[o0banky0o]

I wonder about a possible iatrogenic explanation for police being tyrants. I bet there's a case to be made that simply being educated on how tyrannical behavior works could help to cause it to happen in the first place. In fact, it almost seems like you'd HAVE to go through that in order to get a grip on the problem in the first place. This is pure armchair psychology, Can someone straighten me out? Is there something to this?

[cultureswitch]

The reality of abuse from cops, politicians, managers, HOA presidents, faculty deans and virtually any position of partially unchecked power is that these positions attract exactly the kind of person who would abuse that power.

The fact of the matter is, the more cooperative, non-violent, honest and nice society is in general, the more viable it is to be a machiavellian, narcissistic and power-hungry parasite. These traits are innate parts of the personality of each of us from birth, and some of us get a lot more than others. It's generally not a very good thing for one's future prospects to have these traits. The risk of having everyone sniff you out and turn against you is high, and gets higher the less sophisticated you are.

But even relatively unsuccessful little tyrants (HOA presidents are the perfect example of this) are more than capable of inflicting actual damage on others. If you're someone like this, and you have a tendency for violence on top of it, becoming a cop is an attractive prospect because most of these traits aren't particularly punished in that profession and sometimes are actively beneficial to your career.

Perhaps unintuitively, the real solution to this problem is to attract normal people to fill these roles. This is particularly true for politics, where most normal people rightly evaluate that the risks of a career in politics are much higher than the reward. Normal people see the reward of a career in politics as essentially an interesting job and the ability to make things better for a community. This is motivating, but not as strong as the motivation of people who are in it for the power.

[OrvalWintermute]

> But even relatively unsuccessful little tyrants (HOA presidents are the perfect example of this) are more than capable of inflicting actual damage on others.

I happen to know someone that accurately fits this description. Fortunately, he galvanized the community into replacing him & reversing his policies.

The local police department is ticked at the guy too because concerned parents keep reporting him for photographing their little kids in the pool, “he is not a pedophile but he has been playing hall monitor too much, trying to gather evidence of townhouse community borderline rule breaking”.

Poor guy, he has so poisoned the discourse that no one will ever take action on his reports.

[riskable]

> These traits are innate parts of the personality of each of us from birth

So because I wasn't born with it I can't become machiavellian tyrant? Surely there's management or police training that can grant people the necessary skills and credentials, no?

[Sohcahtoa82]

Well, certainly you can be trained to be that way.

But someone like me who has a strong sense of guilt, it would take a LOT of training to not feel bad about being a machiavellian tyrant.

[klyrs]

I'm having trouble parsing this line of thought. Are you suggesting that merely talking about tyranny is inducing tyrannical behavior; that not talking about the elephant in the room could make the elephant disappear?

Taking it a step further: should police not be educated about corruption laws, or should corruption laws simply not exist?

[o0banky0o]

should doctors not perform surgery ever again because some people die as a side effect? No, I am not suggesting we stop talking.