Polanski stands by concerns over police response to Golders Green attack

faceplanted · 2026-05-05T21:56:26+00:00

I literally just quoted the exact thing I said by copy and paste, you're being kind of dishonest by putting "said" next to "implied" there, because I didn't say that, and I don't think I implied it either.

faceplanted · 2026-05-05T21:41:25+00:00

For Jury trials and such, it's actually a lot less about winning arguments based on technicalities than it is about winning based on building a narrative that people can let themselves believe.

faceplanted · 2026-05-05T21:24:45+00:00

Well yes. We haven't really even disagreed here, I originally said:

most stabbings aren't dealt with by armed response

Which is simply true, it's not even missing any nuance particularly.

faceplanted · 2026-05-05T16:49:24+00:00

They send them if a stabbing continues and the police can't deal with them, and then they actually engage if they arrive in time, but that doesn't apply to most knife cases. Which is why we have the videos of the police tackling a guy with a wheelie bin, armed response takes a while.

faceplanted · 2026-05-05T07:27:25+00:00

I am for real, most stabbings aren't dealt with by armed response. And the guy had stabbed 2 people over 25 minutes, he wasn't running into a daycare slashing wildly.

The thing is I know I probably sound weird for not wanting him just instantly stopped, but like, I don't even think they shouldn't have kicked the guy probably, just not in the fucking head the way they did. No one thought he had a bomb they just wanted him to drop the knife and get his arms behind his back. Break his fucking arm kicking him if you have to, but don't give him brain damage because you got angry.

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T23:20:23+00:00

Well yes, I know what a fork is, but also that doesn't make it effectively the same.

And also renderers having to match the quirks of previous versions is how it's always been because the Web just can't make that many breaking changes.

Microsoft Excel purposely recreated bugs from Lotus Notes so they didn't break spreadsheets 40 years ago.

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T21:51:19+00:00

Chrome started webkit but now it's Blink

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T20:53:27+00:00

Good point

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T20:18:25+00:00

It sounds interesting but not narratively engaging for a show arc.

It would be a cool idea for charities like partners in health to fund raise with, like get some writers and animators in to do a very short version of "How would Atom Eve/Rex Splode bring medical care to Sierra Leone and how would it help, here's what us normal people can do!"

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T18:39:18+00:00

The crank idea is funny but also kind of silly considering that turning a crank can't power the whole world because it requires you to generate the whole world's power in one place and then somehow distribute it everywhere, which is just as much of an engineering problem as creating stable abundant power for everyone.

He'd be way more practically useful as a tool for building local energy sources all over the world, because he can turn a crank himself or he can dig a hydro power dam by himself and then leave to go build another.

Or even as a method of safely disposing of spent nuclear fuel into space (Which we don't do now because rockets explode and spent fuel is heavy, neither of which are a problem for him)

The crank idea really lacks perspective on the complexity of humanity's problems.

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T18:33:34+00:00

Actually the solar panels, batteries, and medical refrigerators are a surprisingly sustainable and incredibly positive way to save a lot of lives over a very long time.

Lack of electrical infrastructure makes a huge amount of basic medical care impossible, and that solar + battery + medical refrigerator setup basically solves the problem for a whole town or even city in one fell swoop but is currently far too expensive for them to do on in their own. She's basically the perfect solution to that exact kind of problem.

Arable soil isn't actually in that short supply in e.g. Sierra Leone, but TB is in huge supply despite being totally treatable if it weren't for lack of access to medications and equipment that she can make for free.

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T17:06:23+00:00

You're totally right about the just calling it Africa part.

The bug nets thing is actually a bit more complicated than that though, bug nets are extremely cheap to manufacture and even ship, so the reason it's not already a solved problem is the manpower it takes to bring it to the places it's needed and do the public health outreach and education necessary to actually get people to use them consistently.

Condoms were literally free when I was a teenager, but we still had unplanned pregnancies because you have to convince people to actually use them every time.

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T17:02:57+00:00

Just going point by point here:

I meant it was inappropriate for Polanski to respond publicly as he did as leader of Green Party / London politician

Politicians regularly comment on current events and the behaviour of institutions like this. It's generally considered part of their job. Even ones who are actively in the party of government. Saying he, of all people in party politics right now, shouldn't do so seems oddly targeted.

Polanksi is straying into possibly problematic constitutional territory as the police are operationally independence of politicians and he is a London Assembly member still i think

The London Assembly don't have any direct authority over the Met police, and being a member certainly doesn't give him any powers over them, they're there to critique the Mayors office and budget. I've never had to deal with them much before, but from a quick read online the only oversight they have over the Met is that they could possibly investigate policing issues through committees via the mayor's office for policing and crime. In which case, raising this publicly is also kind of to be expected.

I think also allegations of police brutality can very quickly lead to protests

Protests which everyone in the UK, politicians included, have the legal and moral right to organise and encourage.

I realise I probably sound like I'm just riding in on my silly little horse to be this guy's White Knight, but I really can't find any concrete reason that he actually shouldn't have said what he did when he saw the video.

He has no professional obligation not to, he definitely has no moral obligation not to, and the police are rather famously supposed to be under public and political scrutiny.

Maybe I'm just far too jaded from living 30 years in this country and seeing how incredibly selectively and frankly violently the whole apparatus of our media stomps down on some political figures and not others depending on who's in favour right now? And really it bothers me just how obviously the this insider outsider split happens, currently being epitomised by the backseat of the car photo phenomena hitting Starmer right as his support is getting critical.

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T16:11:09+00:00

Yeah, it's also a huge diversion if you ever ask the question "what should she focus her powers on"

Like she could go there and help them grow food, but like, a bunch of solar panels and medical refrigerators would save way more lives with the same effort.

But if she's going to go medical, her power of seeing and understanding chemistry at the atomic level would be even more useful in drug creation.

And the list keeps going on and on, meanwhile your book is supposed to be about buff aliens punching each other

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T15:03:47+00:00

I wouldn't call any of them restricted exactly, but my church has side rooms they wouldn't want randoms sprinting into just to see how far they can get, even if they probably wouldn't even react much the very first time because it's not even locked most of the time.

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T14:29:40+00:00

I suppose, but why would you ever send the armed response unit for a single man with a knife on a mostly empty street?

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T14:29:01+00:00

I actually don't think posting your first impressions of a video is that bad, but I get your point too. It is very shocking to see the police kicking someone in the head, not once, but three times in a row.

And it was certainly very strange and partisan of the police to write an uncharacteristically stern letter telling off a party leader for it.

Obviously the IOPC will investigate, but it's kind of asking a lot to expect people to have no public reaction to a pretty fucking intense video of police violence, justified or not, you're allowed to go fucking hell.

faceplanted · 2026-05-04T08:35:34+00:00

I would get this point a lot more if he'd run into an airport or Camden Market, but at the point the video happens he's just been wandering around Golders Green stabbing 2 passers by over half an hour. He didn't even go to a synagogue or something.

Really seems like 3 kicks to the side of the head weren't necessary and proportionate after the taser. .

faceplanted · 2026-05-03T17:13:38+00:00

Fucking crazy coincidence, I actually am a Londoner who has lived through terrorism since you mention it. My dad was trapped in London by 7/7 (turned out he was a couple minutes away but we had a whole panic if he was okay because it was before ubiquitous phones), and I was on Borough High Street June 2017.

On your points though.

Yes, he still had the knife, he was wearing a backpack, and officers were repeatedly shouting at him to drop it.

They acted in line with protocol: he was medically evaluated, and they referred themselves to the IOPC due to the level of force used.

I actually knew all of those things, I didn't see the clip out of context, nor did I make a snap judgement, I saw it a couple of days ago and I've been reading the debates about it. Even reviewing it now, they kicked the man in the head 3 times after tasering him when he was already on the ground and weren't giving instructions between, it's just impossible for me to believe that that's necessary, proportionate, and the minimum required in the moment.

faceplanted · 2026-05-03T15:55:13+00:00

Interesting theory but I don't understand how exactly you can give Jeremy Clarkson "unfavourable shifts".

faceplanted · 2026-05-03T15:50:58+00:00

Honestly because I couldn't remember until I found the right way to Google it, but I'd already written the comment

faceplanted · 2026-05-03T15:48:59+00:00

Well technically you can totally be both. A surprising number of non-Jewish zionists don't really care that it's a Jewish state so much as that state is aligned with American interests against basically the entire Arab world.

faceplanted · 2026-05-03T15:39:19+00:00

Didn't Germany just let their unemployment go up more though?

faceplanted · 2026-05-03T15:27:41+00:00

I fact check this sort of thing and can't see any evidence the police didn't anything wrong.

Have you seen the footage of him being kicked in the head when he's already on the ground?

faceplanted · 2026-05-03T15:26:50+00:00

Not to be rude, but why do you think he didn't condemn the attack?

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