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It's preferable to the alternative: cash-negative rural departments ("we don't need government", etc) funding themselves. Much rather have a robot policing me t

It's preferable to the alternative: cash-negative rural departments ("we don't need government", etc) funding themselves. Much rather have a robot policing me than the local ex-quarterback who could just barely be bothered to finish his GED. And yes, I know the retort, "well at least I know that guy". Yeah, ok sure. But does your daughter? Your girlfriend? Your wife's family? Corruption climbs a ladder of familiarity, and you don't ever know where you are on that ladder. That's what makes it wasteful. Drones are a band aid, of course. Until exurbs realize just how expensive they actually are - people insisting on an urban quality of life when they're 90 minutes from a center - this same problem will crop up over, and over, and over again in everything from sewage to schools. That tends to happen when you ignore numbers - you keep ramming into a like category of problems. In a larger sense, from a systems perspective, I guess I am fascinated by those cases where people do this ramming, and where they keep doing it for decades or centuries. What force makes that happen, and can it be harnessed?

bequanna 3y ago
Sounds to me like you get your knowledge of rural life from movies/TV. What you mentioned doesn’t at all match the reality I’ve experienced growing up and living in a small town. My rural county has a balanced budget, property tax increases are well below inflation (mine actually decreased in 2022), average fire/ambulance/police response time is well below suburban equivalents. Crime is incredibly low, police write few tickets, roads in great shape and muni services all above average. Our Sheriff deputies are professional. They view themselves as public servants and consistently go above and beyond to assist. The total number of speeding tickets issued in a week for the whole county is in the single digits. The only time they “go hard” is against home invaders, violent offenders and other serious felony-level crime. It is probably comforting somehow for people in cities to paint life in rural areas as behind and backwards but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Out here in flyover country, almost all of us are on the same page and we have our shit together. If you can handle the associated challenges (weather, fewer social opportunities, etc.) the quality of life is through the roof.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Yea, the "cash negative" part doesn't ring true to me. The thing about rural police departments is: Comparatively little crime happens out in the boonies (at least not the kind of crime that police like to respond to), yet they are full of cops, since these areas tend to be run by tough-on-crime voters. There are probably small towns / small counties in America where the police are >50% of the region's budget. To the point where they're buying (or are gifted) MRAPs and other military surplus gear. So they're over-funded, over-staffed, but without much to do. Kind of a deadly combination for citizens. When that typical "OMG suspicious-looking black man in my neighborhood" complaint comes in, I'd much rather have a drone sent out to investigate than 10 bored, armed-to-the-teeth officers looking for some excitement.
- aweiland 3y ago
  Pick a random small town/county off I-81 in Virginia and it likely doesn't match your area. The parent describes much of Appalachia and a lot of, for lack of a better term, rural former-confederate areas of the country. Your town sounds great to live in, but it's likely hardly representative.
- MilStdJunkie 3y ago
  Well, that's fair. I had lived in the swamps of interior Florida for thirty-some of my years, having been born there, two miles of sand-gravel-mud track from the nearest pavement. Miiiiles of cattle. Internet from our little radio tower. So yeah, that's pretty idiosyncratic. I'm sure it's not representative. The locals had just managed to shut down the volunteer fire department year before I finally left. Another notable instance from that year is four county cops getting blown up in a meth house, which was super hinky in lots of ways. A while before that, there was a deputy or somesuch that kept on stabbing people he pulled over. Of course he got slapped on the fanny, but then out he goes again, and another few months - bam! - stab a dude. Another local cop cussed the same way old telegrams used the word STOP, which was super weird with the inlaws in the car. Our local cops all the way up and down were notorious even to other cops. Buddy of mine with the State Troopers had a working regulation, that if they were called on scene by one of the local cops, to always make sure that more than one trooper responded. "The hell?", I think I said at the time. He shrugged and said, "They don't trust 'em, that's all." But the worst - the absolute worst - were all those people who moved out into the middle of a frickin' swamp prairie and complained how the cows mooed too loud. "And the snakes!". Or when their pets "get et" - by raptor, gator, or who-knows-what. Or "I think I heard shots from your house!". Oh for pete's sake lady, the paved road is TWO MILES from here . .
deleted 3y ago
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revolvingocelot 3y ago
>Much rather have a robot policing me than the local ex-quarterback who could just barely be bothered to finish his GED Er, what? Who do you think is showing up shortly after the drone does? Who do you think the drone reports to?
- MilStdJunkie 3y ago
  I think, ideally, no one needs to show up at all. Drone pulls your ID from the license/registration/facial analysis, fines you, then tells you to come in. You don't, then it then sits and waits for you at home/work/family, tells you to come in. Shuts down your ID, your cards, your cell, very possibly your car, and everything else, and bills your family . . until you come in. Sure, it's dystopian as all hell, but unless cops get paid like actual officers, or you figure out a way to pay cops like dishwashers, I think it's a better option for low-density policing. I guess, these days, we can have local neighborhood volunteer police, which . . whelp . . is also dystopian but in a whole other new - or, rather, old-fashioned - direction.

bequanna 3y ago

Sounds to me like you get your knowledge of rural life from movies/TV. What you mentioned doesn’t at all match the reality I’ve experienced growing up and living in a small town. My rural county has a balanced budget, property tax increases are well below inflation (mine actually decreased in 2022), average fire/ambulance/police response time is well below suburban equivalents. Crime is incredibly low, police write few tickets, roads in great shape and muni services all above average. Our Sheriff deputies are professional. They view themselves as public servants and consistently go above and beyond to assist. The total number of speeding tickets issued in a week for the whole county is in the single digits. The only time they “go hard” is against home invaders, violent offenders and other serious felony-level crime. It is probably comforting somehow for people in cities to paint life in rural areas as behind and backwards but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Out here in flyover country, almost all of us are on the same page and we have our shit together. If you can handle the associated challenges (weather, fewer social opportunities, etc.) the quality of life is through the roof.

ryandrake 3y ago
Yea, the "cash negative" part doesn't ring true to me. The thing about rural police departments is: Comparatively little crime happens out in the boonies (at least not the kind of crime that police like to respond to), yet they are full of cops, since these areas tend to be run by tough-on-crime voters. There are probably small towns / small counties in America where the police are >50% of the region's budget. To the point where they're buying (or are gifted) MRAPs and other military surplus gear. So they're over-funded, over-staffed, but without much to do. Kind of a deadly combination for citizens. When that typical "OMG suspicious-looking black man in my neighborhood" complaint comes in, I'd much rather have a drone sent out to investigate than 10 bored, armed-to-the-teeth officers looking for some excitement.
aweiland 3y ago
Pick a random small town/county off I-81 in Virginia and it likely doesn't match your area. The parent describes much of Appalachia and a lot of, for lack of a better term, rural former-confederate areas of the country. Your town sounds great to live in, but it's likely hardly representative.
MilStdJunkie 3y ago
Well, that's fair. I had lived in the swamps of interior Florida for thirty-some of my years, having been born there, two miles of sand-gravel-mud track from the nearest pavement. Miiiiles of cattle. Internet from our little radio tower. So yeah, that's pretty idiosyncratic. I'm sure it's not representative. The locals had just managed to shut down the volunteer fire department year before I finally left. Another notable instance from that year is four county cops getting blown up in a meth house, which was super hinky in lots of ways. A while before that, there was a deputy or somesuch that kept on stabbing people he pulled over. Of course he got slapped on the fanny, but then out he goes again, and another few months - bam! - stab a dude. Another local cop cussed the same way old telegrams used the word STOP, which was super weird with the inlaws in the car. Our local cops all the way up and down were notorious even to other cops. Buddy of mine with the State Troopers had a working regulation, that if they were called on scene by one of the local cops, to always make sure that more than one trooper responded. "The hell?", I think I said at the time. He shrugged and said, "They don't trust 'em, that's all." But the worst - the absolute worst - were all those people who moved out into the middle of a frickin' swamp prairie and complained how the cows mooed too loud. "And the snakes!". Or when their pets "get et" - by raptor, gator, or who-knows-what. Or "I think I heard shots from your house!". Oh for pete's sake lady, the paved road is TWO MILES from here . .

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

revolvingocelot 3y ago

>Much rather have a robot policing me than the local ex-quarterback who could just barely be bothered to finish his GED Er, what? Who do you think is showing up shortly after the drone does? Who do you think the drone reports to?

MilStdJunkie 3y ago
I think, ideally, no one needs to show up at all. Drone pulls your ID from the license/registration/facial analysis, fines you, then tells you to come in. You don't, then it then sits and waits for you at home/work/family, tells you to come in. Shuts down your ID, your cards, your cell, very possibly your car, and everything else, and bills your family . . until you come in. Sure, it's dystopian as all hell, but unless cops get paid like actual officers, or you figure out a way to pay cops like dishwashers, I think it's a better option for low-density policing. I guess, these days, we can have local neighborhood volunteer police, which . . whelp . . is also dystopian but in a whole other new - or, rather, old-fashioned - direction.