Do not attribute to malice an action which is easily explained by incompetence.

A formulation of Hanlon's razor: Do not attribute to malice an action which is easily explained by incompetence.

Too many people talk about how the police are racists/sexists/dirty/violent/etc. Not enough people talk about how a lot of their misactions could simply be attributed to incompetence rather than malice.

Thoughts?

it's not needed to attribute malice or incompetence to an individual action when the problem is systemic

@Tim_Pool said in #1:

A formulation of Hanlon's razor: Do not attribute to malice an action which is easily explained by incompetence.

Too many people talk about how the police are racists/sexists/dirty/violent/etc. Not enough people talk about how a lot of their misactions could simply be attributed to incompetence rather than malice.

Thoughts?

I think the job occupation of a cop is necessary in today's world, being in other peoples' business, representing the authority's legal view point in the matter, holding people accountable for their criminal actions. Moreover, a world that doesn't police itself for its criminal behavior is a world, where some powerful actors can criminally get away with lawlessness, just because of their power they have over the people who lack it.

If we profile people who have that job profession - are they racists/sexists/dirty/violent/etc.? I believe its important to even hold the police accountable for their work with body cams, for example - just to keep them honest, where even the police, police the police.

I also believe in sentencing that look to make the victums whole again, and punish the criminal by an equal amount, expressed monitarily. (money is the common demoniator), unless its a violent act, where that's worth more than their healthcare bills - even being worth time in prision, imo.

Having a more fairer world is something I believe in; even though, there is a cost/benefit analysis to it, and it's not realistic to have everyone be police officers, for example. Ultimately, the cop force should be limited in size, because growing the economy is worth more than accountability.

@lilyhollow said in #2:

it's not needed to attribute malice or incompetence to an individual action when the problem is systemic

I think it is needed regardless of if it is systemic. Society views malice and incompetence very differently.

For example, if there are a bunch of racist police running around, that's very bad, and they should be fired. If instead there are a bunch of incompetent police running around, that's still bad, but it indicates they require more training (or more importantly continued training throughout their careers).

I prefer Hanlon's aftershave.

@Tim_Pool said in #4:

I think it is needed regardless of if it is systemic. Society views malice and incompetence very differently.

For example, if there are a bunch of racist police running around, that's very bad, and they should be fired. If instead there are a bunch of incompetent police running around, that's still bad, but it indicates they require more training (or more importantly continued training throughout their careers).

if police are killing many black people and have huge military-type technology that they use to crush dissent, then i am indeed rather uninterested in analyzing whether the individual police officers involved are 'intentionally racist' or 'merely incompetent.'

@Tim_Pool said in #4:

I think it is needed regardless of if it is systemic. Society views malice and incompetence very differently.

For example, if there are a bunch of racist police running around, that's very bad, and they should be fired. If instead there are a bunch of incompetent police running around, that's still bad, but it indicates they require more training (or more importantly continued training throughout their careers).
Weird incompetence, that incompetence that targets preferably Black people.

What if I'm just maliciously incompetent? >:)

Somebody once said 'there are no accidents in politics' ... he was probably right ...

@polylogarithmique said in #7:

Weird incompetence, that incompetence that targets preferably Black people.

Correlation does not imply causation.

Black people are poorer than the average American. Poorer people tend to commit more crimes. This is due to a lack of education, wealth, familial support, government support, among a long list of variables.

I'm not saying there aren't racist people out there, or racist police, I'm saying for the most part it has much less to do with skin color and more to do with the situation you were born in to.