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London riots / UK riots: verified areas
- ColinWright 15y agoWhat would be really useful would be to have this colour coded by day so we could see the evolution through time.
- ColinWright 15y agoThis page has a colour-coded map: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248 Not a good one, but at least it's something.
- hugh3 15y agoIf they'd taken my advice and killed off all the poor people, none of this would ever have happened. It's time to acknowledge that not all of mother nature's experiments in the combination of human DNA are worth keeping.
- ColinWright 15y agoThis kind of comment doesn't belong on HN and I think people should take the time not just to downvote it, but to flag it. Click on "link" and then on "flag"
- hugh3 15y agoIf you disagree, counter-argue, don't downvote.
- ColinWright 15y agoI not only disagree, I genuinely believe this doesn't not belong here. I have downvoted and flagged because I believe that kind of comment to be inappropriate on HN. Not all poor people are poor because they are somehow incapable, undeserving, or somehow unfit to live. Sometimes people are caught in circumstances beyond their control, and they are unable to get out of it. Not to understand that shows a breathtaking arrogance. Who are you, who are we, to decide who has the right to live? Who are you, who are we to decide who should have rights and who should be deprived of them? If my business collapsed there's every chance I'd find myself behind on the mortgage, and if I then was ill for a month or two there'd be the very real risk of being homeless. Who knows how I would've turned out had I been in the situation these people endure? I condemn the violence unreservedly and unhesitatingly, but that doesn't mean I don't have sympathy with the situations of people who are caught in the poverty trap.
- hugh3 15y agoThat's a pretty good counterargument. OK, you've changed my mind, let's not kill the poor.
- jrockway 15y agoDid your account get hacked? This doesn't seem much like you.
- euccastro 15y agoActually, as a (just as absurd) heuristic I think the world would be much better off if we killed, say, the 1% richest people every year. We'd lose some people up there with genuine net contribution to mankind, but for the most part we'd get rid of thieves and thugs. The problem with mankind is not lack of good and brilliant folks, but excess of white collar thieves and thugs. Not that I would propose this seriously. Just seems to me less absurd than what you suggested, which is not saying much at all.
- adammichaelc 15y agoSomebody's already tried your idea... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics
- ChuckMcM 15y agoAnd with the invocation of Godwin's Law [1] we can now close this part of the discussion. [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Godwin%27s_la...
- ugh 15y agoDon’t take this the wrong way, but there aren’t that many people who will engage in an argument with someone who advocates murdering humans and wants to be taken seriously.
- Mz 15y agoI'm deeply in debt and being sued by my creditors. I am deeply in debt because I and my oldest son have a genetic disorder and I figured out how to get us well when the entire world says it cannot be done. Since the entire world frames the problem the way it does, there would be financial support for keeping me and my son ill and lifelong legal drug addicts. There is no financial support for things that actually worked to get us healthy against long odds. It all came out of my pocket. In order to live at all, much less have any hope of getting well, I had to get divorced. As a divorced single mom with a life threatening medical condition, my pockets are not deep. This in spite of being extremely capable and having a long history of academic awards, education to prep me for a good paying job, etc. I ended up in a job paying half what I "should" be making because I was ill and heavily medicated and just didn't interview well and probably couldn't have held down those jobs anyway. "Underemployed" was better while fighting for my life. I often wish there was some kind of assistance available for me. It feels incredibly unfair (not to mention insane) that charities, state aid, federal aid and so on would willingly spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on each of us (me and my son both) to keep us limping along in a zombified horrifying state of existence but I can't come up with a measly $50K--$100k (one time expense) to clean up my financial mess and move on and focus on writing software to teach what I have learned to others so that the roughly $3 billion per year that gets spent on medical care for a mere 30k individuals with this condition in the US could be shrunk to a more reasonable amount and their lives improved at the same time. There's a recession on. It would be enlightened self interest for The Haves to empower me to do this. But the odds are good I will keep limping along, just trying to pay my bills, while people like you pass judgement on me in the worst way possible. If you had your way, I would be put to death and instead of the odds of me sharing my discovery with the world being poor, it would be non-existent. That's my counter-argument, FWIW.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- ratsbane 15y agoI read the previous comment as a reference to Swift: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal and, as such, not intended to be offensive.
- willyt 15y agoApparently the rioters are organising using blackberry messenger. Seems like the police are about 2 hours behind what's happening.
- LoonyPandora 15y agoI'm a Londoner near some of the affected areas. The sky is not falling, London is not degenerating into lawlessness, and from what I can see from my flat window, police are responding quickly. Other areas may be different, but London is a very large city - commenters should remember that in discussions.
- abcd_f 15y agoSo what was the trigger that started the riots?
- eru 15y agoI heard some bloke was shot by the police.
- ColinWright 15y agoOriginally there was a peaceful protest over the shooting of a young man during a police operation. that seems to have been hijacked by mobs intent purely on violence. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248 The initial areas are fairly poor and have a history of tension with the police, but the disturbances tonight seem simply to be youths intent on causing damage and looting. I'm not in London, these are my impressions to give you a quick answer. They may not hold up to future scrutiny. Also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14442935 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14442935
- pbhjpbhj 15y agoThe mobs bent purely on violence were probably this guys friends based on the reported gang links of the guy that was shot.
- ollysb 15y agoThis is what triggered it off, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/05/man-shot-police-london-arrest http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/05/man-shot-police-... and here's a little background context http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/08/context-london-riots http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/08/context-...
- SandB0x 15y agoI'm in my flat in NW2 and I can hear police cars going down the Edgware Road. Fucking terrifying. The police can't keep up, according to the news they're showing up hours late to everything and they don't have any water cannons. Bad times. Edit: #riotcleanup tomorrow morning all over town: http://twitter.com/#!/search/riotcleanup http://twitter.com/#!/search/riotcleanup
- ottbot 15y agoIt's very frustrating knowing the police can do little to contain or manage the situation, and we're completely at the mercy of rioters as to what will happen next or when it will stop. A group of 30-40 of them went up my street, smashing cars, and started congregating out front, all holding glass bottles -- this just when reports of homes being broken into started coming out. Absolutely horrifying, luckily something spooked them and they moved up the street.
- nkassis 15y agoI don't know how tight the community but could the residents organize to protect the areas? A little like what the Egyptians were doing? Blocking roads and letting only residents pass?
- jamesbritt 15y agoIsn't anybody there armed? Is it illegal to use a weapon to defend your home?
- hashbo 15y agoHey James, no they aren’t thank God! Otherwise it would also mean the rioters would be armed. It’s bad enough they have makeshift weapons without giving them efficient ones. Once you have armed weapons you can’t make sure only the ‘good guys’ have them. I feel 30K of gun deaths a year illustrates that point fairly well :-( And the illegal to use a weapon to defend yourself is a legal situation in transition in the UK. So if you take away the ‘armed’ part as you did, James, then the answer is no, not yet.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Fargren 15y agoI'm almost embarrassed to ask, but why is this happening? I read that this started saturday as a protest against a policeman who shot someone, but that doesn't seem to be what the protests is about now. The sources I checked don't reach any kind of consensus.
- estel 15y agoIt's long since become little more than hooliganism. I'm sure a variety a deeper societal-reasons will be dredged up in the weeks and months to come; but what started off as a sit-in on Saturday is now just a backdrop for a large number of disaffected people, mainly youths, to smash shops and steal.
- alsomike 15y agoFor every hooligan on the street, there are 10 friends and family at home, but shrugging their shoulders at the violence because they have no stake in society. "Let them burn it down, why should I care?" The hooligans can be rounded up. What are you going to do with the much larger number of otherwise law-abiding citizens who can't be bothered to hold up the law in their own neighborhoods?
- itg 15y agoStarted off as a protest against a police shooting (details will depend on which side you ask) and then escalated. Now it is just vandalizing, destroying property, and looting. Some BBC commenters were saying that for the young guys, the austerity measures with a combination of feeling marginalized, unemployed, and no hope for a future plays a part in this too.
- watmough 15y agoYes, the eighties austerity, cuts, unemployment and we had riots then too. Local council budgets are being cut. Libraries and swimming pools, after school activities, policing. All being eroded. From what I see of the news, it's somehow different this time. Perhaps more nihilistic, versus the more confrontational riots in the eighties. It definitely seems there's a goal of hitting shops full of 'shinys'. Of course, modern messaging may also be playing a part in enabling more 'agile' riots.
- jsmcgd 15y agoFor me this is simple opportunism. The authorities have clearly been overwhelmed and people are able to do what they like with impunity. I really think the state response needs to escalate.
- viraptor 15y agoTrue, I was scanning reports for some serious police/military actions but found nothing. Vehicles and buildings are on fire, rioters are aggressive and don't care about the police, random people are injured... I really find it hard to come up with an explanation for not using force necessary to stop it right now. That's a third day now - each adding damage to completely unrelated people and property. I work in Bristol and wouldn't be surprised if riots started happening in some areas there, unless London ones are dealt with straight away. Edit: Just read reports of police stations being set on fire. Now I'm really curious what exactly is the official plan for dealing with the situation.
- viraptor 15y agoI found this page pretty good: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/08/london-riots-third-night-live http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/08/london-riots-t... Updated every couple of minutes with reports from various sources. Also according to the latest updates, there are some incidents in Birmingham and Liverpool.
- nsimplex 15y agoHearing the accounts from some commuters returning home of what they witnessed on their commute; it struck me as the first time I hear a use case where Color would actually add some value. ;) Also it is amusing to see the looters use BBM, which has been the corporate -type favoured mean of communication to loot the economy for years. On a serious note, just heard a devastating interview with a 6th generation furniture store manager, while witnessing his family store go up in flames (you will see the pic tomorrow in most of the frontages). It is extraordinarily terrifying to consider the implications if the thugs were a bit more organised, a bit more dispersed, a bit more armed; how much more havoc they could cause. For example consider the implication to the economy if they start targeting more affluent locations, such the central London high streets (Oxford street, Knightsbridge...). The insurance industry has already been wiped out this year, it will be a deadly blow. To say nothing of the recently depressed UK retail performance which fuels a lot of the London economy. Or the implications to house prices and thousands of stretched mortgage holders (London housing bubble is perhaps the only housing bubble in the world that hasn't quite popped in the last two years, and if it does at this time it will be cataclysmic) . No doubt they already wrecked immeasurable damage to the economy, except they bankrupt the already bankrupt councils, which is the core tragedy in all of this.
- reinhardt 15y agoCan't help but compare this to the uprising in the Middle East over the last months. Sure, the motivation is different, or even incomprehensible in the case of London. Still, they're both begging the question "why now?" and they exhibit characteristics of a highly contagious epidemic, where the original reasons are almost irrelevant. People frustrated for all sorts of different reasons find the opportunity to express violently their anger with much less fear of repercussions than usual, mostly thanks to their sheer number and decentralization. It's fascinating (or scary, depending how close you are).
- nsimplex 15y agoIndeed there might be some parallels, especially the fact that the London events started as a peaceful legitimate (to my mind) protest, that has been hijacked by vandals/thieves. But the parallel stops here; most of the gangsters in the Middle Eastern protests were government stooges that got outnumbered by the civilians and consequently fizzled out.
- mkr-hn 15y agoScary absolutely, no matter your location. The factors that seem to be setting them off exist in most technically wealthy countries. This should be troubling for anyone who lives in an area with masses of unemployed young people. That's probably most people on HN.
- FrojoS 15y agoSo much for all that video camera surveillance (CCTV) in London.
- vii 15y agoSeems to me that this would be a huge opportunity for some well co-ordinated use of social media by the MET: many people have seen looters return to their home with their swag and would probably be delighted to report it anonymously - along with all photos taken by people of the actual looting. The refugees seem to have no clear contact number let alone website to go to on their smartphones. These people surely are motivated to inform on the rioters and quite probably have useful knowledge. And finally, phone location records - even without call history and text messages - could be data-mined to give leads on the rioters - when they go home to sleep pick them up with the loot, and you have an easier case than two weeks later with it all squirrelled away.
- madamepsychosis 15y agoThere's a twitter campaign to clean up london, @riotcleanup
- tintin 15y agohttp://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolitanpolice/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolitanpolice/ Looter archive.
- ctdonath 15y agoAnd now for something completely insensitive: http://wondermark.com/743/ http://wondermark.com/743/