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posted by
LaminatorX
on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:00PM
from the studies-show-poverty-causes-cancer dept.
from the studies-show-poverty-causes-cancer dept.
Angry Jesus writes:
"The Chicago Police Department is mis-applying epidemiological science (the study of entire populations) to target individuals in a real-life version of Minority Report. They have decided that it is a good idea to put people on a secret list based on a Big Data analysis of their social networks. But don't worry, it isn't racist or abusive because, Science!"
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Chicago Pre-Crime - Racism Cloaked in Science
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Cum tacent, clamant. When they are silent, they shout. -Cicero
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:36PM
Yes, however you *ARE* a rapist.
We are all filthy criminals, we are all guilty of crimes, we are all this close ->- to be being put in jail at any moment.
The fallacy of Big Data is that it provides you security. On the contrary, the police DO exist solely for the 1%. Nothing about them is a deterrent to committing violent or immoral acts. If they were about that, then you would see a lot more trash being picked up and lot less fines levied to allow city officials huge pensions, city vehicles and equipment, city paid for gas, and lavish lunches.
The police exist to instill fear, not to erase it through the raising of any level of security.
It's fear of losing what you have that allows you to give so much power to the police to oppress you so completely.
Even without crime, if you are not a pharma drugged up tax paying alcohol swilling voting tv watching 9-5-worker making the economy turn, you will be arrested for *something*. It really doesn't matter what.
That's the real purpose of Big Data. Identifying the unpopular element in society and 'handling' them.
Who writes the rules for Big Data again?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mcgrew on Thursday February 27 2014, @12:37AM
We are all filthy criminals, we are all guilty of crimes
There are crimes and there are "crimes". There are "crimes" like walking down the street with an open container that will cost you five hundred bucks, there are misdemeanors, and there are felonies. Are you a felon? I'm not, nor have I committed any misdemeanors.
That "three crimes a day" is bullshit.
On the contrary, the police DO exist solely for the 1%.
I'm median income. My house was broken into a couple of years ago. Guess what? The cops caught the burglar and he went to jail and insurance paid for the monetary damage. Guess what happens when a 1%er's house is burglarized? Same thing.
The difference between him and me is that if he does, in fact, commit a crime, he can buy his way out of it. DUI? Pocket change for him, it would bankrupt me.
Even without crime, if you are not a pharma drugged up tax paying alcohol swilling voting tv watching 9-5-worker making the economy turn, you will be arrested for *something*. It really doesn't matter what.
Again, BULLSHIT. And what's this about having to be drugged up on prescriptions to stay out of jail? You and that guy who modded you up might see about some antipsychotics.
Do you know anyone who isn't gainfully employed? Apparently not, or all the ones you know are dope dealers. I drink in a ghetto bar and half the patrons have no jobs. Hell, I won't have one after tomorrow, I'm retiring. But the only things those poor folks at that bar ever get busted for is DUI (or driving on a suspended license) and drug paraphenalia. As to the DUIs and driving on a suspended license, damned right those people need to be arrested.
Tell me, how many people do you know personally who have been to prison? I know one or two. One guy spent ten years for murdering a man because he was black and another for armed robbery.
The cops do act like thugs sometimes and I'm no police apologist, but to say everyone but the 1% is a criminal is really ignorant.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Thursday February 27 2014, @12:42AM
>On the contrary, the police DO exist solely for the 1%.
I'm median income. My house was broken into a couple of years ago. Guess what? The cops caught the burglar and he went to jail and insurance paid for the monetary damage. Guess what happens when a 1%er's house is burglarized? Same thing.
While I don't believe the premise that they exist solely for the %1, I think your counter-example is terrible. Who owns the insurance company? Mostly 1%'ers.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday February 27 2014, @01:17AM
I realize that "solely" smacks of hyperbole, and perhaps, histrionics.
However, the last few decades have shown the emergence of very troubling laws and regulations that are, in fact, solely designed to criminalize behavior for no other reason than that they impact revenue for very specific people and industries.
That's why I say police are for the 1% now. Their actions have been directed by monied interests to the extent now that both laws & regulations and the determination if you are a criminal, rests with large monied interests.
I don't know how else to say it. It is the 1%. It is the primary shareholders of various industries and business sectors influencing whether or not we can be picked up by the police at all.
I know what Big Data *IS*. There is somebody directing it, and I'm willing to bet the rest of the donuts I will get in this life, that they don't have the interests of the 99% at heart. Nope. Not at all.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday February 27 2014, @02:42PM
While I don't believe the premise that they exist solely for the %1, I think your counter-example is terrible. Who owns the insurance company? Mostly 1%'ers.
Good point, here's another example. When I was a long haired college student living on campus, one night in town as I was getting into my car I was strongarmed by a dozen men, who stole the big speakers I'd built. No insurance; only liability on the car and no homeowner's in my apartment. Yet they showed me some pictures, I identified one of the robbers, all were caught and I got my speakers back.
How did that help the 1%? Other than by getting thieves off the street, which helps us all?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Thursday February 27 2014, @03:33PM
How did that help the 1%? Other than by getting thieves off the street, which helps us all?
If the police were to do an evaluation of each and every situation to decide if acting helped out anybody who wasn't rich then refused to act they would have no public support and many of the rank and file would quit. The issue edIII is talking about is policy. He's saying that policies are set so as to primarily benefit the rich, its management making these decisions not the people on the ground. Lots of cops on the beat want to do the right thing, and will do the right thing given the chance, the question is how to set up the situation such that most of the time the right thing is good for the rich.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday February 27 2014, @01:08AM
Everyone is a criminal when you change what the definition of a criminal *is*. Your distinction between misdemeanors and felonies is quite irrelevant as well.
The point, and millions of other people have made it, is that there are so many laws and regulations on the books that literally everyone is guilty of something. Whether or not you might actually end in prison is not relevant. Only that you have been arrested, detained, harassed, lost income due to lost opportunity or missed wages, been levied with pointless fines, and possibly had your reputation ruined.
The police, or other enforcement vehicles, have been abused to target people specifically in the past. It could be as high profile as Hoover's vendetta against MLK, or as banal as a local cop just not liking the way you look in your car.
There is a very long and storied history of police abusing and oppressing people simply because they didn't fit in with society. Just ask any hippie or flower child. If a cop looks into you enough, they will find/create cause to detain you. That takes something from you, in many ways.
So in the end, it has nothing to do with laws or enforcement at all. The police are just a tool, and they do work for the sole interests of the 1%, it's just that those interests are marketed as being in our best interests and for our benefit.
I don't believe that for one minute. Every conversation I've ever had eventually comes down to the true citizen first class el supremo: The Shareholder.
Big Data is never in our bests interests and allows those with power and influence over it (who creates/maintains the rules engine again-who writes the queries) to identify the unwanted elements in a society that is largely driven by the 1%. They advertise to you. They tell you what to wear. They inform you of what society is, which is a vehicle in service to them.
No-fly lists are just the tip of the iceberg. I sincerely doubt that the majority of anyone identified is doing anything other than being an activist, or a disillusioned cynic that has no interest in participating in a fake, and deeply broken process, by which the 1% flourish. Why not? They *CREATED* the process.
Who creates all the tools for police? Who directs them? Who creates the laws? It may be disturbing to you, but I'm not the one saying you are a criminal. The finest legal minds in the country are saying it. Not me.
As for my other point you had issue with, the pharma drugs, to clarify that I mean:
If you are not doing your best to be a productive little member of society, which directly means to *consume*, and thereby provide money to flow back up to the 1%, you are treated like a faulty asset, or worse, an asset that is upsetting the rest. What do you do with a malfunctioning asset? Yeah....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Thursday February 27 2014, @02:37PM
There is a very long and storied history of police abusing and oppressing people simply because they didn't fit in with society. Just ask any hippie or flower child.
Again, your description doesn't fit my experience at all. In the late 1970s I was a college student with a beard and hair down to my waist. Being a college student I was poor as a churchmouse and rolled my own cigarettes. I'd put tobacco in a baggie with papers and my then-wife and I would go to McDonald's for coffee (back then you could smoke anywhere, you could smoke in a college class or an airplane).
One morning we're smoking our roll your owns and drinking coffee and there's this guy spying on us, trying to look like he's not. A cop car pulled into the lot as we were leaving, and followed us. Halfway home he pulled us over. I asked what the problem was and he asked what I was smoking. "Carter-Hall", I said, which was the brand of tobacco and probably confused the poor cop because Carter was President. He asked me to step out of the car and I did.
"Carter hall?"
"Tobacco," I said, and pulled out the baggie. He opened it, smelled it, made an annoyed fact towards McDonalds, apologized for pulling me over and turned around and went back to McDonalds, where I assume someone got an ass chewing.
I was a long haired hippy. Not once did a cop hassle me. All you have to do is be polite and they won't bother you. If you act surly, of course you're going to be hassled.
Big Data is never in our bests interests
I'll certainly agree with that.
They advertise to you. They tell you what to wear. They inform you of what society is, which is a vehicle in service to them.
Only if you kowtow. Their ads are ineffective on me, if you want to sell me something you're going to have to tell me why. When I buy a car I don't want excitement (notice that the way they drive in commercials would void the warrantee?), I want comfortable transportation. You're not going to sell me a steak by advertising the sizzle. You're only a victim of advertising if your mind is weak.
I'm not the one saying you are a criminal. The finest legal minds in the country are saying it.
And who would that be? I've seen ONE unknown lawyer write ONE book and a few articles. I read the articles and wasn't impressed. Who are these "finest legal minds"? Lawrence Lessig? The guys on the Supreme Court? New York County Lawyer? Name names.
If you are not doing your best to be a productive little member of society, which directly means to *consume*, and thereby provide money to flow back up to the 1%, you are treated like a faulty asset, or worse, an asset that is upsetting the rest.
I've never been a "good little consumer". My TV is 10 years old, my car is 12. My computers are built from used parts. If I go to McDonalds, I choose from the dollar menu. I'm using the cheapest phone service I can find ($40/month unlimited everything), no cable or satellite, and DSL for internet. I wear my clothes until they're rags. And as of tomorrow I will be producing nothing, I retire today.
Yet they leave me alone, despite my writing critically about them.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2014, @06:56PM
"Tobacco," I said, and pulled out the baggie. He opened it, smelled it, made an annoyed fact towards McDonalds, apologized for pulling me over and turned around and went back to McDonalds, where I assume someone got an ass chewing.
I was a long haired hippy. Not once did a cop hassle me.
You JUST told a story about being hassled by a cop and in the very next sentence you claim to have never been hassled by a cop.
You didn't do anything wrong but you were pulled over and forced to prove your innocence. By your own description, rolling a smoke in a smoking area, wasn't even suspicious and if you'd been clean-cut and wearing a suit it would have never happened to you. Intimidation isn't just about getting beat on and falsely imprisoned, it's about being reminded that "we're watching you." Just like what happened to you and just like the kid in the story,
It's weird that you've internalized what happened to you as being OK. Obviously it made an impact on you since you remember it 40 years later. Maybe your rationalization is a reaction to being reminded of your helplessness in the face of power, easier to live with if you believe it was normal and justified than to accept it for what it was.
(Score: 2) by dmc on Thursday February 27 2014, @01:58AM
methinks your argument would be more persuasive if you went with s/rapist/criminal/.
You've gone to extremes. There is a significant element of insight into the comment were it not taken to the black/white extreme, but when you go that far, you've jumped the shark. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of rapists and potential rapists that rightfully fear ending up in jail, and it in fact deters plenty (but not nearly enough) rape.
Again, these are legitimate concerns, but when you go to extremes, it becomes counterproductive to the sentiments you are superficially siding with.
(Score: 1) by Angry Jesus on Thursday February 27 2014, @02:02AM
methinks your argument would be more persuasive if you went with s/rapist/criminal/.
This is a discussion about racism, he meant rappist, you know, the white word for rapper.
You'd think someone named DMC would recognize that!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday February 27 2014, @02:44AM
I see how you can see it as an extreme, but I don't see it as an extreme. Not anymore. I'm sure that is because I'm impossibly jaded and cynical at this point. I'm not sure how you couldn't be with the last 15 years.
It was not said to be histrionics at all. I honestly and sincerely believe that the purpose of police at this point is simply to keep society functioning and remove disruptive elements, not about any sense of protection, justice, the triumph of good over evil, rescuing cats from trees, etc.
The original idea of police was to create an organized and consistent approach to maintaining order in society, and to assist with the search for justice. The police *enforced* the directives of the justice system (the judges), who in turn, were guided and directed by the law creators, who were in turn ostensibly guided by the bests interests and welfare of the populace as a whole.
Where is the idea of rehabilitation anymore? Prison has become an industry and I don't think the idea of true justice and rehabilitation has been a goal of the police, the justice system, or the prison system for many many decades. To say that there is a significant monetary interest in keeping prisoners in prison and not rehabilitated is an understatement. People are getting extremely rich from enjoying the near minimum wage cash flow per prisoner (sometimes more) while expending a mere fraction of that for incarceration. How did we ever think it was a good idea to introduce profit into the prison system?
I could go on, but there is so much evidence that shows every element in the aforementioned chain is irreparably broken and corrupted by monied interests.
While the term 1% may smack of tin foil and histrionics, it is neither to notice how deep their influence now runs.
When you have Big Data influencing who the cops will focus on, and a cop is always under the assumption you did something if they are focusing on you, my experience and intelligence leads me to strongly conclude that a miscarriage of justice will occur that is inconsistent with our American ideals.
I do know who is responsible for Big Data, it is monied interests, and has nothing to do with justice, security, or laws.
Big Data is about identifying targets and coming up with the best course of action to achieve a goal. We could hope that would only be how to target advertisements to you and what you are capable of consuming, but we all really know it will be used to identify "subversives", "undesirables", and "thought-criminals".
I absolutely know that my big cynical jaded butt will be labeled as a Class-1 Thought Criminal by those that would be financially affected by my ideas. Like justice for home owners, consumer protections, government transparency, ... you know... the pinko Communist Socialist garbage that is an anathema to quasi-Capitalists and mythical free-market supporters everywhere.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.