h a l f b a k e r yWith moderate power, comes moderate responsibility.
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There has recently been looting in various English cities,
including this one. Last night, there was less looting,
allegedly because it rained hard.
If people feel strongly enough about something, they often
take to the streets to achieve a particular aim. The police
response to that can
include rubber bullets and water
cannon, but these can cause injury to various people,
sometimes including those who are not otherwise involved
but just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong
time. If a concern is sufficiently strongly felt, it may not
be damped down by these means.
Removing electronic equipment from shops without paying
for it would need to be premeditated if it was raining and
the shops were in the open. On the other hand, setting
fire to vehicles, arranging barricades and all the usual
stuff associated with conflict between the authorities and
people who are dissatisfied with the current perceived
state of public affairs could still continue in the rain.
Therefore, i suggest that a relatively safe way of sorting
out the opportunistic looting from other kinds of looting
and other behaviour which has been labelled as public
disorder would be to practice cloud-seeding with terpenes.
Not with silver iodide or dry ice because there are concerns
which could lead to interpretations that the approach is
harmful along the lines of the chemtrail conspiracy theory.
Rain has the advantage that it makes it harder to remove
electronic equipment from shops into the open safely, but
still allows people to remove food and clothing without
permanent damage and without premeditation, and also
enables them to engage in other kinds of public disorder
for whatever reason. Therefore, i would suggest that it is
to a limited extent able to weed out behaviour which is
materialistically motivated from behaviour which is more
to do with getting hold of food and clothing for other kinds
of need, or protest for other purposes.
So to sum up: in situations of public unrest, seed the
clouds with particles which are generally recognised as safe
in order to cause rain, as this is less likely to deter non-
materialistic mass disquiet than similar materialistically-
motivated behaviour. It would mean that removing easily
water-damaged items would need to be premeditated in
some way, which would both deter it and provide evidence
regarding mens rea.
Cloud seeding
http://news.bbc.co....ci/tech/8587725.stm
[calum, Aug 11 2011]
Bloody Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Code
for 21 Quest, defender of property rights. [calum, Aug 12 2011]
Profile of the "righteous oppressed" forced to riot.
http://www.dailymai...d-Stefan-Hoyle.html
This poor soul, what other choice did she have? It's either riot or go back to her mansion for a swim. [doctorremulac3, Aug 12 2011]
[link]
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So, the thrust of this is that we should find a way to
enable people to burn cars or steal clothing, whilst
preventing them from stealing electronic
equipment? |
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Lovely, though I suspect that rain would deter any stripe of looting, be it for clothing or reset. Provided the rain lasts, this (hopefully) has the added advantage of sparing me the visual stink of broom-wielding entitleds the next morning. |
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What's also great is the idea of permenant rain over the Arndale Centre, adopted and perpetuated as a security measure. |
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No, [MB], I think it's more elegant than that. I think it imagines public disorder as a mixture of two compounds, (namely, political protest and selfish criminality), and postulates that they can be separated, like salt and grit, by using the fact that only one of them is water-soluble. |
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Won't they just start looting umbrellas and waterproof bags in which to carry off the stolen swag? |
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Add a drop (a lot) of so called magic water to the mix, and the authorities will be able to identify who was participating, and to sit down with them, to find out the true nature of the grievance, and to work out solutions. |
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You're assuming, [21], that they think in a series of logically linked steps in the first place. To my mind, the crowd psychology of the riots is very similar to the crowd psychology of an asset price bubble. I'm reminded of that banker who said "as long as the music's playing, you've got to keep dancing". Looting is what the cool kids are doing this week. It reminds me of why I'm against cool. |
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I've got to weigh in on this. I'm in rare 100%
agreement with 21. |
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I grew up in the ghetto. I've seen the mob
mentality at work and been in close proximity to
the mob mindset so my experience is from the
streets, not from "Sociology 101". |
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Nobody in a mob is thinking about social justice,
nobody is throwing bricks through a window to
help society, nobody is burning down a building
because they carefully studied the Communist
Manifesto. |
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Mobs rob, burn and destroy because it's fun, it's a
rush, it's exciting, or as Pertinax said, it's "cool".
Period. Anybody who grew up in
East Palo Alto (or equivalent) like me knows what's
going on in the minds of these people. And I'm
really not interested in the musings on the matter
of spoiled little rich kids who wrote a term paper
on the ghetto at their ivy league university before
their ski vacation to Vale. |
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Do people riot because they're poor? My family
was poor, how come we didn't take to the
streets wrecking shit? We worked hard, learned all
we could about being productive citizens and got
the fuck out of the ghetto LIKE ANYBODY WILLING
TO PUT IN THE SWEAT AND EFFORT CAN DO!. I came
from what the world wide news media called "The
murder capital of the world" at one time. (I just
happened to be in London watching the BBC when
they did a story about my home town many years
ago. I was very proud.) Despite having been raised
in that shithole, I'm
honest, peaceful (unless attacked) and would
never think to take something from somebody
because they're weak or vulnerable. This is
because I
choose to control my life and not let my
circumstances give me an excuse to do otherwise. |
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It's not about the social class you're born into, it's
about what social class you choose: civilized
human being or barbarian. |
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Glooting - new word I invented to describe the action of looting whilst under the influence of evo-stick glue (or similar) |
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21 and co by talk to them, I actually imagined the police giving them the kind of talking to that you might give them. |
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On the subject of just how evil they are. Look up Stanley Milligram. |
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No, better not. Milgram's point was that they are no
different from us. Or vice versa. |
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Awareness of the obedience to authority thing can
change how you behave. I know i tend to be an
outsider relative to almost any group and that
"outsiderness" is there in anyone. |
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Yes, it did indeed show that under the circumstances
of the experiment that was so, but has a similar
experiment been carried out on subjects whose
awareness of the tendency is being held in mind at
the time or for that matter is at the back of their
minds? The prison
experiment, whose details i've forgotten, presumably
was carried out on subjects who were aware of the
Milgram experiment. |
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I think any discussion which uses "protest" on the
same page as "looting" is misguided. Protestors
protest, and tell you what they're protesting about.
Looters loot, and sell what they've looted on eBay. |
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Let the protestors protest. Meanwhile, lock up the
looters and deny them any form of social benefit for
life. Simple. |
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Indeed they do, that's my point. If they're looting
they will attempt to protect what they loot from the
rain if it's liable to damage from it, so they will do
something incriminating if it's premeditated, such as
carry polythene bags, take a van and so forth. So
yes, no disagreement there and that's exactly what
i'm trying to achieve. People are much more likely to
be put off by the rain if all they're doing is looting. |
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Ah, [nineteenthly], I hadn't appreciated that I was
actually meant to read the idea properly. I doff my
cap to you. |
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Oh, hang on, some bugger's nicked my doffable cap. |
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//You guys have cameras almost everywhere, don't you?//
No. |
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Just checking, 21 Quest, but you are being comical here, aren't you? |
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I don't see the logic of putting shops full of stuff next to streets where people riot. |
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Neither will people who might have otherwise
opened shops in those areas at some time in the
future. |
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Then the locals will say "Poor, us, we don't have
any local shops for some reason. Must be those
evil rich people causing all our problems." |
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There was a little shopping mall opened in my old
home town called "Nairobi Village Shopping
Center". No, I'm not making a racist joke, that's
what it was named. The thought was that having a
shopping center with a name geared towards the
locals would instill pride in the community and
keep people from ripping all the stores off all the
time. Turned into an abandoned empty shell in
about, oh, 3 years. |
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I think [calum] was trying to ask if your whole rant
was intended to be comical, [21]. Which the answer
is probably no. |
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// This lends me to believe we can use similar methods to
breed out the naturally unharmonious from society. // |
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I disagree. I don't think it's possible to make people-
friendly people, even through selective breeding. When it
comes to social engineering, my rule of thumb is: if it
won't work at gunpoint, it probably won't work at all. |
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For the record, yes, I'm joking. |
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