[TeMPOraL]

It's a catchy meme for sure, but when people actually start to believe - like for real, not just the usual talking shit that passes for "conversation" with normal people - that law enforcement officers are worse thugs than regular thugs -- that's a fast way to turn into a failed state, where that actually is true.

Causality here actually works both ways, because in free(ish) societies, law enforcement derives its authority more from people's intersubjective belief in that authority, and less from actual use of force.

[bigbadfeline]

> when people actually start to believe... that law enforcement officers are worse thugs than regular thugs -- that's a fast way to turn into a failed state, where that actually is true.

It's quite clear that if law enforcement officers are indeed worse or just like regular thugs the failed state will soon materialize regardless of what people think about the issue.

Moreover, isn't the fastest way to a failed state to have people believe that their security agencies are good and proper when in reality they aren't? That kind of naivete is surely a lot worse than a bit of paranoia.

[ben_w]

> isn't the fastest way to a failed state to have people believe that their security agencies are good and proper when in reality they aren't?

No, but it used to be.

The fastest way right now is propaganda.

I'm not sure when the transition happened exactly, given we've had smartphones and social media lies going around the world before fact checkers wake up (even a while back there were questions about if some violence or other was the same country or year), but right now any group with convenient access to a suitable AI can do something that passes well enough to fool a sufficient number of people to break everything.

This means that even if all the current stuff dies down in the USA, you can't go back to the old status quo. Free speech is really important (and not just for the public to take down the powerful, even the powerful themselves benefit from it to not become emperors who wear no clothes), but it's also extremely easy to exploit, and you can't even just rely on people learning to distrust certain sources as you have already started fighting over which sources to trust and fighting over the ability of anyone to say "${foo} is an untrustworthy source".

[bigbadfeline]

You are quite right about the dangers of propaganda in the time of AI and social media which is not only easily accessible but also addictive. I've observed people around me being misled despite their best intentions and above average abilities.

I also agree that we can't go back to the old status quo but we don't have to - it probably wasn't the right thing to do if it led to the current state of affairs.

I think, there's still a chance for positive change, not going back but forward. I'm not saying it's going to be easy but the implication of giving up warrant the pursuit of that chance no matter how small.

[xorcist]

Two weeks ago this would have been completely uncontroversial, but given the repeated executions by shooting people of probable opposite political conviction in the face, things just got a lot more complicated.

[abustamam]

Yes agreed. And while I respect the FBI employees who stepped down because they refused to comply with such a shitty system, it's becoming only thugs being the only ones left in the FBI.

It's a complicated system indeed.