Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone - <AUTHOR> https://capitolhillautonomous.zone/ <comment><USER2> All: this story is here because it's an interesting phenomenon, a la [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Before commenting, please make sure you're up to date on those rules and post in the intended spirit (curiosity and conversation) not the opposite one (ideology and battle).

<comment><USER2> This is a stub comment to collect replies in one place, so that it can be collapsed and prevent too much offtopicness at the top of the thread.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for leaving this one up. I understand it's not the discourse this site is directly interested in, but the occasional opportunity to debate such issues in an intelligent forum is something I have trouble finding elsewhere on the internet.

Having said that, I'm sure these types of post create a lot of work for you. I appreciate the upkeep and please keep up the good work!

<comment><USER4> > the occasional opportunity to debate such issues in an intelligent forum is > something I have trouble finding elsewhere on the internet.

That's maybe the good place to ask:

What are other places (maybe places more open to political discussions) the HN crowd would recommend for "intelligent discussions"? Twitter and Reddit are an awful mess at the moment.

<comment><USER5> LessWrong and niche subreddits depending on the political views you hope to find.

<comment><USER6> > depending on the political views you hope to find

It seems like the really good discussion places wouldn't have to carry this caveat. It's too bad those are even harder to find.

<comment><USER7> > It seems like the really good discussion places wouldn't have to carry this > caveat.

Ideally, yes, but if the political views you are hoping to find are ones that overtly limit any dissent or respect for any other view (extreme absolute authoritarianism for example) then the views themselves subvert the ability to have meaningful discourse about them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A friend lives in Seattle and texted me today about his visit last night:

> I was there last night and it's such a cool pseudo utopian place

> The media coverage of it is WILD

> People on the internet are convinced it's protected by armed guards and > people are dying of hunger and instead its...like a music festival > campground

> There are speakers, musicians, art walls. I took a group pic for a bunch of > black guys last night and they were so proud of what was built because they > felt like they fought for it, which in a sense, they did.

<comment><USER9> > _The media coverage of it is WILD_

I live 7 blocks away from "the zone" and can confirm, I have never in my life seen anything alike in this regard. The scale of the misinformation being spread in social networks and news media reached a level I couldn't believe possible before. Seriously, it's beyond absurd.

If anyone is interested, I have been taking some pictures of the ongoing protests (including a few of the zone): [https://www.flickr.com/photos/peramides](https://www.flickr.com/photos/peramides)

<comment> drevil-v2 Seattle police chief said on TV [1] that "Rapes, robberies and all sorts of violent acts have been occurring in the area and we're not able to get to [them]."

Doesn't sound very utopian

[1] [https://twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1271291958296604675?s=2...](https://twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1271291958296604675?s=21)

<comment><USER10> Wasn't it the police who abandoned this area in the first place?

The impression I'm getting from this and other events from the past weeks is that the police would like us to believe that without them, society turns to chaos, but in practice, US police turns out to be a major source of chaos, and without them things often turn much more peaceful.

I'm not saying there should be no police at all, but that police should work with the community, instead of trying to dominate it.

<comment><USER11> > police would like us to believe that without them, society turns to chaos

The police benefit from chaos during these protests, I'm sure the temptation to foster chaos and destruction is quite high for them right now. It puts the protesters in a bad light and reinforces the idea that police are needed.

There are multiple cases where police have been observed contributing to the chaos or just idling around while it happened nearby. Definitely not universal, but some departments are doing the opposite of their job.

<comment><USER12> You think the protestors also don't benefit from chaos? Neither side is innocent here.

Any time the police are pushed to the point where they use force on the protestors, mass media is then awash with out of context clips of the event, claiming police brutality, drumming up more support for the protestors and their cause. The more chaos, the better it is for the protester's message.

There's lots of peaceful protests every year that don't end in the police using force. In fact, the vast majority of them, before this. These protestors benefit politically if the police use force. So what's the difference here, why do these "protests" result in use of force? It's blatantly obvious to me ..

<comment><USER11> > You think the protestors also don't benefit from chaos? Neither side is > innocent here.

I don't see how your point is relevant here.

Protestors aren't paid with tax dollars.

Cops are getting paid massive amounts of overtime to prevent looting and damage during this crisis and instead they are contributing to it.

<comment><USER13> From the mayor's public statements, it's clear that there's political pressure to not intervene - it doesn't seem to be solely a police decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I lived in Seattle Capitol Hill (Harvard Ave by SCCC) area for 10 years and left the state in 2010. I went back a few years ago for a visit and it looked like the homeless population had doubled in the time since. All of King and Pierce counties are completely overrun by homelessness and drug addiction. I remember it was a big deal when they would go sweep out "The Jungle" tent city under I-5 at Beacon Hill. Now they're building tent cities right in the middle of residential neighborhoods.

Seattle and the Puget Sound is a beautiful place but horrible place to live. They have an absolutely useless government that has no idea how to solve any of their problems. So they end up with stuff like this.

<comment><USER15> Recent events cast doubt on your judgment of the government there. Unlike e.g. New York they have dealt somewhat effectively with the pandemic. Seattle was hit first yet seems to have brought the situation under control with fewer deaths than other American cities. At the very least, they didn't force covid- positive patients into old folks' homes.

<comment><USER14> There's a pretty big difference between Seattle and NYC in terms of size and population density. Like many orders of magnitude difference. But you're right that NYC didn't handle the outbreak very well.

<comment><USER15> MSA population: 19M/4M -> _less than one_ order of magnitude

City population: 8.3M/750k -> _one_ order of magnitude

City density: 28k/8400 -> _less than one_ order of magnitude

This is not what one imagines when one encounters the sentence fragment "Like many orders of magnitude difference."

[EDIT:] Normally technical correctness is appreciated? If anyone here really thinks that New York has done a better job dealing with the pandemic than Washington State, I would _love_ to see the reasoning. ISTM this argument from population proves too much; why can't it be invoked anytime New York's performance lags other states?

<comment><USER14> you see there's a pretty big difference though

<comment><USER15> They are not the same city, but no two cities are. Lots of denser and more populous cities in other nations have done better. Most of the most serious mistakes in New York were made at the state level; Washington State exhibited better governance. New York at least had some warning that the pandemic was coming. Washington had the USA patient zero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> They need a political win on something in the next few days. Otherwise this thing fizzles out, is crushed, or turns into a joke like the 2016 bird sanctuary occupation. Some of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" apply.

⬤ "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag."

⬤ "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative."

That's the problem with "defund the police". "We'd all love to see the plan", as John Lennon once put it.

Camden NJ did do this. They fired their entire police department and started over. Sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you just need to fire the bottom 1-10%. Maybe give randomly-chosen civil grand juries the power to fire cops. Not just for criminal offenses, just for being subpar at being a cop.

<comment><USER17> >Camden NJ did do this. They fired their entire police department and started over.

Except that's not really what happened. They fired the existing police force at the time but most were hired back (155 of the 220 that reapplied), and then they expanded to a complement of 401 officers (it was 370 before). Then they built a gigantic surveillance apparatus that tracks pretty much everything. So, more police, more surveillance.

Homicides have apparently declined 63% since they did this.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden_County_Police_Departmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden_County_Police_Department)

<comment><USER18> If you're gonna cite Wikipedia, you need to add this:

>Thomson announced that officers would no longer be judged on how many tickets they wrote or arrests they made but on relationships they developed in the community and whether citizens felt safe enough to sit on their front steps or allow their children to ride their bikes in the street. Thomson told the New York Times in 2017 that "aggressive ticket writing" was a sign that officers weren't understanding the new department, saying "handing a $250 ticket to someone who is making $13,000 a year can be life altering." On new recruits' first day, they knock on doors in the neighborhood they're assigned to and introduce themselves.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, sounds like a great idea! I'm glad they did it.

If police "reform" amounts to a prohibition on juicing the stats a la _The Wire_ , increasing the size of the force by 25-30%, and adding a measured and deeply considered surveillance regime then great.

Haven't seen any of the activists ask for that though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Seattle police vacated the east precinct, fully expecting protesters to burn it down. Instead, the protesters set up an open zone, compiled a set of demands, and from all accounts set up something cool and unique.

Here's hoping it sustains itself for a while.

<comment><USER20> No, not even remotely "by all accounts". There are plenty of accounts that isn't "cool and unique" but is just another place ruled by violent thugs: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/h077uv/raz_simone_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/h077uv/raz_simone_and_crew_assault_man_for_graffiti_june/)

I'm not passing judgment yet since the days are young and the political bias on the ground is _thick_ in both directions. But it is definitely not "by all accounts".

But my personal bias on the table is that yeah, trading police that were imperfectly constrained by the system for new police utterly and entirely unconstrained by the system is probably not going to go well. The real "fun" will start when Raz's faction pisses off enough people to form a violent counterfaction and you get a gang war, so give it a bit. It takes time for these things to develop. Let the honeymoon wear off and have this place showing a functioning system for, oh, say, at least a _month_ before declaring victory. Not that you declared victory, I'm just saying, I recommend against getting too invested in this.

It's not as if "a place that has no police" is some shocking new experiment that has never been run before; you've got plenty of places you can look out in the world to see what happens next. It's not a difficult-to-predict progression.

<comment><USER19> I watched that video, I saw someone coming in and defacing peoples homes. The people filming asked if they had permission, then asked the person to stop. The person refused to stop painting and pushed the group of folks and there was a scuffle that ended with the tagger walking away.

Aside, intentionally or unintentionally, calling a group of predominantly black people "thugs" is a common dog whistle.

<comment><USER21> >and there was a scuffle that ended with the tagger walking away.

That was just the beginning of the confrontation. If you watch the full video the group then followed and hassled the tagger for several minutes before the tagger was hit in the face and had their glasses broken (and their smartphone was stolen from them). Someone also threatened to blow the taggers brains out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The first (of several) demands reads:

> The Seattle Police Department and attached court system are beyond reform. > We do not request reform, we demand abolition. We demand that the Seattle > Council and the Mayor defund and abolish the Seattle Police Department and > the attached Criminal Justice Apparatus. This means 100% of funding, > including existing pensions for Seattle Police. At an equal level of > priority we also demand that the city disallow the operations of ICE in the > city of Seattle.

[https://capitolhillautonomous.zone/demands.html](https://capitolhillautonomous.zone/demands.html)

This is a fascinating experiment that seems to channel a number of forces bubbling just below the surface for decades. The futile, never-ending war on drugs. Police violence. Lack of police accountability. Institutional racism.

What will be more fascinating is what new political parties develop. These demands are well outside the mainstream, but given recent events, not impossible to see being implemented to one degree or another.

But neither party has the alignment of interests for this kind of reform.

Without a political party, it's hard to imagine how anything changes after the banners and barricades come down.

<comment><USER23> As someone with close ties to an existing third party, they shouldn't put much hope on forming one and seeing it succeed. The American electoral system makes it nearly impossible for third parties to gain traction. And that's before you take into account that the people most likely to join third parties are also the most likely to be fringe personalities with little mainstream appeal and a penchant for causing internal strife.

<comment><USER24> > The American electoral system makes it nearly impossible for third parties > to gain traction.

That's true, under the existing system. And that makes it attractive to reform the system, to make it easier for third parties to grow.

For example, approval voting was passed in Fargo recently: [https://www.electionscience.org/commentary- analysis/approval...](https://www.electionscience.org/commentary- analysis/approval-voting-in-fargo-will-increase-underdog-candidates-chance-of- success/)

tl;dr -- third parties can't grow as long as "splitting the vote" is a thing. But some voting systems have that and others don't.

<comment><USER25> I love approval voting. It's so simple, but for some reason ranked choice always seems to be pushed harder when talking about alternative voting systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if it's bigger than Sealand: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand)

When I look at the list of demands I'm pretty quick to dismiss it. Then I remember how I dismissed the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle too, and how many of the fears those protesters had were realized over the next two decades. I might be too hopeful, but I really think the city leadership should talk to them and hear them out, instead of just trying to push them over.

<comment><USER27> _many of the fears those protesters had were realized over the next two decades_

Is there a list of these fears somewhere? Ideally as presented at the time.

<comment><USER28> well, globalization on neoliberal terms has continued to hollow out living standards in advanced countries while turning neocolonial countries into large sweatshops. the life expectancy in the US has fallen for 2 or 3 years in a row now largely as a downstream result of this. that is my understanding of one major concern from that.

<comment><USER29> Globalization has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty in China.

<comment><USER28> China industrialized on the basis of incredibly terrible working conditions (ie high profitability via low wages) that have only recently been improving. And as they've improved, globalization has shifted manufacturing to other countries who have worse working conditions again. "Lifted out of poverty" sounds nice but tends to mostly mean that people who were formerly peasants have instead worked in sweatshops and horrible factories for decades or centuries. It's easy to view that as all well and good if you are happily working in the global labor aristocracy, but it's not actually fair.

<comment><USER29> _" Lifted out of poverty" sounds nice but tends to mostly mean that people who were formerly peasants have instead worked in sweatshops and horrible factories for decades or centuries._

Right, so lifted out of poverty. Just because you think their new job is a "horrible sweatshop", doesn't mean their lives haven't actually improved.

<comment><USER28> You're mistaken about the standard of living of peasants vs superexploited wage laborers, and doing that smug "the thing that worked super well for me must have worked for those guys no matter how bad off they seem" thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Seems like GenZ is having their occupy moment. The police is probably just waiting for them to get tired and go home. In few weeks back to "normal".

<comment><USER31> There is a persistent desire to suck the funds out of the police force budget and redirect the money to things the community values. This unlike occupy is a tangible goal and if people only elect people willing to give it to them it will happen regardless of what people outside of Seattle want.

<comment><USER32> Occupy Wall Street had a tangible goal. Break up big banks, and forgive predatory loans.

Even with Obama in office, we ended up with even bigger banks and a spiraling debt crisis.

<comment><USER33> I don't remember that being a consistent, clearly articulated goal. That's also orders of magnitude more difficult to accomplish than shifting some city budgets around.

<comment><USER34> Protests almost never have a "consistent, clearly articulated goal," because of the nature of protests. People protest a problem and there are sometimes hundreds of proposed solutions. Unfortunately, certain biased media outlets choose the most extreme offered solutions and highlight them to discredit the entire movement and ignore the problem. And "shifting some city budgets around" is not as easy as it sounds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> blaser-waffle I believe Denmark had something like this for a while. It started with squatters taking over an area kind of like this.

Turned into a serious drug venue and eventually fell apart. Sounds like it sort of restarted, albeit with regular Danish law enforcement and other city resources.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania)

<comment><USER35> > Turned into a serious drug venue and eventually fell apart. Sounds like it > sort of restarted, albeit with regular Danish law enforcement and other city > resources.

As someone living in Copenhagen, I would not consider that anything near an accurate description of the history of Christiania. What happened was that an old military area and barracks was left abandoned and disused, so a group of squatters moved in, fixed up the place and built a community.

It did not turn into a "serious drug venue". They had issues with hard drugs in the 1970s, but kicked all of that to the curb and there is a strict community-supported ban on all hard drugs. Over the years various sellers have popped up here and there, but they are generally shunned and chased out by the community.

It also did not "fall apart", although it has had its ups and downs. The political winds have varied from indifference to acceptance to attempts to abolish the entire things, raze the area and built apartments. The current state is that the area is owned by a foundation and is treated partly as a part of the city of Copenhagen and partly as an independent enclave. Danish law enforcement is grudgingly accepted in cases of actual crimes, but otherwise not exactly openly welcomed.

<comment><USER36> I was in Christiania late last year and there were at least a dozen tables with sellers selling drugs. It didn't seem like the community was shunning them or running them out

<comment><USER37> > They had issues with hard drugs in the 1970s, but kicked all of that to the > curb and there is a strict community-supported ban on all hard drugs.

Are you sure that the dealers you saw were trading hard drugs, and not soft ones like cannabis, mushrooms, etc.?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I don't live there, but there's something about all this that make it seem like a wildly overblown media event - that the actual thing itself is much more pedestrian and much less sensational than reports would have us believe.

<comment><USER39> I live there. This is correct in that the CHAZ itself has its biggest impacts through

a. having free snacks and b. not allowing through traffic, but

it really hasn't been stated enough how awful it _had_ been when the police were there. Helicopters all night and if you were unlucky to be close enough: [https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/06/04/43840246/seattle...](https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/06/04/43840246/seattle- residents-got-tear-gassed-in-their-own-apartments)

<comment><USER40> This is correct. I live 3 blocks from CHAZ and I was gassed in my apartment 3 nights last week. I feel much safer without the police around right now.

<comment><USER41> Same. Nothing was more gut-wrenching than watching the flash bombing and gassing of peaceful protestors from our rooftop. Something felt so unconstitutional and fascist about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Capitol Hill's police precinct has been abandoned, however, police are still responding to 9-1-1 calls to the area.

This feels very much overblown.

Seattle Times has an article that outlines similar "occupy" protests.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/welcome-to-the- cap...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/welcome-to-the-capitol-hill- autonomous-zone-where-seattle-protesters-gather-without- police/?utm_source=marketingcloud&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TSA_061120030533+Capitol+Hill+Autonomous+Zone+What+is+it_6_10_2020&utm_term=Active%20subscriber)

<comment><USER43> There was almost an air of disappointment from SPD that the police station _wasn't_ burned down. It seemed that they were threatening that it was only a matter of time, "We told you so"-style. But alas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I defer to moderators whether this crosses the line on political content.

It's interesting how this is organized by largely college educated people, many of whom are not PoC, and I think the federal response to this will be tolerance because these people are ultimately vying for institutional power, and feds realize they will all be working for one another in 10 years.

It's less about right/left than how I'd posit if CHAZ were operated by non- college educated people or even was exclusively a movement by people of color, the federal authorities would have already found some pretext for lethal force. It's not like the CHAZ organizers are poor or relatively uneducated people without political recourse, like say, a niche religious sect, some ranchers, or even just a radicalized family - all examples of subjects of federal sieges in recent memory.

Communes and autonomous zones are romantic, but they exist because they are tolerated or explicitly used as a source of volatility by a movement already within the establishment.

If this seems provocative, I'd argue it gets to the crux of the issue of why certain movements are tolerated and others are not. CHAZ is a tactic in a conflict between movements that are far above it within the establishment. That it has not been subject to an ATF-style siege shows it necessarily is the expression of top level political backing.

There are numerous precedents for how this plays out, as it has throughout history in France, Russia, Germany, China, and Cambodia. Unfortunately, the advice I have for people everywhere is above all, you must find a way to resist the isolation, paralysis, and atomization that separates people from their communities, which will be used to cow people into tolerating horrible things that will themselves just build momentum. The only way for CHAZ and related movements to yield peace is for people to recognize that before their relationships to these movements (positive or negative), you are members of families, neighbourhoods, communities, trades, professions, regions, and not insignificant atoms subject to global forces of history and nature. Especially if ostensibly isolated acts of terror begin.

I think it is urgent to recognize that there are precedents for what's happening today that provide predictive power to how this could play out, and to equip people with a reminder to above all resist political atomization, especially when it becomes hard to do so, because it deprives us all of our humanity, which is the only thing standing between us and the darkest chapters of history.

<comment><USER45> > It's interesting how this is organized by largely college educated people, > many of whom are not PoC

Do you have a source for this? I haven't been able to find a list of people involved in organizing this.

<comment><USER44> Not a source I'd be willing to provide, especially given such lists are precisely what political organizers avoid sharing. However, as an exercise, you can see the make up of the civil society organizations and businesses who provide funding and support for social causes, and neither of these are made up of the uneducated or working poor.

<comment><USER45> My only experience with social causes is doing labor organizing in Seattle, but that experience has been almost exclusively organized and run by uneducated working poor.

My point being that from what it looks like, there probably isn't a list of people organizing the CHAZ because it's mostly a spontaneous reaction to the current circumstances. They're explicitly non-hierarchical, and if they look anything like the circles of activism I've worked with in Seattle they're probably made up of more working class activists than this idea of liberal business owners.

But that is just my assumption based on my own anecdotal experience, I don't live in Seattle anymore and haven't been to the CHAZ myself.

<comment><USER46> You're probably not familiar with Seattle.... there is a base of people there who are capable of this. there has been ongoing conflict between the local populace and the SPD. for over a year. probably longer, but a 1-2 years ago is when it popped up on my radar.

this is hardly spontaneous, seems more like they just told the police to fuck off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I don't have an opinion on the morality of this instance of an "autonomous zone" but it made me think of the concept of "TAZ" as described in this book, may be interesting for those interested in anarchist politics: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone)

</comment><comment><USER48> Oh, Jesus Christ... I live about 3/4s of a mile from the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone". The way people are talking about this is ridiculous.

It's basically a bunch of wannabe Marxists LARPing.

They call the area "self-governed" and "abandoned", but the city had workers mowing the grass at Cal Anderson Park, two days after it was "established". There are cops sitting like 10 blocks away in case things get out of hand.

CHAZ is basically a block party at this point that the cops letting exist while tensions cool down a bit. If anything started to get of hand, you can be certain the police would be on the scene any moment. It's autonomous in the same way my house is autonomous. The police will let me do my thing until they get wind that I'm doing something decently illegal.

If you want to see a real "Autonomous Zone" in Seattle, 3rd and Pike is your spot. The cops let pretty much anything go there and it's a crap hole.

Edit: I'd like to add, I'm not trying to take anything away from their message. I think these protests need to be happening. I just think it's stupid that people are acting like some outside of the government people first commune has been created when really, it's basically the same as when people set up a bunch of tents in the park during the Occupy movement.

<comment><USER49> > If you want to see a real "Autonomous Zone" in Seattle, 3rd and Pike is your > spot. The cops let pretty much anything go there and it's a crap hole.

Too true

<comment><USER50> too too true. for more color, the locals call that area McStabbys (also heard CrackDonals). It's really really bad

<comment><USER49> LOL I used to switch buses there and "CrackDonalds" is way too fitting of a name

<comment><USER50> hahahah. the shit i've seen there waiting for the bus will also last me for a lifetime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The comparison to Freetown Christinia is thought provoking, but the key difference seems to be that Capital Hill has been a trendy part of town with new apartments going up and rents increasing for the last decade, whereas Christinia was originally an abandoned site.

I don't question the resolve or peaceful intentions of the people currently occupying CHAZ, but instead the patience of property managers, local residents, and local businesses (though closed due to COVID-19).

</comment><comment><USER52> Didn't expect this to be posted here. I've put up a FAQ now answering a lot of the questions in this thread and dispelling the rumours. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER53> From Wikipedia: Animal Farm by G.Orwell "The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm)

<comment><USER54> One reddit thread suggests it is already heading that way.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/h077uv/raz_simone_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/h077uv/raz_simone_and_crew_assault_man_for_graffiti_june/)

<comment><USER55> From the OP of that post:

>tl;dw: Man was tagging over someone else's art, Raz and group approach and separate him from crowd, chasing him for two blocks. He begins to film them with his phone, they take it from him. He tries to get it back and they attack him, kicking him in the head and breaking his glasses. At one point, Raz threatens to shoot the man. They then begin to gaslight him that it was all his fault. Audio only for most of the end, because woman in Raz' crew filming puts the phone in her pocket while the stream continues. [1]

So it took about 3 days for this anarchist utopia to demonstrate exactly why police exist.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/h077uv/raz_simone_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/h077uv/raz_simone_and_crew_assault_man_for_graffiti_june/ftkhmqn/)

<comment><USER56> Raz isn't a reason why the police exist. Raz is a product of a system where the police exist too much, which if given the proper social and educational services earlier in his life, his character and personality disorder exemplified here would have been nullified.

<comment><USER55> At what point are adults responsible for their own actions?

This guy and his crew beat up and threatened to kill someone for a petty crime. What does that have to do with the police existing "too much"?

<comment><USER57> > This guy and his crew beat up and threatened to kill someone for a petty > crime.

That's exactly what caused all of these protests.

> At what point are adults responsible for their own actions?

It's constantly of interest to me how much "free will" actually exists. The more research comes out about environmental factors, the more we realize that people who suffer {home, food, employment, physical} insecurity exhibit symptoms as if they had a lower IQ and stress which is correlated with increased mental illness, stress, blood pressure, and other health problems.

It also strikes me that the current legal corrections system really only works if we, as individuals, have significant ability to decide not to commit a crime as opposed to it being the most likely destiny based on our current {personal, environmental} state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Seattle doesn't want to be beaten by Minneapolis to becoming the next Detroit

<comment><USER59> Yes, I'm personally very worried about this as someone who is heavily invested in the real estate market here. The issue of how to deal with the rapid growth in the city is multifaceted and it's difficult to pitch a stance on.

At the very least, you could easily make an argument that a rising tide does not lift all boats; i.e. many people are personally not benefiting much from the tech-boom in the area. On the other hand, if your stance is that our collective goal should be to produce the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people; then we want more people to move to the city have prosperous lives to fulfill the new roles available here. In that scenario it's hard to keep income inequality from expanding.

It seems like thusfar the city council has done a good job at striking a balance; MHA (mandatory housing affordability) is a level-headed way to redistribute some of the gains that tech has brought to those who are less fortunate. However, our current city council is much more left-leaning and I'm worried that their stance towards growth is far more "progressive" and anti- business.

Should people really be entitled to live in an expensive city that they cannot afford? Cities like Manhattan or SF have sort of taken a stance on that and it favors the prosperous. I'm not sure how I feel about the matter; but I certainly do not want us to dampen our potential future potential by encouraging businesses to set up shop elsewhere. We need more initiatives like MHA and fewer like the business head-tax.

<comment><USER60> >Should people really be entitled to live in an expensive city that they cannot afford? Cities like Manhattan or SF have sort of taken a stance on that and it favors the prosperous.

I find it eerie that you're excluding from the equation the tens of thousands of homeless people in those cities. The right question is "to what lengths should we go to give people the ability to live with a roof over their heads?" The bay area has answered with "very little", where most people are barely offering human empathy to the homeless.

<comment><USER59> Homelessness is a complex problem which I believe namely stems from psychological and substance abuse disorders. I think there is likely a relationship between the amount of income inequality in a society and the amount of homelessness.

I do believe that we should support the homeless populations of our cities; but if you're familiar with Seattle's homelessness problems in particular, you'll know that the city has essentially thrown literally hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem to little effect.

I don't believe Seattle should follow a path of growth-at-all-costs and ignore the social problems the city has; but the city council here is staunchly anti- business, and that carries a risk-too, like the original commenter said—take growth for granted and you can end up like Detroit. In that situation, no one prospers, and everyone suffers; which we definitely don't want. It's a fine line to walk. That's all I'm saying.

<comment><USER60> >Homelessness is a complex problem which I believe namely stems from psychological and substance abuse disorders

I think this is about as useful as saying "homelessness is caused by loitering". We're confusing cause and effect. Try living on the streets for a few years where people treat you worse than shit without developing some mental illness or abusing drugs to deal with the stress and loneliness. If you think that the cause is mental illness and drugs and throwing money at it mostly does nothing, why do you think San Francisco has by a long shot the highest rate of homelessness in America?

<comment><USER61> > highest rate of homelessness in America?

Please do not spread lies. SF does not have the highest homelessness rate in America. Eugene Oregon has the most homeless: [https://www.security.org/resources/homeless- statistics/](https://www.security.org/resources/homeless-statistics/) , followed by LA and NY.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> It has the look of a mini Christiania, nice to see something like this sprout up in the US. I hope it sticks around and becomes something really cool.

</comment><comment><USER63> I've always wondered, if a community like this were able to completely leave the US, and didn't have to pay for the military, or the police, would they be able to fund their own demands for free healthcare, free college, etc? I'm going to guess that overall, the occupants are below the average income level of Seattle, but would they be able to afford the lifestyle they're requesting?

<comment><USER64> Is "lifestyle" the most appropriate word you could choose for "access to healthcare and education"?

<comment><USER63> Each of those items have a cost associated with them, at least at a societal level, even if they are provided free to the end consumer. A doctor, even if providing free services in a completely altruistic manner, must eat and be housed, as do college professors. A society must choose how to allocate their resources. Based upon the CHAZ demands, they wish to have a society which provides healthcare and college. I would call that a lifestyle.

My question was, does there exist a sufficient productivity in the population in the CHAZ to provide those services to their population?

From Wikipedia: Lifestyle is the interests, opinions, behaviours, and behavioural orientations of an individual, group, or culture.

The demand for access to healthcare and education does seem to be the interest, opinion and behavior of this group.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> My first thought was 'I feel bad for the people who spent a million bucks on a condo in Pike / Pine', but my second thought was that these are likely also people who voted for people like Sawant so they made their own bed.

<comment><USER66> Given that Sawant won with a tiny majority, that's an unfair judgement of those people.

<comment><USER67> Sawant was running for re-election for her third term. She wasn't an unknown political figure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I never understand why likeminded people don't just start a city? "Wild country" was an example of this, but they were bound together by a quasi religion.

There's so much unincorporated land in the USA. So many opportunities to prove things work or don't work. Why move into a place somebody else built?

<comment><USER69> Unincorporated but not unowned and there's a huge amount of infrastructure and money required to setup even a small town ex nihilo in some randomly selected part of the country.

<comment><USER68> Building infrastructure is something easily solved by capitalist. Can it not also be solved by likeminded people with alternative economic principles?

<comment><USER69> Because beyond doing it by hand and setting up a city sized septic system the equipment for stuff like processing waste and preparing water is extremely expensive and the only sources want lots of money for them. It's doable just very delicate and requires permission and buy-in from actors in the existing system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> This site documents the zone with a timeline, some pictures and local articles as well: [https://chaz.zone/](https://chaz.zone/)

</comment><comment> dawg- Their first demand is that the Seattle Police Department be abolished, as in 100% defunded, as in completely deleted. Coming out with a demand like that is just asking to lose right off the bat.

I wish they would delete it and stick with their second demand - take all weapons away from police. No guns, no batons, no tasers. It's also crazy, but at least it's crazy in a "this might just be crazy enough to work" kind of way.

<comment><USER71> > Their first demand is that the Seattle Police Department be abolished, as in > 100% defunded, as in completely deleted. Coming out with a demand like that > is just asking to lose right off the bat.

Abolition of existing centralized paramilitary police departments in favor of rethinking public safety and social services and reconstituting and redistributing law enforcement within a new framework is an idea which has fairly rapidly recently moved from the fringes to the mainstream of debate, and it is a policy openly and actively being discussed by many local governments, and already committed to by the Minneapolis City Council.

It may seem, by a pre-June-2020 perspective, to be an out-of-the-range-of- serious-debate demand, but the Overton Window on that issue just underwent and sudden and massive shift.

<comment><USER17> It's also extraordinarily unpopular, across the ideological spectrum[1].

>...which has _fairly rapidly recently moved_ from the fringes to the mainstream of debate, and it is a policy openly and actively being discussed by many local governments, and already committed to by the Minneapolis City Council.

>but the Overton Window on that issue just underwent and sudden and massive shift.

Well you're right about that. Because it's insane, and generates clicks, likes, and retweets and so media keeps covering like it's actually popular despite the fact the inverse is true to keep generating their clicks, likes, and retweets. I've been waiting for the Star Tribune to actually run some local polling on this, because everyone I know still back there also thinks it's insane. My guess is they do run the polls, and don't publish the results for the same reason.

[1][https://twitter.com/databyler/status/1268555840098906115?ref...](https://twitter.com/databyler/status/1268555840098906115?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

<comment><USER71> "Cut funding for police departments", that is shown in that poll isn't what the dismantle/abolish is about (it's not even a fair portrayal what "defund" is centrally about, which is _shifting funding from PDs to alternative services_.) And that poll is from near the beginning of the recent protests.

More recent polling shows much higher support for both "defund" and "dismantle" than what that poll found for it's lopsided framing of "defund".

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police- poll-e...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-poll- exclusive/exclusive-most-americans-including-republicans-support-sweeping- democratic-police-reform-proposals-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKBN23I380)

<comment><USER17> Yes, there exists nuance to the "defund the police" stance (though a lot less on the whole "abolish" the police position). My point is that _many people_ have essentially been gaslit into thinking this has widespread support. It does not, regardless of whatever nuance exists.

From your article:

>For example, 39% of respondents supported proposals "to completely dismantle police departments and give more financial support to address homelessness, mental health, and domestic violence."

So, only 39% of respondents support "dismantling" (notice the specific word choice here) and essentially creating, out of thin air I guess, _another organization_ that would obviously have a license to engage in violence if their charter includes dealing with domestic violence. This is an echo chamber proposal if there ever was one.

<comment><USER72> If you told me this stat a month ago, I would never believe it. 39% is a shocking amount and I can only imagine it is going to increase.

You're right that we would still need to train a new organization to deal with violent events. But you're also ignoring the upside of not having a cop with a gun issuing speeding tickets, or dealing with someone experiencing mental health issues, or other things that could be better served by more specialized roles.

<comment><USER17> >give more financial support to address homelessness, mental health, and domestic violence.

is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this poll, which should be obvious. I'm not ignoring anything. Cops respond to a variety of calls, all the time ... because there simply are not enough of them to have this "specialized" force you think would solve all of these problems. The grand irony of all of this is that the defunding of the police departments in this country will make the kinds of reforms you are talking about impossible.

<comment><USER72> >Cops respond to a variety of calls, all the time ... because there simply are not enough of them to have this "specialized" force you think would solve all of these problems.

This makes no sense.

<comment><USER17> You ever put a duty roster together? Done a Troops to Task analysis? If you wanted to have separate divisions that all do only one thing you need more troops. If you spread the workload around you can get by with fewer but the service level probably suffers. It's that simple. So sometimes you do domestic calls, next rotation you're on traffic or patrol. If you want specialized units, which to me does sound smart and does sound like an idea worth exploring, _you need more officers_. Maybe it's possible to save some money here (I imagine there'd be some salary disparity depending on which specialization you choose). Ironically, again, this would make the police _more_ like the military - not less. The military already has specialized branches that have categories of doctrinal tasks they are responsible for (artillery vs infantry, armor vs cavalry ... and in this example patrol vs traffic).

<comment><USER71> > If you wanted to have separate divisions that all do only one thing you need > more troops.

This assumes that generalists are equally effective at all tasks as specialists. Well, as a generality; in the specific case of all-purpose use of police vs appropriate use of other community services, it actually involves the assumption that specialists in the application of violence to achieve compliance are as effective in specialists in tasks unrelated to application of violence in those non-violent tasks.

In technology, if senior IT management decided they could reduce staff by having network installation specialists, with little to no additional training, cover application development, QA, requirements analysis, SRE, DBA, desktop support, and project management tasks instead of having specialists in each of those domains, they'd rightly be viewed as insane. But that's, broadly, what local governments have done with city services, with cops in the role of the network installers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> For those interested, this is a previously streamed speaking event in the CHAZ: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nDkd3V2V0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nDkd3V2V0)

</comment><comment><USER74> Is assumption here that if you are a technical enthusiast and read this site, you have to support whatever leftist phenomenon is happening? This has nothing to do with technology at all.

</comment><comment><USER75> Nice to see this here. Maybe the "hacker" in HN is returning.

Wish I was in Seattle to go check it out. I love this kind of thing.

<comment><USER76> ...eh it took two dead versions of this story and multiple emails to the mods for this to get unkilled and it's still weighted off of the front page. So it took serious effort and intention to front page a story over the power of flag mods and because of weighting still barely got the discussion deserved. I think a lot of people just must defacto flag things that aren't about software or business?

I would come back here more regularly if I knew that actual huge news would be regularly discussed here, or if I thought interesting articles not about coding had much of a shot.

As good writing about CHAZ keeps happening or the situation evolves I'll continue trying submissions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I am rather amused that the same group is simultaneously calling for the tearing down of secessionist monuments and statues, while promoting a secession of their own. The cognitive dissonance is real.

<comment><USER78> > I am rather amused that the same group is simultaneously calling for the > tearing down of secessionist monuments and statues, while promoting a > secession of their own. The cognitive dissonance is real.

From the webpage:

> Fundamentally, CHAZ is an occupation of Capitol Hill, not an official > declaration of independence.

They are fairly clear that their ultimate goal is neither secession or independence. The area was abandoned by the police in a political move, and CHAZ is occupying it as a statement of how they would like to see the city as a whole run instead.

<comment><USER10> Not only that, but those secessionist statues being turn down, are about people who lead a violent rebellion against the US in order to protect their ability to enslave people.

This protest is quite the opposite in nearly every possible way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Walked though it yesterday, wearing a mask. The majority of people are also wearing masks and seem to be peaceful. Mostly a bunch of protestors and people milling about. There was one argument right by the speaker, but it didn't look violent. Here is a link to my video: [https://photos.app.goo.gl/8kktcXopLDdFKbQP9](https://photos.app.goo.gl/8kktcXopLDdFKbQP9) IMO it will last a month or two then engine will get bored and it will fizzle.

</comment><comment><USER80> It has reflections of the Summer of Love and 'Human Be Ins'. Instead of racism, the common cause was the Vietnam War. Instead of CHAZ, the Haight Ashbury.

From the descriptions of Seattleites (sorry) in the thread, it seems there may be more to compare than contrast:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love)

Have we been here before?

</comment><comment><USER81> I live nearby but I haven't visited. I've been staying up on different livestreams however. I would say it's a naive waste of time, but clearly it is an outlet for people to feel creative and free, and there is some value in that. I think the long term is that people who support it are going to look back at it and cringe at some of the fantasies being played out.

<comment><USER82> All the clubs, bars, and schools have been shuttered for months. That buildup of stifled young adult socialization energy had to be dumped somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> If anyone is interested in an unfiltered view of CHAZ I've been going down there every day and filming. Here's a link to the first video in my playlist about CHAZ. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJblgfCwWtU&list=PLlgnc9Wjog...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJblgfCwWtU&list=PLlgnc9WjogB67st9GXzit3YTlHxfoXgM-&index=25)

I can confirm that the media isn't accurately representing what's there. It was a little crazy up until last Sunday (before the formation of CHAZ, right before the police left). It's totally peaceful now. People are bringing their families down there. I've even been there in the middle of the night and it's fine.

</comment><comment><USER84> Serious question: What's to stop Seattle Police or state authorities from removing people from CHAZ? I wouldn't be surprised if there are city, state and federal officials drawing up probable cause to shut it down.

<comment><USER85> Protestors occupied the intersection of 11th and Pine (1 block from the police station) for multiple nights prior to the police abandoning the precinct. The police tried clearing people multiple nights with tear gas and flash-bangs, but the images and video of clearing the protestors night after night became politically unsavory. They probably won't try evicting people from the area again because they didn't succeed politically the previous times they tried.

(Plus, tear gas would seep into the nearby residential buildings)

[https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/06/after-mayors- spee...](https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/06/after-mayors-speech-on- deescalation-police-making-strongest-show-of-force-yet-at-standoff-at-11th- and-pine/#more-2067257258)

<comment><USER84> > They probably won't try evicting people from the area again because they > didn't succeed politically the previous times they tried.

Interesting. The city might not, but feds might try, as they probably don't have much to lose.

<comment><USER67> Both the governor and the mayor said they won't let the Feds try that.

<comment><USER84> Wouldn't the feds just overrule them anyway?

<comment><USER85> Do you think that the feds would win politically from overriding local authorities to send in armed troops to evict thousands of people from a glorified festival? There was a ton of push-back on the feds clearing out sections of DC, and the feds have a lot more authority there.

Clearing out the area is fundamentally a political issue, so I think you need to focus less on _who_ would clear out CHAZ and more on _how_ they would justify their actions. The area is in a dense area and is easily accessible by transit so tons of people have gone there in person. Plus, the local establishment news has been visiting the area and taking pictures.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/dubbed-a- lawless-s...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/dubbed-a-lawless- state-by-some-the-chaz-or-chop-seattles-newest-neighborhood-tries-to-create- its-own-narrative/)

Whoever clears it would need to create "probable cause" as you mentioned initially. Our police chief has been trying to justify clearing the area by saying: 1) business are getting extorted (no evidence) 2) assaults and rapes have increased (the crime blotter doesn't support this) 3) there are armed guards doing ID checks at the barricades (people can just walk in to the area and tons of people have visited. There have been a few people with long guns hanging out, but my understanding is that they leave shortly because other people tell them it's not a good look). So far, none of those accusations have stuck:

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-area- prote...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-area-protests- updates-for-thursday-june-11/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Everythings peaceful... for now. What happens when something gets out of hand. It's always easiest in the beginning when everyone's on the same page. Given time disagreements are bound to flare up.

</comment><comment><USER87> Reminds me of Christiania [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania)

</comment><comment><USER88> If this is going to be anything like the autonomous zones I've visited in Berlin and Copenhagen, it is going to be filled with graffiti, drug dealing, and not much else in terms of public use.

</comment><comment><USER89> "Autonomous Zone" is a reference to this book by Hakim Bey:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone)

It's an interesting read..

[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/hakim-bey-t-a-z- the-...](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/hakim-bey-t-a-z-the- temporary-autonomous-zone-ontological-anarchy-poetic-terrorism)

</comment><comment><USER90> Have all the business owners whose storefronts are now covered with graffiti ceded their properties to the group voluntarily?

</comment><comment><USER4> Now that's an impressive achievement: [https://www.reddit.com/r/CapHillAutonomousZone/comments/h7km...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CapHillAutonomousZone/comments/h7kmha/beautiful_black_lives_matter_painting_in_chaz/)

"Black lives matter" art painting in the street.

Splendid!

<comment><USER4> I don't understand why would someone downvote this comment... anyone willing to explain the issue with it? It's just a link to great art made at CHAZ, I don't see how that can be taken negatively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Bumping this towards front page discussion, the Wikipedia link on this got flag killed from the front page.

</comment><comment><USER91> Interesting and relevant speech from Abe Lincoln: [http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum....](http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm)

</comment><comment><USER92> I wondered if it's inspired by Christiania?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania)

It's been a thing half a century now.

<comment><USER93> Sure, but also Paris in 1871, and Barcelona in 1936.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> If you are trying to start a respectable state at least spell correctly, it really makes people not take it seriously:

>siezed!! by anarchists, BLM supporters and other protestors who have since transformed it into a unverisal!!

<comment><USER95> > anarchists

> state

Why would you think that anarchists are trying to start a state?

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> According to a June 10 article by City Journal, hip hop artist Raz Simone acts as "co-leader and enforcer" of the Zone, while former mayoral candidate Nikkita Oliver formulates the commune's political aims.[24] However, according to Simone, the Zone has no central leadership, with all residents serving as leaders

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Autonomous_Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Autonomous_Zone)

<comment><USER55> I've lived in a neighborhood with an "enforcer". Let's just say most of us were happy when the police showed up from time to time.

<comment><USER76> Living in a neighborhood in Oakland CA with no enforcer and annoyingly blatant property crime, I'm willing to give an enforcer a try cause it's not like people trust the police here or that they even come when you call them.

<comment><USER97> Then stop electing the same people who de-prioritize prosecuting property crime.

I'm amazed by SF and close areas utter disregard for what is normal crime wise. Most people in most cities don't have a story about their car window being smashed in and rummaged through. Every thread I see here / on reddit about SF someone mentions that its completely normal and should be expected there.

<comment><USER76> ...living in evolving anarchy has benefits though. I suspect that San Francisco's open air drug market with dangerously cheap methamphetamine is one of the dirty secrets behind the engine of creation of Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER98> Interesting theory; from what I've seen though, it's fueled more by Adderral scrips.

<comment><USER76> There's lots of that too. My theory implies that a bunch of people that say they're taking adderall are actually doing a little meth before they get on the Google bus because it's cheaper and easier to get.

<comment><USER99> More years ago than I care to admit, I suspected that Intel's Multibus II design showed evidence of the use of "nose candy" in SV...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> Looks like my employer was quick to add this site to the block list of sites we can't access using the company network.

</comment><comment><USER101> Any chance of this turning into something like Copenhagen's "Freetown Christiania"?

</comment><comment><USER102> I have mixed feelings on my own reaction to this. A huge part of me loves this - and supports a huge chunk of their demands. Then they talk about free housing and rent control... and I can feel myself shy away. I can imagine how other moderates / economics students / actual conservatives might react. It pains me to have to split my values. Do you support good intentions paired with policies you believe will cause more harm than good - or do you side with policies you agree with even though it makes you an "enemy" to the peer culture you yearn to belong to. Republicans won't listen to comments about open borders, and Democrats won't listen to comments about the issues with nationalization.

This has been my political problem my whole life. Agree with old white boomers on tax policy and with young radicals on immigration policy. Far too often my brain says "keep your mouth shut" - "save it for other Econ nerds" - and I'm beginning to think I'm no longer OK with that conclusion. Support to Seattle!

</comment><comment><USER103> I love CHAZ so much, I hope it becomes a national trend.

If city councils would defund the police and use the money for actual good things then we wouldn't have this problem of police brutality and police being above the law. But no, the police need to buy tanks ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment><comment><USER104> I hadn't heard of CHAZ until now.

 _Zona_ , _Galaxy News Radio_ , _Radio Free Europe_... so many cultural touchstones for CHAZ to riff on. It must be a designer's utopia!

It also reminds me of _Daily Mail Island_ but at another end of the political hyperspectrum.

</comment><comment><USER105> good for you Capitol Hill your friends in Vancouver support you :)

</comment><comment><USER106> Is this comparable to the Paris Commune?

</comment><comment><USER64> "...

The demonstration, an irregular event created by the demonstrators, nevertheless takes place near the city centre, intended for very different uses. The demonstrators interrupt the regular life of the streets they march through or of the open spaces they fill. They 'cut off these areas, and, not yet having the power to occupy them permanently, they transform them into a temporary stage on which they dramatise the power they still lack.

The demonstrators' view of the city surrounding their stage also changes. By demonstrating, they manifest a greater freedom and independence – a greater creativity, even although the product is only symbolic – than they can ever achieve individually or collectively when pursuing their regular lives. In their regular pursuits they only modify circumstances; by demonstrating they symbolically oppose their very existence to circumstances.

...

Either authority must abdicate and allow the crowd to do as it wishes: in which case the symbolic suddenly becomes real, and, even if the crowd's lack of organisation and preparedness prevents it from consolidating its victory, the event demonstrates the weakness of authority. Or else authority must constrain and disperse the crowd with violence: in which case the undemocratic character of such authority is publicly displayed. The imposed dilemma is between displayed weakness and displayed authoritarianism.

..."

[https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj/1968/no03...](https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj/1968/no034/berger.htm)

<comment><USER107> This seems like a false dilemma. There is a third option: Do not tolerate crimes but otherwise let it be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> I'm sure there are a lot of folks here who are either living, or have been to Seattle/Cap Hill.

Politics aside for a moment, this is the pinnacle of Cap Hill IMO. Good on them, as long as they stay safe and try not to get too culty.

</comment><comment><USER109> It's funny; this being HN, some of you must live in Seattle. So instead of spreading sub-Facebook level rumors and FUD, why don't you walk over to CHAZ and see the reality for yourself?

<comment><USER110> I live in Seattle, went over yesterday with no preconceived notions of what must be there. I had seen some posts that it was pretty lawless, but really took them with a grain of salt. Nothing I had heard about it was true. I didn't see any guns, no violence, or anything, no checkpoints (just barricades stopping actual cars from coming in, but not stopping people/bicycles). Just a bunch of people kind of hanging out listening to speeches near the East Precinct building. The live stream link on the OP shows it, basically people hanging out, walking around, etc.

If you do live in Seattle, you should head over and see it for yourself. It's a very unique thing and who knows how long it will be there. I assume at some point the police will drive a tank through it or something.

<comment><USER109> There you have it folks, eyewitness testimony. And yet somehow I suspect the people that believe the rapper warlord Orwellian dystopia narrative won't change their mind one bit.

<comment><USER61> Well I am a brown man who's lived in America my entire life, and I've never been harassed by police. So there you have it... eyewitness testimony. And yet somehow I suspect the people that believe that America is a police-state dystopia won't change their mind one bit.

It's almost like ... anecdata isn't trustworthy...

EDIT: downvoted for pointing out the hypocrisy.

<comment><USER111> Thank you. I think people discount the power of speaking out. Don't worry about the negativity. Speak the truth, and it's all that can be asked of you.

<comment><USER61> I'll never stop speaking the truth. Had a white professor in an immigration history class attempt to discount my view of being an actual child of immigrants by saying I had become a white person. The gaslighting of immigrant experiences is real. Thanks for the support!

<comment><USER109> lmao yeah thanks for sharing, it was totally pertinent to the point at hand

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> Does anyone think this would not have been crushed without mercy if the protestors were 'white supremacists'? Serious question.

The irony is that if these AZs were permitted it could give said segregationists exactly what they had been after for decades.

<comment><USER113> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_Nati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_National_Wildlife_Refuge)

Like this scenario in 2016 that ended when the last far-right occupiers of a national wildlife refugee left after 6 weeks?.

<comment><USER114> That was the news story of the month. This has barely been talked about in most of the media.

<comment><USER113> That isn't what OP was talking about, but to answer your separate question--in Seattle you have unarmed people who pushed some concrete blocks into the street, in Oregon you had well armed people occupying a federal building.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> "Within the self governed blocks you can find food vendors, daily marches, public film screenings and community councils hosted throughout the day".

Performance Art, I guess. Reads like a story of children building a treehouse/fort.

<comment><USER116> To me this whole thing reads more like the plot and gameplay of the next Far Cry game. What a time to be alive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> LOL. This will not end well.

When will they declare independence? That's when the fun will really begin.

<comment><USER118> I doubt anything will happen. The smart move would be to let it fizzle out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER119> They already have a warlord, they aren't just LARPing

[https://nypost.com/2020/06/12/raz-simone-accused-of- acting-l...](https://nypost.com/2020/06/12/raz-simone-accused-of-acting-like- warlord-in-seattles-chaz/)

</comment><comment><USER120> Two fascinating observations I've seen others have point out that are worth pondering:

\- One of the first things they did after seizing six city blocks is setting up a border and controlling who enters the CHAZ

\- How would the media have reacted if right-wing groups had commandeered several city blocks of any American city?

This is super interesting to watch unfold.

<comment><USER121> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_Nati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_National_Wildlife_Refuge)

<comment><USER122> The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge doesn't appear to be in the middle of a city.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> Glad to see the #Occupy franchise has a new installment out.

</comment><comment><USER76> So my question: will Trump quickly and lethally invoke the Insurrection act? Will the Joint Chiefs comply or create a constitutional crisis?

If this isn't shut down quickly, I predict we see a national movement like this by Juneteenth.

<comment><USER124> His threat to use the Insurrection Act last week was one of the most unpopular acts of his entire presidency, and directly led to the major rebukes from people like Mattis. So I doubt it.

<comment><USER76> While that's a fair point, this situation is a more literal insurrection than the previously seen protests and taking of goods from stores. CHAZ has declared their independence from the USA and historically that kind of thing is really not allowed. Has Trump so thoroughly lost control that secession is legal now?

<comment><USER24> I think the Seattle Police are thinking, "these are a bunch of kids who want to play-act _La Revolución._ If we just ignore them for a week, they'll get bored or disillusioned and go home."

So the police aren't going to storm the barricades -- they figure they won't have to.

<comment><USER125> This basically happens in Berlin every year on the May Day celebrations/marches.

The police let the anarchists do whatever they want, within certain constraints (no injuring people, constrained to certain neighborhoods), and the anarchists only do it on that day of the year. Sometimes there are conflicts between the police and the rioters, but it never escalates to huge conflicts any more.

It's a display of mutual respect for authority, and it allows the radical groups to blow off some steam, while campaigning for progress.

I know this idea makes no sense to law and order -type people, but it's an ancient human idea to ritualize and sanctify the behaviors you want to discourage or control.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day_in_Kreuzberg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day_in_Kreuzberg)

<comment><USER126> This is a fitting explanation, and I think developing these kinds of rituals further will help heal some of the divides in this country.

Your last paragraph reminded me of Eric Gans' "Originary Hypothesis" [1]:

> Gans hypothesizes that language originates in "an aborted gesture of > appropriation," which signifies the desired object as sacred and which > memorializes the birth of language, serving as the basis for rituals which > recreate the originary event symbolically. The originary sign serves to > defer the mimetic violence threatening the group, hence Gans's capsule > definition of culture as "the deferral of violence through representation."

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Gans#The_Originary_Hypo...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Gans#The_Originary_Hypothesis)

<comment><USER125> It's definitely not an idea that originates with me! :)

I think I got it from a German Literature class. The professor had us read some formational texts, and one of them was a theory for the establishment of religion, written by some German 20th Century thinker. I can't find the source now, but it was probably a pretty mainstream one, for all you internet sleuths out there.

He tried to put forward an evolutionary theory of religion. Basically, a tribe would come into conflict and children would kill their parents as a result. To try and prevent the same thing from happening to themselves, the children invented rituals that they taught to their children, so that they could control and direct their violence away from the parents. Instead of killing people, they would kill effigies made to look like people. Eventually, the children associate the effigies with their parents. But they like their parents, so they leave out the whole killing part when they teach it to _their_ kids, who come to worship the effigies. They then kill animals instead of people. And so on. It was a really interesting exercise of rationalism!

If someone can find the source for me, I'll give them my 2 internet points :)

Edit: I think it was Violence and the Sacred by Rene Girard.

<comment><USER126> Ah, yep! Gans' work is heavily based on Girard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER127> send in the 101st airborne

[https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/seattle-autonomous- zon...](https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/seattle-autonomous-zone- business-antifa)

</comment><comment><USER128> It is plainly illegal. A bunch of criminals have barricaded several city blocks that do not belong to them and barricaded shared public infrastructure (roads). These are crimes. They should be apprehended, charged, and sentenced. This is very straightforward. Either the laws exist and they are enforced equally upon everyone or we do not have a functioning society.

<comment><USER129> You break the law many times per day, we all do. Enforcement of law is always discretionary and thus political.

<comment><USER60> Do you mind if I put up a barricade around your house so cops can't come near us? :)

<comment><USER129> Don't threaten me with a good time!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Attack of the Week: Group Messaging in WhatsApp and Signal - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/10/attack-of-the-week-group-messaging-in-whatsapp-and-signal/ <comment><USER2> "This means the privacy of your end-to-end encrypted group chat is only guaranteed if you actually trust the WhatsApp server."

"This undermines the entire purpose of end-to-end encryption."

"And yet, the entire point of end-to-end encryption is to remove the server from the trusted computing base."

"The challenge here is that since WhatsApp itself determines who the administrators are, this isn't quite so simple."

Not only does this system require trusting a third party, that party is none other than Facebook. Its business is built on learning about the lives of users and selling ads, not serving as a naive broker of "secure messages".

<comment><USER3> Hyperbolic much?

This is a weakness that not only requires WhatsApp to be malicious but to not care about the trivial visibility of an exploit (the client would still display the extra person being added to the group chat).

<comment><USER4> not malicious per se, just with non obvious ulterior motives

<comment><USER5> They have a feature where you can invite people to the group with a link that requires the server being able to add people. Isn't that a fairly obvious motive?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Do we trust the WhatsApp server?" \-- could be also formulated as: "Do we trust the WhatsApp client?". It is obviously made by the same people. Both are closed source and the protocol is reverse engineered. What's the point if they made an auditing but do not communicate the results? It's probably not too surprising if reverse engineering points out vulnerabilities. It's a fenced ecosystem which claims to establish a secure communication but does not.

<comment><USER7> Having an open source client and server would help how? How would you know the server is running that software? Or that the binaries distributed via the App Store don't have some special spice?

And as far as I know the whatsapp protocol is simply tokenised XMPP.

<comment><USER8> If you have proper end to end encryption protocol and client which correctly implements the protocol without additional backdoors then it doesn't matter what the server runs. If the client is open source you can verify and build it yourself or download the binary from source that you trust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wrote a brain dump about my thoughts on that here: [https://www.cryptologie.net/article/437/on-real-world- crypto...](https://www.cryptologie.net/article/437/on-real-world-crypto-and- secure-messaging/)

tl;dr is "I'd say the problem is in the reaction, not in the published analysis."

<comment><USER7> The problem once again are the journalists making up stuff for clicks. Remove the journalists from the equation and you will see there's no problem.

<comment><USER10> The article is by a cryptographer at Johns Hopkins, not a journalist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is the kind of security problem Signal has nowadays? Kudos to moxie.

</comment><comment><USER12> The attack is real but I'm not impressed by the way they paper over the notifications you'd get that they consider 'easy to miss'. The messages you get when someone gets a new phone/key are even easier to miss and they're off by default.

The point is that the server doesn't know if they're off and if you're paying attention so if it's cheating it runs the chance of being detected.

</comment><comment><USER13> There was some discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16114809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16114809)

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems like this could be fixed fairly easily with a set of gatekeeper options. When a group gets created, you could have the option of making the group Public (anyone can join), Invite-Only (anyone can join with an invitation from someone already in the group), or Vetted (requires an invitation to join _and_ the person who made the group must approve each person who tries to join).

That way, you account for varying levels of paranoia.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have been subject of a probing attack on Signal. The attacker put a collection of messages into a group chat and see which ones made it in. Randomly, I am in a group Signal chat with 8-9 other people in my area code.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know what the disclosure story is here?

Have WhatsApp and Signal had a chance to respond?

<comment><USER17> As said here: [https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-security-flaws- encrypti...](https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-security-flaws-encryption- group-chats/)

"The researchers say that Open Whisper Systems, the non-profit that runs and maintains Signal, nonetheless responded to their work, saying that it's currently redesigning how Signal handles group messaging. Open Whisper Systems declined to comment on the record to WIRED about the Ruhr researchers' findings."

"In a phone call with WIRED, a WhatsApp spokesperson confirmed the researchers' findings. [...]And the WhatsApp spokesperson also noted that preventing the Ruhr University researchers' attack would likely break a popular WhatsApp feature that allows anyone to join a group simply by clicking on a URL." So I don't think WhatsApp will fix it.

<comment><USER18> And to be honest, it could be better for security not fixing it. This way people will stay with whatsapp and most chats remain e2e encrypted and safe. If Whatsapp breaks these features, people could switch to other messengers without e2e encryption (e.g. Facebook messenger) for group chats.

And for those concerned about the issue, you can monitor the member list and make sure you carefully check all messages. If you're really concerned about encryption that's what you should do anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It seems like all signal has to do is to take the step of validating that the member sending the "group management" message is already in the group first.

</comment><comment><USER20> interesting read:

[https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/666.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/666.pdf)

[https://github.com/facebookresearch/asynchronousratchetingtr...](https://github.com/facebookresearch/asynchronousratchetingtree)

</comment><comment><USER21> So they didn't bother to check if the add to group message was from someone in the group?

I mean no offense to the developers, but this seems like a fairly basic oversight and quite concerning that respected and popular products didn't get this level of review until now.

No crazy cryptographic mess involving improper ordering of authentication or weird random number generation, this is a simple logic bug. One that I'm sure many of us would have considered if we were implementing it, things like this do get missed too of course, but enough eyes on the design could have caught this.

<comment><USER22> > One that I'm sure many of us would have considered if we were implementing > it, things like this do get missed too of course, but enough eyes on the > design could have caught this.

It wasn't a design flaw, it was an insecure-direct-object-reference implementation flaw. IDORs are extremely common, but since the group id is an unguessable 128 bits, the bug can only be used by someone who was already in the group previously to rejoin the group. I'm sure it'll get patched shortly, if it hasn't been already.

For the WhatsApp case, a malicious WhatsApp server could add someone to your group, but everyone in the group would see it.

These bugs are not big deals. The real harm comes from regular people reading articles like the Wired one or the famously wrong Guardian one and switching to much worse alternatives, like SMS or Telegram.

<comment><USER23> > The real harm comes from regular people reading articles like the Wired one > or the famously wrong Guardian one and switching to much worse alternatives, > like SMS or Telegram.

I can understand why you give SMS as an example, because it is just plaintext. But why Telegram? As far as I know Telegram is probably better secured over a service like Whatsapp.

Edit: the latter is an assumption from me, I do not have any claims to back this up. Thats why I'm asking.

<comment><USER22> Telegram group messages are not end-to-end encrypted at all, the Telegram service has access to all message content.

Wish you weren't getting downvoted for asking this - asking is how people learn.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you create your TOS and Privacy Policies? - <AUTHOR>

I want to know whether I should create a Terms of Service and Privacy Policy page for my website. Searching on google brings out quite a few free online TOS and policy creators. However, I do not have the know-how to figure out how good they are.
How important is it to have those pages? Do I need them even if I am just validating an idea? or at an MVP launch?
Is picking up a free template online a good idea? Do I need to see a Lawyer?
Do you have a startup(s) whose TOS and Privacy Policy you refer to?
Any other things I need to keep in mind?
Thank you for your time and help. I love this community. <comment><USER2> As to whether or not you should -- the answer is yes.

It's good to let people know, upfront, what you are doing and how using the website will affect them. Especially, what rights you are reserving / requiring and obliging them to agree to (b/c most ToS's derive consent to the agreement implicitly just by using the product).

A free template is better than nothing. However, find popular sites (and sites similar to what your site does) and let those be your guide.

Do you need to see a lawyer?...always, if possible. It's always money well spent and a lot cheaper when you get a lawyer involved upfront.

Check out any Google service, Facebook, Twitter, etc. That's a great starting point, but more detailed then you might need. I would need to know a little more about your project, if you are looking for something more specific.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am launching a document translation service. Don't have a website up yet, so nothing that I can point you to. Sorry.

The user will upload their document, make payment and download translated document. I figured I needed a privacy policy since some of the data might be sensitive.

Thanks. Will check out what others in my niche have done and take it from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _I want to know whether I should create a Terms of Service and Privacy Policy page for my website._

Yes, that shouldn't be up for discussion IMO. Yes, you need one of each. Both help tell people what kind of company you are (at a meta level) and both are signals to search engines that you are "real".

As for how, find some companies you like and align with and use those as rough guides. You'll surely find ways to differentiate your product/service/needs so you'll have no problems once you do that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Docracy is a really cool service ([https://www.docracy.com](https://www.docracy.com)). It allows you to fork documents and you can find plenty of terms of service examples on their site. You can also fork the docracy terms and change them to your needs since their TOS is open source.

You can also host your TOS/Privacy policy on docracy and link to it from your website so users can see changes that you have made.

</comment><comment><USER5> Automattic open sources their privacy policies and tos across their multiple sites. See [http://automattic.com/privacy/](http://automattic.com/privacy/) as an example.</comment>


DNode: Asynchronous Remote Method Invocation for Node.js and the Browser - <AUTHOR> http://substack.net/posts/85e1bd/DNode-Asynchronous-Remote-Method-Invocation-for-Node-js-and-the-Browser

<comment><USER3> This is the kind of thing that makes server-side js more compelling - <USER2> the language gap between the client and the server.

This particular approach seems to have some security implications though. What's to prevent a client from sending malicious code to the server?

<comment><USER4> The client doesn't send code to the server, just a JSON representation of the function arguments (which can include names of client-side callback functions). There's no eval.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this response and the parent question too. I updated the article to make this point more clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Everyone should start using this module for remote method invocation in node.js!</comment>