
A Comprehensive Reboot of Law Enforcement - mariusor
https://medium.com/@yudkowsky/a-comprehensive-reboot-of-law-enforcement-b76bfab850a3
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mncharity
Nice post. The contrast with many others, reminded me of a recently-posted Jim
Keller interview:

> His [Elon Musk] great insight is people are how constrained. I have this
> thing I know how it works, and then little tweaks to that, will generate
> something. As opposed to what do I actually want, and then figure out how to
> build it. It's a very different mindset, and almost nobody has it obviously.

[1] Short section starting at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=3854](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=3854)
. Also liked the longer
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=4851](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=4851)
, emphasizing self deception and reading.

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godelski
This is a great post and I think discusses many interesting things. I think
there is this dichotomy in how people think what policing is about. One camp
thinks policing should be to stop "bad guys" while the other thinks it is to
protect and serve, emphasis on the serve. Disclosure, I fall into the latter
camp.

I do think we do need to seriously talk about the incentives around policing,
justice, and prison systems. They do not have seemed to change much in the
last 50 years, but I think many would argue that we've learned a lot,
especially about the root causes to what causes people to turn to crime and
why they turn away.

I think we also need to revisit Blackstone's ratio[0]. This was an idea from
many of the founding fathers. Anyone that is familiar with engineering and
failure principles is essentially aware of the topic here. So we need to
revisit what failure mode we want the justice system to have. When justice
fails should a guilty person go free or should an innocent person be punished?
I don't think this is an easy question to answer (disclosure: I believe we
should let the guilty person go, because I highly value freedom). This does
not mean that we should just let knowingly guilty people go, but means that we
know no system is perfect and if we don't design a system with that in mind we
are doing a disservice and ignoring an integral part. We always should be
trying to improve, but we should recognize that we are not perfect and cannot
create a perfect system. We don't design buildings to collapse, but we do
design how a building should collapse if for some reason it does (think
skyscrapers falling in on themselves so they don't take out other surrounding
buildings). Imagine building a bridge and not thinking about possible failure
modes. Problem is, a bridge fails catastrophically (unplanned) and a dozen or
a hundred people die. A justice system fails thousands are killed, stricken of
their rights, or harmed.

WE MUST DISCUSS THIS. While the article discusses topics that essentially say
they agree with Blackstone's ratio, I do believe that we need to talk about
what we are doing. If we don't then there's no arguing with the other side
because our premise is different.

So HN, how do you think failure in justice should work? Do you think should
fail so that innocent people go to jail or that guilty people go free? I do
believe there are good arguments on both sides, but I also think it depends on
what you think policing should be for. So I'll ask that question too.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio)

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senectus1
#RebootThePolice is def a better name for the #DefundThePolice movement.

It essentially means the same thing, but doesn't sound like you want a police
free lefty utopia.

~~~
Shish2k
> but doesn't sound like you want a police free lefty utopia

In some ways that’s a feature more than a bug - by demanding an insanely
extreme solution, you shift the overton window such that a realistic solution
looks acceptable by comparison.

(How did we even end up in a place where “police should not be tear-gassing
peaceful protests” is a controversial opinion, and we need to reboot people’s
expectations before suggesting it??)

~~~
breischl
I wonder if that does shift the window, though? At some point I think you
appear to be far enough out of the realm of reality that the suggestion
appears unserious and is completely disregarded.

eg, if we were talking about climate change one could say that we should just
sterilize every human. Certainly that would reduce CO2 emissions. But I don't
think it would move the discussion in any meaningful way.

Defund the Police isn't that extreme, but the soundbite version of it may be
far enough out there that many people ignore it in a similar way. Or maybe
not, I'm just speculating.

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joyceschan
haha, I was reading Comprehensive Robo Law Enforcement.

