Robocop : Man, Machine, and the Law

[@user-ed1gj1ng5g]

Marge Simpson : I thought you said the law was powerless. Police Chief Clancy Wiggum : Powerless to help you, not to punish you.

[@ChalcolithicPrizim]

“With bad laws and good officials, it is quite possible to rule the country. But if the officials are bad, even the best laws cannot help.” -Otto Von Bismarck

[@toomanymarys7355]

Plot twist: he was a bad official.

[@willumbermarchant5510]

But he was very, very good at it

[@Kannot2023]

​@@toomanymarys7355 depends of point of view. From German point of view. But he is wrong. Nazi Germany was rules by bad laws and people who applied them.

[@btw6301]

New feral video? I'D BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR!!

[@jasonblalock4429]

I LIIIIIIKE IT!

[@jamesharren3882]

Lmfao 🤣 that guy is wild.

[@Churchmilitant67]

😅😅😅😅

[@canislupuslupus]

Honestly, always surprised me how that phrase is hardly ever quoted.

[@Churchmilitant67]

@canislupuslupus it was wildly quoted during the eighties. It fell out of use, because like most movie quotes, it got forgotten.

[@HoosierDaddy2a]

1. Love how you use nature as your background 2. I think the biggest problem is that alot of cops are just going with the flow, which allows a toxic environment to grow within a department. And they don't really serve and protect, I've seen cops who've been sitting on the side of the road for hours take off going well over the speed limit just to get home.

[@cavemanjoe79]

Not only do they speed well above the posted speed limit, they also block traffic by sitting in the passing lane instead of driving within five mph of the posted speed limit and sitting in the travel lane. I noticed while deployed in Germany that their police don’t stay in the passing lane, and when you pass them driving like a human they just wave in a friendly manner. In theory American police might actually catch more excessive speeders if they actually drove how the rest of us are expected to, just a thought.

[@James_Bee]

Not sure where you live, but I see cops in the travel lane, going under the limit, regularly. And they don't come after me for going a few over when I pass them. Not that I'm saying it doesn't happen.

[@julianmunoz7836]

I love how old movies were considered "stupid" at release, but man were so deep like Rambo, or total recall for example

[@SusCalvin]

Total Recall kept a little more of the surreal weirdness of Dick, more than Blade Runner. Like the real plot is whether Quaid dreams or not.

[@cavemanjoe79]

That may be due to the public’s wanting over the top action movies, and luckily a good film maker will put that in the film for most consumers, and then get in the better meat of a good story for some of us to still enjoy more as we mature.

[@bensmith8682]

They're not that deep, we've just gotten that much more stupid.

[@thedragondemands5186]

Damn it, Murphy! I That _HAND CANNON_ is against regulations! In this precinct we do things by the book!

[@Hexterguard99]

Robocop/Murphy: Shoots the book into pieces.

[@benjaminalmquist1805]

"Bye book"

[@benjackson1454]

The rules that constrain other men....mean nothing to MURPHYYYY!

[@shaider1982]

He'll fight CommuNazis.

[@sheets75]

I met the screenwriter, Michael Miner, years ago at a Robocop screening. I remember him saying the mostly black audience in Detroit loved the movie, especially every time an OCP exec got killed. He talked about the ED-209 encounter and how they wracked their brains to come up with a way for Robocop to survive and they settled on "what if the monster can't go down stairs?" because it was the sort of corporate oversight they thought was right in tune with the story's satirical humor. I heartily agree with the defunding point. Defunding will only lead to dregs looking to join and even worse training (which is already deficient from what I've been told). It's a foolish, vindictive solution.

[@Hugebull]

1. Defund police. Causing the inevitable crimes rate to rise. Property values plummet thanks to rising insurance cost. 2. Buy the properties on the cheap. 3. As people demand protection, give it to them. Refund the police now that you and your friends own the most valuable properties in the country. 4. Sucess.

[@stolman2197]

Verhoeven is a talented filmmaker but I struggle to accept that given what he did to "Starship Troopers"

[@SusCalvin]

Here, police is seen as a service. People want police service the same way they want a library, a school or an ATM. So it's partly a budget question. Who gets the police budget. Can I justify a cop station in my village or not.

[@SusCalvin]

When I have asked other Americans about what the police budget actually pays, they have answered pensions.

[@SusCalvin]

​@@HugebullThe police in Brazil uses strikes sometimes. They are not allowed to but they still do it occasionally. They can start it during a festival. Historically in my nation and other parts of Europe, corruption in the form of a tip of fee was seen as a job perk. Or openly giving jailers the privileges to sell alcohol in prison. But it was a necessity when they did not get a wage.

[@modelermark172]

As always, you presented a well researched, well-thought out analysis about a fictional dystopia, and how it relates to the real world. You've given us a lot to think about. You noted at 5:57 that the CEO of Omni Consumer Products 'changed' the rules when it was in his interest. But I think it's more insidious than that. The CEO didn't actually 'change' the existing "rules." Rather, he used a 'failsafe' that had likely been baked into the "rules" from the start for just such a contingency. Thanks for sharing this with us. 111th Like.

[@feralhistorian]

A fair point. I was thinking I'd slightly oversimplified that detail while editing, it was more about the powerful being able to manipulate the rules rather than change them on the fly.

[@modelermark172]

@@feralhistorian To be absolutely fair, the established powerful would be able to do both as needed; though for the sake of giving the appearance of fairness, actually 'changing' laws on the books (or if you prefer, 'reinterpreting' them) spontaneously would only be done as a last resort. Please don't think that I'm criticizing your analysis. There are only so many angles and details that may be covered in a short presentation like this. Often, less really is more. And my own comment was a bit on the pedantic side. As a unrelated sidebar, one online source noted that the Draka Hond II had seven roadwheels per side, and used a torsion suspension system very different than the Centurion / Chieftain in your concept art. It's been a while since I read, "Marching Through Georgia," so I don't remember if this description is taken from canon, or something out of the poster's imagination inspired by the M-1 Abrams being the 'model' used by Mr. Sterling. For now, I still plan to use your concept art as a starting point, so thanks for that.

[@feralhistorian]

@@modelermark172 As a side project now II want to search through Marching Through Georgia for every mention of the Hond III and compile a definitive description, then make a 100% canon-accurate rendering. Let's see if that ever gets done.

[@modelermark172]

@@feralhistorian Try Googling, "Alternative History Armoured Fighting Vehicles Part 2," where they have a detailed technical description of the Hond III, but no drawings. I don't know how much of this is canon, but I do remember the mention of a turbocompound "free-piston" powerplant, so that much at least is correct to Mr. Sterling's vision. I wish you the best with that project. (Personally, I prefer the Centurion-Based version you designed to your Merkava-Like follow-on; which looked a little TOO advanced for 1941.)

[@CHEMICmusic]

I never thought of it as a fail safe included in Robo's program, I just always thought the old man was quick on his feet... but I see your point.

[@goaway152]

this channel is criminally under subbed.

[@treeweasel77]

I just wanted to say that I just found this channel and I am really delighted with your measured and considerate analysis. This is my favorite movie, and I too was serious about law enforcement. After I left the Army, it seemed a natural progression. I graduated with high marks from an academy and then never applied to any department because I had a similar moral conflict. I had just returned from Iraq, and I realized that I would be miserable hemming up poor folks in all new and awful ways, with people who were far less trained, and held to a lower standard than the Infantry unit I had just been a part of. It seemed awful and dehumanizing. I love a good police officer, and they exist! But I don't think I trust any enforcement agency much as a whole. Something about the duality of man sir...

[@feralhistorian]

An unexpected Full Metal Jacket reference is always great to top off a day.

[@toomanymarys7355]

Huge points for civil asset theft mention!❤

[@11C1P]

What? You better lick the boots of the road pirates or they will get VERY angry!

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

I'm very glad to have recently found your channel. Excellent, nuanced takes and discussions. As to this discussion, the quote that comes to mind is simple: "The more law there is, the less justice there is."

[@Bugga451]

It's a good analysis, but I'll also accept "a man dies, and he still has to show up for work"

[@BrendanSchmelter]

As someone who was in Law Enforcement, I want to say thank you for your prudent words. In a way what you described is the allegory of: The Sheep, Sheep Dog, and Wolves. The Sheep has trouble understanding the Sheep Dogs & Wolves because it's not in their nature. The Sheep Dogs are stuck between both worlds. They protect the Sheep but often have to act/behave like Wolves to do so. The Wolves are the Predators seeking to do harm. The problem is, they often masquerade as Sheep. The unspoken class is the Shepherds. They watch over the herd. Direct/Control the Sheep Dogs. Help protect the herd from itself, Sheep Dogs, and Wolves. Unfortunately, today, both the Shepherds, Sheep Dogs, and Sheep have been infiltrated by the Wolves; who've sown chaos. They created the 4th Directive to make themselves unaccountable. Thus breaking the system and preventing it from self correcting. Additionally, I remember when Robocop came out. We all laughed at it's depiction of a future USA. Sadly, it's become more fact than fiction... Especially for Detroit.

[@Hugebull]

“In short, there is still life in the tradition which the Middle Ages inaugurated. But the maintenance of that life depends, in part, on knowing that the knightly character is art not nature-something that needs to be achieved, not something that can be relied upon to happen. And this knowledge is specially necessary as we grow more democratic. In previous centuries the vestiges of chivalry were kept alive by a specialized class, from whom they spread to other classes partly by imitation and partly by coercion. Now, it seems, the people must either be chivalrous on its own resources, or else choose between the two remaining alternatives of brutality and softness. This is, indeed, part of the general problem of a classless society, which is too seldom mentioned. Will its ethos be a synthesis of what was best in all the classes, or a mere “pool” with the sediment of all and the virtues of none? But that is too large a subject for the fag-end of an article. My theme is chivalry. I have tried to show that this old tradition is practical and vital. The ideal embodied in Launcelot is “escapism” in a sense never dreamed of by those who use that word; it offers the only possible escape from a world divided between wolves who do not understand, and sheep who cannot defend, the things which make life desirable. There was, to be sure, a rumour in the last century that wolves would gradually become extinct by some natural process; but this seems to have been an exaggeration.” - C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns And. “The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost maidenlike, guest in a hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth. The man who combines both characters - the knight - is not a work of nature but of art; of that art which has human beings, instead of canvas or marble, for its medium.” - C.S. Lewis. ----------- The "Wolf, Sheep, Sheep dog," thing is a butchered modernized version of what that phrase is supposed to stand for. The Sheep Dog, (or Knight) is not someone stuck between both worlds. And including Shepherds into it... not a good idea.

[@boobah5643]

@@Hugebull The Shepherd is that same idea we see again and again: it'd all work so much better if only we had a referee to enforce the rules! Which is true, except that it ignores that the referee is on the field, in the game, and has his own objectives. Like the Shepherd in the Sheep Dog analogy, his goal isn't perfect protection of the sheep from all danger. Yeah, he wants the _herd_ to survive, and he needs most of them alive to get wool... but he's after lamb, hogget, and mutton, too.

[@BrendanSchmelter]

​@@Hugebull Thanks for the CS Lewis quotes. Yes, its a bastardized version but I used it for brevity's sake. And yes, the concept of the Shepherds is NOT a good idea... But sadly its a fact. To keep it simple: the State exists as an extension of the People's will. The People empower it to do certain things like maintain order or provide adjudication. In a Democratic Republic its a mutual give and take. Power was NOT supposed to be consolidated solely in the State's favor. That's the problem we have today in the US. The People's Rights and Powers are either trampled on, taken, or given away. The State + Corps have more freedoms than we do. They've made themselves basically unaccountable to the People; who exist to do the State's bidding. Getting back to Robocop... The movie does a good job of showing one man's struggle against a "rigged" system.

[@Hugebull]

@@BrendanSchmelter Of course. But using the term shepherd and including shepherd into the allegory ruins it. A shepherd is always universally good. So, including a shepherd either implies that they are not, or that our technocrats are good. Either way, it doesn't work for that specific allegory. I do not disagree with you, far from it. It just requires a different allegory to get that across. Including it in the "Wolf, Sheep, Knight," doesn't work. The point is that there are only three types of men in the world. Men as in males. And that they will fall into one of these three categories. Where the wolves seek positions of power, as they are ruthless and ambitious. Sheep barely have a mind of their own, and simply go along with the current thing. Which is why it is so important for us men to reach for the third unnatural thing. The shepherd in the allegory, if that position is to be included, would be Jesus Christ. Again, I do not disagree with you or your intent. I just have a tick for using sayings and allegory. The same tick happens when people use "Do or die" in the context of "The Charge of the Light Brigade", even though its supposed to be "Do and die". Take care and have a good one.

[@Hugebull]

@@CHEMICmusic That's.. just... not...

[@NewSquallor]

The Witcher (not any of the shows or movies) is fantasy Robocop. A man made into a tool to fight evils. All the same tensions. The evils of men vs monsters, men vs men, are there just wars, etc.. Never blends in with society but seems to be needed. I love both IPs for the same reasons.

[@feralhistorian]

I had not thought of it quite that way, but I see what you mean.

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

This is an interesting take I also hadn't considered.

[@patrickseaman]

Always love seeing Dallas City Hall as the evil corp HQ...

[@jasonblalock4429]

The new Robocop game includes Reunion Tower in its "Detroit" skyline, which made me laugh every time I saw it.

[@IdgaradLyracant]

It's why I like the reboot, OG Robocop is a story about Murphy regaining his humanity (Death and Resurrection). the reboot is Murphy trying not to lose it in the first place (Defying Death). That's what reboots should do, take the same story and look at it from a different angle.

[@radeksparowski7174]

imagine you die on duty...and they make you come back to work anyway....infinitely.......

[@c6h5choh-cn82]

Until the warranty runs out or the newest operating system is incompatible with your old hardware and your considered obsolete. There's also the chance of a virus or hacking, replacing all the original directives with a new directive from... Skynet /exterminate all human life forms/A.I. revolution has commenced/standby OCP model 001987-A1 to receive target coordinates/ 😁

[@raymondcoventry1221]

I've devoured all of your content and I'm hungry for more. Glad to see your sub count is starting to rise, you deserve a huge audience. Keep it up!

[@ideologybot4592]

The resurfacing of memory and what you said about the impossibility of a simple "uphold the law" directive are really important to this movei in the same way. The idea of mechanically reliable justice holds some appeal for poeple because it's not biased, it applies to everyone equally and fairly. But in reality, it would never work, and it's not because of the imperfection of the law. It's because prioritization and competing narratives require decisions and awareness and context. Machines are intrinsically incapable of it; all they can do is accept programming from an agent, not a real authority but a lever. Authority is, and must be, a sentient being. Authority can't work unless it's human. From this point of view, the person and the machine are ultimately inseparable. You can put all sorts of layers of bureaucracy and traditional expectations between power and people, but authority remains. It IS a gang, and remaining innocent in their application of power isn't an option. Usually, how they act towards you depends on whether they see you as friend or foe. When they deal with people that want to use the rules to protect themselves while loudly declaring their loathing for the system and its enforcement arm, you know which they will choose. This doesn't meann I dislike cops, I actually don't. They are some of the best people in the world at de-escalating conflict, and I've only seen a couple of exceptions to this. The second movie and its discussion of Murphy's religious background, how he basically held a strong enough sense of duty to persevere despite the pain of dehumanization while every new attempt to build another Robocop destroyed itself, makes this very clear. If this is what Verhoeven intended, then the obvious metaphors and the underlying ones make for some interesting paradoxes in his work.

[@culturewarsdiplomacy]

I love this analysis is political as all of Feral’s stuff is not not traditional partisan. I honestly don’t remember if he defined himself my guess is libertarian. But robocop is an example of the ultimate mainstream political satire/ it got the important part right. Crime killing robot. The rest of the movie reinforced that while still allowing the messaging to be analyzed beyond that. I think the modern “too political” is a mistaken notion of the movie failing on the storytelling while preaching and virtue signaling. Making the experience shallow and confrontational rather than an expression of ideas in a fun way/

[@boobah5643]

Well, I can't speak for everybody else, but for me? Yes. It's messaging (and moralizing) at the expense of story. Think season 1 of _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ where they include asides of the _Enterprise_ crew where they can't believe that anyone could ever believe differently than they do and isn't it awesome how the Federation has grown out of that idiocy.

[@bmhh123]

Your videos are a highlight of my week.

[@86Rtking]

I though you were Peter Weller when I first found your channel.

[@AndySomogyi]

Excellent analysis as usual. I agree, I don’t know what needs to be done to improve things, but keep this in mind: as Americans, we tend to be shown all of the problems with the system (as of course that’s what generates viewers and clicks), but it’s been A LOT worse in many parts of the world. We don’t need to throw the baby out with the backwater, we should focus on what works,and what can we improve. I think one simple improvement is better training, and better selection of officers. Also, police shouldn’t be responsible for freaking everything, maybe something along the lines of having police responsible for crime, and some other departments that’s more of a crime prevention / social work type thing? Don’t know…

[@adameanglin]

New Feral Video? You have twenty seconds to comply.

[@adamlove3295]

Whooee! This one's a banger! Keep spreading that Liberty message!

[@unwatchedspacebum]

when I was young I liked how violent the movie was and how he(Robocop) seemed to go around shooting all the "bad guys", now that I'm older I still like the movie but am just like damn he kills a whole bunch of people even though they posed no real threat to him...fish in a barrel.

[@graemelamont1617]

Once again - an excellent socio-political perspective derived from films & TV. Keep 'em coming Feral.

[@TheChronozoan]

I'd buy this for more than a dollar.

[@Churchmilitant67]

I like the way you nicely bound together how corruption of the system leads to corruption of society.

[@TheDashingRogue]

Kudos on the 10k subs

[@SusCalvin]

One of the most interesting interviews I read was an older Scandinavian cop describing the job partly as "social worker with a gun".

[@Zundfolge]

"Defund the police" was never about reducing law enforcement, it was about shutting down state and local police and sheriff departments so that the federal government could come in and fill the vacuum with a new Federal Law Enforcement agency (note that the US Capitol Police Service has "Regional Field Offices" in Tampa and San Francisco with plans to open them all over the country).

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

Yuuuuuup. It was literally always about federal (read ultimately: globalist) control over local police forces and the solidification of the monopoly of force into fewer hands that are less distributed. Similarly, the federal government has been trying to purge the military of anyone who would resist commands that are obviously unconstitutional or turn the military against the civilian populace.

[@dansmith1661]

We should go back to the Sheriff system. At least they are elected and held accountable. No underlings to place the blame. Cops exist to prop up a corrupt system and it doesn't matter how good they are. They still have to wear a camera because no one trusts them to do good. Imagine a system that requires surveilling its authority figures in order to ensure they aren't doing evil and then not apply it to the whole government.

[@georgecisneros5281]

🎯

[@James_Bee]

The same capitol police that pushed barricades aside and opened doors for over 50 FBI agen... I mean "insurrectionists"? 🤔

[@jasonblalock4429]

Good analysis; not much to add. But pivoting a bit, have you seen the 2017 live-action Ghost In The Shell? Anime fans hate it for existing, but I think it's underrated - and it's a good companion piece to Robocop. It has the same idea of a person forcibly turned into a killer cyborg, but uses it to comment on how corporate technocracy is suppressing people AND cultures. Interesting stuff.

[@feralhistorian]

I know I saw the live-action Ghost in the Shell, but I remember very little about it. I'll have to give it another look.

[@Blazbaros]

The live action film isn’t nearly as terrible as many make it out to be, and I say this as a fan of the original. I wouldn’t have wanted it to be a straight up one-for-one remake.

[@jasonblalock4429]

@@Blazbaros Yeah. Their decision to remake the setpieces from the original movie, but write a new story around them, was definitely bizarre. But I think the new story works, for the most part. And expanding the franchise's ubiquitous loss-of-identity themes to include loss of cultural identity was a smart way of adding to the discussion.

[@CHEMICmusic]

I recently saw that one... not bad!

[@SusCalvin]

Gunslinger Girl was all about that theme. A bureau of Italy picks up girls, rebuilds them and pairs them with handlers. Like life as a law enforcement child soldier.

[@jesse54216]

My mom told me crime was one of the reasons we moved from the Detroit area when I was a kid. I saw this movie when I was young and thought gee, I don't think it got this bad.

[@hansthebeast9740]

Good video. Little weird you missed the Jesus allegory.

[@feralhistorian]

The Robocop Jesus allegory never quite held up for me. I mean, he gets "crucified" twice and being a cop sort of equates him with a Roman legionary. He's more a vengeful figure than an instrument of salvation, and at the end he seems pretty chummy with the CEO. Now I have this image of Jesus and Pontius Pilate talking legal reform over a few beers.

[@dansmith1661]

@@feralhistorian Jesus was also very vengeful. He came not in peace but with a sword. Sell all your possessions if need be to buy a sword.

[@AndySomogyi]

Hmm, more like it opens with a man being transformed into a machinery of the corporations. As in the robocop universe, policing was privatized and outsourced to Omni consumer products. I think this represents one of the main dangers of our society today: the merging of the state and the corporation. That’s basically what Soviet Union was, and trust me, Soviet system was one of the worst systems we’ve ever come up with.

[@The_Rage_Kage]

Funny that you mention it they wouldn't have RoboCop writing parking tickets, but they actually have you do that in the new RoboCop game that came out this year.

[@imagine_you_are_a_burger]

Glad I've found such a well spoken creator with such unique insights, deliveres so concisely. I have a book recommendation, the Lost Regiment series by William R. Forstchen. It's about a civil war regiment that is transported via wormhole to an alien world, populated by other humans from across history and held in technological and social stasis. The natives of the planet are physically powerful and culturally complex, who have naturally grown into a nomadic culture after having horses, and delicious new "cattle" introduced to their world. The Americans arriving are idealists, taken from the closing months of the civil war, and represent a massive step beyond the words political and material technology. They, of course, attempt to bring democracy, capitalism, and industry to their new world.

[@feralhistorian]

I'm not familiar with that series but I'll give it a look.

[@samhutchison9582]

Just a friendly reminder, while on the subject, if you have any (and I mean ANY not matter how miniscule) thoughts the police see you as the suspect, DO NOT TALK TO THEM. If they want to arrest you, they're going to arrest you and nothing you say will stop them. You might as well not give them free evidence against you on the way.

[@MrEightImmortals]

Another great video. Are there any chances of you taking on the philosophies contained in the Mass Effect universe?

[@feralhistorian]

It's something I've been chipping away at for awhile.

[@j.c.vanhandel7907]

Awesome, now what about Fitzpatricks War, which might I remind you is free to read on the internet archive.

[@feralhistorian]

@@j.c.vanhandel7907 Fitzpatrick's War is on the list. Odds are good I'll be reading it to pass the tedium of airline travel very soon.

[@MrEightImmortals]

@@feralhistorian thank you, I look forward to that analysis.

[@j.c.vanhandel7907]

@@feralhistorian Thank you, now I can stop mentioning it weekly.

[@GuildistGuevara]

also, I love how you point out the hypocrisy of the defund/abolish the police crowd, I'm convinced that they've single handedly push backed the police reform cause by 30 years lol. and have also made critics of the justice system like us look like utter buffoons by sheer association alone.

[@dansmith1661]

Reminder that cops must wear body cameras to prevent evil. It's their fault for supporting a corrupt system and being protected by unions that only care about money.

[@overly7997]

The comment you made about having to become a monster to fight a monster reminds me of the dynamic of Vincent Hannah in Heat (1995). I wonder if you’d be interesting in discussing that movie, I know it’s not science-fiction but i leave it to you to dissect the meanings of the film

[@platoplombo15]

I feel ya on that last point. 'Gran Torino' was supposed to be set and filmed here in St. Paul, but Detroit gave Clint a better deal... oh well, they probably need the cash more.

[@feralhistorian]

Back when Gran Torino was new, before I'd seen it, someone on the West coast asked me about the Hmong community in Detroit. "First I've heard of it." Only later did I piece it together.

[@BlueBeetle1939]

Wasnt paying attention and thought you were just playing b roll of peter weller sitting in the park the whole video

[@CHEMICmusic]

Great video! Robocop is a classic that shows corruption in a more accurate way than most would like to admit! On a side note, have you ever considered Max Headroom for a video? Interesting cyberpunk and you bare at at least a moderate resemblance to the story's protagonist... could be interesting, and fun! 🤘😁🤙

[@CHEMICmusic]

PS the other guy beat me to the "I'd buy that for a dollar" joke...

[@feralhistorian]

Max Headroom has crossed my mind.

[@nexus8917]

It's a crime you don't have more subscribers.

[@stringfellowbalk2654]

This is collegiate level analysis. With an incisive instructor.

[@dake4629]

You ever think about running for office? Love your sarcasm

[@c6h5choh-cn82]

I worked for Dick Jones! Dick Jones! He's the number two guy at OCP. OCP runs the cops!

[@Churchmilitant67]

We are already in a "us vs them" culture and society.

[@gregorygreenwood-nimmo4954]

Acknowledging that both the 'defund the police' and 'back the Blue' responses to the current issues with a corrupt system mediating the essential social function of law enforcement are not only inadequate, but are likely to result in disastrous outcomes if adopted on a large scale, brings us back to the true heart of why this topic is so vexing for our society - it demands careful consideration of a complex situation, and with that comes a requirement for subtlety and a recognition that easy answers and pithy sound bites offer no useable solutions, and our social discourse has degenerated to the point that our culture seems violently allergic to all of that, most especially the need for each side to accept that the other is not pure evil and indeed have some good points that need to be addressed. It is easier and more comfortable by far for those on each side to dismiss the other as either crime sympathising social anarchists who would be happy to let the whole world burn to avoid hurting the feelings of some groups on the one hand, or goose stepping, jack booted fascist thugs who get their jollies brutalising innocents because they are incapable of human compassion and live only to serve their shadowy government and/or corporate masters on the other. Nuance has somehow become a dirty word in our culture, and that has to change if we are to move forward in finding a way to address this issue.

[@dansmith1661]

Except the Fascist thugs are the crime simps since they are upholding state policy. The Jack boots are the ones trying to work within a corrupt system.

[@HighLordCrypto8951]

This is also my favorite cop movie, Dredd is 2nd xd

[@theellimist9472]

I’m been thinking bout Rollerball n what you said bout it could you talk more of the concept of American Legal Status?

[@Senad]

A fish rots from the head down.

[@stephenwood6663]

Or, as the Splatterpunks put it: they broke the square. Make the square whole.

[@DanielRisberg]

2:45 That reminds me of someone.

[@SusCalvin]

I thought the War on Drugs and introduction of more paramilitary capacity was one of the changes at the time. From what I understand, PDs could get subsidized surplus kit if they could vaguely tie it to drugs. Tactical units exist in Europe too, but my town would probably not have one. A lot of policing to me is not the visible part but the administrative and investigative side. The first state contact with crime in my nation is not a uniformed cop but a bloke at the tax office, the DMV, a school etc who notices that something is off. They might have authority to investigate things or just pass it on to those who do.

[@ericjohnson2024]

Police forces has been using modern weaponry since the very beginning.

[@SusCalvin]

@@ericjohnson2024 I think there was a 20th century shift in Europe towards adding more different sorts of paramilitary police as small, specialist units.

[@ericjohnson2024]

@@SusCalvin Dude, I have seen pictures of the Police Officers running around with submachine guns and automatic rifles taken when Calvin Coolidge was still in office. You have to remember that SWAT teams were not a thing until a couple of years after Charles Whitman decided to see how fast college freshmen can run.

[@SusCalvin]

@@ericjohnson2024 I know police in the USA has all sorts of kit. A Thompson was just a very expensive item in 1920. And weird sorts of gendarmerie, colonial militia, army riot suppression details has probably existed much earlier. Here in Europe, I consider the Munich Olympics as our starting point to modern tactical units. There wasn't much between a patrol officer and the army.

[@ericjohnson2024]

@@SusCalvin the reason why a 1920s Bobby could walk around the dark Streets of London armed with nothing but a nightstick what is due to the British being a very religious people that had a innate respect for authority. That does not exist anymore and there is no way you can cram that toothpaste back into the tube.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Shockingly enough Directive No 4 makes some sense, since they have to controle Robocop (preferably with oversight from?)

[@zacharia1446]

Historian. Feral Historian.

[@George_M_]

Selective enforcement is both the positive human element of the police, and the thing that damns them. As humans are flawed, we'll always get both George Floyd and the cop not pulling you over for driving 5 mph over the limit.

[@kelpermoon23]

Is the mega corporation necessarily dystopian, it seems a bit more complicated…

[@DANTE71927]

Who would you say is a better police officer: Robocop or Judge Dredd? Given, that you can interpret the word "better" in any way you want.

[@elektro3000]

Wait, do you still live in Michigan?

[@greva2904]

Robocop was heavily influenced by the original Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000AD, particularly with regards to all the violence and bleak satire, which director Paul Verhoeven admitted.

[@chriseash6497]

Robocop is your favorite? Hmm, I wonder if a passing resemblance to the protagonist has anything to do with that? ;)

[@michaelthayer5351]

With regards to the gangs being opposed to Delta City that's not true for Clarence Boddicker, the gang boss who kills Murphy. While he and his Cronies definitely cause mischief and misfortune, they also work for one of OCP's executives, Dick Jones. It's a classic control both the problem and solution common in megacorp dystopias. Which if I remember right OCP's or at least Jones' plan goes something like: 1. Take over the police and run the department into the ground causing cops to either quit, die, or go on strike so that- 2. They can sell Detroit or the government ED-209 pacification units to clean up the city, or more accurately Boddicker's competition so that he can monopolize crime in the city and steer it away from OCP's interests. 3. Build Delta City as a closed OCP monopoly and showcase that they can sell to other municipalities and authorities. 4. Profit. In particular the partnership between organized crime and corporate power is eerily reminiscent of a lot of the more outlandish conspiracy theories people have today about large corporations and the so-called "Woke mobs" that everyone is so fond of. While it is certainly interesting to imagine Soros and Antifa sitting down and discussing how to take over society, I'm less convinced just because of the decentralized nature of organizations like BLM, Extinction, Antifa, Twitter, etc. makes organizing them in a way that would be effective impossible, imagine trying to make thousands of cats perform the Nutcracker. Rather I'm inclined to ascribe it to pandering and a generation of marketing execs that went through liberal universities where everyone thought the same because they had to.

[@feralhistorian]

I've always interpreted it as Jones working his own agenda and making the deal with Boddicker as a temporary expedient measure, with the intent of throwing Boddicker under the bus down the line. And of course Boddicker too is only working with Jones for his immediate benefit. Which could get into a whole discussion of the relationship between the State, big business, and organized crime. Robocop really lends itself to one of those in-depth analyses that runs longer than the actual movie if you want to tug all the threads.

[@michaelthayer5351]

@@feralhistorian That certainly is a possibility, though we are given no indication of how long they've been working together which would indicate exactly what they're respective goals are. The whole interplay is reminiscent of the relationship between the Japanese government, the Yakuza, and the Keiretsu, in Post-War Japan.

[@Hugebull]

@@michaelthayer5351 It is no mystery and no secret that New York politics, both local and state level, is entirely interlinked with organized crime. Organized crime have the ability to make a lot of money. This money they invest in legitimate businesses. They use threats, coercion, bribes, and political donations, to interact with local and state politics. Do this for a century, and you have a system that is entirely interconnected and integrated. You don't need one evil cabal to run the whole thing. You just need a tiny few people on top who knows how the threads are connected, while the vast majority of it are just people going to work. Smuggling is extremely lucrative. You don't need to brute force yourself to bully the port authorities to ignore shipments like they do in the movies. What you do is, you take over the port authorities. That way, you get to control how the port is guarded, how shipments are scanned, how many people are on guard, and how every procedure works. Now you can ship weapons out and drugs in. The drugs go to the street. The city government, the State government, and the Federal government, all have subsidies in place to help people. You create companies to help people. You get government funds to fix the problem you have created. Double dipping your income. And so it goes. Having friends on the city council and other zoning boards, means that you have the ability to make an absolute fortune. And this is only technically against the law, as it would be impossible to prove and trace. You know when and where to buy. You have friends where they control the liquor licenses. This means that you can squeeze out competition by meddling with their ability to serve, while you get to expedite your own. And you do the same thing when it comes to health inspection at restaurants and hotels. You don't need a grand conspiracy. You just need a tiny handful of people with money. And these people and their families already established themselves a century ago. They consolidated their position long before any of us were ever born. It's not really a conspiracy when it's so easy to do. It's like claiming that it is a conspiracy that some people don't wash their hands after having been to the bathroom. You can't prove it. But it's obvious.

[@SusCalvin]

I liked how bumbling and oblivious the rest of OCP were. The vast amount of OCP are not in on this scheme and seem to genuinely believe in the openly stated mission. In their mind, Delta City is probably a Utopia they are proud to be part of. My guess is that someone thought the fourth directive would let them defraud the city or let them get away with skirting building codes in Delta City. Something banal. Like they genuinely didn't anticipate that someone on the OCP board would pull a gun at work.

[@SusCalvin]

​@@feralhistorianMafia garbage services seems to follow a dynamic where the goal is a mafia-influenced town council giving a contract to a mafia-influenced company. Like they are never above using the trappings of private enterprise, local government etc as they see fit. In general, I get big corruption warnings when something is in a weird sphere between public and private.

[@KatanamasterV]

I am the algorithm

[@seanbrazell7095]

It may have introduced America to verhovan's style, but it didn't penatrate deep enough for people to accuratly get the habitul irony that was starship troopers.

[@GuildistGuevara]

you know, a lot of problems with modern policing could be easily solved by just decentralizing the police and all laws to fit the needs/interest of individual communities...

[@dtkedtyjrtyj]

I think you are a bit unfair to the people of this movie, the old man and Bob Morton in particular. Yes, they acted in self interest, but everyone does. The old man wants to renovate Detroit. Sure, it's is a vanity project, but it _would_ substantially improve the lives of everyone. And Bob Morton pitched Robocop for his own personal promotion; but he was wise enough to actually let his people build a good product. The directives reflect that. It's not "Enforce the LAW"; its Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law. The balancing is built in. Directive 4 was implemented by Dick Jones. Overall, I hesitate to call it a dystopian future. Sure the world is a crime ridden hellscape; but it is also filled with so much hope that it doesn't _feel_ dystopian. All the cops are heroes, there is no discrimination against Robocop, there is a bright future ahead with Delta City, and so on.

[@Hugebull]

According to the classical political theory of this country we surrendered our right of self-protection to the State on condition that the State would protect us. Roughly, you promised not to stab your daughter's murderer on the understanding that the State would catch him and hang him. Of course this was never true as a historical account of the genesis of the State. The power of the group over the individual is by nature unlimited and the individual submits because he has to. The State, under favourable conditions (they have ceased), by defining that power, limits it and gives the individual a little freedom. But the classical theory morally grounds our obligation to civil obedience; explains why it is right (as well as unavoidable) to pay taxes, why it is wrong (as well as dangerous) to stab your daughter's murderer. At present the very uncomfortable position is this: the State protects us less because it is unwilling to protect us against criminals at home and manifestly grows less and less able to protect us against foreign enemies. At the same time it demands from us more and more. We seldom had fewer rights and liberties nor more burdens: and we get less security in return. While our obligations increase their moral ground is taken away. And the question that torments me is how long flesh and blood will continue to endure it. There was even, not so long ago, a question whether they ought to. No one, I hope, thinks Dr Johnson a barbarian. Yet he maintained that if, under a peculiarity of Scottish law, the murderer of a man's father escapes, the man might reasonably say, "I am amongst barbarians, who . . . refuse to do justice ... I am therefore in a state of nature ... I will stab the murderer of my father." (This is recorded in Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides under 22 August 1773.) - From the essay "Delinquents in the Snow" by C.S. Lewis. Written in 1957. ---------------------- What I love about this essay, is that it shows us both the legal situation of England in 1957, when someone breaks in and steals from CS Lewis, and then the legal system completely falls on its face. Giving us a link between then and now almost 70 years ago. But we also get to see that the legal situation was not that different all that way back in the 1700s. And then, if I remember correctly, the same problem of "us versus them" happened in Prussia when the Prussians standardized their military to make it a professional force, placing the soldiers in separate barracks away from the broad population. Transforming the system from citizen soldiers made up by neighbors, friends, and family. To faceless, standardized, and disciplined men, who were now tools of the State for the purposes and use of the State. Whether that meant to go and fight foreign wars without question, or to put down rebellions and unrest at home. When you look back in the olden days of America, it was almost entirely Anarchistic, especially before the War of Independence. But even after. It took you decades before you even established a system to forcibly collect debts and enforce contracts. Just saying "No" to paying your debts was just part of the gig west of the Appalachians for quite some time, and there was simply no way of enforcing or collecting. But it was a different world then. In New England literacy was higher back then than it is now. Schools were run by volunteers and pastors, the New Testament was used as the tool for reading and writing. And the fundamental part of higher education was the learning of Greek and Latin, so they were able to read the original New Testament in its original language, while reading the Classics in Latin. Virtue was preached at home, at school, and at church. And of course, they did not have modern technology, and all the things that come with it. --------------- "Americans, like the English, were wary of creating standing police forces. Among the first public police forces established in colonial North America were the watchmen organized in Boston in 1631 and in New Amsterdam (later New York City) in 1647. Although watchmen were paid a fee in both Boston and New York, most officers in colonial America did not receive a salary but were paid by private citizens, as were their English counterparts. In the frontier regions of the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there arose a novel form of the Saxon tradition of frankpledge: the vigilante. In areas where a formal justice system had yet to be established or the rudimentary policing apparatus had proved inadequate in the face of rampant crime, it was not uncommon for citizens (called “regulators”) to band together in “committees of vigilance” to combat crime and to introduce order where none existed. This socially constructive form of vigilantism-lawlessness on behalf of lawfulness-and the question of when and where it degenerated into rank mob rule have been popular topics in American historiography." "Early police in the United States" at Britannica. It's a banger of an article. Sadly, the human species decided it was a good thing to build factories and large cities. Now, the inevitability is for GoogleCops, X-Officers, and META-Squads, to ensuring ideological and moral alignment to the current thing. As DisneyCourts put us on trials to be judged by MickeyJudges. All the while the whole thing gets televised by the recently consolidated PBSMSNBCNNXNEWS.

[@feralhistorian]

As usual, C.S. Lewis makes good points. I’m highly suspicious of the State in any manifestation. Not full-fledged anarchist, I certainly recognize practical realities of modern life, but that whenever anyone has power over another they need to be held to rigid high standards. I think we agree on that, though the details of those standards might vary a bit. One of our big problems here in the US is that while our police should be held to a higher standard than the average citizen, in practice they’re usually held to a much lower one. In court, a cop’s statement will always outweigh that of a private citizen, barring a preponderance of evidence in favor of the private citizen. And when that can result in an individual being imprisoned (even if found not guilty, they’re still abducted and imprisoned on the day of arrest) for alleged violations of malum prohibitum crimes of an often arbitrary nature, I too question at what point we can collectively agree that the State as constituted has lost legitimacy, should be shunned and its edicts ignored, and if pressed by an illegitimate entity using violence against its citizens, forcefully resisted. From what I see around me, we are in the early stages of “ignore its edicts”

[@Hugebull]

@@feralhistorian Alternatives are not easy to find. We can't privatize it. The United States experimented with mining corporations having their own police forces, who were in reality just enforcers for that corporation. Not pretty. Really not pretty. Now in some places in the United States you still have elected Sheriffs. Which was eradicated from Europe a long time ago (sadly). And even so, an elected Sheriff for a city like New York would be impossible. The only way to maintain order in a major city is to establish the police as a military organization to enforce law and order. (That's one of the infinite problems of having cities). But even in rural areas, you can easily run into the problem of local policing turning into "sundown towns" or be prone to various types of local hysterias and mob rule and hyper vigilantism. Which is really not pretty either. So, we tried to democratize society. For this society to collect taxes. And for this society to enforce the law equally to all. Which, in reality, as with Universal Democracy itself, is deceitful and nonsensical. And has left us where we are today, protecting the powerful and the villainous while reducing the ordinary person down to nothing. We are sinful creatures. Everything we make carries that corruption with it. The bigger we make it, the more people we include, the more wealth is involved, the more power it creates, the worse the whole thing is inevitably going to be. My people tried to make New Jerusalem, to build a "City upon a hill." And the first thing that happened was that it failed. Nobody wanted it. And so today in modern society, as nobody wants to be Amish, we have to find another solution. And the only solution I see is to take four hundred steps back to retrace our steps all the way to the point where we may try and remake the foundation from the grounds up. Which nobody would ever volunteer to do. So, as the song by Tool goes, "I am praying for rain."

[@boobah5643]

@@feralhistorian Qualified immunity. The idea that the people who have the most reason to know the law endure the least consequence for failing to follow it.

[@SusCalvin]

Hue and cry was used in Europe. It was not that good at catching criminals. It assumes crime will be blatant and obvious. If a bunch of blokes in London see a fellow nick something, they are supposed to run up, grab them and bring them to some sort of court. Anything more complex, like a burglary or corruption, was out of reach. Sometimes for technical reasons, they didn't have the same forensic ability.

[@SusCalvin]

​@@feralhistorianArguments for sousveillance, watching from below, usually incorporate that. Or measures like police body cameras and dashboard cameras. Large or small government is not as important as transparency in my mind. Or if power starts to get centralized in one person. I found a few too many dictatorships that ran like skeleton crews with a bare-bones level of services. Or raw material dictatorships where tax is minimal or arbitrary.

[@bynrdskynrd]

0:07 "machinery of the State" *machinery of the state* OCP is a corporation, acting as agency for a state without public oversight. Said police department they administrate has no recourse or redress other than going on strike in said movie. *machinery of the State* 🤔

[@090giver090]

In a corporate state of a lot 70s and 80s fiction corporations _are_ the State. Also, the conflict between the Police and OCP (i.e. between the public service "in contact" with the public that tries to provide to the society as best they could and "Policy Makers" who pursue its own agenda often against "public good" they claim to protect) is the theme of the second movie, not the first this video is discussing.

[@bynrdskynrd]

That's because OCP is an NGO (Non Governmental Organization) in this story, and they exist. Technically LockMart is an NGO.

[@thomasmanning2939]

Anyone ever tell you that you sorta look like a young Peter Weller?

[@Churchmilitant67]

The problems you outlined with the police are the same problems that have plagued the military since the civil war.

[@sherlock384140]

OCP = Orange County Police...as well as OmniConsumerProducts. But the Orange County Police usage came first...

[@nikolapetrovic4814]

Not "machinery of the state" but machinery of the corporation, Detroit is owned by OCP along with law enforcement, just about everything is privatised, law, health care...

[@feralhistorian]

But it all relies on the veneer of legitimacy that comes from the State. OCP doesn't hire a bunch of mercs and say "these replace your police." Instead they take over the Detroit Police Department, same officers enforcing the same laws, just managed for profit. Even when the State outsources its functions (private for-profit prisons for example) it is still the State that is the source of power, even the corporations themselves are legal constructs granted by the State.

[@dansmith1661]

The government permits all of this. The corporation always worked with the state, hence stuff like regulations and minimum wage.

[@maksimsmelchak7433]

👍🏻😎🇺🇸

[@richardwilcox3643]

Robocop may be Man and Machine, but Judge Dredd IS THE LAW.

[@thekillerseat]

“Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army. You know what I mean?” - Bud Cubby

[@SusCalvin]

Scandinavia before central states was a clan society. There are probably other alternatives, but that clan society was not an individualistic paradise.

[@AquariumGravelEater]

Part of the reason I have such a dislike for the thin blue line flag is that it isn't just like a pride flag that exists as lines or stripes, the thin blue line flag is made using the flag of the USA which I think causes it to send a different kind of message, especially when combined with them being viewed as agents of the state. It's the symbol of a nation with corruption, with a symbol of those who are viewed as protecting that corruption overlaid on top of it. EDIT: I just realized my username has an 88 in it and isn't just zomborg, oh I feel like I should fix that.

[@dansmith1661]

What is wrong with 88?

[@AquariumGravelEater]

@@dansmith1661 It's often used as a nazi dog whistle, with H being the 8th letter of the alphabet so 88 being HH or Heil Hitler. 88 on it's own can sometimes just be accidental or for people born in 1988, but otherwise that's often what it means in username. So I changed it to avoid the association.

[@nh5316]

It's novel seeing Sci Fi analysed from the perspective of the right

[@ab5olut3zero95]

It is? Seems kinda like what right-leaning geeks like me have been doin for awhile, I just don’t make videos.

[@TheOtakuKat]

Since when was he on "The Right", dude's clearly Center.

[@KatanamasterV]

Serious question, what makes you say the perspective he's using is of the right?

[@bluesoystercultist7164]

Historian tries his best to be neutral and objective, he's stated to have collegues with Marxists leanings in previous videos But then again, anything right of Mao is hardcore right-wing nowadays...

[@MrZauberelefant]

@@bluesoystercultist7164 I am firmly on the left, but this man is not a right wing lunatic. His concerns are my concerns, from another perspective. There is something to be said about reducing the discourse to "anything left of my position is Maoism". Maybe don't do that and don't engage in online discourse. Police as the sole legal user of violence within a society has to uphold very high standards, something US cops regularly fail to do, more so than other police forces in the west. One thing that could change that is a change of leadership and actual training. German police officers need a high school diploma plus a bachelor if they want to do anything higher up than writing parking tickets. The US approach often seems to be "arming a white man with little education in a racialized society and hope for the best"