[dlsa]

Abolishing police means ... what? I don't understand this. How do you abolish something only to replace it with... a new copy of that something because you didn't change the rules.

Wouldn't it be better to just fire complete departments and clear them out from top to bottom? This would let you re-hire as necessary but with new rules in play. You might end up with some of the same old people but they now know the trapdoor can open.

Most of the problems with police are at the top. Not the bottom. This includes the laws they use like civil forfeiture and other silliness. That's your real target. Why aren't the abolish people going after that?

[mrtesthah]

>replace it with... a new copy of that something because you didn't change the rules.

You don't abolish police -- you abolish policing. In order to do this society needs to identify and eliminate the reasons for crime in the first place--i.e., ensuring access to basic needs like food and housing, for one thing. Abolition necessarily involves a transformation of our entire society, and may take more than one generation.

[Manuel_D]

> ensuring access to basic needs like food and housing, for one thing.

Plenty of wealthy people still commit crime.

[fivestarman]

Wealthy crime (white-collar) is for more costly than 'non-wealthy' crime (blue-collar)

[mrtesthah]

And yet our justice system doesn't seem to try to stop them.

[inglor_cz]

Utopias tend to turn into dystopias. What if the transformers say that in order to achieve nonviolence, embryos with certain DNA markers associated with antisocial behavior need to be forcibly aborted?

[mrtesthah]

As far as I can see, we have this thing called a constitution and a bill of rights. I don't know what kind of society you're proposing that would somehow remove those things. I personally would prefer to keep our human and democratic rights. Coincidentally, reducing inequality is a great way to do that.

[inglor_cz]

Five judges out of nine go a long way.

Also, not everywhere is America. Sweden had a fairly nasty eugenic program, for example.

[mrtesthah]

>What if the transformers say...

>Five judges out of nine go a long way.

It sounds like you have some hidden assumptions. To me, it looks like you're casting aspersions on people who advocate progressive social change. But I'm sure that's not your aim, so why not just state outright what you really think and clear up my misunderstanding.

[inglor_cz]

I am not planning any "casting aspersions" (wtf) games, I am stating quite outright what comes to my mind. That is it.

[retrac]

I wish I had your optimism. My take is even a true utopia of boundless affluence and perfect childrearing will still produce the odd psychopath and plenty of people prone to crimes of passion.

[inglor_cz]

The oil sheikhdoms in the Gulf are pretty rich.

From what I have heard, there is still quite a lot of domestic violence going on there, not to mention raping of female servants. And it has zilch to do with material insecurity.

Genghis Khan didn't build towers out of severed heads because he lacked gold and silver. Some people are just, sorry for saying that, sick fucks.

[inter_netuser]

Prevalence is actually fairly high.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.6610...

"The prevalence of psychopathy in the general adult population can be estimated at 4.5%." Remember: it's much more frequent in males, where that number can be 2-3x of that, can be close to 1 in 10 in males.

"prevalence of psychopathy among university students is significantly higher than among people from the general community". I'd guess increased affluence and better childrearing will result in more university students as well.

I'd go as far as to say that "boundless affluence" and "perfect childrearing" may in fact produce even more psychopaths, not less, as it is not quite a pathology many assume. Many traits are actually more adaptive vs general population.

It's probably important to point that there is further nuance. in primary(as in born that way) psychopathy the hallmark is total absence of anxiety and remorse. In secondary (upbringing, trauma, etc) psychopathy, anxiety can often be fairly high.

You might reduce some secondary cases of psychopathy with your proposed measures, but boundless affluence will also result in higher SSRI usage to prevent unwanted anxiety or stress (the rich tend to use antidepressants more, don't have the reference handy now, but its fairly obvious the rich have fewer problems with access to mental health services), and SSRIs tend to increase some psychopathic traits (charm+boldness), which perhaps can push some borderline cases into the proper psychopathic territory: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3202964

[throwawayboise]

The places in the USA where everyone lives with free food and housing tend to also be the most crime-ridden and violent.