I think their job is to show up when informed that a crime is being committed.
If more crimes are being committed than law enforcement can possibly handle, then there’s a deeper problem. Which in fact is exactly the point. But it’s still a matter of law enforcement not doing the job we expect them to do, even if it’s not their fault because they’re overwhelmed.
The blame then has to shift to policymakers, whether it’s misguided social policy, or insufficient funding of law enforcement.
San Francisco currently spends almost $800 million a year on law enforcement.
AFTER a crime has been committed, it’s rare they get there during. And even more rare to solve it after the fact.
Intelligence. Like, in the military sense. It can’t stop all crime, obviously, but a good network of informants, electronic surveillance and community outreach can do a lot to lower rates. Take those mass shoplifting events, for example. Hundreds of people were involved - are you telling me that none of them were potential snitches? There should have been cops there waiting for them.
It’s weird that what the police learned from 23 years of the War On Terror was “Carry more guns and armor” and “shoot first”, rather than “maintain a robust intelligence network.”
It’s a war on crime taken a little too literally.
American police officers have been inculcated into believing the general public are their enemies. Who needs to tell the good guys from the bad guys when we’re all the enemy?
Surely there’s some value in learning what the enemy’s planning though, isn’t there?
Yet somehow America’s prisons are full.
It seems fairly self-evident that frequent police patrols and quick response would go a long way toward reducing brazen organized shoplifting, whereas no police response at all because they’re too busy with other stuff is going to have the opposite effect.
You’re not wrong. But that sounds like difficult, tedious police work that doesn’t bear the kind of fruit that gets sexy, sexy funding.
Copied here so as not to derail the original CS thread.
By some frivolous standard you’ve introduced, most of us aren’t, either. Because as I said in another thread, I have no tolerance for ignorant assholes. They’re a detriment to civilized society. I don’t think Maher should be condemned for feeling the same way.
And yet you stan Bill Maher.
That a large percentage of the standups who are enormously popular and even adored by many have been shown over and over for the last 40 years to be misogynistic, homophobic, racist, narcissistic assholes is creating a frivolous standard. Sure. OK.
I have a giant collection of books about humor. With rare - and valuable - exceptions the writers are stuck with reporting what awful human beings most humorists, comics, and comedians are.
Yet we embrace them joyfully because we need so badly the product that they offer - laughter. How weird that that duality isn’t commented on more often. The deep psychological need of certain people to make others laugh no matter what miseries occur in their personal lives is a constant wonder to me.
Most of them don’t like to talk about it, although some more recent books are beginning to be frank about the issues. Over in the other thread I applauded Maher for being frank in his first book, the novel True Story. His characters, young asshole men trying to make it in standup, are repellent but at the same time full of the funny that draws us to clubs, shows, and programs. Without tolerance for ignorant assholes, the field of comedy couldn’t exist. Yet not only does it exist, we exalt it and its best practitioners. And lots of the mediocre ones. That says a lot more about us than them.
I can’t disagree with any of that. I can only re-iterate what I said – that while some standups bug me for just the reasons you’ve stated, Maher does not, though I don’t consider him a standup and frankly no longer enjoy the cynicism of his standup shows. But I think he’s great as the host of a broadminded and freewheeling talk show. Sure he has a few kooks on, but if you pay attention instead of focusing on the edge cases, most of his guests are distinguished writers or politicians or pundits and have insightful things to say.
One example I can give you of my agreement with the general gist of your comments is that Jerry Seinfeld really bugs me, even though I can appreciate his talent and still watch reruns of the series. I think it’s a combination of his smirky smugness, his whiny intonations, his don’t-give-a-shit attitude about his performance on the show, and the way he financially screwed his coworkers on the series. Maher at least works hard to be an informative host and, most importantly, doesn’t pretend to be something he isn’t. He’s frank about his beliefs, he explains them well, and if you don’t agree with him, well then Maher will cheerfully invite you to fuck right off. I admire intelligent honesty. And, just to avoid any further ridiculous backlash, no, I don’t agree with Maher about his lunatic views on vaccines and medical science in general.
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All that said, I was looking forward to yesterday’s show, and Maher didn’t disappoint. Maher is of course vehemently anti-Trump, but he’s also taken the position that while Biden is fully capable of governing for a second term, he probably isn’t capable of being elected to it. So it was no surprise that practically all of Maher’s monologue last night was devoted to the subject of the debate, and the theme in a nutshell was that “Biden shit the bed”.
Also on that entertaining show was a one-on-one interview with Ray Kurzweil – I’ve read his books but have never seen the man interviewed. And then a panel discussion in which former Democratic Congresswoman and Fox News sellout and current traitorous Trumpist Tulsi Gabbard was eviscerated by Maher:
We can always count on Maher to have the absolute worst take, can’t we? Now, speaking of people who are too old and need to step aside…
You know what the difference is between Maher and publications like the New York Times and the Economist? Maher called for Biden to decline a second term more than a year ago, while there was still a chance of that being viable. The “big media” just suddenly decided to do it now, when it’s too late.
It was a bad take then and it’s a bad take now. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t suggested himself as Biden’s replacement.
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I’ve edited the thread title, as this the thread has moved well behind discussing a specific episode of the show.
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Ironically, I thought Kurzweil came across as barely more intelligible than Biden during the debate. I was very excited to see him on the show, and disappointed with the result. It seemed like he and Bill didn’t know what to make of each other.
Funny enough, I have 2 new copies of one of Kurzweil’s new books, they showed up out of the blue on two separate days. One a week and a half ago and one yesterday. Both from Amazon, both with gift tags on them. No clue who sent them or why.
I’ve read his books in the past and they’re interesting. I’ll probably read this one too and send the extra copy to my dad, who is a big fan (bigger than me anyway).
Just so weird though. I have never bought a book of his before (I just read loaner copies) and I have no idea how anyone could know I even know who he is, so I guess it’s just random chance that I ended up getting them.
The two Ray Kurzweil books that I’ve read are The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Age of Spiritual Machines. I haven’t been back to them in years, but my impression at the time was that his predictions on the evolution of computing technology and the evolution of AI were remarkably accurate.
I tend to agree with @P91noX that the interview with Maher was kinda underwhelming. Maybe Kurzweil is just getting old, but Google seems happy to have him on board as a senior researcher and prognosticator. He was personally hired by Larry Page. And he’s still writing and still prognosticating. His latest book, The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI was just released.