9 ms·

Who is a scumbag? Some police officers decide that some people are reputable citizens and others are scumbags based on prejudice, and arguments like yours are a

• stirbot 4y ago
  clearly we need a social credit system where citizens are scored based on their financial history, trustworthiness, charitable efforts, and praising the government on social media.
• daenz 4y ago
  The very same argument could be made about rating police officers. Also, we shouldn't pretend that scumbags don't exist, they do, as both citizens and police. If you're going to cast doubt on the existence of scumbags in citizens, but not police, you're showing your own prejudice.
  • sureglymop 4y ago
    The actual problem is that police are above the law. What I mean by that is, unlike citizens they are in a position where they might break a law without any repercussions or abuse their position of power. The only real way to deal with this would be to police the police in a realistic manner. Bodycam and location data of their every move would need to be available for that. Currently, police can simply turn these off. Yes, there are scumbags in both ordinary citizens and in police but one of these groups of scumbags already gets "policed". (Disclaimer: I do think that this idea is not the right way to deal with this problem.)
    • daenz 4y ago
      You make a good point. I believe the idea with a rating system of police is that you tie the departments funding to the average rating of your officers. So while officers can abuse their power, if there is a reliable signal of this (reflected by their rating), they get canned to raise the overall rating of the department.
    • clairity 4y ago
      no, police are not above the law. they're only "special" in that they enforce the law, which requires exceptional privileges and responsibilities ordinary citizens don't have. but they're otherwise fully under the same legal jurisdiction as the rest of us. some police may act as if they're above the law, but that's projection, not foundational. edit: interesting, seems to have hit a tribal trigger of some sort, but can't tell if it's the "police bad" or "police good" contingents getting their feathers ruffled.
      • kaibee 4y ago
        de facto vs de jure
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • sureglymop 4y ago
        Hey, i just want to mention that I did not down vote you. Of course you are technically correct, it seems like you took 'above the law' in my comment in the 'literal sense' but it was more of a way to express how common it is for police to abuse their situation and privileges.
        • clairity 4y ago
          no worries, and i understood the intent, but wanted to explicitly counteract the nodding-along effect of platitudes like that. we all have the propensity to abuse situations and privileges, so police aren't special in that regard. the problem is that we narrowly attribute this universal human quality to just police, blinded by context, because that fits a preconceived narrative and surreptitiously makes each of us feel a little better about ourselves. this happens subconsciously and is a form of the fundamental attribution error we make so often. that's not to absolve the police of grievances, since they do have extraordinary powers and as a result their misbehaviors have greater impact. certainly we should hold them to a higher standard. but police aren't more corrupt than average (they aren't lesser human beings, as implied).
• adventured 4y ago
  > Who is a scumbag? And that's why these systems will never work very well.
• yCombLinks 4y ago
  I'm heavily critical of the police, and they deserve a lot of criticism. But there are lot's of people (half my family) that are just scum. Algorithmically it may be hard to fairly weight, but on a personal level it's not hard to put people on a pretty consistent scum spectrum. If the people lower on the spectrum are critical of a certain cop, I can't weight it highly for reputation evaluation of that cop. The same for any information said scumbag provides about others.
  • netizen-936824 4y ago
    I could argue that police come from the same population as anyone else, therefore a significant portion of police will also be scum
    • yCombLinks 4y ago
      I certainly agree with that, no argument here.
    • 0des 4y ago
      I agree that most people are inherently good. But I add a few points of skepticism toward anybody who chooses a role that comes with inherent authority by default: clergy, legislature, law, etc. Not saying they're bad, most aren't, however, you wanted to be the guy with the power- There is possibly a reason for that.
      • throwaway894345 4y ago
        > you wanted to be the guy with the power- There is possibly a reason for that. Sure, but there's nothing that suggests the underlying motivation would be negative. For example, a lot of people cite a desire to protect and serve their communities. Just because there is a motive for something doesn't imply that it's ulterior or nefarious.
        • 0des 4y ago
          I didnt say it was nefarious. When you open new lines of credit, or make an inquiry, your credit score drops. Atomically these aren't bad things, in a vacuum, yet when you step back and look at things holistically they can be part of a pattern. Feel me?
• robonerd 4y ago
  > Who is a scumbag? There are marginal cases for sure, but let's not pretend that true scumbags don't exist just because the demarcation line is subjective; that's like pretending there's no such thing as a ripe banana because the green fades gradually into yellow with no clear line between them. Look beyond the marginal cases and it becomes clear that the difference really does exist. There are people in this country with numerous DUIs and domestic violence convictions, obviously such people are scumbags.
  • encryptluks2 4y ago
    Speaking of domestic violence, want to post some statistics on the amount of cops that are domestic abusers? Or the ones caught drunk behind the wheel and get let off.
    • vorpalhex 4y ago
      Why not post the amount of cats that are orange or scarecrows in overalls? What does the rate of cops being DV cases have to do with this comment?
      • soperj 4y ago
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
    • at_a_remove 4y ago
      What a derail! And one that in no way remedies the stated problem.
  • ameister14 4y ago
    I think people with numerous DUIs are just as likely to have a serious disease as have some moral failing resulting in them being a 'scumbag.' To me, choice is a major differentiator rather than 'obviously this person has a history of x actions' in the abstract.
• ruff7uf6rh 4y ago
  This criticism itself is a distraction, who is a scumbag is a different problem than whether or not scumbag feedback being weighted equally to less problematic peers is detrimental to the purpose of the system.
• i_like_apis 4y ago
  > Who is a scumbag? Easy question. 99% of those arrested are scumbags. This is speaking as someone who has been to jail and met the population that gets arrested. They are the worst, and their opinion in regard to rating cops should be largely ignored.
  • rusk 4y ago
    Obviously excluding yourself, I guess that means you spoke with 99 people all of which were scum, which strikes me as being fairly socially active for a fish out of water!
    • i_like_apis 4y ago
      Sounds like you're casting some sort of sarcastic doubt. I've mixed with a population of about 500. Spoken to many, intentionally and otherwise. Very familiar with their culture. Trust me, 99% of the arrest population is scum.
      • skinnymuch 4y ago
        • i_like_apis 4y ago
          > Interesting you said “their culture” when you are in that same in-group. No I am proudly not of the same culture (which is ignorant, violent, shoplifting heroine addicted, thieving, murdering, raping, etc ...). That should not be difficult to understand. ... did you just call me an "anti-other common folk boot licker"? 5/10 barely intelligible comment.
          • skinnymuch 4y ago
            Yeah I was on the subway. This is a basic casual comment convo. I have a learning disability that effects my talking and writing. Do I deserve to be mocked for that like your fellow jailmates? Why do a character attack of my writing? Even with the mistakes, it should not be difficult to understand if some one is fluent in English.
• throwaway894345 4y ago
  The inverse is also true--some people decide whether or not police are reputable or scumbags based on prejudice. Thankfully in either case, reputation systems (whether a formal ratings system or an informal social reputation) can tolerate outlier reviews and consequently "argument's like the parent's" are not a particularly good way to dismiss criticism of someone (if someone is designated "a scumbag", it's on the preponderance of their reviews, not just those of one or two prejudice people).