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> I've never seen anyone make the argument that looting is helping the cause. What I have seen is arguments that acknowledge the 'badness' of the looting, and point out that the same arguments are not being applied to the police.

There definitely are people making such arguments. The assertion is that property is the root cause of injustice so presumably destroying it is just. See for example https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1267402206220869632

What puzzles me is that some people supporting this argument are highly paid software engineers. How do they reconcile this with the fact that it is precisely the concept of private property (and yes, violent enforcement of it) that allows them to sit in front of the computer all day building some cool stuff and not worry that some violent thug will break into their house and take away their laptop?

You can be the beneficiary of a system and still understand that there are specific positive externalities of that system's partial failure.

For example, a corrupt politician can understand why an anti-bribery campaign is beneficial for his country.

I think it's fair to say that destruction of private property turns the situation into an economic problem, which in turn is a political pressure point. Rich people have more influence over police departments and attorneys general than do poor people. But for such pressure to do any useful work, the message must be, "give us justice and the looting will end."

(That justice may come in the form of charges against specific police officers, or perhaps as a campaign of institutional reforms within the police apparatus.)

When you loot a store in your area, you aren't hurting "rich people", because they aren't a unified blob. You're just hurting a few people, like this guy and his wife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uqOM94RJVc Eventually they will bounce back and restart somewhere else, where they are more welcome. But your area will have fewer businesses and jobs for a long time, because you've showed everyone the return on investment.

Edit: it seems exactly this happened after the Ferguson riots https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ferguson-anniversary-fina...

Baltimore has NOT recovered from it's 2015 riots.

Why should the looters care? How do the looters benefit from having stores in their area that they are too poor to buy from? The taxes from these stores are less and less helping them with social programs etc and go more towards funding police departments that brutalize them.

> The taxes from these stores are less and less helping them with social programs etc and go more towards funding police departments that brutalize them.

That sounds like an assumption whose truth is heavily dependent on being in a specific locality.

> How do the looters benefit from having stores in their area that they are too poor to buy from?

Again, an assumption that is highly dependent on geography and specific looting. You're also assuming that the looters are necessarily poor -- forgetting about, for example, organized crime.

>But for such pressure to do any useful work, the message must be, "give us justice and the looting will end."

Consider for a moment what the optimal strategy would be to handle this vandalism and looting from the perspective of "Rich people." A) Capitulate to the demands of people using terror / destruction of property as leverage B) Utilize the vast resources available to you to end the source of the problem

I think your heart is in the right place in a very Robin Hood-esque kind of way but you're not grappling with reality if you think "give us justice and the looting will end" is going to play out favorably for the looters

I'm not Robin Hood, but I appreciate that you are looking for a friendly and non-pejorative way to engage someone with whom you disagree.

Those vast resources that you mention (police and military) are at the very core of the conflict. Their use of force has only exacerbated the problem, because people spread videos of unjustifiable abuses (three cops brutalizing one prostrate individual in LA, a cop hitting protestors with his vehicle in NYC, a brigade of cops shooting law-abiding people on their own porch in Minneapolis, etc) that in turn draw more protestors to the fore.

Your A/B scenario is precisely the problem -- you equate the soothing of public anger with "capitulation" rather than "justice," and you make violence an imperative by arguing that the only strong approach is the brutal one.

Not to mention that you express a view that police brutality can "end the source of the problem." What is the source of the problem, if not police brutality itself? Were Americans violating curfews to demonstrate in the streets of major cities immediately prior to the murder of George Floyd?

> You can be the beneficiary of a system and still understand that there are specific positive externalities of that system's partial failure. For example, a corrupt politician can understand why an anti-bribery campaign is beneficial for his country.

True, but presumably these software engineers that I was talking about think about the ability to do their work as something worthy and morally good, not simply as a benefit that they get from a corrupt system. On the other hand, corrupt politicians don't think of bribes as something desirable to have in a system: they either cynically exploit their position for strictly personal gain or think of themselves as victims of the system who are forced to take bribes.

> I think it's fair to say that destruction of private property turns the situation into an economic problem, which in turn is a political pressure point. Rich people have more influence over police departments and attorneys general than do poor people. But for such pressure to do any useful work, the message must be, "give us justice and the looting will end."

This can be a valid strategy. I am reminded of someone who successfully executed this strategy: ANC and Nelson Mandela. But they were very clear in their demands and always stressed that they were reluctantly engaging in violence only because they had exhausted all peaceful methods. In contrast it seems that many who support recent riots are not very interested in actual solutions to the problem and only want to stick it to the Man in some way.

It's also important to distinguish between the protests vs elements using the protests (and pandemic) as a cover for crime. In NYC it least, it seems that the protests & those looting are two separate groups.

To your point about a few bad cops, the "bad apples" theory is just a way for institutional leaders to throw blame away from their own leadership, by isolating the blame to a few low-level individuals. We have to get away from the "bad apples" theory and start thinking about "bad barrels" that spoil the apples within.

We know how a riot can be a bad barrel that leads the people involved to do bad things. But a riot is not a day-to-day occurrence with its own persistent culture.

On the other hand, a police department does have a persistent culture, and we don't exactly understand how or why some police departments engender more brutality than others.

"The Lucifer Effect" is a very interesting book on the institutional dynamics that lead otherwise normal people to do horrific things. It is written by Philip Zimbardo, of Stanford Prison Experiment fame. He is a proponent of the "bad barrel" theory.

> We have to get away from the "bad apples" theory and start thinking about "bad barrels" that spoil the apples within.

The phrase that "bad apples" is taken from is "A few bad apples spoil the bunch". It's one of many phrases that has entered the common consciousness in partial form with the exact opposite meaning of its original intention.

I'm borrowing Dr. Zimbardo's terminology, and I believe it is accurate in that he says we cannot attribute spoilage of the bunch to a few bad apples.

His counterpoint is that a bad barrel can spoil a bunch of perfect apples. Good people can commit evil actions when they are put into bad social structures.

The spoilage in the "bad barrel" model comes from the containing structure, not from within its contents.

If you have a good barrel, you can keep bad apples more or less fresh. And if you have a bad barrel, even the best apples will spoil.

More literally: our focus should be on the command structures, accountability practices, disciplinary bodies, legal liability, and training programs within police departments -- rather than blaming systemic problems on a handful of white supremacists, careless brutes, or sociopaths.

> I've never seen anyone make the argument that looting is helping the cause

I've also never seen anyone make the argument that excessive use of force by US police officers is helpful.

That gives us two extremes that we can eliminate from the discussions. There are no people who think illegal force used by the police is good, nor is there people who think looting is helping the cause of stopping the police from using illegal amount of force. Two strawmen done and dusted.

> "Funny how one bad protester labels the whole movement, but a few bad cops are never supposed to represent all cops."

101 in in-group and out-group human behavior research. The in-group is always made out of individuals and a few bad apples can never represent the group that a persons self belong to. The out-group however is in contrast a homogenic group. The purpose of having a clearly defined group to define as "them" is to avoid having to spend the energy to individualizing every member. It is a type of lazy thinking. Both the police and the protesters has bad people in them and good people, you only need to look at the individual level.

> The problem, which shows up in plenty of posts on social media, is that people's concern should, first and foremost

If we expect every post on social media to include boiler plate signaling then it kind of losses meaning. Everyone already agree that illegal use of force by the police is bad and should be prosecuted. We have democratic created laws that says so and no movement to remove them. The problem lies at the pseudo kinship relations that a band-of-brothers style police force has when it is tasked to enforce those laws against the in-group.

> Both the police and the protesters has bad people in them and good people, you only need to look at the individual level.

A crucial difference is that the police is an actual entity/organization, and one that is entirely responsible for its members. The whole problem is that this organization is not properly keeping their 'bad apples' in check, and even actively shielding them from consequence.

On top of that, this organization is immensely powerful, has ridiculous weaponry (and some degree of training), and is legally allowed to do a lot of violent things that most other 'groups' or individuals are not.

I think it's absolutely fair to consider the police as a group (while acknowledging that it has 'good' members), and make more individual distinction concerning the protesters.

I also think it's not a coincidence that Trump and various others are pitching the "it's Antifa destroying our cities" or for that matter even the whole idea that Antifa is a properly organized entity. So much easier to justify the use of force against the whole lot of protesters!

It perfectly possible to address the issue of an organization without treating its members as homogenic group. There is however a greater risk here that by treating them as non-individuals, the only group they are allowed to be part of is the pseudo family that the police force develops. If we want to deescalate violence and hostility, treating people as individuals is a crucial step.

Telling organizations to keeping their 'bad apples' in check is an up hill battle, as within a in-group you don't see bad apples as representing the group. They are seen as individuals that did a bad choice, took a wrong turn, and as any individual they are given chances to change and do better. With pseudo kinship this get amplified, as its a fundamental aspect of most cultures that you treat kinship different than "others". Issues get handled and address within the family.

In order to break such patter you need to get cops more integrated into the society that they serve, increase pay in order to increase the status of the job within the rest of the community, decrease the inherent risks so that individuals has to rely less on a "family" to protect then, and increase the training period.

Nothing of that will help of course when governments start to use the military against protestors. Here in Sweden we have had several different parliaments trying to make clever hacks in order to prevent future parliaments from making such decision. At a time they even gave the power as an exclusive right under the king with the general idea beying that since the king does not participate politics and no future parliament would dare to take something from the king once given. Others have written laws forbidding parliament for taking such decisions. Currently it has been 89 years, and the event that caused such heavy opposition against military use against protestors, Ådalshändelserna, is still referenced in modern day politics. No matter what you don't send military against protestors.

> but a few bad cops are never supposed to represent all cops

I am pretty sure that they do, at least in my mind as well as in the minds of my friends. Especially due to the amount of incidents. You can criticize one side without supporting the other.

> there are plenty of videos people have posted of protesters stopping looters in various places

And there are a quite few where they haven't. This movement consists of different people with different beliefs after all.

Funny how one bad protester labels the whole movement, but a few bad cops are never supposed to represent all cops." -@aStatesman (Twitter)

I have literally, a few months ago, responded to comments on this site where people claimed all police were bad because of the bad actions of some.

Tribalism is a real thing, and it results in dehumanization of the other "side", and opportunistic labelling.

In 2019, 259 black people were killed by police. In the same year, 189 Hispanic people were killed by police. 406 white people were killed as well. 17 Asians. Obviously, blacks are overrepresented.

Data here: https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/nationaltrends

When was the last time you saw a national news media report on a non-black person being unjustly killed by police? It happens, and the cops get let off, routinely. Daniel Shaver is a particularly egregious example, and the lack of national media coverage helps ensure that the cops aren't held accountable. The cop who murdered him was acquitted, and temporarily rehired to let him collect a 2400 a month pension.

The national media wants this framed as PURELY a racial issue, when the reality is that it's a mix of race, police militarization, and lack of police accountability due to cozy relationship with prosecutors.

This racial framing is unnecessarily tribal, and undermines the effectiveness of achieving a meaningful goal that helps reduce this behavior by police.

The racial framing is also relevant to the black lived reality, which is why black people get more involved in protests. It isn’t a far off, hypothetical issue. It disproportionately affects them still to this day, despite all their protests and efforts. That has to take a toll.

> In fact, there are plenty of videos people have posted of protesters stopping looters in various places.

Watching livestreams from demonstrations in my city I saw a lot of this. Local people, mostly guys, were marching and sticking around until the later evening hours to stream live. They were basically patrolling and keeping an eye out for anyone who threw stuff, got out fireworks, or started a fight.

I saw them grab one kid who threw a bottle into a line of cops and chase him down as he ran away. Then when some others began yelling to "kick his ass!" the same guys held anyone back from starting a fight. It was community de-escalation and struck a stark contrast with the gassing and rubber bullets I've seen.

Any time you get a whole bunch of people crammed in together with emotions running high, there's a chance someone will decide to break stuff or punch someone. Seeing the crowd self-policing like this gave me the tiniest bit of hope.

> The problem, which shows up in plenty of posts on social media, is that people's concern should, first and foremost, be the excessive use of force by US police officers

This is precisely my point. The looting and destruction creates a major secondary storyline that has taken over. And that you're delusional if you think it isn't hurting the cause.

> The problem, which shows up in plenty of posts on social media, is that people's concern should, first and foremost, be the excessive use of force by US police officers, and the lack of accountability that officers face, in particular when black lives are lost as a result. Sure, destroying things this is bad, but black lives matter.

For every 10,000 black people arrested for violent crime, 3 are killed.*

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police...

* For every 10,000 white people arrested for violent crime, 4 are killed. (ducks ... and runs away)

I know commenting about moderation is against the HN guidelines but I'll do it anyway:

It's incredibly sad a comment that adds actual data to a conversation is being downmodded.

If you haven't noticed, the recent cases in the news involve suspected check forgery, jogging down a street, and sitting in one's own home, not arrests for violent crime. Save your talking points for when they're actually relevant.

> suspected check forgery,

This guy had, according to the coroner's report, recently used meth, had fentanyl in his system and the police stated he resisted arrest. He also has a police report from 2007 where he pointed a gun at a pregnant lady's belly to restrain her while his partner ransacked her apartment for jewelry and drugs. Sounds peaceful to you?

https://www.theblaze.com/news/george-floyd-fentanyl-methamph... https://files.catbox.moe/f4ylk1.jpeg

(and BTW it was a forged $20 bill, not check forgery)

> jogging down a street

You use this as an example of police brutality in which the police weren't even involved. And then you immediately follow with "Save your talking points for when they're actually relevant"? Will you?

> sitting in one's own home

Breonna Taylor, a black woman, who's boyfriend shot first at the police when the executed a no-knock warrant. Does this sound racially motivated to you? If they were white, would the officers not shoot back?

--

Maybe you should stop skimming headlines of MSM and start actually trying to uncover the whole story before you help perpetuate a race war with lazy, anecdotal and misleading examples masquerading as actual talking points.

So basically, none of these cases have anything to do with arrests for violent crimes, like I said.

I did not, however, say any of the other things you are attributing to me.