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pray for minneapolis

Did it kick off at the Price Philip mournings? I thought it was 100% peaceful, as one would expect.
So was the Sara Everard vigil. As one would expect.

Unless you think a few women making speeches justifies this:

skynews-james-veyseyshutterstock_5304140.jpg
 
I think we should arrest pretty much everyone who was in Soho at the weekend. Minimal masks, minimal distancing. Clear breaches everywhere.
Were you there? Did you witness this, or are you going from photographs and video? Were they outside, in which case masks aren't required? Were they clustered in groups of <=6 in which case distancing might not have been required? How 'clear' are these breaches. If you had to prosecute and if you lost, would have to sell up to pay the other side's costs, would you take it on? In other words, how certain are you that your view is unquestionably the right one? This is the sort of assessment that prosecutors and courts have to go through, because everybody has the right to a fair trial, which includes not going to trial at all if there's not enough evidence.
 
Were you there? Did you witness this, or are you going from photographs and video? Were they outside, in which case masks aren't required? Were they clustered in groups of >=6 in which case distancing might not have been required? How 'clear' are these breaches. If you had to prosecute and if you lost, would have to sell up to pay the other side's costs, would you take it on? In other words, how certain are you that your view is unquestionably the right one? This is the sort of assessment that prosecutors and courts have to go through, because everybody has the right to a fair trial, which includes not going to trial at all if there's not enough evidence.

I was being facetious. What they did have in common with the PP mourners is that they weren’t throwing bottles etc.

Anyhow, we look to the verdict in the US. Trouble whatever the outcome I suspect.
 
I am convinced that many US Police are scared shitless in many of the situations they have to deal with.. simply because there is so often the possibility of a motorist or whatever producing a gun. FWIW, I believe the female officer who says she mixed up her gun and taser. In a stressful situation.. I believe that could happen. She was even clearly heard to shout 'taser taser taser' before shooting. Also she had 26 years experience so would presumably have been spotted as a baddie long ago if she genuinely was a 'bad' cop.

My view. Floyd was already in handcuffs and no threat to anyone. There was no need...whatever..at all..for anyone to kneel on his neck..amd certanly not for 9 and a half minutes. Furthermore.. the murderer continued to kneel on Floyd's neck whilst seemingly attempting to 'stare down' whoever it was that filmed him. He came across as an arrogant bullying shit. Guilty as hell.
 
I’m sure you’re right on the Taser point. One thing I’d add about that is that poor design choices may have exacerbated the problem in that case. If the Taser is designed to be handled much like a gun, and is holstered like a gun, there might be no reason for her to have realised she was handling the wrong weapon.

In aviation, you don’t put the ‘fasten seat belt’ sign switch next to an identical switch that jettisons the fuel, because that’s an accident waiting to happen in a pressured environment. So make the Taser look and feel very different to the gun, and accessed from the opposite hand, say, and you help to design out some of those potential horrible, but genuine mistakes.
 
It is the case that when faced with a perceived significant threat, the rational area of the brain (pre-frontal cortex) gets excluded from decision making, while the more primitive and instinctive/reactionary area of the brain found towards the brain stem takes over to get us through of the situation. This is just how the brain works. Under normal operation, the pre-frontal cortex should be able to have the final say in how we deal with situations, but once a perceived threat reaches a certain level, our autonomic nervous system takes over and does what it 'thinks' it has to do to assure personal safety. All rational thought is kept out of the equation.

(A fairly recent example of mine was when I got knocked off my bike last year. It was a significant impact and my motor skills went offline for up to a minute until suddenly I heard a voice inside my head telling me with non-negotiable authority to get up and get off the road. My motor skills had come back online and wild horses could not have kept me on the ground any longer. My autonomic nervous system had seized control to get me to a place of safety.)

It's also the case one can develop a degree of resistance to this, to resist or at least, recognise when you're in fight or flight mode and bring your rational self back online, as it were: by building up a tolerance to stressful situations and understanding the neurobiology involved. But it's also the case that people develop a negative bias against 'out' groups of people who are not from their own 'in' group, a tribal mindset if you will. Dr Alisha Moreland-Capuia gave an excellent keynote presentation last year for Epione Training on race and trauma and it's well worth a watch. She takes you through the neurobiology of fear and also how racial bias exists and influences people even without their conscious knowing.

Skip to 7.00 to watch Dr AMC begin her presentation. Essential viewing imo:

 
Under normal operation, the pre-frontal cortex should be able to have the final say in how we deal with situations, but once a perceived threat reaches a certain level, our autonomic nervous system takes over and does what it 'thinks' it has to do to assure personal safety. All rational thought is kept out of the equation.




Agree with your post, most interesting, though the emotional intelligence of the brain should be given priority in most social interactions, even philosophical mentation. Art? I remember being quite amused flying through the air after being T-boned by a car into the side of my motorcycle at 40 mph.
 
Agree with your post, most interesting, though the emotional intelligence of the brain should be given priority in most social interactions, even philosophical mentation. Art? I remember being quite amused flying through the air after being T-boned by a car into the side of my motorcycle at 40 mph.

Indeed, as Dr Moreland-Capuia says: "Systems change when people change, and people change when they feel something."

Tough break on the bike, Herb - at 40mph, somebody up there definitely likes you!!!
 
I was lucky the car just missed my ankle so I only had two broken wrists as I tried to steer the bike to the left at the last minute. As they say take your hands off the car's steering wheel during a crash. I don't think that applies to bikes though.

The recent progress into how the brains work is fascinating, but the old three systems/limbic system theory from the '50s still applies in general. I go back to the Arthur Koestler popular science days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler
 
I watched the entire trial on ABC and NBC so am probably PFMs foremost expert on the subject.

I believe he will be found guilty and deserves to be. Dangerous and reckless, etc. Not in any police training.

The fact he didn't speak in defence of himself spoke volumes. Probably a bit of a psycho.
 
In the US a defendent is not required to testify, and they frequently don't. It's not an unusual choice.

It’s the same over here, a defendant can’t be compelled to give evidence, and the judge always tells the jury in his summing up that no inference should be made because of that decision.
 


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