NYC Police assaults are way up

[Perry]

Ever since deBlassio got elected, there have been about 4 homicides by police on innocent citizens, 100+ beatings, several hundred police complaints thru internal affairs.

So I'm asking, is there anything we can do about this?


here are 3 that are really bad
Eric Garner
Ehud Halevy
Sandra Amezquita

Why is this happening? I thought deBlassio was a "progressive", maybe a liberal.

[Squall179]

Well, it sounds more like the new Police Chief is the problem here. the Mayor doesn't have direct control of the officers. The Chief of Police does. Even then, indirect control.

It could be racism or sexism or any number of factors coming to the surface as a form of retaliation for a different mayor, or... anything. But its the Onus of the Police, this issue.

[NoiseHERO]

Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhh...........

MGS music always plays in my head every time I see a police officer. >_>

I'm preeeeeeeeeetty paranoid about cops at the moment.

[Stealthcmc1974]

Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhh...........

MGS music always plays in my head every time I see a police officer. >_>

I'm preeeeeeeeeetty paranoid about cops at the moment.

From which entry? For me, MGS2 comes to mind in an instant

[NoiseHERO]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWMpeBSxfnQ

x_X

I'm replaying this one.

I have but never played MGS2... guess I will after. 3 is favorite so fa- /offtopic

[Stealthcmc1974]

Metal Gear Solid 1 Alert Theme (Encounter) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWMpeBSxfnQ)

x_X

I'm replaying this one.

I have but never played MGS2... guess I will after. 3 is favorite so fa- /offtopic

Well, MGS2 takes place in NYC so that's why I said it.

Back on track:

This is pretty crazy news, but I wouldn't be so quick to blame the mayor for it. As stated, there's a whole multitude of factors to consider. Then again, I don't place a whole lot of confidence in cops in the first place...

I will say that news like this makes me consider the Sybil System from Psycho Pass to be a good idea... <_<

[Squall179]

Sybil System? Could uh...could you elaborate on that please? For those of us who have not seen the origin material.

[Stealthcmc1974]

Sybil System? Could uh...could you elaborate on that please? For those of us who have not seen the origin material.

Basically, it analyzes the psyche of every individual and asses how they benefit society, and this information is a Psycho Pass. For police work, the police are given Dominators, weapons that run in tandem with the system. Everyone is given a crime coefficient, a number indicating how likely they are to commit a crime. If its under 100, no action is required and the dominator locks. if its above 100, it enters paralyzer mode and will stun the target. If it is above 300, it enters eliminator mode and makes the target explode more or less. Any higher threat than that, and it enters decomposer mode, which basically wipes away all traces of the target.

Why is this significant?
1) It ensures that only guilty persons can be brought in via the police, as the weapon will not kill unless the person is extremely guilty (i.e. already murdered someone, etc.)

2.) The police cannot randomly attack or assault others or else their crime coefficient goes up. Their Psycho Pass would be red flagged and they would be held just as guilty as anyone else. Basically they cannot act without the authorization of the Sybil system. The only other weapons available to the police are stun rods and EMP grenades.

And now finally back to why this relates to this thread:
If we had some version of the Sybil system implemented, police would not be able to abuse their job positions they way they do now, because there is no law or judges or courts: only the Sybil System decides who is guilty or who is innocent, and punishment is either immediate therapy in an institution or execution, and said police would be immediately persecuted if they did anything to raise their crime coefficient.

On a side note: go see Psycho Pass if you haven't yet. Minority report with some cyberpunk set in a dystopian Japan of the near future. Love it.

[Squall179]

Alright, thanks for clarifying that! Can see how that would work.

[Sp-24]

Basically, it analyzes the psyche of every individual and asses how they benefit society, and this information is a Psycho Pass. For police work, the police are given Dominators, weapons that run in tandem with the system. Everyone is given a crime coefficient, a number indicating how likely they are to commit a crime. If its under 100, no action is required and the dominator locks. if its above 100, it enters paralyzer mode and will stun the target. If it is above 300, it enters eliminator mode and makes the target explode more or less. Any higher threat than that, and it enters decomposer mode, which basically wipes away all traces of the target.

Why is this significant?
1) It ensures that only guilty persons can be brought in via the police, as the weapon will not kill unless the person is extremely guilty (i.e. already murdered someone, etc.)

2.) The police cannot randomly attack or assault others or else their crime coefficient goes up. Their Psycho Pass would be red flagged and they would be held just as guilty as anyone else. Basically they cannot act without the authorization of the Sybil system. The only other weapons available to the police are stun rods and EMP grenades.

And now finally back to why this relates to this thread:
If we had some version of the Sybil system implemented, police would not be able to abuse their job positions they way they do now, because there is no law or judges or courts: only the Sybil System decides who is guilty or who is innocent, and punishment is either immediate therapy in an institution or execution, and said police would be immediately persecuted if they did anything to raise their crime coefficient.

On a side note: go see Psycho Pass if you haven't yet. Minority report with some cyberpunk set in a dystopian Japan of the near future. Love it.
That Sybil System thing doesn't seem like it would be very easy to implement. Keeping crime records up to date is already a hard enough task. Adding mandatory psychological profiling of citizens to that, while it would create more state-funded jobs, sounds like quite a hassle. Doubt everyone would be happy with having to visit a psychiatrist for their re-evaluations, either - having a dentist scheduled twice a year is already annoying enough.

Of course, this can be largely mitigated thanks to modern technology. Pretty much everyone has a social network account these days, which can be used to see one's interests (and even to influence them, thanks to how information works), and your iPhone or Android device can monitor your vitals if necessary. Having such a monitoring device in your room or in your pocket would make things much easier for both parties, since modern cameras can easily see in the dark and pick up heat readings, signs that tell a lot more about you than you might think, and transferring information is very cheap nowadays. You could call a device that does that comp- or cellscreen, or something.

However, even after centuries of studies, and with all the modern technologies we have, human psyche still isn't that easy to understand, left alone to systematise for the purpose of something like telling the likelihood of one becoming a criminal with any degree of certainty. Some serious measures would need to be taken to avoid misunderstandings. Educating the people in a way so that everyone follows similar, predictable patterns would be perfect, as anybody exhibiting irregular behaviour would automatically be suspect that way. The government already has the framework to put something like that in motion - schools, universities, and mass media, for example.

Of course, the more uncontrolled information a person is exposed to, the harder it is to tell what's going on in their head. Higher education is especially guilty of that, since it still requires doing a lot of reading and researching. The obvious solution to that is some sort of a filter on unwanted sources, along with a standartisation of the approved ones. But it would be even better if you could not just get rid of any unwanted information, but also to prevent it from appearing. Shortening and simplifying the spoken language could help achieving that, in a way, as it would limit the forms that unwanted ideas could take. Take the English language, for example - it has been naturally evolving towards shorter, easier to digest phrases this whole time. Speed that process up a bit, remove redundant words, obsolete secondary meanings, make it so one word can belong to all main lexical categories with minimal, or even no modifications, and it would become harder to express potentially destructive thoughts. It would also become easier to pick up cases of mental treason simply by observing one's speech.

Again, this whole thing isn't something you just slap onto an existing society. Implementing it would require a lot of groundwork, and keeping it running isn't just a matter of assigning everyone ratings of "good citizen", "ungood citizen" and "criminal". A system like that is also bound to meet an opposition, probably from criminals who don't want to be assessed by an omniscient being instead of the corrupted judicial system. Still, it's not an excuse to why we couldn't already have something like that 30 years ago.

But, yeah, sounds like a great idea.

[Stealthcmc1974]

That Sybil System thing doesn't seem like it would be very easy to implement. Keeping crime records up to date is already a hard enough task. Adding mandatory psychological profiling of citizens to that, while it would create more state-funded jobs, sounds like quite a hassle. Doubt everyone would be happy with having to visit a psychiatrist for their re-evaluations, either - having a dentist scheduled twice a year is already annoying enough.

Of course, this can be largely mitigated thanks to modern technology. Pretty much everyone has a social network account these days, which can be used to see one's interests (and even to influence them, thanks to how information works), and your iPhone or Android device can monitor your vitals if necessary. Having such a monitoring device in your room or in your pocket would make things much easier for both parties, since modern cameras can easily see in the dark and pick up heat readings, signs that tell a lot more about you than you might think, and transferring information is very cheap nowadays. You could call a device that does that comp- or cellscreen, or something.

However, even after centuries of studies, and with all the modern technologies we have, human psyche still isn't that easy to understand, left alone to systematise for the purpose of something like telling the likelihood of one becoming a criminal with any degree of certainty. Some serious measures would need to be taken to avoid misunderstandings. Educating the people in a way so that everyone follows similar, predictable patterns would be perfect, as anybody exhibiting irregular behaviour would automatically be suspect that way. The government already has the framework to put something like that in motion - schools, universities, and mass media, for example.

Of course, the more uncontrolled information a person is exposed to, the harder it is to tell what's going on in their head. Higher education is especially guilty of that, since it still requires doing a lot of reading and researching. The obvious solution to that is some sort of a filter on unwanted sources, along with a standartisation of the approved ones. But it would be even better if you could not just get rid of any unwanted information, but also to prevent it from appearing. Shortening and simplifying the spoken language could help achieving that, in a way, as it would limit the forms that unwanted ideas could take. Take the English language, for example - it has been naturally evolving towards shorter, easier to digest phrases this whole time. Speed that process up a bit, remove redundant words, obsolete secondary meanings, make it so one word can belong to all main lexical categories with minimal, or even no modifications, and it would become harder to express potentially destructive thoughts. It would also become easier to pick up cases of mental treason simply by observing one's speech.

Again, this whole thing isn't something you just slap onto an existing society. Implementing it would require a lot of groundwork, and keeping it running isn't just a matter of assigning everyone ratings of "good citizen", "ungood citizen" and "criminal". A system like that is also bound to meet an opposition, probably from criminals who don't want to be assessed by an omniscient being instead of the corrupted judicial system. Still, it's not an excuse to why we couldn't already have something like that 30 years ago.

But, yeah, sounds like a great idea.

To be fair, it was implemented somewhere in the 2070's or 80's in the show I think, and instituted on Japan which had become completely self sufficient and required no further interaction with other countries. To apply such a system on a world-wide scale... O.O

[mctastee]

Ah man, classic New York. In all seriousness though, police forces all across America are really out getting out of hand.