Republican voter fraud? I find that hard to believe.
Menzo
2671
“Why shouldn’t they get to vote where they patrol?” asks someone who just shouted “LAW AND ORDER” at a protestor who just got renditioned by actual jack-booted Federal thugs for spray painting a racist monument.
So, in my emails is the WaPo thing with summaries of stories. This is the subhed on one:
Hm, what could be a problem here? Certainly 732 hours of training in the use of violence to control a situation can be counterbalanced by 16 hours of how to not.
This story, if you’re curious. It does not not end well:
Let’s not blame the machines here. The police were doing this stuff anyway previously, it was just based on hunches and intuition and experience. This is just computer doing what computer do, helping us do what we did before but more efficiently. The accurate headline should be “Police use computers to harass lower income people and minorities more effectively.” The computers aren’t the problem in that sentence.
This is literally the plot of Minority Report, except the computers in that movie are, for some reason, hot young girls in tubs of lube.
Two guys and a girl, right? I just remember the moldy sandwich mostly.
Correct. They were siblings.
I haven’t read the original story, but I remember watching the movie and thinking: “wait, they’re going to rework the entire national justice system around three, irreplaceable mutants?” What was going to happen to pre-crime when they lost the precogs?
Qmanol
2679
In the original story it was a supercomputer on the cusp of being true AI.
That makes a lot more sense from an implementation standpoint, though I can see why the chose to go with the more “psychic” aspect of the mutants. A Foundation style predict the future based on crunching huge amounts of data is easier to swallow for large scale events and harder to swallow for an individual committing a crime/pre-crime.
Qmanol
2681
Actually, It looks like I’ve always incorrectly assumed this was related to an Asimov story which also deals with pre-crime, but it is in fact based on a Philip K Dick novella of the same name as the movie which does indeed involve three mutant precogs.
That’s a funny way to spell “being a dark-skinned male”.
Tman
2683
Mon calls police to help with her 13 year old son as he’s autistic and having a breakdown. She’s at work and gives them advice on how to handle him.
Instead they show up and shoot him.
Really, never call the cops unless you need someone shot. And even then, it might be you.
jpinard
2685
And police don’t want to give up money to have dedicated social workers to do this kind of work. More lucrative to get massive overtime and just shoot people with issues.
I’ve honestly never heard that as a reason for why the cops act the way they do. Do you have a story/reporting to back that up?
I think mental health services are woeful inadequate in the US, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to send a mental health specialist, on their own, to respond to all situations like this—there is risk. Rather, it should be a combo of cop and specialist.
Menzo
2687
Right. That means 50% fewer cops in those cars.
milo
2688
What role do you envision that the police officer would play in the scenario where, as you say, “there is risk”?
jpinard
2689
LOL, have you NOT seen police all too often shooting people with mental health issues, especially those with Autism/Aspergers? It’s happened way too many times.
