Non-IT News Thread
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Someone should do a study, in the case of an anonymous situation (e.g. you aren't a designated target ahead of time) is it safer to approach a cop or a criminal.
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Ecuador cuts Internet access for Julian Assange They claim it was for the following tweet:
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Their are black hats and white hats, their are good guys and bad guys, there are venomous snakes and harmless snakes, their are good public servants and bad public servants. Don't be so bitter and angry, its not good for you. It sounds like racism of a profession. I have family in law enforcement. The broad brush doesn't help anyone.
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@popester said in Non-IT News Thread:
It sounds like racism of a profession
The deputy was black as well as the now deceased civilian.
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@nerdydad said in Non-IT News Thread:
@popester said in Non-IT News Thread:
It sounds like racism of a profession
The deputy was black as well as the now deceased civilian.
My point was, classifying all law enforcement as evil reminds me of the talk I used to hear when i was a little kid. "All, (insert ethnic group) are such and such." Its sad.
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@popester said in Non-IT News Thread:
Their are black hats and white hats, their are good guys and bad guys, there are venomous snakes and harmless snakes, their are good public servants and bad public servants. Don't be so bitter and angry, its not good for you. It sounds like racism of a profession. I have family in law enforcement. The broad brush doesn't help anyone.
Broad brushes are bad in some contexts. But there are time that they are important. For example, are all members of the mafia or a drug cartel bad? When does "doing something bad" as a representative of a group turn into a problem through "voluntary membership or association with a group."
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@popester said in Non-IT News Thread:
Their are black hats and white hats, their are good guys and bad guys, there are venomous snakes and harmless snakes, their are good public servants and bad public servants. Don't be so bitter and angry, its not good for you. It sounds like racism of a profession. I have family in law enforcement. The broad brush doesn't help anyone.
Broad brushes are bad in some contexts. But there are time that they are important. For example, are all members of the mafia or a drug cartel bad? When does "doing something bad" as a representative of a group turn into a problem through "voluntary membership or association with a group."
1 bad apple spoils the whole bunch?
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@popester said in Non-IT News Thread:
@nerdydad said in Non-IT News Thread:
@popester said in Non-IT News Thread:
It sounds like racism of a profession
The deputy was black as well as the now deceased civilian.
My point was, classifying all law enforcement as evil reminds me of the talk I used to hear when i was a little kid. "All, (insert ethnic group) are such and such." Its sad.
No, but all law enforcement voluntarily choose to earn a living through a corrupt system in which their membership has become involved in atrocities with which they are associated.
If being a copy voluntarily doesn't put some guilt on someone, does being the member of a terrorist group not put guilt until they themselves commit acts of atrocity?
Certainly the two are different. But where and why? What makes them different? It's a difficult definition to find.
It's not about bad cops, that alone is one bad thing. It's also about a legal system that promotes and protects bad cops. It's about other cops allowing it to continue. It's about a system of organized terror and murder. Sure, it's the rare cop that actually does it, but every cop has voluntarily chosen to be a part of that system. Maybe to participate, maybe to stop it "from the inside", maybe they don't care one way or the other. But voluntarily participation in a system carries responsibility.
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@nerdydad said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@popester said in Non-IT News Thread:
Their are black hats and white hats, their are good guys and bad guys, there are venomous snakes and harmless snakes, their are good public servants and bad public servants. Don't be so bitter and angry, its not good for you. It sounds like racism of a profession. I have family in law enforcement. The broad brush doesn't help anyone.
Broad brushes are bad in some contexts. But there are time that they are important. For example, are all members of the mafia or a drug cartel bad? When does "doing something bad" as a representative of a group turn into a problem through "voluntary membership or association with a group."
1 bad apple spoils the whole bunch?
If all the apples voluntarily associate with the rotten ones
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But we can flip it, there are good cops. Do some good cops create a positive "group" in the opposite way? How many bad cops does it take before the badness becomes a "taint"? How many good cops to overcome a "taint"? Does any number of good overcome a number of bad (that aren't properly stopped and punished?)
The issue here, I think, the real key that people have problems with, isn't good cops and bad cops, those are just individuals. It's the institutional system that gives cops weapons, freedom to murder without serious fear of reprisal, protection, even money for committing crimes. For example, in Texas, some cops were doing some pretty awful things down on the Texas / Mexico border and when the residents tried to do something about it, the state pulled their "you can't sue cops" law out which is the same as saying "no law, no protection" for citizens in Texas. That such a law exists is beyond evil, that any person or organization would ever stoop to using it is, in my mind, the ultimate case where capital punishment should be used. It's a level far worse than treason or murder. It's a total undermining of society.
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Or another way of looking at it.... from a personal ethics perspective. Would you fine it morally reprehensible to be a cop yourself (in the US, outside the US the systems are unrelated.)? My personal ethics would not allow me to accept pay as a cop, I think it is morally wrong within the context of how cops operate today. But that means, every cop was willing to cross that ethical line that I'm not willing to cross, and most people I know would not. So that's a very different way to think about it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
Or another way of looking at it.... from a personal ethics perspective. Would you fine it morally reprehensible to be a cop yourself (in the US, outside the US the systems are unrelated.)? My personal ethics would not allow me to accept pay as a cop, I think it is morally wrong within the context of how cops operate today. But that means, every cop was willing to cross that ethical line that I'm not willing to cross, and most people I know would not. So that's a very different way to think about it.
How would a cop and their families live on no pay?
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Similarly, this is the same discussion that we had with the
moderators and why they were so upset with me about a year ago. I gave up my moderator powers on strict ethics grounds. To be a moderator you were required to agree to run scams on community members for the benefit of I refused and demanded all associated between me and the community ownership be severed completely, nothing could associate me with the company or the moderators. But everyone that accepted or remained a moderator accepted that terrible ethical position as something they were willing to do for whatever benefits being a moderator brought to them personally.I've had some moderators say that they just didn't care about the unethical things that they had to agree to, they didn't have the issues with professional and personal integrity that I did. I had one say that she accepted the ethical dilemma because she felt she was best "changing the group from the inside", and while I have no idea how that is supposed to work, it was an interesting reason for being willing to associate with illegal and utterly unethical agreements.
But so taking cops out of the equation, when being a voluntary member of a group that has to agree to questionable or outright unethical things to be a member, when does the ethical problems flow to those agreeing to participate?
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@dbeato said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
Or another way of looking at it.... from a personal ethics perspective. Would you fine it morally reprehensible to be a cop yourself (in the US, outside the US the systems are unrelated.)? My personal ethics would not allow me to accept pay as a cop, I think it is morally wrong within the context of how cops operate today. But that means, every cop was willing to cross that ethical line that I'm not willing to cross, and most people I know would not. So that's a very different way to think about it.
How would a cop and their families live on no pay?
By getting a different job. How do drug cartel workers live with no pay? They get ethical jobs doing something else. No one is "born a cop" just like no one is "born a drug lord". Those are choices people make based on what they want to do.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dbeato said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
Or another way of looking at it.... from a personal ethics perspective. Would you fine it morally reprehensible to be a cop yourself (in the US, outside the US the systems are unrelated.)? My personal ethics would not allow me to accept pay as a cop, I think it is morally wrong within the context of how cops operate today. But that means, every cop was willing to cross that ethical line that I'm not willing to cross, and most people I know would not. So that's a very different way to think about it.
How would a cop and their families live on no pay?
By getting a different job. How do drug cartel workers live with no pay? They get ethical jobs doing something else. No one is "born a cop" just like no one is "born a drug lord". Those are choices people make based on what they want to do.
No one was born to be what they currently are now, they were born to live. WHat is an ethical job for you? Classifying all police work, army jobs and other institution jobs as unethical is not way compared to a drug cartel... sure there have been and are bad police, IT staff, government staff, private companies, doctors, business man, marketing, but that doesn't make their industry or their profession bad....
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It's key to remember that all workers, whether community moderators, cops, politicians, drug dealers, whatever... are voluntary. In fact, it's hard to get any of those jobs. You have to put in a real effort to get into those organizations. It's never the "job you fall into when nothing else was available." Drug dealer, maybe, but even that can't be very casual. I'm decently educated and skilled and I certainly couldn't become a drug dealer easily, it would take a lot of research and effort. So people in these positions take a focused effort, work there way to membership in these organizations, and do so not just completely voluntarily, but they overcome natural barriers (such as lack of training) to get into them.
It's important to never treat voluntary group membership like something involuntary like race, gender, age, etc.
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@dbeato said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dbeato said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
Or another way of looking at it.... from a personal ethics perspective. Would you fine it morally reprehensible to be a cop yourself (in the US, outside the US the systems are unrelated.)? My personal ethics would not allow me to accept pay as a cop, I think it is morally wrong within the context of how cops operate today. But that means, every cop was willing to cross that ethical line that I'm not willing to cross, and most people I know would not. So that's a very different way to think about it.
How would a cop and their families live on no pay?
By getting a different job. How do drug cartel workers live with no pay? They get ethical jobs doing something else. No one is "born a cop" just like no one is "born a drug lord". Those are choices people make based on what they want to do.
No one was born to be what they currently are now, they were born to live. WHat is an ethical job for you? Classifying all police work, army jobs and other institution jobs as unethical is not way compared to a drug cartel...
How is it different? Many people in a drug cartel are "good" people. Accountants, farmers, truck drivers... cartels pay for many good things like hospitals, town infrastructures, etc.
These are, from what I can tell, as close an analogy as you can get. They are extremely similar.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dbeato said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dbeato said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
Or another way of looking at it.... from a personal ethics perspective. Would you fine it morally reprehensible to be a cop yourself (in the US, outside the US the systems are unrelated.)? My personal ethics would not allow me to accept pay as a cop, I think it is morally wrong within the context of how cops operate today. But that means, every cop was willing to cross that ethical line that I'm not willing to cross, and most people I know would not. So that's a very different way to think about it.
How would a cop and their families live on no pay?
By getting a different job. How do drug cartel workers live with no pay? They get ethical jobs doing something else. No one is "born a cop" just like no one is "born a drug lord". Those are choices people make based on what they want to do.
No one was born to be what they currently are now, they were born to live. WHat is an ethical job for you? Classifying all police work, army jobs and other institution jobs as unethical is not way compared to a drug cartel...
How is it different? Many people in a drug cartel are "good" people. Accountants, farmers, truck drivers... cartels pay for many good things like hospitals, town infrastructures, etc.
These are, from what I can tell, as close an analogy as you can get. They are extremely similar.
If you knowingly work for a drug cartel, that doesn't make it good because you are forced to do something. They know what they are doing, no matter if they are forced to do it or not. Way to different.
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How did this topic arise?
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@dbeato said in Non-IT News Thread:
No one was born to be what they currently are now, they were born to live. WHat is an ethical job for you? Classifying all police work, army jobs and other institution jobs as unethical ...
Here is the thing....
Police, military, drug cartels are about as identical as you can get. All are totally voluntary (well, not all military), all do "good things for some people", all do "bad things to some people". They are as related as you can get. They all kill people, they all produce bad results, they all do good things for many people. All have people who support them. All have people who hate them. All are associations of people who have agreed to live with the negative aspects of the group because they are either okay with them or they feel that the positive outcomes of the group offset them. They all violate ethics to a point where large percentages of the population feel that their activities demand extreme punishments. All are sometimes seen as important parts of their culture or locality, all are sometimes seen as enemies of the state and population.
