I was reading an article in the Finnish news about a person shot (not killed) by police in Finland last year, who is being charged with seven counts of attempted murder, for shooting at police. At the end of the article, there was a little factoid added about deaths through use of force by police.
Yes, that is effectively eight people in 22 years. In general, police tend to "aim for the leg" in these cases and even when there are violent, knife-wielding people who have killed people, they have incapacitated them, not killed them. Also, to become a police officer, it is a university degree.
The Police University College is responsible for overall police training and student selection, for organizing degree and advanced studies, and for applied research and development in the police field. The institution is under the guidance of the National Police Board and ultimately the Interior Ministry. It provides a bachelor's and a master's degree in police services and specialized courses, such as driver's courses and an executive MBA in policing. source
And not only that:
in 2016, the college received 4,318 applications for the bachelor's degree programme's intake of 300 students—an admittance rate of 7.0% source
This probably has something to do with the outcomes of the police force in Finland. In 2019, Harvard had a 4.5% acceptance rate.
But, this sent me down a little bit of a rabbit hole on my lunch break (which I chose to take today) and I found the following chart; Number of people shot to death by the police in the United States from 2017 to 2022, by race:
Something seems a bit off there, doesn't it?
Unknown lives matter too!
This post isn't about getting into any kind of discussion about police brutality and bias, or gun violence and its causes etc, but it is more to point out how changing the way something is reported, is going to affect the perception of a discussion. Essentially, numbers can be used to manipulate any conversation to support any side of an argument, if chosen correctly.
I remember a story a lecturer told in a statistics class from when I was at university, where there was a significant reduction in the number of rape cases in New York. However, instead of enacting on the causes, what they did was lower the age of consent in the state, thus taking away a high number of statutory rape cases, which are non-violent, but based on age. In the US, this is dictated by each state and the age of consent in New York for example, is 13 and in Florida, 16. That is quite a difference.
But, these changes in numbers has an effect on how we think about things to, even when we know better. For example, the other day a friend here was looking at the price of a token and was a little dismayed to see it down, since it had been climbing the day earlier. Was it really down though? Well, that depends on perspective.
If a token is worth 100 and climbs 20%, it is now worth 120. If it falls the next day by 5% it will be "red", but it will still hold 114. But, "seeing red" affects us and makes us nervous, even though we know it is up. If my friend had noticed the token at 100 and two days later saw it at 114, they would have been happy, but seeing the 5% drop give the feeling of decline, sadness unless buying.
Like it or not though, we are all affected in some way by the framing of something and often find it difficult to reframe, which is why controlling the narrative is such a useful mechanism of authority. Controlling the story means being able to set the baseline tone for a conversation and therefore apply "good and bad" judgements to events, essentially spinning reality on its axis, because "reality" is never absolute in the minds of humans. We just can't ever know what is real with precision, because we can never know all of the events that lead into the fact, no matter how simple.
Which brings to mind this awesome quote:
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given, than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” _Muhammad Ali
When people paraphrase and reduce to "impossible is nothing", they take out a lot of the intention behind it, and apply a frame that "nothing is impossible". Something they cannot actually know. In a very literal sense, impossible is nothing, because if something is impossible, it just cannot exist, being literally nothing.
Impossible as an opinion however is often used for something that "can be" but just doesn't exist yet, for example, a human flying. Before planes, human flight was possible, bit it just hadn't been done, so it was impossible in the moment, until people used their resources to change it, to make flight a thing possible for humans.
However, philosophical musings aside, the framing of our experience dictates a lot of the future outcomes, because we form opinions on how things are and if course, how they should be.
Are the crypto markets currently good or bad?
Well, that depends on which frame you are personally using to view it. It is up for people who bought lower, down for people who bought higher, and potentially attractive for those looking to sell and buy, depending on which side of the up/down fence they bought.
The reason I am writing about this today is because I have been thinking about my own behavior and framing, and how it has changed in the last year after I had a stroke. The way I see the world has shifted and my perspective on similar events means that in some cases, I am more pessimistic than I would have been in the past, more reserved in others and, outgoing where I would have been more restrained.
Nothing has changed much in what I am experiencing, other than my world view of it.
Shile a lot of this has been forced through my brain and body making new defaults and learning new paths, I would like to take back more control over how I see the world, because it affects my outcomes and those of the people around me I care about. This includes my own financial perspectives too, because I don't want to let the things that were working for me slide, nor let the things that weren't creep into my processes.
How I see it in regards to investment is, if I am not exploring how I "feel" about my position in the conditions, I am likely to make decisions that aren't necessarily aligned with where I want to be. And while this doesn't just apply to my investment strategies, I do see how my changed mindset has affected my approach and, I feel it is not necessarily all for the better.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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Eight people killed by police in 22 years? Unbelieveable! I think this is more than 500 in during this period in any country in the East.
What to call this situation? It looks like the civilization difference.
The population of Finland is only 5.5 million. But per capita very few people get killed by the police here.
I will do the calculation on it later, but it is very low here.
Yeah, it is pretty strange here. You know, training people :D
It comes down to more than just highly trained police officers.
A level of trust between the police and the public as well as criminals is needed. The more violent the criminals the more likely the police are to shoot just in case, which makes everything worse by adding to a vicious circle. Here, there is no significant racial minority that gets killed by the police more likely than other groups. If there were, criminals belonging to that group might be more likely to shoot at the police to save their own lives, which would make the police more likely to shoot them, or anyone suspicious enough, in the first place. Occupational safety (*).
Cultural conditioning along the lines of shoot first and ask questions later does not exist. Gun heroes are not lionized. Canadian and American gun cultures differ similarly because the Canadian West was settled in a more centrally controlled manner. Most of the land was owned and controlled by Hudson Bay Company and infrastructure was built first before large scale immigration. In Finland, the north was settled over a much longer period of time and by much fewer people. Initially, Australia was a prison colony at but a managed one and not a free-for-all shooting gallery. :D
*) One thing Quora has taught me is to NEVER under any circumstances get out of the car and approach the squad car when pulled over by American police like is done in certain countries, unless getting perforated by a fast metal projectile is #1 on your wish list.
Yes, I know. But it is all part of the "training" - not just the education system. The vicious cycle is wound up in systemic processes, including cultural systems, making the breaking very difficult.
And yeah, the American history of violence to "tame and control" it in many ways, is still there today. It is no surprise really, that a country built on incentivized violence, has problems with violent crime.
Tell that to Ned Kelly! Or the estimated 1.5M natives that were killed to make it all happen, which is still impacting the country today, 200 years later.
It is much like building - if you start with a poor foundation, you end up with a poor house.
Yes, a lot of the natives fell victim to genocide but that's still different from the sort of free-for-all the American west was where settlement preceded law and order.
The rest of the British colonies settled by mostly Europeans: Canada, Australia and New Zealand are still less violent than the USA. The legacy of slavery is the cause of much of the violence in the US.
It isn't just slavery, though that is a big part. I think the general mindset is built on getting to the top by standing on the bodies of others.
Now for something a bit controversial: the difference between civilized and uncivilized is maybe not in the amount of killing done but in how organized the killing is. Thoughts?
What a strong topic for this police officer, and very interesting all the data you gave about the comparison of these cases with other countries, from what I see the laws are also very subjective, like everything you mention later, nothing affects anyone, it all depends from where you are, your personal evolution is what it has to be before the situations you have had to live. Thank you very much for this post.
Perspective has such an impact on our experience, yet we rarely tend to want to change our own. Too often, it takes a lot of pain and hardship to make a shift.
I think it is down to the type of crime the cops face daily so it is a hard one to compare. I do get your point though as education will play a role in how you act, but in different situations that would change. I have done the driving course which is the advanced driver training and has helped me twice already.
I think anyone who has a medical scare will act differently as it is life changing and it will change how you think and act. Maybe being more selfish in some ways as I know I have changed and don't always go with the flow whereas before I would keep quiet and complain later lol.
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For sure. I think this is where the general culture and society comes into it too. In general, Finland is pretty stable, people are well educated, there are social services, healthcare, child development services etc - all of this adds up to a safer community, as the community itself isn't struggling as much just to live and aren't needing to resort to various crime to make ends meet.
I think defensive driving courses should be mandatory for everyone with a license!
I have always been a decent driver but after this course it improved me so much just by being more aware. You are even asked to count pedestrians along the way so your constantly scanning for any problems that might occur. I have driven with other people who have no clue and no awareness and are a danger on the road because of this.
I am glad that Finns are pretty decent drivers on average. When they get their license, they have to do two different trainings to simulate the winter (if not already winter). Plus, they have to drive under so many weather conditions, so they end up pretty decent. Better than me I reckon and, I am not a bad driver :)
Good to hear that as you have some extreme conditions requiring a different set of driving skills.
I don't know if one who sees impossibility as nothing is really right. Impossibility is the invention and discovery yet uninvested, undiscovered. When confronted or challenged by science, common or bluntly risk thinking out of the box then impossibility becomes a new normal.
This is a progressive mentality, the mind of a man who understands that life is evolving. With this one would not hold some certain things of this life so much personal.
Though you said you don't want to go on the brutality of the police in Finland or else where I am sure your comment section would had been filled with some deep sorry stories of the carelessness of the police even with their said high professionalism.
But, what is truly impossible can never be, making it never anything.
Police professionalism doesn't happen everywhere, but I think in Europe, it is generally not too bad.
An impossible thing to me is something that hasn't been conceived in the heart of any man . Anything the heart can think of I don't see it as an impossible. It could take longer time and resources but if taken seriously then ...
Yes it's not very bad a record in that part of the world be the professionalism of the police in Africa to be specific Nigeria is no good news.
I feel like police work should be a uni degree everywhere 😳
I’m going to have to read why framing is so annoyingly tricky to change, as this reminded me just how ridiculously much is affected by it.
I agree. It would be a good start to improving situations and setting a slightly higher bar for carrying a gun with authority.
I am no expert on framing, but from an organizational change perspective, framing plays such an important part in the level of resistance.
That is a really low rate of crime. It's hard to really know if that is all there is to know for the reason but I guess it's probably just one of the reasons. I wonder if the media there even reports about crimes often because I know it can cause copy-cats.
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There are other reasons too of course, like many people are educated in Finland, there is also not massive disparities in wealth (not to the level of the US for example) and in comparison, almost no true poverty - these things affect the crime level also, which in turn makes the work as a police more or less dangerous. Finnish police don't head out each day, worried about whether they will return home.
Amazing!
These kinds of comments are not going to get you far on Hive.
Thank you for warning me. I'm new here and will be more careful from now on.
Yeah, this isn't Instagram. If you really want to make the most of your experience and time here, have a look at the effort that people take to engage with others. Scroll through a few of the comment sections of my posts for example.
Thank you very much for your suggestions, I will take that into consideration.
Money can hypnotize everyone 💰💰
Interesting thoughts! Congrats on choosing to take a lunch by the way. That is a big deal :) I usually get a lunch, but I eat it while sitting at my desk and working, so the times I choose to go off site are a big deal! Those numbers are definitely interesting. I wish ours in the US were closer to the ones in Finland. Crypto is definitely a tough thing to get perspective on. It hits all those triggers at different times making it difficult to separate logic from emotion.
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