This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I feel like I'm losing my mind. How does anyone watch the first linked video and conclude this was a good shoot? Like, she gets up to take the boiling water off the stove. The cops seem cool with it, even commenting that they don't want a fire. She takes the water over to the sink (presumably to drain it). One of the cops backs away. She asks (in what seems to me a humorous manner) why he's backing away, he mentions getting away from the water. She makes what seems to me a joke (the "rebuke you in the name of Jesus" line, like it's holy water they are afraid of) and the cop flips the fuck out. They draw their guns, she immediately apologizes and ducks behind the counter. They approach and then the forward officer shoots her.
It's important this is in the form of a gif (without sound) because if you watch the version with sound you can plainly hear the gunshots before any steam is visible on the ground. Even in this gif you can see the recoil from the first shot go off before any steam is visible. How about "she dropped the pot of boiling water because the cop shot her in the head."
You may biased from previous media spectacles. Let’s consider everything with the right priors first: two professional police officers are dealing with a woman who is acting crazy. These two officers are trained professionals in recognizing when a crazy person is about to turn violent, because they deal with that every day. Their intuition for recognizing that is going to be top 0.1% in the country. When we hear “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus” and see a vague outline of a person, the higher fidelity vision of the police officers is zooming in at the signs of whether this mentally ill African American woman is planning the destroy their lives with boiling water. In order to prevent their life’s happiness being taken away from them they tell her to step away from the pot of water.
In this video, at about 10:40 we clearly see that she ducks first at the request, without the pot. She is on the ground. Gun pointed at her. Officer saying “drop the pot”. At exactly 10:41.50, she grabs the pot from above her and throws it at the officers. If you watch 10:40-10:45 at .25 speed this is obvious. I recommend downloading the video and zooming as slow as you can actually. She lifts her hands up, grabs the pot, throws the contents toward the officer with a right arm which increasingly stretched outward, and the steaming water splashes feet in front of her, soaking the chair with boiling water. If you do an experiment in your kitchen with a pot of water, you’d note that merely holding the pot and turning it over will not launch the water like a projectile feet in front of you. Therefore, the evidence (arm begins to stretch out toward officer + the splash) indicates a throwing movement, as well as intent of throwing (from the position on the ground, reaching up and grabbing the pot of water in your sink). The shot rings immediately after she picked up the pot and completely extended her right arm, eg a normal reaction time by an officer in good physical fitness.
How about examine evidence fully before making a conclusion
No thanks. I have no interest in uncritically believing cops know better than me, especially when I have video evidence to the contrary.
So, the officers are screaming at her and advancing with guns drawn after she has already complied with their orders? Not beating the allegations they manufactured the situation!
More options
Context Copy link
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Factually speaking, US cops receive far less training, with less g loaded selection, than peer nations. There exists no validated training for detecting when a "crazy" person is about to turn violent, so I doubt they receive any. The shooter bounced around as many as 5 departments in the last 5 years. By the data we have, he's possibly top 0.1% at creating lethal interactions from nothing.
It just requires common reasoning: cops in cities deal with crazy people every day; cops in cities deal with crazy people who turn violent every day; a good intuition is the result of many varied experiences with a given phenomenon over a long period of time especially where those experiences supply feedback. The feedback is whether your colleague is tackled or whether an innocent person is stabbed — add in the high tension release of cortisol which increases memory formation and… yeah. I think my assumption is safe.
Training is inferior to experience where intuition is concerned. The best chess players play the most games, as opposed to doing the most puzzles.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Choice comment on the video you posted:
Even if she was going to throw the pot of water at them the correct decision for the officers was to move away from her, not towards her like they did.
Regardless she did do something wrong, namely letting cops into her house without a warrant.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This was absolutely a bad cop response. Like sure, she's acting a bit weird and they're annoyed at what's maybe a nuisance call, she's got a smashed window on her car so they are maybe trying to probe for some more information (they almost walked away from the call), and she's doing some random shit on her phone the whole team which would drive me mental, but overall she's just having a hard time finding her ID because the officer insisted on it rather than just have her spell it out. But the vibe isn't confrontational or anything. And honestly, even taking a long time to find where your wallet is, I will say, is a gender gap kind of thing -- a lot of women have multiple purses, and don't keep things in consistent spots.
Anyways, they are totally just chilling even if the cop who would later do the shooting is clearly a bit annoyed, she even says "one second" and goes to check the boiling water. She says "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus" and he's like huh? and she repeats it. Definitely weird but it's not like she's screaming at them and again, there's no escalation going on. Rather than try to figure out what she's saying or whatever, remember the cops are a little ways away and across in the other room (also, have you lifted a pot of water? shit's HEAVY)... the cop literally turns the dial all the way to 11 and says in a very loud voice that he'll shoot her in the fucking head and puts his hand on his gun. Shots are going to be fired seconds later. She doesn't even get anything coherent out after he says that. She's clearly panicking, and you know? I maybe would too? Someone just threatened to shoot me in the head, kind of out of nowhere? I don't really know what she was trying to communicate with the Jesus thing but it doesn't really come across as threatening, if anything, the fact she was willing to repeat it for the cop who was confused seems to indicate that it wasn't a big deal to her? Like virtually 100% of the escalation was done by the one cop.
More options
Context Copy link
Seriously, the post you're replying to is about the most charitable someone could get while describing a horrible shoot like this.
Apparently we're not the only ones who saw it like that:
Yeah, this isn't 'cop was stood down pending the outcome of an internal investigation'. He was straight up fired and hit with 3 counts of first degree murder.
The district attorney could have gone with that for optics/political reasons, but I think its more likely that the police executive would have also used their '0.1% top ability to read the situation' from the footage and come to the correct decision.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link