<story><title>Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech</title><url>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxma3/slack-blog-post-worked-with-police</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jeffdavis</author><text>If your city had a ballot initiative to defund and disband the police department, would you vote for it?&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I&amp;#x27;m a little confused about the downvotes. If the answer is &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;, then what&amp;#x27;s the problem with police using slack? Isn&amp;#x27;t it just a basic tool for communication? Is selling them radios also bad? I should also say that my answer in my city would be &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>ardy42</author><text>&amp;gt; I don’t get it. Are we now advocating that police is overall more of a force of evil than good? Legitimate question.&lt;p&gt;Police, in the abstract, are still a force for good.  But it&amp;#x27;s becoming clear to more and more people that &lt;i&gt;the police we actually have&lt;/i&gt; commit an intolerable quantity of evil acts.</text></item><item><author>sol_invictus</author><text>I don’t get it. Are we now advocating that police is overall more of a force of evil than good? Legitimate question.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JakeTheAndroid</author><text>As someone that lives in Oakland, I don&amp;#x27;t see much of a difference in terms of quality of life between when the police were beating people or killing people at BART stations compared to the extended amount of time we&amp;#x27;ve lacked a police chief and the police as a whole basically disappeared.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m white, so the interaction with society during the completely corrupt OPD wasn&amp;#x27;t really ever a concern for me. I expect plenty of black residents are much happier now than they were then. I don&amp;#x27;t see MORE crime now than before, and I don&amp;#x27;t expect the police to ever show up if I call.&lt;p&gt;So, disbanding the police force isn&amp;#x27;t necessarily going to equate to complete and total anarchy. Most people don&amp;#x27;t break the law because we want to exist within the social contract that&amp;#x27;s established. Police can help enforce that contract, but they&amp;#x27;re not strictly required.</text></comment>
<story><title>Slack Removed a Blog Post Showing How Police Use Its Tech</title><url>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxma3/slack-blog-post-worked-with-police</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jeffdavis</author><text>If your city had a ballot initiative to defund and disband the police department, would you vote for it?&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I&amp;#x27;m a little confused about the downvotes. If the answer is &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;, then what&amp;#x27;s the problem with police using slack? Isn&amp;#x27;t it just a basic tool for communication? Is selling them radios also bad? I should also say that my answer in my city would be &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>ardy42</author><text>&amp;gt; I don’t get it. Are we now advocating that police is overall more of a force of evil than good? Legitimate question.&lt;p&gt;Police, in the abstract, are still a force for good.  But it&amp;#x27;s becoming clear to more and more people that &lt;i&gt;the police we actually have&lt;/i&gt; commit an intolerable quantity of evil acts.</text></item><item><author>sol_invictus</author><text>I don’t get it. Are we now advocating that police is overall more of a force of evil than good? Legitimate question.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ardy42</author><text>&amp;gt; If your city had a ballot initiative to defund and disband the police department, would you vote for it?&lt;p&gt;It would depend on the specifics.  I can definitely imagine a situation where the &amp;quot;company culture&amp;quot; of a department is so corrupt that replacement would be preferable to a destined-to-fail reform attempt.&lt;p&gt;Some kind of law enforcement is necessary, but no specific police organization is.</text></comment>