@peter @yogthos We need to evolve to where climate action is a measure by which gov performance is judged, and this is inversely proportional to living the high life.

@aral I would be useful if there were a #Mastodon instance that would automatically replace all #Twitter links with a randomly selected #Nitter instance.

@peter @yogthos Cops have internal biases they aren't aware of and thus not in control of. Beating someone until they confess is an overtly purposeful act -- you don't do it on accident or out of bad training, you do it because in fact the system forces you to. It's pushed down from above.

@yogthos @peter It's unclear way they don't blame their gov for that kind of manifestation

@peter @yogthos Did you know if a driver accidentally cripples someone they are personally responsible for paying the victim's health expenses for the rest of their life? And that that leads to drivers who deliberately killing those they accidentally hit in order to avoid the lifelong medical bills? Also, when a bystander sees someone injured they don't help (out of fear for being blamed)

@yogthos @peter i don't equate the two.. I was responding to your stance along those lines. That Chinese lifestyles have improved and that this is somehow a measure of gov performance. Quality of life is evaluated annually and Zurich and Vancouver normally get top ratings.

@yogthos @peter It's a consequence of oppression. As is beating someone until they confess, which I believe is how law enforcement is carried out.

@yogthos @peter No you do not have suspects getting beaten in police stations because in the US that's suicide for the prosecutions case. There's plenty of excessive force used on the street but that's not to get a confession (it's a cop fearful of the victim lashing back or fear of the suspect getting away)

@peter @yogthos Beatings in police stations happen in Russia, China and Mexico, not the US.

@yogthos @peter Lived there and i'm close to a number of criminal defense attorneys. A coerced confession is *worthless* and it jeopardizes the prosecutions case to the point that it harms their case even if the other evidence is good.

@yogthos @peter Police killings in the US happen /in the street/, not in the station and not for a confession. Disproportionate incarceration happens but that's selective enforcement not a coerced confession scenario.

@yogthos @peter Of course the military is fair game for blame. But the scale of Guantanimo Bay is miniscule compared to all the civilian police departments in the US. It's not even close. And the impact is a world of difference. In China you can be tortured in any police station.

@yogthos @peter that's not police. That's the military. The US military indeed does torture. In China, the coerced confessions are not a military op, they are committed by civilians (police) against civilians.

@peter @yogthos The US population is on the order of 300+ million. Guantanimo bay is probably under 1000.

@yogthos @peter I don't need Google to tell me how big the Guantanimo Bay operation is

@yogthos @peter That's a good thing. The avg American consumes 20 times more than the rest of the world. This is lousy from a climate change PoV. Climate should be a high priority and buying shit should drop.

@yogthos @peter i agree. So it's interesting to compare China to India. Not as interesting to compare China to the US or Europe, where lifestyles have been quite good for some time, which makes improvement more difficult and less likely. In fact it would be misfocused for the US or Europe to strive to improve lifestyles when there are bigger needs unrelated to personal lifestyles.

@yogthos The statement “even though that’s false” doesn’t make much sense in the context of opinions. All three statements before that are opinions, which can neither be true nor false.

@yogthos The next block can be looked at through the lens of some quotes I hold in high regard: “Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet” --Alice Walker. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” --Desmond Tutu. Snapping into activist mode when someone is being oppressed is not just noble, it can be regarded as a duty.

@yogthos @peter I wouldn't link lifestyle with gov. performance satisfaction. Indeed Chinese lifestyles had much more room for improvement over recent decades (starting from a lower point). And indeed that potential has manifested into reality -- to the point that learning Mandarin has become more popular in the west to accommodate the influx of Chinese tourism due to lifestyle gains.