Readit NewsThese cops, like literal generations of cops before them, work in a system that financially and socially rewards and reinforces this behavior.
We need to stop thinking about cops as the good guys by default, and really start examining the systems that we've built to give them power. Especially unchecked power like this where they can train a dog to mark on a bag, use that training to get probable cause, and then steal whatever they want within the bag.
It's not just a few bad apples, it's a systemic issue that needs systemic fixes. Because if you put most humans in a position where they can get tens of thousands of dollars a year, without consequence, and be told they are heroes for doing so... it's going to be difficult to resist. We need to sharply cut back on police power, sharply cut back on police presence (do we really need DEA agents "cold checking" airline passengers because they bought a ticket late?)
You monster! How many people could you have saved! Instead you spend your money on vacations, television, computer games, music, movies, coffee, whatever.
Oh, what's that you say? _You_ (who, I presume, do not directly save any lives yourself) are morally allowed to use the profit from your labor on unnecessary things for your own pleasure, but people who actually work in healthcare must not just dedicate all of their professional energy and effort to helping people and saving lives, but also must not take any profits from it either, is that right?
Healthcare can morally only be provided by charities?
I cannot stand Becky Chambers. I've tried to read her three times, and after about 20 pages I give up. Of the thousand or so novels I've read in the last 20 years, I've done that with about 5 books.
One of my friends asked my why I was so vituperative about Becky Chambers. I said it was just so bad.
They pointed out that I really, really sounded like I was channeling the "I am a man and I really want everyone's favorite things to be what men like in Sci Fi" trope.
I don't think this is accurate! I like all sorts of feminist sci-fi.
But I loath characters who sit around and don't do anything much while some low-stakes activity is happening and there's a bunch of angst that strikes me as unimportant whining not driving any plot.
So, fair enough, I have only encountered that style of writing from female authors. But I don't think it's a particularly damning individual preference.
I happened to love Murderbot (and A Memory Called Empire), though, per the original point of discussion for this post.
I want more stories about people just... living unremarkable lives in remarkable places. Like, I don't need to read about Batman, but reading about the guy who runs the bodega in Gotham City? Yum yum yum, that's absolutely food for me.
I describe Chambers to others as "cozy" sci-fi.
That said, I think her different works hit differently. The Monk and Robot series is a really poignant pair of novellas about what it means to be human in a solarpunk world.
The Wayfarer series (Long Way to a Small Angry Planet) is slice of life stories of people caught in awkward situations around space. It's like, "What are people on the fringes doing in Star Trek -- not Picard types, but like, construction crews or black market dealers or space communists or people who get stuck at a motel because the highway shuts down. What if Firefly was a little less high energy.
I disagree with your assessments a little, but not enough to make a fuss. I think it's absolutely fair to say, "This wasn't to my taste".
That said, I'm also queer, poly, and use neopronouns, so I think I may be primed for science fiction that takes the transhumanism language and explores those topics in ways that doesn't treat those topics are scandalous or shocking.
Play this game: http://passage.toolness.org/
It's 5 minutes long.
Read the creator's discussion on it: https://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/statement.html
Hardly seems consumeristic. And there's a huge pile of games like this out there.
It's a totally valid and common jargon phrase from the web services world, apologies though, I assumed that it was wider jargon than it turns out it is...
Was it the messed up human anatomy? The letters and numbers being misformed? The lack of faces? The weird choice of unnecessary detail and bizarre scale?
One or two "Army Painter" brushes will do you fine.
Thin paints a little as you work, the paints in the bottles are a little thick.
Paint a base coat layer, wash a darker color over that layer, drybrush a lighter highlight over that layer and you'll be 90% of the way there. From that point, it's just practice and adding skills.
Seeing people standing around a classroom... hospital?... as amputees and weird shaped people in a space that's too large for them is very disquieting and distracting from the piece later on.