7 ms·

Are we saying that: (a) police are a net good, but slack is aiding/encouraging particular bad behaviors; or (b) police are a net bad and we should just deny t

Are we saying that: (a) police are a net good, but slack is aiding/encouraging particular bad behaviors; or (b) police are a net bad and we should just deny them anything that enables them to do their jobs; or (c) police are a net good, but it's bad PR to associate with them

giancarlostoro 6y ago
It is more than likely C. At least according to a comment here by a former Slack employee.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
It's a witch-hunt, plain and simple. Of course the police needs reform, demilitarization, higher standards, more accountability, and better educational requirements. How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me.
- bradly 6y ago
  > How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me. If not this way the, how do you get it? It's been hundreds of years. The U.S. is not immune to revolutions and revolutions have changed corrupt states for a very long time.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Study other countries which have less police violence? Incorporate more community involvement? Etc. The idea that society doesn't need some sort of police force is so hilariously naive, I am in disbelief that serious people are suggesting it. Clearly they are from an extremely privileged background and never had to deal with living in poor areas. The police absolutely need reform, but to pretend that they're more of a threat than criminals is factually false.
    - stormbrew 6y ago
      I'm sure it seems very alarming that people are 'demonizing the police' if you're new to this issue -- in which case this week has woken you up to something that's been a problem for people for a very very long time. But it is not a new issue, and people's fear and pain at it is genuine. To some segments of society (who are not criminals), the police absolutely are more of a threat than criminals. When there are people who are terrified of getting pulled over by a cop in traffic because they know it might end up with them shot, even though they are in every way a model citizen, there is a deep problem. Also, police as we know them are only a couple hundred years old. No one is saying there doesn't need to be people who fill most of the roles police do in modern society, they are saying the structure the police embody is rotten and can be replaced with better things. And in my experience, it's the least privileged who take the hardest line on police abolition. Most 'privileged' people have, like yours, a lukewarm "some reform would be good" perspective.
      - ceilingcorner 6y ago
        I'm not new to this issue and I haven't "been woken up". As I just said, I actually have experience living in a crime-ridden area. Of course the police are a problem but again, the facts simply don't line up to your statements. The police killed 1,098 people in 2019. https://mappingpoliceviolence.org https://mappingpoliceviolence.org Compare that to the overall murder rate (not including other crimes.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_homicid... > To some segments of society (who are not criminals), the police absolutely are more of a threat than criminals. So getting rid of the police will have no effect whatsoever on the amount of criminals or crime? It will simply remain the same? That, again, is extremely naive. As usual, the predominant political news topic overrides all rational thought. One week, we have a mass shooting and call for more police and less guns. The next, the police unjustly kill someone and everyone wants to abolish them entirely.
        stormbrew 6y ago
        I like how you just completely ignore the part about how no one is saying "abolish the police and replace them with absolutely nothing we love crime!" You also lump various different debates all into one and assume the people you disagree with are in alignment with each other on all of them. But it's the other side that's had its "rational thought" overridden. These are not a good faith arguments.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  >How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me. These aren't new issues, practically speaking every attempt at less radical solutions hasn't worked and there have been many. In the end, the solution will be filled with political compromise and the weaker your starting position the more compromise there will be.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Surely the amount of police violence is less today than say, the early 1900s, when outright lynching was practically sponsored by the police? You deny that there has been any progress?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - marcinzm 6y ago
      Society as a whole has changed and I'd argue police have changed less than the rest of society. Given the videos from the last few days it's clear that the police see themselves as immune to consequences even in the age of social media, cell phone cameras and widespread public opposition.
      - ceilingcorner 6y ago
        Sure, I agree to that absolutely. But how you get from "the police needs radical reform" to "we don't need police, abolish them" is a mystery to me.
        marcinzm 6y ago
        If I want a $200k salary I don't start the negotiations at $200k, I start them at $250k knowing that I will be argued down. Likewise, the fear of a radical approach drives those in power to actually implement a productive moderate approach. If all you have is the moderate approach than those in power will implement nothing of substance.
- sg47 6y ago
  Wait what? All the things you mentioned are table stakes. Till we have those things, there's effectively no police department. We have a bunch of empowered thugs roaming around unencumbered. We absolutely have to demonize (rather bring out their true color) in order to have any reasonable possibility of change.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    How can these continuous variables be table stakes? That doesn't make sense. Type error.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me. I get this vibe as well. I want to interpret this charitably, but this seems antithetical to good faith participation. It feels like these people don't actually care about police brutality--any arbitrary partisan issue would suffice. Of course, I'm sure I'm misreading the situation (even though social psychology's most replicable studies predict exactly this sort of hyper-partisanship).
- designdesign 6y ago
  It's not a witch hunt if there's an actual problem.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  To work towards a solution requires understanding the problem. Understanding problems on this scale is very hard and it's much easier to say empty phrases that please your base.
throwaway894345 6y ago
I do wish these broader debates were clearer and more nuanced. I get the strong impression that certain participants are not only deliberately trying to prevent this sort of nuance altogether. I'm not sure why anyone with a genuine interest in solving these problems would behave this way.
- rrmm 6y ago
  A lot of people are just really, really angry at this moment in time due to the long history of injustices and numerous examples in the past few days. Nuance is real hard to do under these circumstances.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    It's not so hard if the media didn't cherry pick examples for the purpose of enraging Americans. There's probably a lot to be legitimately upset about, but blacks are killed by police less frequently than victim-reported crime statistics predict. If the media gave proportional attention to white victims like Tony Timpa or Daniel Shaver, it wouldn't feel so much like police are targeting black citizens. Maybe we would be having a different conversation--"police are too brutal in general, and while they aren't targeting minorities in their fatal offenses, perhaps there is a racial disparity for lesser forms of brutality, etc". But that's a terrible headline what with its nuance and truthfulness--I would never hack it as a journalist.
    - rrmm 6y ago
      Yeah but it'd be even easier to just not kill so many black people for what often appears to be very little reason. The whole thing would solve itself. If a few police started stepping on babies and killing them for sport, making sure that all the other victims of police got 'equal-time' isn't going to be winner.
      - rrmm 6y ago
        woops there goes the nuance again :D
empath75 6y ago
(d) police will never reform unless we make it impossible to do their jobs.
- jeffdavis 6y ago
  The more obvious lever here seems to be money. What you are suggesting is very round-about -- somehow slack is so useful that, by denying police its use, they will see the error of their ways? Where does this end? We could also make them wear boots that are 5 pounds each, and use cars that randomly refuse to start 10% of the time. What is the point?
  - empath75 6y ago
    Obviously it's not just slack. Every company should be shamed out of doing business with them, imo.
designdesign 6y ago
B and C probably both fit - police aren't inherently a net bad, but the policing system in america produces too many bad outcomes to lend blanket support to; it's arguably unethical to profit from such a problematic body of work.
- jeffdavis 6y ago
  This is what I don't get: saying they are theoretically good but problematic (without necessarily saying "police are a net bad"), and then saying it's unethical to do business with them for routine products. If there is logic there, it's very subtle and I'm not getting it. Can you elaborate or compare it to a precedent?
  - designdesign 6y ago
    The logic is that you don't have to do business with organizations you don't like (outside of some very specific situations). If you think police need reform and cause harm, then ethically you get to decide for yourself if you're ok with exchanging services with them despite the issues.
  - smileysteve 6y ago
    This reasoning seems much like Communism vs communism; communism, as a concept seems fair and just. Communism in practice by Russia or China has often benefitted a few. police, as a concept of investigating and providing justice for crimes is a good thing; American Police, however, are showing fundamental misunderstandings of the rights of citizens and have seen reduced repercussions because of things like qualified immunity, asset forfeiture, or biases. Another example of an attorney representing the people, is a good thing; but in US law (as opposed to European law) the DA sometimes seeks a conviction EVEN IF the DA has found exculpatory evidence (and doesn't have to share that evidence with the charged or their attorney)
dathinab 6y ago
I think the current action of work was "it's bad PR". And just that (no notion of good and bad). My personal take is: Police is conceptually good, but in practice can be be anything from net bad to net good. And while you can give a label per country. Differences in the same country (and state) can be huge. If many bad cases exists there is dangerous failure in the system. While for view cases is most often a human failure. Lastly it's currently net bad to be associated with police for PR, independent of wether police is net good or net bad in the US. Tbh. If I'm not wrong then the problems in the US are much deeper and systematic then "just" degrees of police violence. I still remember that since states used or still user a KI system to decide about bail cost and possibility which had a very clear bias against black people. Not because it was made intentionally with a bias but because the data of all cases of recent years was subtly but consistently biased against black people. And there are many other things wrong. Some not specific to black people but anyone which had not much Mony. Bring them all together and you have defacto systematic discrimination. Edit: Spelling on a phone can be hard. ;)
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > Police is conceptually good, but in practice can be be anything from net bad to net good. I hear this a lot, but I have a really hard time imagining a functioning society with no police. A society can't function (pretty much by definition) without law and order and law and order has never existed apart from some policing apparatus (at least not for anything besides the simplest of civilizations). Our police are surely suboptimal, but I don't see any sense in the idea that we would be better off with no police at all.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    Yes, through if you look at the role the police plays for some minority's, especially in some authoritarian or unstable countries they might be better off with no official police and (likely biased and not very good) self mad order keeping. Through I don't think this is the case for any democratic country. In the end bad police is normally better for larger societies then no police at all. But at the same time bad police can do a lot additional damage. I.e. it keeps some sources of danger in check but at the same time adds a new source of danger. Which is, I thing, one reason why some people believe they can do without police. The other reason is the thing below: Law and order exists just fine in small isolated (but not simple) societies without police. Especially if the society mostly contains similar minded people. Additionally you need neither law nor order in the modern sense for a small isolated but we'll working society. A common goal, respect for other people and implicit traditions can be enough in that case. I also can thing of at least on model for a larger society working without police through some form of self policing and self survilence but that's much more distopian than the US system as far as I can tell.
exolymph 6y ago
In my view, the dominant perspective currently is (b) and (c).
on_and_off 6y ago
sure, let's frame everything in good vs bad, that's not limiting at all
garlicGum 6y ago
Are legal bullies a net good or bad?

giancarlostoro 6y ago

It is more than likely C. At least according to a comment here by a former Slack employee.

ceilingcorner 6y ago

It's a witch-hunt, plain and simple. Of course the police needs reform, demilitarization, higher standards, more accountability, and better educational requirements. How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me.

bradly 6y ago
> How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me. If not this way the, how do you get it? It's been hundreds of years. The U.S. is not immune to revolutions and revolutions have changed corrupt states for a very long time.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Study other countries which have less police violence? Incorporate more community involvement? Etc. The idea that society doesn't need some sort of police force is so hilariously naive, I am in disbelief that serious people are suggesting it. Clearly they are from an extremely privileged background and never had to deal with living in poor areas. The police absolutely need reform, but to pretend that they're more of a threat than criminals is factually false.
  - stormbrew 6y ago
    I'm sure it seems very alarming that people are 'demonizing the police' if you're new to this issue -- in which case this week has woken you up to something that's been a problem for people for a very very long time. But it is not a new issue, and people's fear and pain at it is genuine. To some segments of society (who are not criminals), the police absolutely are more of a threat than criminals. When there are people who are terrified of getting pulled over by a cop in traffic because they know it might end up with them shot, even though they are in every way a model citizen, there is a deep problem. Also, police as we know them are only a couple hundred years old. No one is saying there doesn't need to be people who fill most of the roles police do in modern society, they are saying the structure the police embody is rotten and can be replaced with better things. And in my experience, it's the least privileged who take the hardest line on police abolition. Most 'privileged' people have, like yours, a lukewarm "some reform would be good" perspective.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      I'm not new to this issue and I haven't "been woken up". As I just said, I actually have experience living in a crime-ridden area. Of course the police are a problem but again, the facts simply don't line up to your statements. The police killed 1,098 people in 2019. https://mappingpoliceviolence.org https://mappingpoliceviolence.org Compare that to the overall murder rate (not including other crimes.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_homicid... > To some segments of society (who are not criminals), the police absolutely are more of a threat than criminals. So getting rid of the police will have no effect whatsoever on the amount of criminals or crime? It will simply remain the same? That, again, is extremely naive. As usual, the predominant political news topic overrides all rational thought. One week, we have a mass shooting and call for more police and less guns. The next, the police unjustly kill someone and everyone wants to abolish them entirely.
      - stormbrew 6y ago
        I like how you just completely ignore the part about how no one is saying "abolish the police and replace them with absolutely nothing we love crime!" You also lump various different debates all into one and assume the people you disagree with are in alignment with each other on all of them. But it's the other side that's had its "rational thought" overridden. These are not a good faith arguments.
marcinzm 6y ago
>How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me. These aren't new issues, practically speaking every attempt at less radical solutions hasn't worked and there have been many. In the end, the solution will be filled with political compromise and the weaker your starting position the more compromise there will be.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Surely the amount of police violence is less today than say, the early 1900s, when outright lynching was practically sponsored by the police? You deny that there has been any progress?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    Society as a whole has changed and I'd argue police have changed less than the rest of society. Given the videos from the last few days it's clear that the police see themselves as immune to consequences even in the age of social media, cell phone cameras and widespread public opposition.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      Sure, I agree to that absolutely. But how you get from "the police needs radical reform" to "we don't need police, abolish them" is a mystery to me.
      - marcinzm 6y ago
        If I want a $200k salary I don't start the negotiations at $200k, I start them at $250k knowing that I will be argued down. Likewise, the fear of a radical approach drives those in power to actually implement a productive moderate approach. If all you have is the moderate approach than those in power will implement nothing of substance.
sg47 6y ago
Wait what? All the things you mentioned are table stakes. Till we have those things, there's effectively no police department. We have a bunch of empowered thugs roaming around unencumbered. We absolutely have to demonize (rather bring out their true color) in order to have any reasonable possibility of change.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  How can these continuous variables be table stakes? That doesn't make sense. Type error.
throwaway894345 6y ago
> How you get any of those things by demonizing the police and making it a left-vs-right political issue is beyond me. I get this vibe as well. I want to interpret this charitably, but this seems antithetical to good faith participation. It feels like these people don't actually care about police brutality--any arbitrary partisan issue would suffice. Of course, I'm sure I'm misreading the situation (even though social psychology's most replicable studies predict exactly this sort of hyper-partisanship).
designdesign 6y ago
It's not a witch hunt if there's an actual problem.
vorpalhex 6y ago
To work towards a solution requires understanding the problem. Understanding problems on this scale is very hard and it's much easier to say empty phrases that please your base.

throwaway894345 6y ago

I do wish these broader debates were clearer and more nuanced. I get the strong impression that certain participants are not only deliberately trying to prevent this sort of nuance altogether. I'm not sure why anyone with a genuine interest in solving these problems would behave this way.

rrmm 6y ago
A lot of people are just really, really angry at this moment in time due to the long history of injustices and numerous examples in the past few days. Nuance is real hard to do under these circumstances.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  It's not so hard if the media didn't cherry pick examples for the purpose of enraging Americans. There's probably a lot to be legitimately upset about, but blacks are killed by police less frequently than victim-reported crime statistics predict. If the media gave proportional attention to white victims like Tony Timpa or Daniel Shaver, it wouldn't feel so much like police are targeting black citizens. Maybe we would be having a different conversation--"police are too brutal in general, and while they aren't targeting minorities in their fatal offenses, perhaps there is a racial disparity for lesser forms of brutality, etc". But that's a terrible headline what with its nuance and truthfulness--I would never hack it as a journalist.
  - rrmm 6y ago
    Yeah but it'd be even easier to just not kill so many black people for what often appears to be very little reason. The whole thing would solve itself. If a few police started stepping on babies and killing them for sport, making sure that all the other victims of police got 'equal-time' isn't going to be winner.
    - rrmm 6y ago
      woops there goes the nuance again :D

empath75 6y ago

(d) police will never reform unless we make it impossible to do their jobs.

jeffdavis 6y ago
The more obvious lever here seems to be money. What you are suggesting is very round-about -- somehow slack is so useful that, by denying police its use, they will see the error of their ways? Where does this end? We could also make them wear boots that are 5 pounds each, and use cars that randomly refuse to start 10% of the time. What is the point?
- empath75 6y ago
  Obviously it's not just slack. Every company should be shamed out of doing business with them, imo.

designdesign 6y ago

B and C probably both fit - police aren't inherently a net bad, but the policing system in america produces too many bad outcomes to lend blanket support to; it's arguably unethical to profit from such a problematic body of work.

jeffdavis 6y ago
This is what I don't get: saying they are theoretically good but problematic (without necessarily saying "police are a net bad"), and then saying it's unethical to do business with them for routine products. If there is logic there, it's very subtle and I'm not getting it. Can you elaborate or compare it to a precedent?
- designdesign 6y ago
  The logic is that you don't have to do business with organizations you don't like (outside of some very specific situations). If you think police need reform and cause harm, then ethically you get to decide for yourself if you're ok with exchanging services with them despite the issues.
- smileysteve 6y ago
  This reasoning seems much like Communism vs communism; communism, as a concept seems fair and just. Communism in practice by Russia or China has often benefitted a few. police, as a concept of investigating and providing justice for crimes is a good thing; American Police, however, are showing fundamental misunderstandings of the rights of citizens and have seen reduced repercussions because of things like qualified immunity, asset forfeiture, or biases. Another example of an attorney representing the people, is a good thing; but in US law (as opposed to European law) the DA sometimes seeks a conviction EVEN IF the DA has found exculpatory evidence (and doesn't have to share that evidence with the charged or their attorney)

dathinab 6y ago

I think the current action of work was "it's bad PR". And just that (no notion of good and bad). My personal take is: Police is conceptually good, but in practice can be be anything from net bad to net good. And while you can give a label per country. Differences in the same country (and state) can be huge. If many bad cases exists there is dangerous failure in the system. While for view cases is most often a human failure. Lastly it's currently net bad to be associated with police for PR, independent of wether police is net good or net bad in the US. Tbh. If I'm not wrong then the problems in the US are much deeper and systematic then "just" degrees of police violence. I still remember that since states used or still user a KI system to decide about bail cost and possibility which had a very clear bias against black people. Not because it was made intentionally with a bias but because the data of all cases of recent years was subtly but consistently biased against black people. And there are many other things wrong. Some not specific to black people but anyone which had not much Mony. Bring them all together and you have defacto systematic discrimination. Edit: Spelling on a phone can be hard. ;)

throwaway894345 6y ago
> Police is conceptually good, but in practice can be be anything from net bad to net good. I hear this a lot, but I have a really hard time imagining a functioning society with no police. A society can't function (pretty much by definition) without law and order and law and order has never existed apart from some policing apparatus (at least not for anything besides the simplest of civilizations). Our police are surely suboptimal, but I don't see any sense in the idea that we would be better off with no police at all.
- dathinab 6y ago
  Yes, through if you look at the role the police plays for some minority's, especially in some authoritarian or unstable countries they might be better off with no official police and (likely biased and not very good) self mad order keeping. Through I don't think this is the case for any democratic country. In the end bad police is normally better for larger societies then no police at all. But at the same time bad police can do a lot additional damage. I.e. it keeps some sources of danger in check but at the same time adds a new source of danger. Which is, I thing, one reason why some people believe they can do without police. The other reason is the thing below: Law and order exists just fine in small isolated (but not simple) societies without police. Especially if the society mostly contains similar minded people. Additionally you need neither law nor order in the modern sense for a small isolated but we'll working society. A common goal, respect for other people and implicit traditions can be enough in that case. I also can thing of at least on model for a larger society working without police through some form of self policing and self survilence but that's much more distopian than the US system as far as I can tell.

exolymph 6y ago

In my view, the dominant perspective currently is (b) and (c).

on_and_off 6y ago

sure, let's frame everything in good vs bad, that's not limiting at all

garlicGum 6y ago

Are legal bullies a net good or bad?