This seems like a common refrain for most bad things these days, but I doubt it's true in the case of police killings. At the very least, it seems inarguable that related trends like police militarization have drastically increased.
I don't think civil forfeiture is what people concerned to record police encounters have in mind. That is, I don't expect that video evidence is likely to decide such cases. What, exactly, would you be looking for? In the example you mention, where a sum of cash is seized on the presumption that it's drug money or whatever, the point of dispute (i.e. whether this is a reasonable presumption) will not be settled by video.
I can see it working the other way. That is, parents who are not college-educated (who are immigrants, poorer etc.) are more likely to view education in practical terms. You need a certain level of affluence to view college as a more purely intellectual or artistic (or recreational?) pursuit.
Considering how weak labor unions are in the United States, the notion of an effective student union seems positively quaint. Oddly, in my experience the phrase "student union" usually refers to a campus center, not an actual union.
Despite completing degrees in philosophy, I've never experienced the sort of "Socratic" method that is apparently practiced in law schools. I gather that the harm consists, not in the general method of posing questions, but the way that professors put students on the spot and may humiliate them if their answers are unsatisfactory. The point the author makes about the way that this ritual enforces hierarchy is interesting, too (my impression is that many aspects of elite law schools do this).
I guess you might defend the "Socratic" method as a way of encouraging student engagement. But I suspect that it really appeals to people who like the idea of discourse as combat (DEBATE ME!). As an aside, I'm struck that students in most other contexts have nearly the opposite attitude. That is, they maintain that they should be free to zone out or play with their phones or skip class altogether as long as they don't disturb others.
The fact that scooters can be used in such ways is not a compelling case that they're more dangerous than cars. If anything, what strikes me is that a scooter on the sidewalk seems outrageous to some people, by contrast, largely because it's just a banal fact we're all accustomed to that cars kill people by the tens of thousands every year.
We like the idea of technological solutions that don't require us to change our lifestyle or make hard choices. Driverless cars are appealing because they would allow us to largely maintain the status quo (as opposed to, say, reorienting toward public transportation). It's like an obese person who says, "I don't want to eat healthy and exercise. Why can't scientists just invent low-calorie versions of the food I like?"
Presumably the difference is that Amazon is much more likely to punish you for it. I worked at a grocery store in college (Roundy's) and I was never "terrified" about failing to push memberships.
Where do you get the impression that the "modern left" values equality of outcomes tout court? In my experience, the argument is rather that inequality of outcomes is evidence of inequality of opportunity, or other injustices. You can argue about that, obviously, but in any case it is not the same as heedlessly enforcing equality of outcomes.
I would have thought that we've lived in a car-centric culture for generations now, though. How would cars explain why loneliness and isolation have risen just recently?
I remember reading about this topic in philosophy class, namely, the Pessimistic Induction [1]. I've wondered if a similar argument could be made for moral progress. Certainly, many people are quick to make similarly skeptical arguments which point out that people in the past had different moral views than we do now, and no less confidence that they were right. If we were to survey the history of moral conventions, would we find that it converges in the same way as our scientific theories? (Does the arc of history bend toward justice?)
My sense is that "baby" is a term of endearment that is typically addressed to someone in particular. Similarly, you might express affection for someone by calling them "dear" or "honey," but it would be weird to say "I want a dear" or "I want a honey."
>Defenestrations, torches and pitchforks have been traditional solutions to rulers not acting in the interest of the populace.
I'd guess the people involved in those rebellions felt the effects of bad governance much more acutely and directly than people do (currently ...) vis-à-vis climate change.
Is that a good comparison? How often does the average person actually see either of those things? The reason it's surprising that people struggle to draw bikes from memory is that most of us see them all the time.
Fiction as in "Hunger Games," maybe. But I think that literary fiction can be more more demanding and more edifying than almost any non-fiction or technical writing. I tend to be suspicious of people whose reading lists just look like book club recommendations from Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
This reminds me of the observation you often see that when men get into bodybuilding or grow their beards it's often not women, but other men, who seem most impressed.