10 ms·

> Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Personally, I'm so sick of there not being nearly enough cynicism in general. I've met cops that aren't

> Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Personally, I'm so sick of there not being nearly enough cynicism in general. I've met cops that aren't total pieces of shit (who all ended up quitting in less than 5 years), but that doesn't mean cops aren't total pieces of shit. If the nature of the job is unethical, you should rightly call it out as such. HR's job is to pretend to be your friend while doing whatever the CEO and the lawyers tell them to do. They're the kind of people who are your friends until suddenly they aren't, and then you realize it was all bullshit to begin with. You're welcome to disagree. But from my perspective you're naive, and from your perspective I'm cynical.

acover 4y ago
Why is the nature of being a cop unethical? I agree there are abuses of the power but from what I've seen in real life it's important work.
- OnlineGladiator 4y ago
  I should mention I am referring specifically to police in the United States. The short answer is because cops defend cops, including bad cops. People like to say it's just a few bad apples, but it's far more prevalent than that. And even if it were just 1 in 100, the fact that the cops band together to protect a rapist/murderer/whatever shows that they care more about unity than morals. I realize this answer is lacking, but I've had this argument so many times and it drains hours out of my day to pursue it - because the supporting data is complicated and people are correct to provide counter arguments (and then I have to respond and it goes back and forth for a while). I encourage you to do your own research on statistics regarding police officers in the US. The one everybody likes to cite is how many police officer's beat their wives - 40%. And even this data point is very complicated and requires a lot of nuance and so on. But since people enjoy stories, here's one egregious example of a sheriff's department abusing their power. Even I think this is exceptionally awful and most police departments aren't this bad, but it's well researched and makes for a good read. https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history/ https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history...
  - kenjackson 4y ago
    I tend to think there is a huge selection bias problem. The people that I knew in HS who wanted to be cops (and two did), were exactly the people you did NOT want to meet in a dark alleyway. They abused the power their physical strength gave them in HS... what makes you think they'd act differently with legal strength? And the people that I think are those who most want to help those in need and are compassionate, careful, and would take accountability seriously are those who don't want to do the job. There is also a kinship/bond that grows, which is hard to break. It's natural. You see it among sports fans, school alumni, console fan boys, company workers, etc... You see things through exceptionally biased glasses. Try to find a sports fan who feels like their team tends to be FAVORED by refs? You won't find them -- they all seem to think the refs are against their team -- every team's fans feel this way. Every team's fans feel like the fight on the field was instigated by the other team. Given these things, how do you mitigate against them, and construct a police force that is reasonable? I personally think it has to be external oversight, but this hasn't been easy to implement historically.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - mhink 4y ago
    > People like to say it's just a few bad apples, but it's far more prevalent than that. Not discounting your point at all, but the best response when someone says this is to point out that the saying is "a few bad apples spoil the bunch". It's very literal- an apple that's going bad releases fumes that cause other apples nearby to spoil. So it's very important to find them and get rid of them before that happens. Completing the analogy is an exercise left to the reader.
  - acover 4y ago
    Thanks for explaining. My experience is mostly with Canadian cops, which have some significant differences from American cops[0]. Though, consequences for cops are still rare[1]. However poorly executed, to me the service they provide is valuable and the cops I've seen at homeless shelters displayed patience. [0] - https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-canadian-cops-far-less-likely-to-kill-or-be-killed-than-u-s-counterparts https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-can... [1] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deadly-force-police-criminal-charges-1.4607134 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deadly-force-police-...
- javajosh 4y ago
  Power is corrupting, and police have a de facto shit-ton of real, immediate power over everyone in their vicinity. They have a "martial law bubble" around them that allows them to physically assault you, put you in jail, and upend your whole life with very little effort. You will have no recourse, and they will suffer no consequences. You may file a complaint with the department, and it will be followed up on, poorly, by a fellow officer who is highly motivated to see nothing but another disgruntled loser trying to get petty revenge. The judges don't care and work with the DA and the same officers all the time, and maintain cordial, cooperative relationships with them, all of which is damaged if there is any adversarial action. It is within this context an average intelligence, perhaps even above-average moral person enters after 6-weeks of training. This person likes watching football and drinking beer. They help their elderly neighbors with the trash. They are a "normal" man who will stand up for himself, physically, in extreme cases. Now give him a gun and a badge and a martial law bubble. How do you think this normal, average man will evolve when he realizes his power? When he sees his friends on the force us it, daily, to get what they want, to make their jobs a little easier? When does he learn to enjoy that feeling of power, for itself, the way it feels to beat someone and put his knee on someone's neck because they talked back to you, and know that no-one can do shit about it? And you can even rationalize it - they shouldn't have been rude, they should know how much power I have and that I'm only human, its really just punishment for being stupid. Plus, the public still loves me and is grateful to me, considering me in high esteem as a moral upstanding citizen - so we must be doing something right!
  - d0gsg0w00f 4y ago
    In my life experience an unsavory character turned law abiding citizen I found that I used to think ill of cops but after I changed, miraculously cops seemed to turn into amazing fantastic people. So I take all of these "cops are evil" claims with a grain of salt and seek out more context clues to what would initiate an interaction with LEO in the first place.
    - velp 4y ago
      This reads like "the problem disappears as soon as I'm no longer impacted". Just because cops see/treat you differently now doesn't mean they aren't still treating others poorly.
- Parcle 4y ago
  Consider all the people harassed and locked up for decades over posession of marijuana. Sure laws have change but ethics never did. The obvious problem I see seems to be that cops exist to lock people up. When locking people up is often an inhumane and ineffective solution to the problem at hand.
- fundad 4y ago
  Because policing covers up violence and murder committed by their own.
- warcher 4y ago
  Police are tasked with maintaining law and order. Laws are equal for all people. Order is a set of subjective social rules that keeps everything in its "correct" place. Maintaining order often requires not enforcing the law equally. This is the essential moral difficulty of the police. If you have people who appear poor in a rich neighborhood, they are highly likely to attract law enforcement attention at a minimum. Not because they've broken the law, but because they are out of place and "disorderly". We really really like order, by the way. You can't just do away with the maintenance of order, although a strong argument could be made that we should not enforce it via state-licensed violence.
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago
  It’s unethical because of the kinds of laws the legislature requires them to enforce. Prime example: civil asset forfeiture.
frellus 4y ago
Again, I understand why most people think this way, and I'm not going to call you naive - just cynical. From my experience (not all of it, but a bunch of it) -- HR has been the balancing force against bad management and even CEOs because, like the lawyers, there're there to protect the company. I've not been in a room where the CEO is sitting there telling the lawyers and HR how to abuse employees -- sorry. Likewise, I agree there are plenty of cops who are POS, and there are plenty who are not. You're missing the part of the equation where people treat all cops like POS, and frankly -- if you've watched shows like COPS and seen what some of them deal with -- it's not hard to see why some of them probably become worse over time. Both sides of the equation needs to change if you want a better world.
- OnlineGladiator 4y ago
  [flagged]
- drewcoo 4y ago
  > I'm not going to call you naive - just cynical OnlineGladiator said that you would call them cynical and they would call you naive, not the other way around.
- serverholic 4y ago
  The equation is far from balanced. What we need is far more cynicism in order to cause change. We've tried less cynicism and it hasn't worked. It just leads to maintaining the status quo.
  - timellis-smith 4y ago
    cyncism or skepticism?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mikrl 4y ago
>They're the kind of people who are your friends until suddenly they aren't Happened to me once, I got on the wrong side of some politics and had the awkward termination meeting. I was civil and cheerful throughout except where I had to be firm and fight my corner: “Pleasure to meet you! Sorry it was under these circumstances, I wish you the best time here!” and I could feel the barely concealed rage emanating from them. Being in a single party recording jurisdiction was the card up my sleeve, and when I let that slip (after the termination) they looked ready to blow a gasket. I learned valuable lessons that day about HR, mental health, and how webs can get spun that tangle up idealistic engineers… needless to say, I keep my head down and try to stay out of / avoid starting fights that I don’t stand a chance of winning.
drstewart 4y ago
From my perspective, it's very clear from your tone why you and HR don't get along. Professionalism is probably not your strong suit.
- maxbond 4y ago
  There's no reason to believe they speak to their coworkers in this way. This is a different context. Edit out swipes please.
amalcon 4y ago
Cynicism tends to go hand in hand with defeatism. I have no problem with cynicism, if you're the rare person willing to take steps to fix or mitigate the problems you are cynical about. In the more common case, it just leads to giving up. Cynicism is a mistake when it leads to inaction, and inaction is responsible for a lot (arguably most) of the world's problems. I've known people who didn't recycle because they were (maybe still are, we've lost touch) cynical about whether enough other people would do it to matter. The cynicism is getting in the way of action. No, I don't have a suggestion for what to do about abuse of employees! I know this is not the most helpful, but I'm not the cynic about this. I'm a cynic about other things, but only when I do have a course of action.
- patrec 4y ago
  It's so nice of you to grant people posthumous permission to have been cynical about Hitler's promises of peace or Nazi ideology in general, provided they were deeply committed to making Nazism actually awesome. You seem blind to the difference of being lazily cynical about something flawed but ultimately beneficial (and with flaws that you could help address) and seeing through cons dressed up in edifying language about noble causes. Ignore it at your own peril. A lot of very sincere communists met a sticky end under communism as a reward for the sincerity of their beliefs, and very sincerely trying to embody "googly" (etc.) values as espoused by HR may well proof equally terminal (if only to your career). Especially as a slightly aspergery nerd prone to take policy statements at face value. > inaction is responsible for a lot (arguably most) of the world's problems Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves
  - amalcon 4y ago
    Well that was a quick Godwin. If I wanted to, I could make a very strong case that cynicism was a factor that led to the rise of the Third Reich (I'd be paraphrasing a book I read some years ago). I'm not going to make that case because frankly the fact that you jumped right there is indicative that it's not a discussion worth having.
laserdancepony 4y ago
I disagree wholeheartedly. Calling one of the most foundational jobs in human civilization unethical is ridiculous. We need people who enforce a standard set of rules onto every member of society, and yes, it will always corrupt some who wield that power. We are humans, after all. But does that make the whole idea "unethical"? I presume not. I'd rather not live in anarchy.

acover 4y ago

Why is the nature of being a cop unethical? I agree there are abuses of the power but from what I've seen in real life it's important work.

OnlineGladiator 4y ago
I should mention I am referring specifically to police in the United States. The short answer is because cops defend cops, including bad cops. People like to say it's just a few bad apples, but it's far more prevalent than that. And even if it were just 1 in 100, the fact that the cops band together to protect a rapist/murderer/whatever shows that they care more about unity than morals. I realize this answer is lacking, but I've had this argument so many times and it drains hours out of my day to pursue it - because the supporting data is complicated and people are correct to provide counter arguments (and then I have to respond and it goes back and forth for a while). I encourage you to do your own research on statistics regarding police officers in the US. The one everybody likes to cite is how many police officer's beat their wives - 40%. And even this data point is very complicated and requires a lot of nuance and so on. But since people enjoy stories, here's one egregious example of a sheriff's department abusing their power. Even I think this is exceptionally awful and most police departments aren't this bad, but it's well researched and makes for a good read. https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history/ https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history...
- kenjackson 4y ago
  I tend to think there is a huge selection bias problem. The people that I knew in HS who wanted to be cops (and two did), were exactly the people you did NOT want to meet in a dark alleyway. They abused the power their physical strength gave them in HS... what makes you think they'd act differently with legal strength? And the people that I think are those who most want to help those in need and are compassionate, careful, and would take accountability seriously are those who don't want to do the job. There is also a kinship/bond that grows, which is hard to break. It's natural. You see it among sports fans, school alumni, console fan boys, company workers, etc... You see things through exceptionally biased glasses. Try to find a sports fan who feels like their team tends to be FAVORED by refs? You won't find them -- they all seem to think the refs are against their team -- every team's fans feel this way. Every team's fans feel like the fight on the field was instigated by the other team. Given these things, how do you mitigate against them, and construct a police force that is reasonable? I personally think it has to be external oversight, but this hasn't been easy to implement historically.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mhink 4y ago
  > People like to say it's just a few bad apples, but it's far more prevalent than that. Not discounting your point at all, but the best response when someone says this is to point out that the saying is "a few bad apples spoil the bunch". It's very literal- an apple that's going bad releases fumes that cause other apples nearby to spoil. So it's very important to find them and get rid of them before that happens. Completing the analogy is an exercise left to the reader.
- acover 4y ago
  Thanks for explaining. My experience is mostly with Canadian cops, which have some significant differences from American cops[0]. Though, consequences for cops are still rare[1]. However poorly executed, to me the service they provide is valuable and the cops I've seen at homeless shelters displayed patience. [0] - https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-canadian-cops-far-less-likely-to-kill-or-be-killed-than-u-s-counterparts https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-can... [1] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deadly-force-police-criminal-charges-1.4607134 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deadly-force-police-...
javajosh 4y ago
Power is corrupting, and police have a de facto shit-ton of real, immediate power over everyone in their vicinity. They have a "martial law bubble" around them that allows them to physically assault you, put you in jail, and upend your whole life with very little effort. You will have no recourse, and they will suffer no consequences. You may file a complaint with the department, and it will be followed up on, poorly, by a fellow officer who is highly motivated to see nothing but another disgruntled loser trying to get petty revenge. The judges don't care and work with the DA and the same officers all the time, and maintain cordial, cooperative relationships with them, all of which is damaged if there is any adversarial action. It is within this context an average intelligence, perhaps even above-average moral person enters after 6-weeks of training. This person likes watching football and drinking beer. They help their elderly neighbors with the trash. They are a "normal" man who will stand up for himself, physically, in extreme cases. Now give him a gun and a badge and a martial law bubble. How do you think this normal, average man will evolve when he realizes his power? When he sees his friends on the force us it, daily, to get what they want, to make their jobs a little easier? When does he learn to enjoy that feeling of power, for itself, the way it feels to beat someone and put his knee on someone's neck because they talked back to you, and know that no-one can do shit about it? And you can even rationalize it - they shouldn't have been rude, they should know how much power I have and that I'm only human, its really just punishment for being stupid. Plus, the public still loves me and is grateful to me, considering me in high esteem as a moral upstanding citizen - so we must be doing something right!
- d0gsg0w00f 4y ago
  In my life experience an unsavory character turned law abiding citizen I found that I used to think ill of cops but after I changed, miraculously cops seemed to turn into amazing fantastic people. So I take all of these "cops are evil" claims with a grain of salt and seek out more context clues to what would initiate an interaction with LEO in the first place.
  - velp 4y ago
    This reads like "the problem disappears as soon as I'm no longer impacted". Just because cops see/treat you differently now doesn't mean they aren't still treating others poorly.
Parcle 4y ago
Consider all the people harassed and locked up for decades over posession of marijuana. Sure laws have change but ethics never did. The obvious problem I see seems to be that cops exist to lock people up. When locking people up is often an inhumane and ineffective solution to the problem at hand.
fundad 4y ago
Because policing covers up violence and murder committed by their own.
warcher 4y ago
Police are tasked with maintaining law and order. Laws are equal for all people. Order is a set of subjective social rules that keeps everything in its "correct" place. Maintaining order often requires not enforcing the law equally. This is the essential moral difficulty of the police. If you have people who appear poor in a rich neighborhood, they are highly likely to attract law enforcement attention at a minimum. Not because they've broken the law, but because they are out of place and "disorderly". We really really like order, by the way. You can't just do away with the maintenance of order, although a strong argument could be made that we should not enforce it via state-licensed violence.
BeFlatXIII 4y ago
It’s unethical because of the kinds of laws the legislature requires them to enforce. Prime example: civil asset forfeiture.

frellus 4y ago

Again, I understand why most people think this way, and I'm not going to call you naive - just cynical. From my experience (not all of it, but a bunch of it) -- HR has been the balancing force against bad management and even CEOs because, like the lawyers, there're there to protect the company. I've not been in a room where the CEO is sitting there telling the lawyers and HR how to abuse employees -- sorry. Likewise, I agree there are plenty of cops who are POS, and there are plenty who are not. You're missing the part of the equation where people treat all cops like POS, and frankly -- if you've watched shows like COPS and seen what some of them deal with -- it's not hard to see why some of them probably become worse over time. Both sides of the equation needs to change if you want a better world.

OnlineGladiator 4y ago
[flagged]
drewcoo 4y ago
> I'm not going to call you naive - just cynical OnlineGladiator said that you would call them cynical and they would call you naive, not the other way around.
serverholic 4y ago
The equation is far from balanced. What we need is far more cynicism in order to cause change. We've tried less cynicism and it hasn't worked. It just leads to maintaining the status quo.
- timellis-smith 4y ago
  cyncism or skepticism?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mikrl 4y ago

>They're the kind of people who are your friends until suddenly they aren't Happened to me once, I got on the wrong side of some politics and had the awkward termination meeting. I was civil and cheerful throughout except where I had to be firm and fight my corner: “Pleasure to meet you! Sorry it was under these circumstances, I wish you the best time here!” and I could feel the barely concealed rage emanating from them. Being in a single party recording jurisdiction was the card up my sleeve, and when I let that slip (after the termination) they looked ready to blow a gasket. I learned valuable lessons that day about HR, mental health, and how webs can get spun that tangle up idealistic engineers… needless to say, I keep my head down and try to stay out of / avoid starting fights that I don’t stand a chance of winning.

drstewart 4y ago

From my perspective, it's very clear from your tone why you and HR don't get along. Professionalism is probably not your strong suit.

maxbond 4y ago
There's no reason to believe they speak to their coworkers in this way. This is a different context. Edit out swipes please.

amalcon 4y ago

Cynicism tends to go hand in hand with defeatism. I have no problem with cynicism, if you're the rare person willing to take steps to fix or mitigate the problems you are cynical about. In the more common case, it just leads to giving up. Cynicism is a mistake when it leads to inaction, and inaction is responsible for a lot (arguably most) of the world's problems. I've known people who didn't recycle because they were (maybe still are, we've lost touch) cynical about whether enough other people would do it to matter. The cynicism is getting in the way of action. No, I don't have a suggestion for what to do about abuse of employees! I know this is not the most helpful, but I'm not the cynic about this. I'm a cynic about other things, but only when I do have a course of action.

patrec 4y ago
It's so nice of you to grant people posthumous permission to have been cynical about Hitler's promises of peace or Nazi ideology in general, provided they were deeply committed to making Nazism actually awesome. You seem blind to the difference of being lazily cynical about something flawed but ultimately beneficial (and with flaws that you could help address) and seeing through cons dressed up in edifying language about noble causes. Ignore it at your own peril. A lot of very sincere communists met a sticky end under communism as a reward for the sincerity of their beliefs, and very sincerely trying to embody "googly" (etc.) values as espoused by HR may well proof equally terminal (if only to your career). Especially as a slightly aspergery nerd prone to take policy statements at face value. > inaction is responsible for a lot (arguably most) of the world's problems Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves
- amalcon 4y ago
  Well that was a quick Godwin. If I wanted to, I could make a very strong case that cynicism was a factor that led to the rise of the Third Reich (I'd be paraphrasing a book I read some years ago). I'm not going to make that case because frankly the fact that you jumped right there is indicative that it's not a discussion worth having.

laserdancepony 4y ago

I disagree wholeheartedly. Calling one of the most foundational jobs in human civilization unethical is ridiculous. We need people who enforce a standard set of rules onto every member of society, and yes, it will always corrupt some who wield that power. We are humans, after all. But does that make the whole idea "unethical"? I presume not. I'd rather not live in anarchy.