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Comment by pj_mukh | Hacker News Reader

Controversial Opinion: This is a good idea. There is zero need to make these Black Mirror lethal but tracking and apprehending is a scary job and Cops are human (there are also bad cops). Automating that process seems like Step 1 to getting out of our current strategy of

"Well cops are bad, so we can't enforce any laws".

Well-intentioned ACLU action and Public backlash have made these very hard to roll out, but long term, this may be the only the solution (along with wholesale long-term welfare overhaul of course)

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> zero need

There's zero need for local rural cops to have MRAPs and SWAT teams, and yet...

You’re making my point. Humans are prone to this sort of largesse and they use human safety as an excuse to do so (“why don’t you want our cops safe?”).

Let’s remove that excuse.

Meta, but the way you felt you had to word your opinion really rubs me the wrong way.

Are we really at a point where we need to have a preface, two mid-sentence disclaimers, and carefully worded language just so one does not get torn apart by one's own in-group?

If that's where we're at, I'd sooner support the other camp, whatever it is.

> There is zero need to make these Black Mirror lethal

Nope, loot ak Ukraine. And military surplus can easily end up with the police.

I'm assuming of course we have some political control here. Just a walking robot was shamed out of existence [1]. So the public has some control over what is and isn't acceptable.

We don't need to accept lethal robots, but wholesale saying "no robotic equipment at all" will simply leave us in the logjam we have now between bad cops and zero enforcement.

[1]:https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/nyregion/nypd-robot-dog-b...

Based on the behavior of many police departments in the US, I wouldn't put as much faith in your assumption of political control. From the "Blue Flu" to how many departments behaved both during the BLM protests and during COVID, police departments wield an amazing amount of control over their own TTP and who they seek to control.

Right but that behavior is driven (either earnestly or not) by safety concerns for the cops.

Lets remove that concern, no excuses left.

Safety concerns? Ha!

Cops would have you believe that LEO is the most dangerous job in America, but it's not even in the top 10.

Some cops may be afraid of getting shot, but consider that for every cop killed, cops kill roughly 21 citizens.

Copaganda has made everyone think that crime is terrible, cops are underpaid, overworked, and going into combat every time they report for work.

I literally said “earnestly or not”. It doesn’t really matter what the underlying truth is, it’s an excuse, let’s remove it.

No more SWAT teams needed if it’s just robots doing tracking and catching.

We've already had a swat team use a robot to kill someone using a small explosive charge. Maybe let's not head right to Cyberdyne before we address institutional issues in law enforcement before we get even more droids asking us for our papers etc.

> "Well cops are bad, so we can't enforce any laws"

When did that become our current strategy? I haven't seen any sign of it in my neck of the woods.

I live in the Bay Area. And this is basically the mentality spreading through most large cities.

Maybe that's true, but I honestly haven't seen evidence of it (at least in the big cities I'm familiar with where this claim is sometimes made). I've just seen people who claim that it's the case. From my observations, it appears to be a misunderstanding/miscommuncation that leads to this belief.

Well enforcement is down through the floor. You can measure that [1].

Cops claim it’s because of too much regulation (regulations put in place because of bad cops). It doesn’t really matter if they’re lying or not, there’s now no enforcement.

And all the political capital spent putting regulations in place now means there is none left to solve the underlying root causes of crime.

This is the dynamic playing out in most cities, esp in cities with strong police unions.

[1]: https://sfstandard.com/2023/07/01/ask-the-standard-san-franc...

But none of that supports the assertion that the attitude is "Well cops are bad, so we can't enforce any laws". It may support the assertion that "the way we're trying to address abusive policing is misguided", which is an entirely different thing.

“ the way we're trying to address abusive policing is misguided”

and as a result we have no enforcement now

That’s all I’m saying.

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