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0 pointsxnyan2y ago0 comments

Does this analogy consider the costs involved with sending out the police? When the compiler is wrong, do armed agents of the state with broad discretion to employ violence in the commission of their duties get dispatched? What is the potential opportunity cost of inefficiently using the compiler vs the police choosing to respond to a shotspotter alert over a potently more accurate signal?

To be really clear, I think the risk profile of a false positive in terms of a compiler vs police dispatch is the difference between the potential waste of pennies compared to the potential waste of human lives.

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SpicyLemonZest2y ago· 3 in thread

I'm not sure what you're referring to, since the audit described in the source article doesn't seem to mention any such costs.

Perhaps you're coming from a perspective where policing is presumptively bad, and we ought to avoid having police around unless we're confident there's a specific benefit in doing so? I know that many people think that way, and I'm not sure how to engage with it other than to say I don't agree. I don't think the police are perfect by any means, but I live in an area covered by ShotSpotter, and I feel safer knowing they're detecting and investigating anything that sounds like a gunshot in my neighborhood.

alistairSH2y ago

Perhaps you're coming from a perspective where policing is presumptively bad

In much of the US, this is a fair assumption. The police have no legal obligation to assist. They carry guns and are authorized to use them. They receive less training than many of their European counterparts. And the entire justice system is constructed to allow minimal accountability in the face of malfeasance. It's a recipe for not only wasted dollars, but also excess violence and wasted lives.

SpicyLemonZest2y ago

Again, I'm not sure what to say. I agree with many of your criticisms, but it's hard for me to see why they imply that a tool to help police detect and investigate every gunshot noise in my neighborhood is bad. I'd much rather have an undertrained cop investigate than nobody at all, and training cops to a European standard would require large investments in police funding that I'm not sure are politically feasible today.

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xnyanOP2y ago

> the audit described in the source article doesn't seem to mention any such costs.

Not sure I understand what you're saying - it's not mentioned in the article, which means it does not exist? Anyway, have a nice day.

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