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Comment by thelean12 | Hacker News Reader

Why do so many people need to be so extreme? Zero is impossible.

If you want to make the development argument, then you should know that bugs are unavoidable. Even from the best developers in the world. No amount of code reviews, tests, or processes will change that.

Can you reduce? Of course. By a really large amount? Probably. But "zero" is an impossible goal. The statement "We can live in a world where the police don't kill people" just makes you look dumb and naive.

8cantwait.org at least has a realistic number backed by studies.

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Norway manage it: https://www.businessinsider.com/norway-america-police-killin...

Zero is the only reasonable target. Every death should be treated as a process and policy failure. Every death should lead to an improvement.

It will be a long way to get there, but as JFK said, we do these things not because they are easy.

A country with minimal diversity that's less than 2% the population of the US. A country whose largest city has an extremely lower population density than US cities (10x less than NYC, 7x less than LA). You can't just cherry pick data and think it's applicable.

Stop. Think. You're making a "perfect is the enemy of the good" argument which ultimately supports police brutality and systemic racism.

(I'll also point out that 8cantwait.org is a Campaign Zero project. Thank you for linking it.)

Do you truly think that there are zero cases where a police officer firing a gun is justified?

My dude, that ain’t even remotely why people are out in the streets. You’re sitting on the sidelines confused why everyone is shouting.

I have no idea what you're saying with this comment.

I said that we should take actions that have been shown to improve the situation. 8canwait.org goes over many of them, and I'm sure there are lots of other actions we can take as well.

Zero is impossible without a perfect populous. It is the enemy of 8canwait (and I know, it was created by people who think zero is possible).

Someone saying "zero is possible" makes it seem like they don't understand the situation enough to have a real conversation about it.

Explicit in your original question "Why do so many people need to be so extreme?" is the presumption that standing against police brutality is an extreme position to have. It preserves the status quo. It preserves a world where literal Nazis are accepted as "very fine people".

To answer your question directly, to address systemic racism in America we need to shift the Overton window of discourse. That _requires_ dissemination of values and ideas which many consider radical or unthinkable.

Beyond that, to say someone is dumb and naive because they don't think cops should be allowed to kill people is callous and ignorant when you consider blacks are three times more likely to be killed by police than whites. [https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/]

"Zero is impossible" is implicitly saying, "Cops should be allowed to kill people." Easy to say when it's not your community in the crosshairs.

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