SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco police got approval by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to use existing robots as a potential “deadly force option.” The board signed off on the policy 8 to 3 with amendments.
That means military-grade machines, operated by trained officers, could potentially kill suspects during critical incidents. SFPD must evaluate the situation and try alternatives.
Jaybird
Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com
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Nothing to worry about. They’re “military-grade machines,” which means they were built by the lowest bidder and the one guy who knew how to keep them running left for a better-paying job six months ago.Report
Doesn’t this violate one of the Rules of Robots? Also, given the outcry (at least from some corners) of us being able to drone-strike in war zones, I suspect this is going to be extremely unpopular. I also expect the first use will happen on a homeless person suffering from psychosis, or similar.Report
There are a lot of things that cops do that are unpopular. That does not seem to be much of a deterrent.
Also, wasn’t there a move made about this sort of thing in the 80s (with a remake in the 2010s)?Report
Paging SkynetReport
y’all
the “robots” in this story are basically remote-control cars with webcams duct-taped onto them
this is not The Terminator
settle down
honestly this is better because if a cop feels like he can send a drone into a situation and avoid personal risk, he’s less likely to decide that the appropriate course of action is to shoot the crap out of everything that moves
besides, if you are worried about something that just goes into a room and kills everybody, those have existed for quite a while nowReport
Yes and No.
Agreed that it’s a bit misleading to call drones robots as they are not making decisions on the use of force.
I think it’s a valid point that officers removed from the scene may not experience the stress that always puts them ‘in fear for their life’ – in theory anyhow.
But it also means that we can potentially expect to see an increase in uses of Robotic force where the decision to use lethal force is generally pre-determined as we currently see with military use of drones. There’s a reason Police aren’t military – or at least there’s supposed to be – being in harms way among the citizenry is a design point for the constabulary.
Stepping up the militarization of the Police without better accountability isn’t a good policy direction.Report
Used with great restraint it could be a benefit to public safety. Used with bureaucratic butt covering and indifference it turns lethal force into a video game. Where shall we put our money on the approach most likely to be taken by the average American police department? Hmm… let me ponder.Report
What I see happening in a perfect world: The remote allows for the police to de-escalate situations without the adrenaline from being there and being another potential victim of whatever situation they’re in.
What I see as likely happening: Video game-style depersonalization of the other. Like, all the stuff they said about Doom and Quake and Duke Nukem 3D? It’ll be true about drones.Report
I am singularly unconvinced by the argument that “being in harm’s way” necessarily results in less use of force, or fewer moral qualms about the idea. If anything, being at a remove from danger allows for more introspection about whether to deploy lethal force.
“but the Air Force killdrones people!” yeah, because they think those people are bad. There would not be less resolve by commanders to make them dead if an infantry platoon were all that they had to do the job; they’d just be motivated to wait for a better opportunity.Report
Sure, I think it just opens up a big door for creating the rules by which lethal force is simply authorized and then using lethal force – esp as we further justify the benefits of harm reduction to LEO and ‘acceptable’ levels of collateral damage to people who happen to be near bad guys.
The problem in LEO vs. Military is that we really do have an obligation to *capture* all of the suspects on the ‘battlefield’. That’s a pretty big problem that LEO’s have to deal with.
But that’s the subtle slide into militarization. The decision tree would be air tight, I’m sure. Can’t frag a shoplifter, but a murder suspect? Well, that’s fraggable. Why bother with the capture at all? That’s really pretty dangerous.
The issue isn’t that one couldn’t conceive of a scenario when robots might be useful, it’s just that we already have an accountability problem with the Police. And, if we pair it with the accountability program we have for remote warfare? Well, we’re basically staring wide-eyed with data/experience at how the growth of these programs will be managed and how the people running them will protect their use and the users. We’re not ready for this.Report
Agree 100%.Report
You’re awfully excited to imagine the police just randomly blowing up suspects regardless of who’s around at the time.
Meanwhile in the real world they shut down freeways rather than shoot armed men.Report
Not always: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1HaaRaWAyg
Again, the issue isn’t simply use of deadly force its that we have an accountability system that is broken as it applies to the Police. Tangentially we have a completely self-referential accountability program for remote warfare which is also stuck in a closed loop.
Show me the accountability reforms for the use of deadly force domestic and foreign and then we can escalate Police capabilities.Report
This meeting is happening right now at SFPD HQ.Report
Reminds me of Sales training. Never volunteer.
I like the quick thinker at the end: “Somebody call a paramedic!”Report
I am inclined to agree with this but… have they tried “robots” with non-lethal tools? Or did they go right to the lethals ones? That is probably a tell with regards to InMD’s question.Report
I’m vaguely curious as to the amount of incidents where police are required where:
1) Only one person is involved
2) Two or more people are involved and all are potential perpetrators
3) Two or more people are involved and at least one is an innocent party
If the argument is that the drones will only be used against #1s (like, for example, the 2016 Micah Xavier Johnson shootings), that’s one thing. (Still very much against it but it’s not impossible for me to imagine an argument defending it.)
If this is, instead, a way to mitigate the Obesity Epidemic and they’d go into 1s, 2s, or 3s as they come up… well, we’re all doomed.Report
We discussed the use of these devices back in 2016, after the Dallas shootings by Micah Xavier Johnson.Report
Robots, drones, AI all just reflect the mindset of those who create and operate them.
And the mindset of the police-industrial complex is to view themselves as colonial occupiers in hostile alien land.
Look at how people talk about urban areas. The dominant view is that the urban areas are lawless hellscapes which need to be subjugated and brought to heel and the people who live there are in the “bind but not protect” category.Report
When I was in law school up in Baltimore one of my professors was abducted in broad daylight, robbed, and left in the middle of the ‘hood without pants. I still don’t agree with the occupying army approach to law enforcement. It’s definitely wrong and counter productive. But it can still get pretty nuts in some places.Report
I can’t tell if you are trying to rebut my point, or confirm it.Report
Honestly? Both. I think you’re right that there’s a bad mentality that drives bad policy. I just also think it’s important to be clear-eyed that it doesn’t manifest out of nothing, even if militarization of law enforcement is not the answer.Report
Statistics time:
A child is most likely to be molested :
A. In the playground by a stranger;
B. In their own home by a male family member;
A woman is most likely to be violently assaulted:
A. In a dark alley by a street thug;
B. In her home by a male family member;
You are more likely to be robbed:
A. In a street by a mugger;
B. At work by your employer
The answer is B for all these. There is a school of thought that says that policing is used as a tool of social control, by focusing on things that disturb the dominant class (like property crime) while ignoring things that don’t (like abuse of women and children by male family members).Report
I see this as kind of a non responsive when it comes to the issue at hand. De-militarizing law enforcement can only happen in an environment where people feel that crime is under control, and that it isn’t going to come at the expense of law and order. Different problems require different solutions.Report
I agree, which is why we, you and I, must convince our fellow citizens that the real crime is within suburban homes and office parks, rather than city streets.Report
I don’t think anyone is ever going to be convinced of that framing as long as we have a dozen cities where a handful of people are murdered every weekend, especially when the weather is nice, and certain districts are no-go zones for anyone not unfortunate enough to live in one.
But it’s also just a weird way of looking at this. Domestic violence and rapes occurring in the home require a different kind of law enforcement than urban homicides and other crimes of violence which themselves require a different approach than fraud and financial crime. I’ve never heard of any problem being solved by taking one obtuse view and deciding that actually it’s the mirror image of it that is right.Report
Show me your budget, I’ll show you your priorities.
Our budgets for the control of crime show that we prefer to focus our resources on things that make us “feel” safer, rather than things that *actually* make us safer.
How many people are staffed with Family and Child Services, versus street crime?
How many agents are staffed to find wage theft, as opposed to things like Stop & Frisk?
I could, only slightly tongue in cheek, say that snatching $20 from a woman at a bus stop is a disturbance of the social order, while cheating her of $100 in wages IS the social order.
The police budget is devoted to protecting the social order.Report
I’m never going to object to greater investment in public support services in those areas that need them or to the DOJ taking a hard line on financial crimes. But you’re still treating all crime as identical in ways that don’t make sense.
The number of municipal beat cops on the street or what their tactics are isn’t really relevant to financial crime because financial crime requires a high level of sophistication to detect and prosecute and is primarily done by the federal government (or state attorney generals or other agencies tasked with it). The problem with domestic violence isn’t that the police won’t make an arrest (in fact many jurisdictions require an arrest for any complaint) it’s that in the long run there are problems getting victims to testify. Conversely, police on the street and their tactics really do matter when it comes to urban violence and highly visible disorder. There’s no need to do all of this mental jujitsu around it. They’re distinct problems that need to be approached differently.Report
You can’t talk about “Crime being under control” without defining terms. The statistics Chip pointed show rather definitively that the emphasis placed on certain crimes and not others by the police is a key feature of the system which prevents actual solutions from being enacted that are effective at ending crime. The militarization is, statistically, geared at edge cases whose elimination won’t end the bad outcomes people actually experience in life.
Put another way, if you want to stop sexual assault of women in the US – a type of crime – policing dark alley’s does you little statistical good. Likewise stopping theft by the largest dollar segment isn’t accomplished by arresting shoplifters. Yet people want more and more militarized police to address the edge case because they have been told those are far worse.Report
If you want to look at the FBI’s crime statistics for Domestic Violence, there you go. (Warning: PDF.)Report
2005. Brilliantly contemporary.
I didn’t want to read these. And they don’t appear to contradict Chip in any event. SO why did you post them? What point are you trying to make? What truth do you believe they reveal?Report
Those appear to be the most recent ones deliberately compiled. Odd. I’ll have to get into the weeds of the Incident-Based stuff, I guess.
Anyway, I didn’t post it to contradict him. I posted it to provide actual numbers for the topic at hand.
Well, from 2005, anyway.Report
Chip’s original comment was about police acting as an occupying force in urban areas. I responded accordingly.Report
Law & Order: Wage Theft Unit-
“921 what’s your complaint?”
“Yeah, I wash dishes and the boss told us to clock out and keep working.”
“Jackson! Briggs! Get on this, NOW!”
*Resident nerd goes klickety klack on the massive supercomputer*
“Yes, sir, see the restaurant owner is Joe Schmoe, and we have his income statements and tax records, colonoscopy report, and the name of the girl he took to prom in 1987 and all this shows that he pays his employees for 2,567 hours but they actually log 4,289.”
*SWAT team crashes through the door of a fashionable suburban McMansion- Explosions, gunfire, screaming of scantily clad females*
*Square jawed cop looks grimly into middle distance at something burning: “If only the soft on crime liberals weren’t always trying to defund the Wage Theft Unit, we could save more people like this dishwasher.”Report
As I said above, municipal police departments do not deal with things like that. State agencies, attorney generals, and at a certain point the feds do.Report
I hope that there might be some examples worth following out there.
I don’t remember what city was mentioned in the headline and story of the original post but I’m sure it must be one of those dyed-in-the-wool conservative ones given that we’re talking about law enforcement using death machines.Report
This post? Which you made? You don’t remember?
FYI – its language like this that makes you look like a bad faith troll . . . .Report
Papua New Guinea has a language called Kivila that contains the word “Mokita“.
Roughly translated, it means “the truth we all know but agree not to talk about”.
From my perspective, what you call “bad faith trolling” overlaps quite a bit with my pointing at Mokita.Report
Do you not see the liberals here engaged in sincere discussion of whether this is good, bad, or otherwise?
Is anyone even talking about conservatives or Republicans? Besides you, of course.Report
Is anyone even talking about conservatives or Republicans?
There is discussion of “liberals and leftists”, though. “Liberals and leftists” are being held up as being on the other side of the Manichean divide from where the True Americans hold strict anti-urban views.
Had you not read those comments yet?Report
Indeed I did that – because as a semi-urban leftist I have been called not American by conservatives on this site. So when an explanation of the mythology underpinning that dichotomy was posted I weighed in. Because the accusation keeps being lobbed – albeit less so at the moment.
Interesting that your response is NOT that the accusation is wrong, but that my agreeing with means I’m somehow not talking about some deep truth.Report
For the record, I agree that the accusation has been made and my take on it is that it’s a culture clash.
So there’s some vague mixture of “they’re wrong” and “I can see how they came to the conclusion they reached”. (I do the same for my view on how we urbanized people see those hicks in cow country.)
But, for the record, if some of the rural people said “Man, I don’t want to go to the cities! They have killer robots there!”, I’m pretty sure that I would quickly find myself in a “well, let’s define some terms” conversation instead of a “that is so very wrong, I don’t even know where you got that information!” conversation.Report
Man, you just don’t want to take a stand directly on anything do you? Tell me o Fount of Truth – am I a Real American or not?Report
There are fifteen answers to that!
They run the gamut from “American is a social construct” to “of freaking course you are, don’t be absurd”.
The easiest way to hammer it out is to ask “Do you see yourself as an American?”
And, if you answer yes, then… well, of course you are.
Philip: Do you see yourself as an American?Report
I always have. Always will. But note I aske dyou a direct question and you gave a diverting answer that doesn’t reveal your position. That’s trollish. Very much so. As in not pinning Jell-O to a wall trollish. If you don’t want people to see you that way you might want to think about this exchange.Report
Then, yes, of course you are.
But the problem is that there are multiple definitions of “American” and there are definitions that are incredibly precise (the legal ones, say) and there are definitions that are much more loosey-goosey.
“Spiritually, I see myself as a citizen of the world. Please don’t insult me by calling me an ‘American’. When I backpack in Europe, for example, I sew a Canadian flag to my backpack!”
Since I know that there are multiple definitions of “American” out there, and I know that you know that there are multiple definitions of “American” out there, and I know that you know that I know both of those things, I just want to hammer down that we’re using the same definition when we’re talking about this sort of thing.
Like, way back when, we here were discussing SSM and I pointed out that one of the problems with the debate was that people wandered between two different definitions of “Marriage” in the same discussion and, sometimes, in the same breath.
Was “marriage” something bestowed by the government? Was it “manila folder” stuff that covered property rights and probate and stuff that you need a notary for? Was it instead something more spiritual that involved going grocery shopping and talking about toilet seat upgrades and when we were next going to be eating over at John and Daisy’s. If you wanted to say that two people were “really” married or “not really” married, you could find yourself dancing between those two definitions.
And I find that unpacking exactly what we’re talking about when we’re using terms that, seriously, have a *LOT* of baggage is a useful thing to do.
Lest we find that we’re talking about two very different things entirely.Report
I assume everyone commenting here is as American as a GI Joe action figure with a bottle rocket up its gears, thats been taped to a Chevy on the 4th of July. Right up until they start talking about being in New Zealand or some such place, anyway.Report
Those people are Spiritually American.
(But every now and again, you get a Canadian in here who explains that, seriously, they are a distinct genus and species. Those people should be acknowledged as not-technically American.)Report
” But note I aske dyou a direct question and you gave a diverting answer that doesn’t reveal your position.”
wait
when you said “Tell me o Fount of Truth – am I a Real American or not?”
you actually meant that as a serious question that should be answered seriously and that there was a right answer?Report
I was asking a serious question. Because I have been accused – more then once – by regular commenters on this site of not being a Real American. and since Jaybird was brining up people’s views of who is and isn’t a real American I wanted his views.
As to a “right answer” all I was looking for was his opinion on the matter regarding me. Has he said “No, you aren’t” I would have been satisfied – albeit insulted – because he would have given me a straight answer. As it is he chose initially not to.Report
I think maybe you need a nap.Report
I was asking a serious question.
Taking the question seriously entails hammering out what definition we’re using if we know that there are several different definitions of one of the words central to the debate.Report
Taking the question seriously entails respecting me enough to believe I deserve a straight answer. You could have picked any definition you liked. I asked for your opinion related to a characterization of me. Frankly I don’t care what definition you use, and I never expected any sort of alignment between your definition and mine. Just a clear forth right answer. At least when Koz says he doesn’t believe I’m a Real American he’s straight on about it.Report
You could have picked any definition you liked.
For me, taking the question seriously means that “the definition I like” is “the definition we both know we’re using”.Report
Why do you assume we wouldn’t both know that? And why can’t that definition just be inserted into your answer?
Again taking the Koz Approach, when he tells me I’m not a Real Americana he always tells me why he thinks that. I don’t agree with him, I don’t like his answer, but I respect it because its straightforward and to the point.Report
Why do you assume we wouldn’t both know that? And why can’t that definition just be inserted into your answer?
I did assume we both knew that there were multiple definitions. I just didn’t want to assume that, therefore, we’d agree with the same one after agreeing that there were multiple definitions.
Acknowledging the multiple definitions and asking “which one are you using?” *IS* taking the question seriously.Report
What’s interesting about the question “Who is authentically American” is that it needs to be asked at all.
For most of our lives the Default American was known, assumed.
What the 2012 election and the GOP analysis showed, is that the Default American increasingly is different than the GOP voter.
They know this, which is causing the whole “You Will Not Replace Us” freakout.
Because, well, they kind of are being replaced.Report
I think this sentiment is both a case of ignorant paranoia on the right but also a lot of wishful thinking on the left. The more likely reality is going to be a lot more people of mostly European ancestry with a hispanic or maybe Asian grandparent. The differences between the Reynolds, the Romanos, and the Rodriguezs will blur to meaningless but we will still have our old class and geographic divides, plus (unfortunately) probably still some lingering downstream impact on those whose ancestors came in chains instead of their own free will. But the idea that we’re going to be this super different society of super different people is IMO probably a mirage.Report
I’m thinking about more than race, but the larger set of cultural mores and identities.
The GOP have staked out an identity for themselves and are claiming the banner of Real Americans.
But their turf is closed to anyone who isn’t already inside.
If you are comfortable with gay or trans people, you aren’t welcome to join. If you are OK with pressing 1 for English or saying “Happy Holidays” you aren’t going to feel at home with a group of Republicans.Report
Why do you even bother?Report
Because I still respect everyone here – maddening though so many of them may be.Report
https://youtu.be/eX_k5_egUAoReport
I thought you were linking to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pASE_TgeVg8Report
Mokita also translates as “Behold the superiority of my vision, which sees the Truth which everyone else misses, and further, gaze upon my superior moral stature in bravely embracing this Truth while others cower in fear”.Report
I find that pointing out a truth to someone who has missed a truth results in something akin to gratitude. “Oh! I didn’t know that!”, that sort of thing.
Pointing out a truth to someone who is deliberately ignoring a truth? Man, that gets the defense mechanisms out in force, doesn’t it?Report
Yes, that’s the only possible explanation for why people reject your truth.Report
Of course not.
But I do think that the whole “mistake theory vs. conflict theory” thing covers a *LOT* of it.
I’m not the biggest fan of vulgar utilitarianism but I do think that it’s a useful lens to pull out when intentions vs. outcomes get far enough apart.
Or stated intentions vs. outcomes, anyway.Report
But see now, why everyone sees your position as one of reactionary conservatism? Because of statements like this?Report
I can see that conflict theorists might see my position as reactionary conservatism, yes. I could even understand why they do it.
I just think that they’d be making a mistake.Report
Like when I tried to explain to you how schools work?Report
The “Brooklyn isn’t engaging in White Flight” thread?Report
Maybe? It’s happened a few times.
“I find that pointing out a truth to someone who has missed a truth results in something akin to gratitude. “Oh! I didn’t know that!”, that sort of thing.”
Oh how I wish you ever sincerely responded with “I didn’t know that!”Report
This is the thread that I remember most recently.
It wasn’t about “how schools work” as much as about “how parents work” and we hammered out that the phenomenon was, in fact, happening but it was “capital flight” rather than “white flight”.
(Which doesn’t strike me as quite as significant a difference as it seems to strike you and Patrick but, sure, I’d be willing to say that it wasn’t White Flight but merely Capital Flight.)Report
So… even there… I’m someone who…
A) Is a parent
B) Works professionally with parents
C) Does parent education
You are someone who, to the best of my knowledge, is none of those things. But please do correct me if I’m wrong. I promise I’ll offer an, “I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!”
Just quickly searching through my comments, your first response in the first thread I’m in started with “But…”
Hardly, “I didn’t know that.”
Later, you tried to summarize my position and noted that you were “…willing to explore that, I suppose.”
Hardly, “I didn’t know that.”
So, yea, I’ll take “Full of Crap” for $1000.Report
It strikes me that this is a difference of the preferred words used to describe the same phenomenon of Capital Flight from school systems after a major policy change that was then very loudly reversed by politicians asking the people who left the system to come back.
“It’s not White Flight! It’s Capital Flight!” still doesn’t strike me as a significant difference and the fact that you are a parent, work professionally with parents, and do parent education doesn’t get me to change my mind on the significance of the difference between “Capital Flight” and “White Flight”.Report
So… someone explained something to you you didn’t know and your response was… what exactly?Report
Something like:
I also found a Scientific Study that said:
In the Abstract:
And here’s from the conclusion:
I also had a bunch of quotes from politicians announcing a reverse-course in policies from the ones that preceded the “Capital Flight” but politicians saying “we’re not going to do that thing that’s upsetting so many of you!” isn’t hard evidence of anything.Report
So, again, while trying to understand how parents think, someone who has as much insight into how parents think offered you some context on how parents think and you… didn’t do what you say you do when someone offers you insights into something they understand better than you.
Got it.
It’s almost like you don’t actually do what you claim you do here.
Which is fine… you don’t HAVE to do that.
But you probably shouldn’t SAY you do that.
You also then did the same thing to Pat.
Me senses a pattern here.Report
“I find that pointing out a truth to someone who has missed a truth results in something akin to gratitude. “Oh! I didn’t know that!”, that sort of thing.”
Maybe you only find this when OTHERS offer it to you. Given how many times I’ve seen folks offer you truths that you’ve missed, I think I can count the number of times I remember you offering anything approaching gratitude on one hand.
Enjoy your weekend!Report
The explanations seemed somewhat incomplete and I said that at the time.
Again: There wasn’t a disagreement about the phenomenon that was happening. There wasn’t disagreement over whether the politicians were reversing the policies.
The disagreement was over the term “White Flight”.
And the arguments about how parents were thinking about the *CAPITAL FLIGHT* (not “White Flight”!) involved stuff like “wanting what’s best for the kids” and “taking into account that the kids made new friends over the last couple of years”.
And those explanations struck me (and strike me) as… well, beside the point.
I still don’t understand why there is such a big deal over the difference between “Capital Flight” and “White Flight” and you’re still attacking me instead of explaining how complicated parenting is and how I could never understand instead of explaining the important difference between those two concepts.Report
You saw people’s motivation as “besides the point” because it didn’t comport with your “truth.”Report
I saw peoples’ motivation as “besides the point” because of the significant overlap between “White Flight” and “Capital Flight”.
But I remain 100% willing to call it “Capital Flight” instead of “White Flight”.
(Hey. Wait a second. Maybe the stuff we called “White Flight” back in the day wasn’t really “White Flight”! Maybe it was “Capital Flight” too!)Report
So, when you had an opportunity to learn something and show gratitude, you chose snark instead. Got it.Report
From my perspective, it was people saying “these people weren’t engaging in White Flight (which would be racist!) but they were instead engaging in *CAPITAL* Flight! WHICH DOESN’T SEE COLOR!!!!”
And I saw it as a defense mechanism that was worried about “racism” instead of “the phenomenon that was actually happening”.Report
Yea. That’s how YOU saw it. And when people who understood the folks in question better gave you insights into their thinking, you double and tripled down on your perspective rather than show gratitude and being shown a new truth. Which is what you said ought to happen.
Sorry you can’t live up to your own lofty expectations of everyone else.Report
The insights I got into their thinking was some variant of “it’s not racist, I just care very much for my children more than I care for the children of strangers”.
Which, lemme tell ya, is not particularly new thinking to me.Report
Did your thinking change in light of being given a different perspective?
Or are you still clinging to your “truth”?Report
I now know that it wasn’t “White Flight” but “Capital Flight” and it’s a mistake to call it “White Flight”.
(But I remain curious as to whether stuff we called “White Flight” in the past was really “White Flight” or if it was, instead, “Capital Flight”.)Report
Looking back through the thread more closely, you basically rejected every piece of information that didn’t support your initial position. Information provided to you by a NYC teacher who is also a public school parent in the NYC suburbs AND by someone who is on a public school board of education.
Gratitude was largely absent.
Very excited that I landed the Daily Double in the Full of Crap category!Report
The pieces of information were stuff like “maybe the kids made new friends in the school that costs $20,000 a year and that’s why they didn’t go back to the old school” and “I’m a parent and you’re not”.
The stuff that I posted was stuff like “news articles” and even a scientific paper.
I am 100% down with saying “yeah, we shouldn’t call it White Flight, I guess” but we were arguing over whether the phenomenon being described should have *THIS* name or *THAT* name rather than whether it was actually happening.
Because we weren’t disagreeing over whether it was actually happening.
The disagreement was over what to call it.Report
WaPo had an article on the topic today with some links and parent interviews if anyone is interested. Links are the more substantive, the trend of the testimonials seem to basically be ‘we left for covid then realized we liked the private school better for x reason.’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/interactive/2022/private-school-enrollment-parents-pandemic/?itid=hp-more-top-stories_p003_f0011Report
“Plus, I am hoping for no school shootings.”
I admit to snorting.
Here’s one that had me raising my eyebrow:
I don’t think people should have this option. I think everyone should attend public school with limited exceptions and that doing so creates a more cohesive society. I struggle with this decision because I believe I’m contributing to the failure of public schools and society, but, honestly, public education is failing anyway. My children might be better positioned, but I question the future society we’re preparing them for.
This makes me wonder if there has been a lot of stuff miscategorized as “White Flight” when, really, it was just people having different values.Report
I take everything from WaPo with a handful of salt, particularly on culture war charged issues like this. I don’t doubt some significant curation of those responses was done based on values other than my own.
My suspicion is that the upheavals in 2020 exposed some long latent differences over what public education is for, and probably did some damage to the trust at least of that generation of parents that experienced it. Whether it persists over the long term is the open question.
I won’t be sending my son or any future children to public schools, but I was already on the fence about it anyway. I try not to project that onto anyone else or the public at large.Report
That is a *GREAT* article. Now I want to read a similar one from the 1970’s.
“We just want the best for our children. I don’t want them to get stabbed.”
“You know, I went to public schools. I support public schools! It’s just not like when I was a kid.”
“I prefer the curriculum at the private school. I don’t want the politicians picking the books they can and can’t read.”Report
I remember the articles from the 70s. They haven’t changed in 50 years.
In much of the criticism of public schools, or urban ills like crime and homelessness, I always hear the undercurrent of reactionary conservatism.
The reason is that the most common form of criticism amounts to a charge that public schools and cities are irredeemable and beyond repair.
For example, its not common for people to make an argument of the form “Here are 5 proposals to improve public schools” or “Here is a set of policies that will make cities better places to live”.
Instead the arguments almost always revolve around flight and escape.
And the proposals never embrace a universal solution, like “Here’s how we can provide everyone with a quality private education” or “Here’s how we can make suburbs work for everyone!”
Instead it is all lifeboat ethics of how to frantically pull the drawbridge up and who should be left to fend for themselves.
The dominant mood expressed is despair for a lost Eden, a lamenting of decline and fall.
Schools used to be good, we are told, but are now broken and hopeless. Cities were once marvelous, but are now sewers of disfunction and chaos.
Its like I mentioned before about how reactionaries don’t have policies, they have Arya lists of enemies to be blamed and punished.Report
Well, you should be pleased that we’ve established that this isn’t *WHITE* Flight. It’s merely *CAPITAL* Flight.
In the comments to the post about the San Francisco Supervisors approving lethal options to remote-control drones.Report
So… basically exactly what was being argued back then. Thanks, InMD.
Jay, If you don’t think some parents of means will spend $20K (or more) to keep their kid happy, again, you don’t understand how parents think/act.Report
What to call it was dependent upon motivation. You refused to listen to people who better understood those motivations.
You expect folks to react with gratitude when showed new truths but don’t offer the same to others. You’re a hypocrite. But what else is new?Report
Kazzy, I *DO* think that that is 100% reasonable.
Again: We’re not disagreeing on the phenomenon happening.
We’re just disagreeing about what we’re calling it. That’s it.
You refused to listen to people who better understood those motivations.
Again: I’m fine with calling it “Capital Flight”.
(But I remain curious as to whether stuff we called “White Flight” in the past was really “White Flight” or if it was, instead, “Capital Flight”.)Report
I’m not rehashing the argument.
You claimed being shown new truths should generate gratitude.
You offered none on that thread.
I return to a question: are you this stupid or this big a dick?Report
Kazzy, the discussion of whether this should be called “White Flight” or “Capital Flight” is not giving me any new truths and pointing out how many different reasons that parents might have to go to a better school district is not giving me any information that I didn’t have before the conversation started.
I’m happy with calling it “Capital Flight” rather than “White Flight”.
(But I remain curious as to whether stuff we called “White Flight” in the past was really “White Flight” or if it was, instead, “Capital Flight”.)Report
You keep trying to jam different situations into a single category. Many cities in the extended Rust Belt experienced both. Some experienced one first, then the other. Some cities in the West experienced only one, or even neither. Some cities didn’t experience any flight, they experienced Garreau’s “edge city” effect where the urban core didn’t lose anything it already had but things very like new cities sprang up on the periphery (remember the 45-minute rule).Report
That’s why I thought the scientific paper was of interest!Report
Not to be a pedant, but that’s not what “mokita” (sometimes spelled “mokwita” in the anthrpological/linguistic literature, if you’re interested in researching it) means. As far as I can tell (I don’t know if my drafts still show up, but if they do, you can probably find a draft post I was working on many years ago about Trobriand culture), it is an adjective with a meaning varying by context, but generally connoting realness or accuracy For example, Senft structures much of his work on the Trobriand language around the concept of ‘”biga mokwita,” which is a general category of “true/real speech.” Similarly, Shapiro translates “veyola mokita” as “true friends/family/kinsmen”. It’s simultaneously a much more pedestrian word than the weird American internet consulting class has created out of it, and a much more situated one in a complex and interesting culture (one that I think is sufficiently different from ours to reveal some really fascinating truths about our culture and ourselves when they line up). All of that makes its use in internet discourse (always by conservatives, interestingly enough) kinda ridiculous, especially since it’s generally used to paint a gloss over prejudice, stereotypes, and outright bigotry.Report
Hey, I included the source of where I got the word. (That essay is pretty much the only one I ever see in relation to the word “mokita”, for the record. Google isn’t much help either. The front page of a search for it shows a bunch of stuff for a musician called “Mokita”, the essay I linked to, and another essay that says that the word is best translated as “the elephant in the room”.)
I didn’t know (but probably could have guessed) that it wasn’t as useful for this or that point as it was described to me. Bummer. Thanks for pointing that out.
That said, the concept of the word as used in the essay does appear to be a real thing (even as the word that the essay says refers to this phenomenon does not actually refer to the phenomenon in the original language).
It is the phenomenon that I wished to point to rather than the word.
But I suppose that I’ll have to stop using the word henceforth. Back to “the elephant in the room”, I guess.Report
I was mostly saying all that to say the last part, to be clear, but yeah, that essay doesn’t seem to cite any primary sources, and I have never been able to find an actual researcher who uses that definition. I’m not quite sure where it came from, but I see it used this way in two places: consulting class Linked In-style gobbeltygook, and conservatives in online arguments, and it seems to have originated in the former (I only glanced at your link, but it looks like it fits that category too).
If you’re interested in the culture/language, Senft has a book on the language, and a bunch of papers on the culture, including the one that often gets cited in reference to that particular word, which I highly recommend because it’s hilarious and insightful. You can get it for free here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271409141_Ain't_Misbehavin'_Trobriand_Pragmatics_and_the_Field_Researcher's_Opportunity_to_Put_His_Or_Her_Foot_in_ItReport
All of that makes its use in internet discourse (always by conservatives, interestingly enough) kinda ridiculous, especially since it’s generally used to paint a gloss over prejudice, stereotypes, and outright bigotry.
Well, in this particular case here, the gloss seems to be painted over how one of the “progressive” cities seems to have approved a particularly freakin’ crazy policy.
Like, remote drones have been approved to have lethal force options.
Police went on to clarify that they weren’t talking about guns. No guns! Explosives only!
As if that that were a fact that would make people feel better about the policy. “Oh, whew! It’s for explosives and not guns!”
And here we are.
There are a lot of things that are easier to talk about than elephants in the room, aren’t there?Report
I keep trying to bring the truth of the inherent racism embedded in American policing, but instead of the conservatives saying, “Thank you, Chip, for bringing this truth” they just all get defensive.
If I’m not mistaken, Critical Race Theory has extensive sections on “mokita” as it pertains to the elephant in the room that Americans don’t want to talk about.
Maybe you and Chris can collaborate on a post to that effect.Report
Chip, let me point out that the original post is not about the San Francisco Police.
It is about the San Francisco Supervisors.Report
A fascinating thing about online internet discourse is that if we talk about how, say, progressive cities have some of the worst offending police departments (say, Chicago or hell, here in Austin), the, er, “mokita” is that this is because progressive city politicians don’t reign in bad police departments, but if we talk about progressive cities trying to reign in bad police departments, we immediately hear cries of “defunding the police!” and such from the same people uttering the, er, “mokita”.
I don’t see a fruitful dialogue on cops in any sort of city being possible with conservatives, even those with libertarian leanings, and I can’t imagine why any of the non-conservatives here would try. That is my, er, “mokita.”
Interestingly, in 2014, and again in 2020, there was much talk, on the internets and off, and largely excluding conservative because on this topic they are worthless, of liberal cities being as bad or worse than more conservative suburbs (e.g.), when it comes to their police forces, and how part of this is a result of the cowardice of local politicians, while part of it is cops’ basically separating themselves, in various ways, from any democratic process while also wielding outsized political influence on local democratic processes.
Adding to all of this, here in Austin, we have a bigger issue: the incredibly pro-cop legislature, which has made even modest reforms incredibly difficult for Texas cities, and I’m sure other progressive cities in more conservative states have this issue as well.Report
On top of that, it’s hard to do, and much of what needs to be done is beyond the power of local government.Report
if we talk about progressive cities trying to reign in bad police departments, we immediately hear cries of “defunding the police!” and such from the same people uttering the, er, “mokita”.
I think that the people who were crying “DEFUND THE POLICE!” share responsibility for the people who were strongest arguing against defunding them.
Personally, I think that that particular slogan came right out of COINTELPRO.
Since then, however, I’ve heard that only a handful of people ever argued it and it is thus a weakmanning of arguments found in essays such as Oscar’s “Altering the Police Paradigm“. Personally, I’m on board with stuff like “Abolish QI” and breaking up Police Unions.
I always thought it was weird to have people show up defending Police Unions in arguments about the importance of police reform…
Anyway.
I’m not particularly surprised that Austin has a pro-cop legislature.
I’m mostly surprised that the San Francisco Supervisors approved an SFPD plan to give remote controlled drones a deadly force option.
If there were a city that I would guess that could resist that siren’s call, I’d have put San Francisco on the list.
Not because of the Police, mind. I’m sure that they’d explain that they require rocket launchers if they thought that they could get away with it.
But because of the whole approval from the supervisors part of it.Report
I disliked the word “defund” because it’s wishy washy. Austin tried to “defund” the police by taking 911, victims services, mental health responders, and the crime lab out of the police department, along with eliminating some positions that the actual street policing folks had not filled for many years. This would have had little or no effect on the way police function, except perhaps in the systems they use to submit evidence and receive crime lab results. But it was “defund the police,” and has been used by the critics to blame council for every single bad thing that happens in Austin, even though in addition to not actually affecting policing even in theory, none of the changes ever went into effect, and within a few months, city council had increased the police budget by about 15%.
Again, it is manifestly impossible to have meaningful conversations on this topic with conservatives. Better to leave them out of the dialogue altogether.
Also I wish we had just called that stuff what it is: reform, and not even reforms that affect accountability or tactics. And I wish we had a real mainstream dialogue about the better approach: abolition.Report
I think that part of the problem with abolition is stuff like the CHAZ/CHOP. It took 3 days for a group of enthusiastic citizens to take responsibility for making sure that vandals not spray paint various buildings and, get this, they very much did not like that their actions were being recorded by freedom-loving co-inhabitants.
And that’s without getting into the whole issue of whether the opinion of the importance of police abolition is held by more than a sub-minority of people.
“Let’s take this tool away from the cops” seems to promise the most bang for the littlest buck in the short term. I’m a fan of getting rid of QI, making it easier to fire toxic cops, and getting rid of the whole “I detected the distinct odor of marijuana” boilerplate.Report
This is about right, that the only fruitful discussions are intra-liberal.
FWIW, I namechecked Eunises Hernandez because she actually used the word “defund” and won her election- as it turned out, it isn’t as toxic as people thought.
And the battle for Los Angeles mayor came down to a referendum on police and urban problems, with Caruso taking the “Moar Cops!” line, and he was defeated.
So within the liberal world there is positive traction happening. But Mamdani’s statement:
“Democrats could rein in our most violent cops without even looking at a Republican”
Is flat out false.
Although Gascon, Hernandez, and Bass won their elections, the Republicans are always within striking distance, in every single “blue” city in America.
So they always have to bear some of the blame, even for the “killer robots in San Fran” stuff.Report
This is about right, that the only fruitful discussions are intra-liberal.
What percentage of intra-liberal discussions would result in approval of police requests for remote drones having ‘deadly-force options’?Report
“All of that makes its use in internet discourse (always by conservatives, interestingly enough) kinda ridiculous, especially since it’s generally used to paint a gloss over prejudice, stereotypes, and outright bigotry.”
(you forgot to add that it’s an example of cultural appropriation)Report
It was Kenosha, for the record.Report
Weird how out of six cities, #4 and #5 (Houston and Phoenix) were excluded and #18 and #26 (Seattle and Portland) were included. Almost as if cherry picking were going on in that tweet.
Almost.Report
I can’t speak to what’s in Mr. Mamdani’s heart but I suspect that his point is something to the effect of “this isn’t just happening in cities run by Team Evil, it’s happening in cities run by Team Good! WHAT THE HELL!!!!”
Which is a point that isn’t really addressed by pointing out Houston and Phoenix.
I mean… of course Houston and Phoenix are like that. We should expect Houston and Phoenix to be like that. Because of course Houston and Phoenix are like that.
The cherries he’s picking are the most progressive cities in the country.
And looking at the differences between the cherries he’s picked and the lemons elsewhere and not being able to tell the difference.Report
The logical conclusion to Mr. Mamdani’s point is that we must support progressive district attorneys like George Gascon, and police reform advocates like newly elected City Councilwoman Eunises Hernandez and her platform to make the police more accountable and efficient.Report
San Francisco went from supporting a progressive district attorney like Chesa Boudin to having the city supervisors approve a plan to give robots (okay, drones) a deadly force option a couple of years later.Report
So we must elect more people like Chesa Boudin and defund the police killer robot program, is what I’m hearing.
I’m not convinced, but open to the idea.Report
I’m not sure how we’ll get to there from here.
I can’t help but notice that we did the whole “we need to elect the right people” thing (kinda) and yet still ended up with killer drones in cities.Report
Those who would trade progressive prosecutors for killer drones deserve neither progressive prosecutors nor killer drones.Report
Back in 2016, after the police used a modified bomb disposal robot to take an explosive device into an area with a holed up shooter and explode, I thought that it would be two years before more police departments adopted this sort of thing. 2018, I said, was when we’d see it again.
I was wrong about that.
It was 2022.
If you had asked me “which city would be next to adopt it?”, San Francisco would not have been my first guess. It wouldn’t have made my first 10 guesses.Report
It would be ironic, wouldn’t it, if it was the robocops who broke the police unions?Report
It would be, but I think that that irony would pale next to the whole “San Francisco supervisors approve SFPD plan to give robots ‘deadly-force option’” issue.Report
Anglo-Protestant America saw the true America as being located in farmsteads and small towns since at least Jefferson. The cities were perceived as being for people who weren’t really America, whether they were Catholic and Jewish immigrants, non-whites, or other groups. After World War II, suburbia became the place where True America lived since farmsteads and small towns entered into a decline. Many Americans have held strict anti-urban views for centuries.Report
Which certainly explains why Koz doesn’t see us liberals and leftists as Real Americans.Report
Yeah, those conservatives and their-anti-city views that result in deadly force robots wielded against liberals and leftists!
It’s enough to make you daydream about what would be possible in a city where those toxic reactionary viewpoints weren’t poisoning everything.Report
IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION!!!!!!!
Report
(pedantic mode activate)
Guns use a controlled explosion and bullets have explosives.Report
Thinking:
What are the three most likely non-lethal tools available?
Taser, tear gas, maybe a siren.
The first one is appropriate for a situation where there might be other parties in the room. The second two are not.
So, of course, they went with FREAKING EXPLOSIVES.
(Granted, it was a controlled localized kinetic expansion device that was used in the pacification of Micah Xavier Johnson back in 2016.)Report
SFPD Chief explains:
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