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Think it's very possible that you believe law enforcement thinks about the world differently than someone trying to avoid law enforcement. My understanding is

by nxzero 11y ago

Think it's very possible that you believe law enforcement thinks about the world differently than someone trying to avoid law enforcement. My understanding is that they share the same mental model of the world on average; which is not a critical view of either, just what I've heard from people that know much, much more about how different types of people think than me. To be clear, it would be foolish to say all people, even of a given type, think the same.

ska 11y ago
To be clear, it would be foolish to say all people, even of a given type, think the same. This statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. One of the main purposes of training for many jobs (lawyers, physicists, police, etc.) is explicitly to modify the mental model you apply to the world.
- nxzero 11y ago
  Point is there are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions. While I'd agree that mental induction into a field does happen, that unlike in many fields, law enforcement has a very primal nature, and many that take on this domain are predoposed to it; within nature, the domain would be the relationship between predators and their prey.
  - ska 11y ago
    I don't think you are articulating your point very well, and the last bit seems to be veering towards ev-psych nonsense. Can you clarify what you are trying to say?
    - nxzero 11y ago
      Happy to do so, please explicitly state a question, refrain from the tone you've taken, and state what if any experience you have on the topic.
      - ska 11y ago
        Honestly didn't mean to have a "tone" - unless you mean my comment about evolutionary psychology, which is just balderdash in general. Anyway, I can't really see the connection you trying to make, are you saying that something innate to (some of) the people who choose policing as a career overrides their training? Or that police training is in some particular way unsuccessful in modifying mental models?
        nxzero 11y ago
        Yes, your response to evolutionary psychology was not constructive in my opinion; also, just to be clear, I'm very sure I make tone mistakes too. As for evolutionary psychology, I see your point, and happy with leaving it at that; meaning evolutionary psychology, like much of the field is not a science. Any rate, what I am saying is that some types of personalities (that develop prior entering a life of crime or law enforcement) predispose individuals to enter either one, the other, or both. Special forces has a saying, that is, you're either born to be a seal, or you're not; which is to say, training will never make you something that you're not, but it will weed out those that can't be trained; reference the seals, since they're at the extreme of having a very develop mental model prior to training.
        ska 11y ago
        Ok, I'm not sure I agree with you entirely but now I can make sense of your point. I think there is probably some truth in what you are saying, and some pure selection bias. However, I also believe that there are many modifications to ones mental models that happen through training - that a) are probably very opaque to the recipient and b) do not occur naturally/intuitively almost ever.
  - apalmer 11y ago
    dont really think its that certain types of individuals being drawn to law enforcement, or rather i think that is true but i dont think thats the largest factor. I do not think its so much the type individual as the type of situation. Meaning I think when you put people into primal life or death situations which require split second decision making a lot of instinctual processes take over.
- PaulHoule 11y ago
  I found his comment interesting but I don't know what to think about it. Certainly cops and criminals have plenty of reason to get into each other's heads. Maybe a better analogy could be the rift that exists between police and the black communities in many places. Definitely these people have a different perspective about things. There is definitely a hard core of criminals who are coincidentally black who are playing a "cat and mouse" game against the cops, but then there are a lot of blacks who have surplus trouble with the police as well as situations like https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-flakka-the-synthetic-drug-that-pushed-south-florida-to-the-brink/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/the-m... where cops feel driven to do things that look brutal, maybe are brutal, but they don't see an alternative.
  - nxzero 11y ago
    Are you responding to my comment? If so, unclear what race has to do with my comment, or for that matter, the topic.
    - PaulHoule 11y ago
      It's a clear case where there is a gap between a community segment and the police and also my original comment was about my own experience of what seems to be "hyper white privilege" in terms of grooving along abnormally well with the cops.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - nxzero 11y ago
        Root cause of this is not communication, it is cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority. To see an example of what I mean, watch the trailer for the "Stanford prison experiment" on YouTube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3XN2X72jrFk https://youtube.com/watch?v=3XN2X72jrFk And read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment As for "getting along" - it's more about selection bias than anything else; which in some, if not many, cases takes the form of racism. It's an important topic to me, and I'd be the first to say I still don't completely understand it, or more importantly, how to fix the issue.

by nxzero 11y ago

ska 11y ago

To be clear, it would be foolish to say all people, even of a given type, think the same. This statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. One of the main purposes of training for many jobs (lawyers, physicists, police, etc.) is explicitly to modify the mental model you apply to the world.

nxzero 11y ago
Point is there are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions. While I'd agree that mental induction into a field does happen, that unlike in many fields, law enforcement has a very primal nature, and many that take on this domain are predoposed to it; within nature, the domain would be the relationship between predators and their prey.
- ska 11y ago
  I don't think you are articulating your point very well, and the last bit seems to be veering towards ev-psych nonsense. Can you clarify what you are trying to say?
  - nxzero 11y ago
    Happy to do so, please explicitly state a question, refrain from the tone you've taken, and state what if any experience you have on the topic.
    - ska 11y ago
      Honestly didn't mean to have a "tone" - unless you mean my comment about evolutionary psychology, which is just balderdash in general. Anyway, I can't really see the connection you trying to make, are you saying that something innate to (some of) the people who choose policing as a career overrides their training? Or that police training is in some particular way unsuccessful in modifying mental models?
      - nxzero 11y ago
        Yes, your response to evolutionary psychology was not constructive in my opinion; also, just to be clear, I'm very sure I make tone mistakes too. As for evolutionary psychology, I see your point, and happy with leaving it at that; meaning evolutionary psychology, like much of the field is not a science. Any rate, what I am saying is that some types of personalities (that develop prior entering a life of crime or law enforcement) predispose individuals to enter either one, the other, or both. Special forces has a saying, that is, you're either born to be a seal, or you're not; which is to say, training will never make you something that you're not, but it will weed out those that can't be trained; reference the seals, since they're at the extreme of having a very develop mental model prior to training.
        ska 11y ago
        Ok, I'm not sure I agree with you entirely but now I can make sense of your point. I think there is probably some truth in what you are saying, and some pure selection bias. However, I also believe that there are many modifications to ones mental models that happen through training - that a) are probably very opaque to the recipient and b) do not occur naturally/intuitively almost ever.
- apalmer 11y ago
  dont really think its that certain types of individuals being drawn to law enforcement, or rather i think that is true but i dont think thats the largest factor. I do not think its so much the type individual as the type of situation. Meaning I think when you put people into primal life or death situations which require split second decision making a lot of instinctual processes take over.
PaulHoule 11y ago
I found his comment interesting but I don't know what to think about it. Certainly cops and criminals have plenty of reason to get into each other's heads. Maybe a better analogy could be the rift that exists between police and the black communities in many places. Definitely these people have a different perspective about things. There is definitely a hard core of criminals who are coincidentally black who are playing a "cat and mouse" game against the cops, but then there are a lot of blacks who have surplus trouble with the police as well as situations like https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-flakka-the-synthetic-drug-that-pushed-south-florida-to-the-brink/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/the-m... where cops feel driven to do things that look brutal, maybe are brutal, but they don't see an alternative.
- nxzero 11y ago
  Are you responding to my comment? If so, unclear what race has to do with my comment, or for that matter, the topic.
  - PaulHoule 11y ago
    It's a clear case where there is a gap between a community segment and the police and also my original comment was about my own experience of what seems to be "hyper white privilege" in terms of grooving along abnormally well with the cops.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - nxzero 11y ago
      Root cause of this is not communication, it is cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority. To see an example of what I mean, watch the trailer for the "Stanford prison experiment" on YouTube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3XN2X72jrFk https://youtube.com/watch?v=3XN2X72jrFk And read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment As for "getting along" - it's more about selection bias than anything else; which in some, if not many, cases takes the form of racism. It's an important topic to me, and I'd be the first to say I still don't completely understand it, or more importantly, how to fix the issue.