I don't even know what to do with the "never date police officers" thing. Most police officers are married. It's a shift-work job, so they have high divorce rates, but they just remarry.
There are multiple examples of prominent law professors bringing in ex-police professionals who all say the exact same thing: never talk to the police. If you spend five minutes around a lawyer they will say the same thing. If you ever end up finding yourself in legal turmoil it is the very first thing a lawyer will directly advise you to do.
People being stupid I don't think suddenly makes this advice terminally online. I was hearing it, in person, when I was in college over a decade ago.
I've read threads here where people have made impassioned arguments that you yourself should never volunteer information to the police investigating a crime such as a hit and run. The police will turn it against you and somehow make you the target of their investigation! Ordinary people out in the world do not think that way, and you will not succeed in making them think that way by showing them videos of lawyers explaining why the only thing you should ever say is "I do not consent to any searches and will not answer any of your questions".
If you said that to a police officer doing a canvass in my neighborhood, people would look at you like a space alien.
I think it's helpful to understand all this stuff when reading things about Flock. People on HN and in activist communities seem gobsmacked that all the Flock cameras haven't been taken down yet (in fact: ALPR deployments are growing, not shrinking). But they have wildly different priors about policing than the median resident of a muni with ALPR cameras.
Yes, that is why they don't do it. It does not mean the advice is "terminally online". It is the advice coming from layers that deal with the system.
Layers saying those things, online and offline, are not terminally online.
The general attitude seems extremely positively correlated with income, and the average American isn’t particularly well off.
They have also unusually high domestic violence rates. That is where the bit comes from.
The factors police have and firemen dont are a.) victim not being able to go to police, cause those are his buddies b.) training teaches cops to take and keep charge (escalating aggression until compliance is acquired).
Try growing up poor and see how your perspective changes on the police.
This is a deeply masculine take, Zuck would be proud.
This is such a widely known problem, I’m really surprised you’re not familiar with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer-involved_domestic_viol...
“Never date a cop” is very common advice women will give to each other, has nothing to do with politics or being excessively online.