7 ms·

This strikes me as crazy. Every interaction with any human or inanimate object bears the risk of death, it's just so low it's not worth thinking about it. U.S.

This strikes me as crazy. Every interaction with any human or inanimate object bears the risk of death, it's just so low it's not worth thinking about it. U.S. police kill about ~1000 people per year, and the vast majority of those aren't at all questionable. If there are 330,000,000 people in the U.S., that's 0.000303% of the population per year. Each person has, on average, maybe 10 contentious police interactions in a lifetime of 75 years? That's 0.134 interactions per year. So, given on this Fermi estimate, you have about a 0.00226% chance of being killed per contentious police interaction if we spread it completely evenly, or 2.26 in 100,000. And spreading it evenly doesn't make any sense at all. So, if you're young, black, male, and running around Chicago dealing drugs carrying an illegal gun--yeah, maybe worry about it. For everyone here on HN, it's a stupid thing to worry about. Worry about your sedentary lifestyle. Worry about driving safely if you drive a lot. Worry about diabetes. Worry about whether your relationships with friends and family are good. Worry about your diet. Worry about exercise. Worry about falling down the stairs. The cops aren't going to kill you.

klyrs 4y ago
Okay, sure. What are the statistics behind TFA; how many moms are getting jailed for their kids walking to school? Should anybody care?
- NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
  I think it makes sense for third parties (us) to "care" when something like the headline happens. We should make it clear to those involved that it's not acceptable (we should try to punish them), and we should try to help aggrieved parties. But no, you should not "care" in the sense of worrying about it happening to yourself. The probability is so small it's not worth it, along with an infinity of other freak occurrences. I don't know what TFA is.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    The [Fine] Article > We should make it clear to those involved that it's not acceptable (we should try to punish them), and we should try to help aggrieved parties. Here, we agree. But when you cite statistics in the manner you did, you're arguing against cloistering myself and my child in our home, quaking in fear of the improbable: beating on a straw-man. If you re-read the last line of my first comment, you may notice that the "law and order" mentality that I'm railing against is fear-based governance. We have equipped and trained our police to be paramilitary forces that are nearly unaccountable for their misbehavior: a resounding success of fear-based governance. De-escalating the cycle of violence requires vacating fear-based governance -- convincing the police to over-react less, convincing citizens to call the authorities less; convincing voters to react to broken windows with investment in fixing windows rather than jail time and extrajudicial killings. And in the meantime, we need to hold people accountable for perpetrating administrative violence against innocent people like in TFA.
    - NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
      Yep, we need to make the police more public servants and less a paramilitary force. I think it's probably going to mean we build a society that shares more values in order for that to happen. That's going to be hard. In my mind, a lot of the problem is that the U.S. is a very large country with very different sub-populations with very different values. It's a challenge. Running New Zealand or Norway is way easier.
maxfurman 4y ago
> the vast majority of those aren't at all questionable Citation needed
- NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
  Sorry, I don't have one to hand. It's a reasonable request, though. I've gone through the data carefully in the past, and I can say the vast majority are variations on, "Knife-wielding man shot down by police after stabbing two". They don't make national news because they make perfect sense. It's just cops doing what they're supposed to be doing. The ones that do make the news are killings where there are indications of impropriety, and those make up the set of examples you carry around in your head, which is why you're suspicious.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> This strikes me as crazy. Yes, it's basically bullshit in most of the US. Even knowing that the media feeds on clickbait and routinely hypes up everything that even smells like it could be controversial, people just lap it up. Even people here on HN.
yunwal 4y ago
The worry about police violence is really misplaced worry about the effects of a broken justice system. It's not just that police kill unarmed, non-violent black teens. It's that "they" (the justice system as a whole) also lock people up for non-violent drug offenses, put a felony on their record, condemning them to a life without job opportunities. Then "they" kick them out of their homes when they're late on their rent. Then they forcibly break up homeless encampments so people without homes can never feel safe or settled or have somewhere to sleep. Police shootings are just a potent symbol for a much larger issue with the Justice System. The problem is that conversations about complex systemic issues become circular and conversations about symbols often don't.
- NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
  I think we agree. The justice system could be a lot better. We should incarcerate many fewer people. The War on Drugs should end. We need to figure out a way to reduce crime in black communities that doesn't involve intense policing and locking so many people up. As for police shootings being a symbol, I see your point. I would make the alteration that it's unjust police shootings that are the symbols. Most are some variation on, "Crazed knife-wielding man shot down by police after stabbing two".
pessimizer 4y ago
> So, if you're young, black, male, and running around Chicago I did this without the drugs and guns part, and had guns drawn on me three times growing up in Chicago for the crime of walking. If I had been killed, I'm sure it would have been coded in a way for you not to see it as a problem.
- NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
  My point is exactly that your experience is very unusual
  - acdha 4y ago
    It’s unusual for white people. Every black and Hispanic person I know has stories about how they had to worry about violence while living their lives normally. For example, a friend’s partner shared a story about the time he went to a big conference (maybe the VMware one?) in Atlanta. He was fairly senior at HP and no more threatening looking than any other middle-aged IT guy … and was the only pulled over on the way back to his hotel by a cop who was suspicious about a black man driving a nice rental car. His evening involved a very tense hour sitting on the side of the road while a southern cop straight out of a stereotype asked a ton of questions and “asked” to inspect the car while patting his gun.
    - NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
      Here's actual data: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf Table 3, "Residents who experienced nonfatal threats or use of force during contacts with police, by demographic characteristics, 2015 and 2018" Of people who report having police contact within the last year (~18% of people), 2.0% report "Experienced threats or force at any time during the year". 1.5% for white people, 3.8% for black. This is 2018. Any way you slice it, having a gun drawn on you by a cop is exceedingly rare--even for black Americans. And, of course, "gun drawn" is going to be a small subset of that 3.8%.
  - viridian 4y ago

klyrs 4y ago

Okay, sure. What are the statistics behind TFA; how many moms are getting jailed for their kids walking to school? Should anybody care?

NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
I think it makes sense for third parties (us) to "care" when something like the headline happens. We should make it clear to those involved that it's not acceptable (we should try to punish them), and we should try to help aggrieved parties. But no, you should not "care" in the sense of worrying about it happening to yourself. The probability is so small it's not worth it, along with an infinity of other freak occurrences. I don't know what TFA is.
- klyrs 4y ago
  The [Fine] Article > We should make it clear to those involved that it's not acceptable (we should try to punish them), and we should try to help aggrieved parties. Here, we agree. But when you cite statistics in the manner you did, you're arguing against cloistering myself and my child in our home, quaking in fear of the improbable: beating on a straw-man. If you re-read the last line of my first comment, you may notice that the "law and order" mentality that I'm railing against is fear-based governance. We have equipped and trained our police to be paramilitary forces that are nearly unaccountable for their misbehavior: a resounding success of fear-based governance. De-escalating the cycle of violence requires vacating fear-based governance -- convincing the police to over-react less, convincing citizens to call the authorities less; convincing voters to react to broken windows with investment in fixing windows rather than jail time and extrajudicial killings. And in the meantime, we need to hold people accountable for perpetrating administrative violence against innocent people like in TFA.
  - NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
    Yep, we need to make the police more public servants and less a paramilitary force. I think it's probably going to mean we build a society that shares more values in order for that to happen. That's going to be hard. In my mind, a lot of the problem is that the U.S. is a very large country with very different sub-populations with very different values. It's a challenge. Running New Zealand or Norway is way easier.

maxfurman 4y ago

> the vast majority of those aren't at all questionable Citation needed

NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
Sorry, I don't have one to hand. It's a reasonable request, though. I've gone through the data carefully in the past, and I can say the vast majority are variations on, "Knife-wielding man shot down by police after stabbing two". They don't make national news because they make perfect sense. It's just cops doing what they're supposed to be doing. The ones that do make the news are killings where there are indications of impropriety, and those make up the set of examples you carry around in your head, which is why you're suspicious.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> This strikes me as crazy. Yes, it's basically bullshit in most of the US. Even knowing that the media feeds on clickbait and routinely hypes up everything that even smells like it could be controversial, people just lap it up. Even people here on HN.

yunwal 4y ago

The worry about police violence is really misplaced worry about the effects of a broken justice system. It's not just that police kill unarmed, non-violent black teens. It's that "they" (the justice system as a whole) also lock people up for non-violent drug offenses, put a felony on their record, condemning them to a life without job opportunities. Then "they" kick them out of their homes when they're late on their rent. Then they forcibly break up homeless encampments so people without homes can never feel safe or settled or have somewhere to sleep. Police shootings are just a potent symbol for a much larger issue with the Justice System. The problem is that conversations about complex systemic issues become circular and conversations about symbols often don't.

NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
I think we agree. The justice system could be a lot better. We should incarcerate many fewer people. The War on Drugs should end. We need to figure out a way to reduce crime in black communities that doesn't involve intense policing and locking so many people up. As for police shootings being a symbol, I see your point. I would make the alteration that it's unjust police shootings that are the symbols. Most are some variation on, "Crazed knife-wielding man shot down by police after stabbing two".

pessimizer 4y ago

> So, if you're young, black, male, and running around Chicago I did this without the drugs and guns part, and had guns drawn on me three times growing up in Chicago for the crime of walking. If I had been killed, I'm sure it would have been coded in a way for you not to see it as a problem.

NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
My point is exactly that your experience is very unusual
- acdha 4y ago
  It’s unusual for white people. Every black and Hispanic person I know has stories about how they had to worry about violence while living their lives normally. For example, a friend’s partner shared a story about the time he went to a big conference (maybe the VMware one?) in Atlanta. He was fairly senior at HP and no more threatening looking than any other middle-aged IT guy … and was the only pulled over on the way back to his hotel by a cop who was suspicious about a black man driving a nice rental car. His evening involved a very tense hour sitting on the side of the road while a southern cop straight out of a stereotype asked a ton of questions and “asked” to inspect the car while patting his gun.
  - NoImmatureAdHom 4y ago
    Here's actual data: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf Table 3, "Residents who experienced nonfatal threats or use of force during contacts with police, by demographic characteristics, 2015 and 2018" Of people who report having police contact within the last year (~18% of people), 2.0% report "Experienced threats or force at any time during the year". 1.5% for white people, 3.8% for black. This is 2018. Any way you slice it, having a gun drawn on you by a cop is exceedingly rare--even for black Americans. And, of course, "gun drawn" is going to be a small subset of that 3.8%.
- viridian 4y ago