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I disagree that any responsibility should fall to the protesters. The right to protest is baked into the first legal document the country as a political entity

I disagree that any responsibility should fall to the protesters. The right to protest is baked into the first legal document the country as a political entity wrote. For the last 250 years politicians and cops have had the knowledge that Americans care a great deal about their right to stand in front of a statehouse and shout to their heart's content. They should create their own policies to deal with that fact. If that means ensuring no roads go near the statehouses, that there's ample space around popular protest spots, hell that there's guaranteed public restrooms in those areas, so be it. It also means that cops should have 250 years of collective knowledge in how to deescalate... But instead they've always gone the violent route (remember the 60s, when young black people were being shredded by police dogs?) Now that being said, black lives matter in particular suffers from (in my opinion) a lack of leadership and organization. Over the weekend I wanted to attend protests. I have 100 surplus masks and shitloads of water bottles I wanted to give out. But after a straight hour of searching on every social media platform I could conceive of (as well as Google and just asking on Twitter) I found nothing but out of date websites, with articles from the beginning of the black lives matter movement. If I want to donate money, I can choose between several different variations of the name "black lives matter," with no way to verify that these are representative organizations, or where the money goes. During the protest (I just turned up at city hall and hoped for the best - it happened to work out), I didn't see any sort of leadership. Sure some local community leaders turned up, but nobody that represented any sort of modern iteration of a black rights movement. Far be it from me to tell people how to best accomplish social goals - in my opinion raw, unfettered, and disorganized rage is a perfectly valid outlet for the people against the crimes of the American police system. I just feel like organization could only help.

stcredzero 6y ago
Now that being said, black lives matter in particular suffers from (in my opinion) a lack of leadership and organization. A universal problem with "leaderless movements" is that they quickly devolve to the lowest common denominator level. Anyone can put out their slate and call themselves an "activist" and it's inevitable that some dim person will come along and try to make a name for themselves by taking things farther. Put that person into a crisis situation with quickly gathering flash mobs, and what should we expect? Then, on top of that, add on extremist opportunists who decide to exploit the situation, with the goal of destabilizing social order. A "leaderless movement" has all of the biomass of a huge national organization, but none of the immune system and command/control to counter such organized exploiters. in my opinion raw, unfettered, and disorganized rage is a perfectly valid outlet for the people against the crimes of the American police system. No. Outside of a protest, the worst actions we've seen would be crimes and qualify the perpetrator as a bad person. Just because they're in a protest doesn't change that. Would you feel that way if they came and burned your house or business down? Evil is evil. Violence is violence. Another's evil is no excuse to perpetrate your own. Especially if it falls on innocent bystanders.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  > Would you feel that way if they came and burned your house or business down? Yeah. My house and business would be insured. No amount of insurance can revive a man, woman or child murdered by police. I'm OK with personal sacrifices in service of justice. I would happily burn all of my earthly possessions if it meant babies like Bou Bou Phonesavanh were no longer at risk of being critically injured by flashbangs or murdered by stray gunfire.
- CM30 6y ago
  The tradeoffs between traditional and leaderless movements are a lot like the tradeoffs between centralised and decentralised systems in tech to be honest. On the one hand, the latter avoid the weaknesses of the former, in that they can neither easily be 'taken over' by outside forces nor provide a single point of weakness for their enemies to target. And that's useful for both software and protest movements, since it leave a single target for the opposition to go after, whether that's through legal threats, harassment, arrest or assault/murder. At the same time, it also makes the system prone to abuse by bad actors, since there's no one able to either get rid of them or distance the group from them in general. Hence the extremists taking over political movements and protests, and the trolls/extremists/criminals becoming an increasingly prominent part of any decentralised community or social network setup online. This in turn leaves both open to attack from their opponents and the media, who can point at the worst elements and say "See? These people are all evil/sociopathic/crazy/whatever' based on it. It's like to some degree, avoiding bad actors and running a robust and uncensorable system are fundamentally incompatible with one another, in the same way as usability and security are.
  - stcredzero 6y ago
    On the one hand, the latter avoid the weaknesses of the former, in that they can neither easily be 'taken over' by outside forces nor provide a single point of weakness for their enemies to target. In situations where mob mentality can take over and chaos can create a "fog of war" this is not true! Even though most of the protesters want to remain peaceful, the amplitude of sowing chaos, and its potential to spark additional chaos within mass rally situations, are providing extremists that "single point of weakness." Basically, against an organized opponent that wants to create chaos, mass rallies are kind of like packing together certain isotopes of uranium atoms. Even if most of the units are "inert" (in that most of the people want peace,) if enough individuals with activation potential are densely packed enough, you can still get the chain reaction.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

stcredzero 6y ago

Now that being said, black lives matter in particular suffers from (in my opinion) a lack of leadership and organization. A universal problem with "leaderless movements" is that they quickly devolve to the lowest common denominator level. Anyone can put out their slate and call themselves an "activist" and it's inevitable that some dim person will come along and try to make a name for themselves by taking things farther. Put that person into a crisis situation with quickly gathering flash mobs, and what should we expect? Then, on top of that, add on extremist opportunists who decide to exploit the situation, with the goal of destabilizing social order. A "leaderless movement" has all of the biomass of a huge national organization, but none of the immune system and command/control to counter such organized exploiters. in my opinion raw, unfettered, and disorganized rage is a perfectly valid outlet for the people against the crimes of the American police system. No. Outside of a protest, the worst actions we've seen would be crimes and qualify the perpetrator as a bad person. Just because they're in a protest doesn't change that. Would you feel that way if they came and burned your house or business down? Evil is evil. Violence is violence. Another's evil is no excuse to perpetrate your own. Especially if it falls on innocent bystanders.

kevingadd 6y ago
> Would you feel that way if they came and burned your house or business down? Yeah. My house and business would be insured. No amount of insurance can revive a man, woman or child murdered by police. I'm OK with personal sacrifices in service of justice. I would happily burn all of my earthly possessions if it meant babies like Bou Bou Phonesavanh were no longer at risk of being critically injured by flashbangs or murdered by stray gunfire.
CM30 6y ago
The tradeoffs between traditional and leaderless movements are a lot like the tradeoffs between centralised and decentralised systems in tech to be honest. On the one hand, the latter avoid the weaknesses of the former, in that they can neither easily be 'taken over' by outside forces nor provide a single point of weakness for their enemies to target. And that's useful for both software and protest movements, since it leave a single target for the opposition to go after, whether that's through legal threats, harassment, arrest or assault/murder. At the same time, it also makes the system prone to abuse by bad actors, since there's no one able to either get rid of them or distance the group from them in general. Hence the extremists taking over political movements and protests, and the trolls/extremists/criminals becoming an increasingly prominent part of any decentralised community or social network setup online. This in turn leaves both open to attack from their opponents and the media, who can point at the worst elements and say "See? These people are all evil/sociopathic/crazy/whatever' based on it. It's like to some degree, avoiding bad actors and running a robust and uncensorable system are fundamentally incompatible with one another, in the same way as usability and security are.
- stcredzero 6y ago
  On the one hand, the latter avoid the weaknesses of the former, in that they can neither easily be 'taken over' by outside forces nor provide a single point of weakness for their enemies to target. In situations where mob mentality can take over and chaos can create a "fog of war" this is not true! Even though most of the protesters want to remain peaceful, the amplitude of sowing chaos, and its potential to spark additional chaos within mass rally situations, are providing extremists that "single point of weakness." Basically, against an organized opponent that wants to create chaos, mass rallies are kind of like packing together certain isotopes of uranium atoms. Even if most of the units are "inert" (in that most of the people want peace,) if enough individuals with activation potential are densely packed enough, you can still get the chain reaction.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]