4 ms·

The NYPD and other big city police departments have been buying and using the same tools as the IC for years. When you hear about 'dual use' tech like Palantir,

by 23B1 3y ago

The NYPD and other big city police departments have been buying and using the same tools as the IC for years. When you hear about 'dual use' tech like Palantir, after DOD/IC these companies immediately target and sell to domestic law enforcement, from the FBI all the way down to the local PD. I don't want to defund the police; I do want them to behave like they are part of the neighborhood and not its enforcers. EDIT: Slashing funding ≠ defunding. It's a terrible, terrible argument that makes no sense, alienates people who'd otherwise support a more reasonable approach, and perfectly embodies the 'all or nothing' style of modern day performance politics.

hypeit 3y ago
> I don't want to defund the police; I do want them to behave like they are part of the neighborhood and not its enforcers. The only way this can be achieved is through defunding the police. Take away all of their military arsenal budget, cyber spy budget, money for pensions... The good that money could do the communities it's currently actively harming is almost unfathomable.
- 23B1 3y ago
  Absolute rubbish. Police are a necessary part of a peaceable society; 'Defund the police' is virtue signaling for wealthy people who live in safe neighborhoods and who've never experienced real violence.
  - hypeit 3y ago
    That's absolutely not true. The impoverished communities are the ones most damaged by over policing. Common sense would tell you that if the massive police budgets were invested into bettering the health of those same communities, that crime would go down.
    - 23B1 3y ago
      No, that is not common sense at all, especially when you think about incentives. Bureaucracies, if left unmanaged as they are today, will always find ways to increase their own budget or resource. It's as true with police departments as it is with... HR departments, or the Catholic Church, or the gun lobby, or unions, or congress, or Google. The way to manage unchecked behavior is through structures and leadership that aligns incentives to policy. We do it all the time in plenty of other areas of society.
      - hypeit 3y ago
        > Bureaucracies, if left unmanaged as they are today, will always find ways to increase their own budget or resource. This is why you put pressure in the opposite direction by taking away funding from these bloated and toxic organizations. In a functioning democracy the size of the budget shouldn't be dictated by the organizations themselves, but by the voters. I think "defund the police" is the perfect message as it cuts straight to the heart of the matter and gives people something they can support that will directly make a difference and be difficult to work around via corruption. Police budgets are massively bloated, we should start slashing and reinvesting into social programs and public infrastructure.
        23B1 3y ago
        Slashing funding ≠ defunding. It's a terrible, nonsensical 'branded comment' that makes no sense, alienates people who'd otherwise support a more reasonable approach, and perfectly embodies the 'all or nothing' style of modern day performance politics.
        hypeit 3y ago
        > Slashing funding ≠ defunding. I actually think "defunding" is the perfect way to describe slashing funding. We should start defunding/slashing now because the budgets are huge. It may asymptotically approach zero, but we need to reverse the trend. "Defund the police" correctly highlights the actual issue, which is why people get so upset about it. The "people who'd otherwise support a more reasonable approach" do not and have never supported a more reasonable approach. They like the police, but can't come out and say it directly so instead they deflect to "hey! I can't support defunding the police because I don't like the slogan".
coldpie 3y ago
> I do want them to behave like they are part of the neighborhood and not its enforcers. People have been saying this for decades and decades. It doesn't work. How long does it have to not work before you accept that we need another strategy?
- 23B1 3y ago
  I'm interested any realistic solution to a social problem. Eliminating police departments isn't one of them; it's fantasy virtue-signaling by people who are lucky enough to have never experienced first-hand what happens in societies without law enforcement.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    I don't think there are very many people out there proposing eliminating police departments. Most calls are for reducing funding from the police to reduce their ability to cause harm, and spending more on other activities that are better at reducing crime. Broadly this is called "defunding the police," though I do understand why you dislike that label. "Abolish the police" is a different, and I suspect much smaller, movement.
    - 23B1 3y ago
      Sorry, I'm not trying to be pedantic but the literal definition of "defund" is as follows: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/defund https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng... - " to stop providing money for something, especially something official" which is the same as: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/abolish https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/ame... - "to officially end a law, a system, or an institution" You can see where if you and I are having this conversation, probably there's a lot of other people like you and I who are talking past each other because the word is being either incorrectly deployed by proponents – or the proponents genuinely want to eliminate police departments.

by 23B1 3y ago

hypeit 3y ago

> I don't want to defund the police; I do want them to behave like they are part of the neighborhood and not its enforcers. The only way this can be achieved is through defunding the police. Take away all of their military arsenal budget, cyber spy budget, money for pensions... The good that money could do the communities it's currently actively harming is almost unfathomable.

23B1 3y ago
Absolute rubbish. Police are a necessary part of a peaceable society; 'Defund the police' is virtue signaling for wealthy people who live in safe neighborhoods and who've never experienced real violence.
- hypeit 3y ago
  That's absolutely not true. The impoverished communities are the ones most damaged by over policing. Common sense would tell you that if the massive police budgets were invested into bettering the health of those same communities, that crime would go down.
  - 23B1 3y ago
    No, that is not common sense at all, especially when you think about incentives. Bureaucracies, if left unmanaged as they are today, will always find ways to increase their own budget or resource. It's as true with police departments as it is with... HR departments, or the Catholic Church, or the gun lobby, or unions, or congress, or Google. The way to manage unchecked behavior is through structures and leadership that aligns incentives to policy. We do it all the time in plenty of other areas of society.
    - hypeit 3y ago
      > Bureaucracies, if left unmanaged as they are today, will always find ways to increase their own budget or resource. This is why you put pressure in the opposite direction by taking away funding from these bloated and toxic organizations. In a functioning democracy the size of the budget shouldn't be dictated by the organizations themselves, but by the voters. I think "defund the police" is the perfect message as it cuts straight to the heart of the matter and gives people something they can support that will directly make a difference and be difficult to work around via corruption. Police budgets are massively bloated, we should start slashing and reinvesting into social programs and public infrastructure.
      - 23B1 3y ago
        Slashing funding ≠ defunding. It's a terrible, nonsensical 'branded comment' that makes no sense, alienates people who'd otherwise support a more reasonable approach, and perfectly embodies the 'all or nothing' style of modern day performance politics.
        hypeit 3y ago
        > Slashing funding ≠ defunding. I actually think "defunding" is the perfect way to describe slashing funding. We should start defunding/slashing now because the budgets are huge. It may asymptotically approach zero, but we need to reverse the trend. "Defund the police" correctly highlights the actual issue, which is why people get so upset about it. The "people who'd otherwise support a more reasonable approach" do not and have never supported a more reasonable approach. They like the police, but can't come out and say it directly so instead they deflect to "hey! I can't support defunding the police because I don't like the slogan".

coldpie 3y ago

> I do want them to behave like they are part of the neighborhood and not its enforcers. People have been saying this for decades and decades. It doesn't work. How long does it have to not work before you accept that we need another strategy?

23B1 3y ago
I'm interested any realistic solution to a social problem. Eliminating police departments isn't one of them; it's fantasy virtue-signaling by people who are lucky enough to have never experienced first-hand what happens in societies without law enforcement.
- coldpie 3y ago
  I don't think there are very many people out there proposing eliminating police departments. Most calls are for reducing funding from the police to reduce their ability to cause harm, and spending more on other activities that are better at reducing crime. Broadly this is called "defunding the police," though I do understand why you dislike that label. "Abolish the police" is a different, and I suspect much smaller, movement.
  - 23B1 3y ago
    Sorry, I'm not trying to be pedantic but the literal definition of "defund" is as follows: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/defund https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng... - " to stop providing money for something, especially something official" which is the same as: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/abolish https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/ame... - "to officially end a law, a system, or an institution" You can see where if you and I are having this conversation, probably there's a lot of other people like you and I who are talking past each other because the word is being either incorrectly deployed by proponents – or the proponents genuinely want to eliminate police departments.