5 ms·

These stories seem fake to me. I know they are real but I have trouble believing that people, human beings would actually act like this. Why do we have people

by giarc 12y ago

These stories seem fake to me. I know they are real but I have trouble believing that people, human beings would actually act like this. Why do we have people acting as police that wouldn't let a mother comfort her crying, very injured child. They weren't after her, she wasn't the criminal.

Synaesthesia 12y ago
The way the psychology works is that police regard everyone as a potential threat and a criminal, which makes them essentially not human in their eyes. When dealing in a "tactical phase" or whatever the hell they call it, they take command of a situation and have a very paranoid view of everything.
nickthemagicman 12y ago
Are you being serious? In Mexico the narco terrorists pulled innocent people off of a bus and made them pit fight to the death for their amusement. http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Mexican-crook-Gangsters-arrange-fights-to-death-1692716.php http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Mexican-crook... In the middle ages they would impale you on a spike so that you died slowly over days. In Rwanda one tribe butchered 5 million people of another tribe with machetes. An that's just examples I can think of off the top of my head. And you have trouble believing that a few cops wouldn't let a mother comfort her child?
- vlunkr 12y ago
  I think what he's trying to say is that all those things seem so surreal. We believe them, but reading the stories feels like you're reading something out of a movie. For people living in normal circumstances it's hard to imagine that some people are so cruel.
  - giarc 12y ago
    Exactly. I always read these stories and think... Is this the onion? Am I reading comedy? For example, there was a story where a school aged child was suspended for using his hand as a gun and aiming it at other children. I just couldn't comprehend the idea that a principal would think that action justified suspending a child. Perhaps a detention and a stern warning, maybe. I want to believe that journalists will leave out part of the stories that explains the harsh actions, that makes you say "Ok, I can understand why the principal did that", but when more and more of these stories are published, it becomes harder to believe.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  You do realize you're comparing the present day United States law enforcement with Rwandean tribes, Mexican narco-terrorists and the middle ages?
  - nickthemagicman 12y ago
    Are you blind? Until recently America had child labor and would lynch black people. A FEDERAL judge in my hometown of New Orleans is famous for saying "We like to try our niggers before we hang them". Human nature is human nature. We live in a 'veneer' of civilization. Underneath are still the same old animal instincts honed over millions of years of evolution. Don't ever forget that. Or forget it at your peril.
    - leaveyou 12y ago
      A society like the one you describe should not have nuclear weapons. Now I'm afraid that if it weren't for the MAD (mutual assured destruction) US would have been much more genocidal.
      - fnimick 12y ago
        Oh, we probably would have invaded/nuked the Soviet Union. It's not like MAD stopped us from sowing destruction and chaos around the globe, either. It just made us fight proxy wars instead of real ones with other nuclear powers.
  - random28345 12y ago
    > You do realize you're comparing the present day United States law enforcement with Rwandean tribes, Mexican narco-terrorists and the middle ages? Yes, they are all members of the same species. "Humanity" is a thin veneer over the top of a very selfish, very violent animal.
  - tomswartz07 12y ago
    It's kind of sad to realize that modern day police are comparable (at least in terms of inhumanity) to middle age torture.
- giarc 12y ago
  You are providing examples of aggressors, not protectors. Every police officer on active duty right now begin their career with the idea they are to protect their citizens. This doesn't seem like the case in the original article. To me it sounds like people that have lost the intent of their job.
ffn 12y ago
There is like 30+ years of social-psych research and papers backing up why average people (the swat team members) can become truly the hand of evil as situations demand of them. The most (in)famous of these studies is the Milgram shock experiment which showed average people in general willing to kill innocent people if authority insisted. A less famous study, the Stanford prison experiment, showed that people were more than willing to objectify others when they were in positions of power. Granted, there is a chance this one incident might be fake (who knows with the internet), but incidents like this are definitely real. The fact of the matter is, people are not evil, but the organization of people tend to be. What can you do about it? Probably the best thing is stop strengthening centralized organizations, live/work in a small tightly knit communities, and don't lump others into a group. If that's not possible, your next best alternative is not be black / hispanic / south-east asian / male.
baddox 12y ago
> I know they are real but I have trouble believing that people, human beings would actually act like this. These are humans who decided, probably at a young age, that they wanted to do this sort of thing for a living. They then deliberately pursued training for this sort of thing, and got hired to do this sort of thing. Their livelihood likely depends on them continuing to do this sort of thing. It shouldn't be surprising that these people do this sort of thing. What else are they going to do?

by giarc 12y ago

Synaesthesia 12y ago

The way the psychology works is that police regard everyone as a potential threat and a criminal, which makes them essentially not human in their eyes. When dealing in a "tactical phase" or whatever the hell they call it, they take command of a situation and have a very paranoid view of everything.

nickthemagicman 12y ago

Are you being serious? In Mexico the narco terrorists pulled innocent people off of a bus and made them pit fight to the death for their amusement. http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Mexican-crook-Gangsters-arrange-fights-to-death-1692716.php http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Mexican-crook... In the middle ages they would impale you on a spike so that you died slowly over days. In Rwanda one tribe butchered 5 million people of another tribe with machetes. An that's just examples I can think of off the top of my head. And you have trouble believing that a few cops wouldn't let a mother comfort her child?

vlunkr 12y ago
I think what he's trying to say is that all those things seem so surreal. We believe them, but reading the stories feels like you're reading something out of a movie. For people living in normal circumstances it's hard to imagine that some people are so cruel.
- giarc 12y ago
  Exactly. I always read these stories and think... Is this the onion? Am I reading comedy? For example, there was a story where a school aged child was suspended for using his hand as a gun and aiming it at other children. I just couldn't comprehend the idea that a principal would think that action justified suspending a child. Perhaps a detention and a stern warning, maybe. I want to believe that journalists will leave out part of the stories that explains the harsh actions, that makes you say "Ok, I can understand why the principal did that", but when more and more of these stories are published, it becomes harder to believe.
jacquesm 12y ago
You do realize you're comparing the present day United States law enforcement with Rwandean tribes, Mexican narco-terrorists and the middle ages?
- nickthemagicman 12y ago
  Are you blind? Until recently America had child labor and would lynch black people. A FEDERAL judge in my hometown of New Orleans is famous for saying "We like to try our niggers before we hang them". Human nature is human nature. We live in a 'veneer' of civilization. Underneath are still the same old animal instincts honed over millions of years of evolution. Don't ever forget that. Or forget it at your peril.
  - leaveyou 12y ago
    A society like the one you describe should not have nuclear weapons. Now I'm afraid that if it weren't for the MAD (mutual assured destruction) US would have been much more genocidal.
    - fnimick 12y ago
      Oh, we probably would have invaded/nuked the Soviet Union. It's not like MAD stopped us from sowing destruction and chaos around the globe, either. It just made us fight proxy wars instead of real ones with other nuclear powers.
- random28345 12y ago
  > You do realize you're comparing the present day United States law enforcement with Rwandean tribes, Mexican narco-terrorists and the middle ages? Yes, they are all members of the same species. "Humanity" is a thin veneer over the top of a very selfish, very violent animal.
- tomswartz07 12y ago
  It's kind of sad to realize that modern day police are comparable (at least in terms of inhumanity) to middle age torture.
giarc 12y ago
You are providing examples of aggressors, not protectors. Every police officer on active duty right now begin their career with the idea they are to protect their citizens. This doesn't seem like the case in the original article. To me it sounds like people that have lost the intent of their job.

ffn 12y ago

There is like 30+ years of social-psych research and papers backing up why average people (the swat team members) can become truly the hand of evil as situations demand of them. The most (in)famous of these studies is the Milgram shock experiment which showed average people in general willing to kill innocent people if authority insisted. A less famous study, the Stanford prison experiment, showed that people were more than willing to objectify others when they were in positions of power. Granted, there is a chance this one incident might be fake (who knows with the internet), but incidents like this are definitely real. The fact of the matter is, people are not evil, but the organization of people tend to be. What can you do about it? Probably the best thing is stop strengthening centralized organizations, live/work in a small tightly knit communities, and don't lump others into a group. If that's not possible, your next best alternative is not be black / hispanic / south-east asian / male.

baddox 12y ago

> I know they are real but I have trouble believing that people, human beings would actually act like this. These are humans who decided, probably at a young age, that they wanted to do this sort of thing for a living. They then deliberately pursued training for this sort of thing, and got hired to do this sort of thing. Their livelihood likely depends on them continuing to do this sort of thing. It shouldn't be surprising that these people do this sort of thing. What else are they going to do?