This is the line that got me:

I think Notch is too busy spreading QAnon conspiracies to play games nowadays.

Well here's a fun article showing that Russia has a hand in boosting the Qanon conspiracy theories, which a lot of people definitely do believe to the point of turning up places armed for citizens arrest:

https://www.mercurynews.com/20...

Unfortunately I don't know if Mercury News is a "media bullshit outlet" or not, you'll have to ask OP I guess.

I think it's become pretty evident that cops can shoot anyone without provocation and their punishment is "paid leave".

The American populace is armed. Those guns are disproportionately in the hands of whites who are using them to reinforce police power, not to keep it in check.

It's amazing how quickly the right wing in your country went from "I need my guns to protect against armed government tyranny" to "as long as you're tyrannising people who don't look like me, go for it". Maybe armed tyranny only counts if you try and tax rich people?

You assume I don't know what D-K is, but I used it accurately.

I'm a sociologist, and it's not Dunning-Kruger if I've actually done the work, which the person I'm responding to clearly didn't by using various terms completely incorrectly.

You might be the most affluent on average, but when one person is buying is 20th mansion and another has to take 2 full-time jobs to be able to feed his family, income equality is rock bottom.

You can't point to an average and assume that even 1% of people are doing as well as that.

https://inequality.org/facts/i...

While it's tempting to point to other countries and point out their police forces aren't armed as a model to aspire to, as a resident of one of those countries while we have less abuse it is far from zero and there is a reason why BLM protests are happening here too.

Even unarmed enforcement in this country is more likely to be targeted at minorities and we still see people at the top of the chain of police dropping racist dogwhistles to describe protestors. We need to be mindful that armed and unarmed violent enforcement is not working in any country at any level to actually resolve issues, it only perpetuates them.

Well I would:

- instil better worker protections with appropriate punishments for violators
- reappropriate the wealth of big business and high earners via more progressive tax codes

(I assumed you were talking about employers, because the amount they steal solely by illegally withholding back pay is double all other types of theft added together (1) and therefore seems like a better place to start than shooting a poor person at 2am because they're one of the 2/3rds of people who got screwed out of money they're owed under a government that doesn't give a shit)

(1) https://www.epi.org/publicatio...

Addiction isn't resolved by making drug-taking illegal, otherwise the War on Drugs would have been won already.

"People 5,000 years ago had primitive notions of criminal justice and nobody has come up with anything better so let's stop trying"

I think with the above in mind (I largely agree with what you say) what we would end up with would be a group that was capable and willing to de-escalate and resolve rather than escalate and punish.

In that event, I think we would retire the word "police" so they didn't have the baggage.

This is why I never post to Slashdot, Dunning-Kruger idiots all over the place. Not willing to assess what privilege is, how it manifests and how it can be resolved - it just exists, it can't be dealt with, and it makes underprivileged people murder you and take your stuff "because they can".

You couldn't even get your one critical assumption right - I live in the UK, and I've lived in poor areas most of my life. I'm not protected by cops with guns. I still think that taking money away from wife-beaters with a god complex and giving it to people to help them get their life on track is far more effective.

"Smart".

I do believe it's a preventable issue, and even if there's one instance of 2am home invasion that isn't resolved by eliminating poverty and instituting proper mental health coverage (and I'm sure plenty of other things that could be suggested using the millions you'd save), I struggle to think that this would be resolved by sending what we currently call a police officer.