty] until proven [guilty/innocent] beyond a [reasonable/unreasonable] doubt."

[Infinity Biscuit]

Is the statement I made actually incorrect or is it just worded insultingly? From what you're saying it seems as if that is your response, that the vast bulk of cops are regular people in a system set up such that the default behavior is to enable terrible corruption and thus they should be forgiven. Is this a misunderstanding of your feelings?

[Questor]

Is the statement I made actually incorrect or is it just worded insultingly? From what you're saying it seems as if that is your response, that the vast bulk of cops are regular people in a system set up such that the default behavior is to enable terrible corruption and thus they should be forgiven. Is this a misunderstanding of your feelings?

To a degree. I don't think they should be forgiven, as I don't necessarily know that they have committed an act in need of forgiveness. I think, and have repeatedly stated that the guilty should be punished. That's where the misunderstand comes in, at least from my perspective. I dislike generalizations.

[Oxymoron]

and thus they should be forgiven.

I don't think that's what he's saying.

edit : ninja'ed

[RogueIce]

The thing of it with me is this. People get all "wah there should be better screening" without examing just what the screening is. Just that it "should be better" or some such simplistic nonsense. But there are (as of 2006 anyway) some 800,000 estimated sworn law enforcement officers, including the Feds (about 636,000 without them). No screening system will ever be 100% effective, but even if what's in place kept out the Bad Cops 99% of the time, that would still be some 6,000 - 8,000 that will slip through.

And I sincerely doubt you could design any system of pre-screening and training that would be even 99% successful. If you could fuck this webboard nonsense, get that shit implented and retire.

And the same goes with the 'a few bad apples' argument because again, even if it's just 1% that's still a pretty big number and certainly capable of generating plenty of stories in a given year. And again 99% is probably absurdly generous.

Then there is the double standards, such as bringing up the Oscar Grant case even though said officer did in fact get charged and went to trial. But clearly those pesky due process, trial by jury, and innocent until proven guilty principles don't apply to cops, right?

[Nietzslime]

i have to admit i prefer the us version of house of cards for a couple reasons

first because it's shot so much better - which, hey, we've had 20 years of development in cinematography and film editing, it's not the original's fault

and second because francis' wife is developed a lot more, to the point where robin wright as claire might be my favourite character

[Darksi4190]

Ok, I know there've been outright apologists for the Galactic Empire on SDN before, but this new guy just makes me stop and go what the fuck?

[Gands]

I think there's an interesting argument to be made for the Empire in the age of the War on Terror. After that, it's mostly an issue of scale, which is harder to comprehend on the SW scale.

[Straha]

I think there's a good argument to be had that the Empire is a sort of inadvertant endpoint of any state trying to maintain its own legitimacy in the face of contest. If you're interested in a great essay on this question you should read Giorgio Agamben's State of Exception. (Contact me if you want a PDF.)

[Straha]

I think I just posted the most 'anti-science' post on TEO that anyone has made in years. Kinda surprised there hasn't been a dogpile already.

Or they grew up and just left in general. Hell, Mike himself all but left (and so would Dalton if he could find a suitable replacement).

I always got the impression Mike didn't choose to leave but realized he had to choose between spending time with the wife and kids or the board, and made the right choice.

[Stofsk]

I think I just posted the most 'anti-science' post on TEO that anyone has made in years. Kinda surprised there hasn't been a dogpile already.

Not that I think your posts are that contentious but the other thing is that thread's in OT, so it's probably under the radar for some people.

Or, people aren't super confident arguing with you, either because they don't understand your argument or they do understand it and find it persuasive. Or, they don't want to come to Carinthium's aid.

Or they grew up and just left in general. Hell, Mike himself all but left (and so would Dalton if he could find a suitable replacement).

I always got the impression Mike didn't choose to leave but realized he had to choose between spending time with the wife and kids or the board, and made the right choice.

Maybe, I dunno. It does sound reasonable. I know I was spending an inordinate amount of time on TEO for a long while before I came to the realisation it was no longer a cool place to have online discussions.

[weemadando]

TEO also had a precipitous drop in patronage at some point. Remember the days of hundreds of active users live at a time? When debates turned over super rapidly and we *needed* to split the forums so much to manage traffic.

Now, a few people make a lot of noise and the arguments all have predetermined ends because there's no way to break the group think that remains.

Thinking back, the single most important topic on TEO in the past 3 years was the electric kettle thread. Which was a fucking fascinating look at different nation's cultures. But it was in testing. So inherently of no value, thus its lost to time.

[Stofsk]

I don't think that was the single most important topic on TEO. It was little more than a culture shock thing. No, the single most important thread to happen on TEO in the last couple of years was the moral nihilism thread. If anyone still thinks you can hold a contentious debate over there after that thread, they must be dreaming.

[timmy]

[xon]

TEO also had a precipitous drop in patronage at some point. Remember the days of hundreds of active users live at a time? When debates turned over super rapidly and we *needed* to split the forums so much to manage traffic.

The ending of several major sci-fi series all at once (stargate, nbsg, etc) the community slow and painful realisation that the Starwars pre-sequals really just wheren't that good, and the Startrek they grew up with being functionally dead basicly cut out of a lot of the reason for the forums founding purpose.

What was left, really wasn't sufficient to keep things going. And the resulting board culture is frankly toxic.

I don't think that was the single most important topic on TEO. It was little more than a culture shock thing. No, the single most important thread to happen on TEO in the last couple of years was the moral nihilism thread. If anyone still thinks you can hold a contentious debate over there after that thread, they must be dreaming.

The moral nihilism thread was really the last nail in the coffin. The type of attitudes and issues associated with it have been around for a long time, and a lot of the moderator staff where utterly willing to destroy any attempt at debate of complex topics for several years before Wong set the standard of anoy him and be banned & deleted.

[xon]

Dalton already set the bar really fucking low when he threated to ban people over suggesting Fox News may have a systematic bias which has them swapping Rs to Ds consistantly when a Republican is caught doing something wrong. And got really nasty over suggesting Fox News deliberately lies, despite them going to court and winning the protected freedom of speach right to say what ever the fuck they want regardless of it's relationship to the truth.

Having an (the?) admin of a forum championing defend Fox News as a fair and balanced source of news? Not a ringing endorsement. Especially when the guy apparently hated them back in 2002-2006 or so.

[Bakustra]

I think I just posted the most 'anti-science' post on TEO that anyone has made in years. Kinda surprised there hasn't been a dogpile already.

Funnily enough, if science really were objective, peer review and the notion of a scientific consensus would be obsolete.

Also, would you mind giving a quick overview of Irigaray's arguments for prioritizing the speed of light being sexist in nature (assuming that's possible)? I can certainly see how her arguments about the emphasis on solid over fluid mechanics work, without necessarily conducting any of the research that would be required to evaluate its accuracy, but I don't quite see how the speed of light argument would work.

Ok, I know there've been outright apologists for the Galactic Empire on SDN before, but this new guy just makes me stop and go what the fuck?

The GE is basically the Nixon-era USA as filtered through the perceptions of a New Left radical, so it's not like it's surprising that somebody would defend it. Fascism also attracts a lot of people for fairly understandable reasons- it was at the time "radicalism of the center", synthesizing monarchist notions of a supreme leader with socialist notions of a society without political conflict and capitalist notions of the corporate state. It provided a set of internal enemies to blame for the dissatisfaction of life within, and external enemies to blame for the humiliations of the past (generally, the same people). So it's not surprising that people would end up defending fascism as well.

Edit: After actually reading it, what's funny is that in his stupidity he did manage to hit upon one of the central themes of the prequels. Of course, he lacks the context to understand what it actually means that Padme only objects too late and ineffectually, or what is being said with that. Lawl.

[Ralin]

Ok, I know there've been outright apologists for the Galactic Empire on SDN before, but this new guy just makes me stop and go what the fuck?

I think it's more interesting that the forum culture has changed enough that pretty much no one else is agreeing with him.

Granted that's probably in large part because the kid is really fucking dumb, but still, it's a big change from the SD.net I remember.

[Crazedwraith]

It's probably half-a-dozen on the one hand and six on the other as far as those threads are concerned. There are probably less imperial apologists about and I think just about anyone would/should be too embarrassed to take part.


edit: after saying this. I somehow started to post in that very thread.

[Darksi4190]

The last serious attempt at Imperial apologism that I remember was either Darth Hoth's attempt at it, or the one by TC pilot. I can't remember which one was most recent but those are the two that stick out the most in my mind.

[Infinity Biscuit]

I'm confused now because a total hippie I follow the blog of just reposted a white power screed from what is apparently a neonazi blog she follows with no commentary or any context to indicate it might be for purposes besides agreement. You don't usually associate sexual liberation, focus on sustainability, and weird, unorthodox art with racist fascism, or at least I don't, so this is bothering me.