Wendover Productions
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2018–2020
10:18 · 5.2M views · Aug 29, 2017
Wendover Productions explains counterintuitive riot control techniques based on research, showing that effective tactics tend to avoid violence.
Cited for its research-based principles of riot control, and as an analogy for managing other crowd dynamics like bubbles.
4 comments from Hacker News
Wendover Productions made great video coverage on "How to Stop a Riot" based on the research: this video Unsurprisingly some of the techniques required are a little counter-intuitive which is interesting when weighed into public opinion or uninformed politicians etc. Naturally, the most effective techniques techniques don't involve violence.
> rock-throwing protesters versus police officers wearing body armor and gas masks, carrying ballistic shields and lobbing flash grenades. So regular riot control equipment in 95% of the world... The only other stuff they mention are semi-auto rifles which are not militarization. Us civilians have the same rifles which are way more accurate than a standard handgun. I dont want an officer using a handgun at 50-100 yards trying to stop an active shooter, I want them to have the best tool for the job which would be a patrol rifle. That's safer for everyone, especially bystanders. > My police department should not be anywhere near militarized. It's inappropriate, wrong, and is a waste of funds because they should not be kitted out that way. How is riot control pads / shields and an armored vehicle to stop bullets and rocks being thrown militarization? I don't see any offensive weapons used other than crowd control agents which last I checked are used in most of the world for the same purpose. They also still use fire hoses in many other countries which we stopped doing in the 60s due to the bad optics of them during the racial tension. > They bring out those vehicles during protests, among other things. Judging how the protests have turned to riots over the past few months in major cities, they are completely justified in doing so. Getting rocks, molotov cocktails and everything else under the sun thrown at you when you're trying to stop people from burning down communities would
> So regular riot control equipment in 95% of the world... Yes, militarization of the police is normalized in many countries. That doesn't make it acceptable. They're trigger-happy and violent. It's part of the culture. > The only other stuff they mention are semi-auto rifles which are not militarization. Us civilians have the same rifles which are way more accurate than a standard handgun. I dont want an officer using a handgun at 50-100 yards trying to stop an active shooter, I want them to have the best tool for the job which would be a patrol rifle. That's safer for everyone, especially bystanders. Do you believe that there needs to be a line of officers wielding rifles behind a line of riot cops with flashbangs and tear gas launchers (used liberally and indiscriminately) behind a line of shielded riot cops grabbing things from protesters and generally trying to provoke a reaction? These things all work in tandem, in this context. That line of cops is part of their show of force, as they take anti-cop protests very personally. It's a form of intimidation and escalation. > How is riot control pads / shields and an armored vehicle to stop bullets and rocks being thrown militarization? Half of that is literally military equipment and US police departments are frequently under a "warrior" mindset. It's been heavily exported to various different PDs. They treat confrontations as a fight between them and the "bad guys", not public safety or law enforcement. Having a bunch of mi
> I think maybe the best solution is to just leave things unregulated and let dumb money get burnt There are a lot of unsophisticated "investors" who cannot differentiate investing from gambling. We have experience with extra-systemic irrational exuberance. Too light-tough and the risks contaminate broader markets, thus fomenting a crisis. Too heavy and the risks go underground. There they (a) fuel broader criminality and/or (b) metastasize into the broader markets, thus fomenting a crisis. A strategy focussing on three things emerges from the literature: 1. Stomp out obvious, easy-to-enforce-against fraud. This keeps regulators engaged, helps keep everyone wary and removes fuel from the fire. 2. Monitor lending channels. In the late stages of a bubble, the devoted few will borrow to buy. Run properly, this transfers wealth from them to those exiting. What you don't want is for said zealots to re-transfer their risk to lenders e.g. by buying on a credit card. 3. Support prudent, de-leveraging instruments used by sophisticated investors. You want a controlled place where the smart money can slowly exert countervailing pressure without causing a panic. Bitcoin futures, which encourage sober shorting while causing the effects of a bad bet to come home to roost every day, are a good example. The best general-use analog I've found for bubble control is riot control, some principles of which are described in this video [1]. [1] this video