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Comment by h2odragon | Hacker News Reader

Before "tactical", "military surplus" was popular with the more excitable civilians, to the point that there was far more demand than there was actual surplus. There were manufacturers of "milspec" gear targeting the civilian / law enforcement / "non-state-agency" market long before "tactical" became a way to refer to that target demographic.

If "tactical" is now "a call to action"; what's the choice? Find a new word to use in promotional materiel or start restricting who you sell to based on their political correctness?

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If there's a new word, that'll just become the word. You yourself noted that "military surplus" became "milspec" that then became "tactical".

The problem isn't the language per se. The problem is fetishization. That and we're a large enough population with the ability to connect instantly with every other member of that population so finding other people with the same fetish is easy. And when we're talking about a population of over 300 million people, 0.1% is roughly 330,000. Every group is a large group.

It is estimated that anywhere from 2000 to 2500 people entered the Capitol ground on January 6th. That is about 0.0008% of the U.S. population.

We can no longer ostracize people who don't honor the social contract. We can no longer shame people into behaving civilly. You can always go out there and find someone to validate your beliefs. And not just one, but huge groups of people who will tell you you are doing nothing wrong and that it's the world that's wrong. We've lost most of our social tools for dealing with dangerous and extreme views.

0.0008%

Forgot to shift for the percentage.

Reminiscent of debates back when about "Why Gay people should not have a BBS."

> We can no longer ostracize people who don't honor the social contract.

In the specific case of Jan6; how many people have yet to be "ostracized" sufficiently? There's quite a few in jail, and many more that have suffered social consequences regardless of their legal culpability.

Do you feel there's a difference between Jan6 and any of the BLM riots? Is that difference "why people were rioting" instead of "what they did" or "how they were punished"?

> Do you feel there's a difference between Jan6 and any of the BLM riots

Yes, I feel there's a very significant difference between an attempt to overthrow the Republic and establish monarchy with deliberate and explicit murderous intent, and protest gatherings that became violent after police began firing weapons into previously peaceful crowds.

I'm being completely serious here, how rotten by both-sidesism does your brain have to be to think that "prosecute the police" is a mantra just as blameworthy as "kill Pence, kill Pelosi"?

> how rotten by both-sidesism

Was "prosecute the police" the message you got from burning police stations? Or would you agree that the violent acts were the responsibility of a few individuals with probably more radical motives who should be punished for those actions, as individuals? And not the responsibility of the movement as a whole?

Doesn't that also apply to Jan6? And any other protest?

Outlaw scary looking clothing

> We can no longer shame people into behaving civilly.

We also can't shame people into being straight, monogamous, christian, etc. So overall I'd say this one is a win, even if it has some downsides.

> We've lost most of our social tools for dealing with dangerous and extreme views.

It was a couple hundred years ago we burned people alive for being witches. Less than a hundred years ago we lynched people for interracial relationships. Less than 50 years ago we arrested people for being obviously gay.

Extreme views aren't new. We didn't crack down on them historically, they actually got baked into the culture and it's norms.

I much prefer this new generally chill thing we are doing as a culture.

True. There have been benefits as well. And that's also part of the rub. We want the good without the bad.

But we were getting better about a lot of that stuff even without the level of communication we have today.

We stopped lynching people for "miscegenation" long before the internet. We stopped arresting people for being gay before Facebook.

I wouldn't call storming government buildings all that chill.

And look at what's happening. We've overturned Roe v Wade and they made specific mention of other decisions that affect gay marriage. We are on the road back to making being gay illegal.

You can have too much of something.

> We've overturned Roe v Wade and they made specific mention of other decisions that affect gay marriage.

This is not a new debate but even as someone who is pro-choice, Roe was bad law.

I don't buy into the Alito theory of substantive due process not being real - and neither do any of the other justices. That being said, yes, congress is supposed to make laws, not the bench. Congress should still enshrine gay marriage.

> The problem isn't the language per se. The problem is fetishization.

Bingo. A lot of the people seeking out "tacticool" gear don't need or use any of the additional functionality. They mostly wear it in air-conditioned offices, carrying only the usual complement of keys, phones, etc. Not a lot of extra value for abrasion-resistant nylon and extra pockets/loops/molle for someone who barely even goes outdoors. I have more use for it than they do when I'm hiking but still not in the home or office. No, it's not usually about function or quality. It's about their own form of "virtue signaling" to show how they feel about all things law-enforcement or military, so that people of like insurrectionist mind can find each other.

I work in homeland security consulting, and I find this division of folks by pant type a useful heuristic. Our work brings together a lot of emergency management adjacent folks, and being able to quickly group them visually into how likely they are to have a law enforcement perspective on an issue is really helpful when messaging and engaging on controversial topics.

I'd love to hear more about that, and I might not be alone. From an emergency management viewpoint, what parts of a "law enforcement perspective" do you find helpful, and which do you find less so? I can vaguely see both sides, but still better to find out from someone who actually knows.

Sure.

Law enforcement is a really important voice in emergency management. They manage a lot of the manmade threat analysis, reporting and mitigation, and serve as a huge piece of the response to most disasters. I think any planning endeavor that doesn't get their feedback risks not having an adequate understanding of their capability and their buy-in during a response. That said, the tone of the conversations about how a community should prepare for something like civil unrest can pivot simply on what you call it (civil unrest, uprising, riot, disturbance, etc.) - and if you aren't careful, an honest exploration of what could be done better can come off as an indictment of LE or their involvement.

The biggest areas where I typically see legitimate differences of perspective (and so might change my messaging or introduction of a concept slightly based on 5.11 pants) is in the application of what is traditionally thought of as military technology or terminology to civilian emergency management. For example, whether and to what extent response agencies should have drones (really incredibly useful tool for damage assessment), and managing the privacy concerns around those. Another example of an area I might shift how I frame a discussion is the role, extent, and nature of school shooting drills. In my experience, LE (especially those with lived active shooter experience) seem more comfortable with "real life simulations" that include a person pretending to be a "bad guy", carrying real looking fake guns, and setting off real sounding "gun shot simulators" to train kids how to respond. Final thought, should we call our regular reports "SitReps" and release them as part of our "battle rhythm" - analyzing them during our "hot wash" sessions. None of those terms is offensive in-and-of-itself, but if I'm in a non-tactical pants room I might soften those edges with "regular updates", "operational tempo", or "post-event discussion".

To be clear, judging a person by their pants is about as useful as judging a book its cover - but when I've got to get up in front of a room to start a planning process around a controversial topic area you'll take all the heuristics you can to try and frame things for a productive conversation. That's also, by the way, why I like introductions and ice breakers. They might be dumb for the group, and seem a waste of time, but a good facilitator is shifting message slightly and thinking about framing issues based on those snippets.

Vocally caring what someone's fashion choices are is also signaling.

Military Surplus stores used to be fun places to shop, because you could pick up useful items like camping gear and just maybe a Navy-issue peacoat or M-65 jacket that actually fits you properly, or even random stuff like things to wear at a costume party. Plus the usual assortment of flashlights and maybe some fun additions to your tool box (hemostats are useful for some electronics repair situations, remember this was long before Amazon).

Very few stores like that today. They have been hollowed out and are now more like outlet stores that sell stuff that happens to have a camo pattern on it.

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