I have played several games in my Steam library for more hours than it takes to become a police officer. - eviltoast
  • ThenThreeMore@startrek.websiteEnglish
    1082·
    11 months ago

    To become an American police officer.

    Other countries have somewhat higher requirements

    • Norway - 4500 hours

    • Finland - 4500 hours

    • India - 4000 hours

    • Germany - 4000 hours

    • Australia - 3500 hours

    • Spain - 2880 hours

    • United Kingdom - 2250 hours (plus if they want to carry a gun significant additional hours)

    • Canada - 2080 hours

    • New Zealand - 1924 hours

    • starchylemming@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      11 months ago

      thank you i was looking for this.

      the many hours of training do make a difference in quality of work. i feel like german and american policeforce are barely compareable

  • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
    1021·
    11 months ago

    i’ve played over 12,000 hours of Fallout 4.

    I’ll take my PhD now, thx

    • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
      57·
      11 months ago

      Fallout 4 was released 2,985 days ago.

      12,000/2,985 = an average of 4 hours a day, every day, no days off.

      Probably the best value purchase you’ll make in your life.

      • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
        51·
        11 months ago

        Probably the best value purchase you’ll make in your life.

        that’s why, after around 10k hours, I finally paid for it, lol.

          • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
            17·
            11 months ago

            also, it was on sale. GOTY Edition + all DLCs for, like, $15. why not?

            I got more out of that game than anything else I ever pirated (except, maybe, my copies of TNG, DS9, VOY, and all 20 seasons of Law & Order), so I thought: why not pay for it? it was totally worth it!

              • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
                14·
                11 months ago

                I’m 44. also, I spent most of my life freelancing/working from home, and, through covid and for a long time afterwards, unemployed— so lots of free time.

                also, I haven’t played it in about a year, although a new Mod, Fallout: London just came out, so I may just kiss a few hundred hours goodbye on that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

        • vynaaa@lemmy.worldEnglish
          12·
          11 months ago

          That’s what I did with Far Cry 3, but couldn’t get the stupid launcher to work on linux, so ended up pirating it again.Great work Ubisoft!

        • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
          8·
          11 months ago

          Hmm, what did it cost at launch? Probably $60?

          6,000 cents / 12,000 hours = 0.5 cents per hour.

          • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
            7·
            11 months ago

            wow, that’s value! especially considering I only paid $15 for it on sale a few years ago! I played a pirated version until recently, then eventually paid for it. it was just such an incredible game, it thought: why not?

            • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
              6·
              11 months ago

              0.125 cents per hour! A thousand times better value than a movie!

          • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
            8·
            11 months ago

            settlements. between the mods and cheats, you can go pretty fucking crazy.

            and, oh, boy, did i. I’ve pretty much rebuilt the entire commonwealth several times over.

          • WideEyedStupid@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            11 months ago

            Some mods can really bloat up the game. Tbh, even in vanilla, with all the DLCs… if you want to 100% it, it takes you quite a while. So let’s assume OP is a completionist. Then add for example, Sim Settlements 2, all three chapters and Rise of the Commonwealth. That’s gonna take you a while to finish, and I’m also going to guess that OP started a new game rather than an existing save every time a new mod and/or chapter was released. On top of that I imagine you’ll want to do a Survival run at least once, which can take quite a while. Just to name a few things. :p

            Fallout 4 is just like Skyrim. There are so many mods, there is almost no limit to how much time you spend playing it. And because there are so many mods, you’ll always have new things to do.

            • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
              2·
              11 months ago

              yeah, a typical vanilla (or even DLC) playthrough is about 40-60 hours. maybe 80 if you really scour. with mods and cheats, I get an average of 200-400 hours out of a playthough… 600 if I put a lot of wrk into it. technically, one could go on forever, but that’s about the limit I hit before it’s just boring and everything worth doing is done.

              FO4, unlike any other, really allows you to build your own world in the Commonwealth. The mods are amazing.

    • vsh@lemm.eeEnglish
      314·
      11 months ago

      Imagine spending 12k hours on something productive, like learning a language or a new skill etc.

      1000-2000h (depending on language) is enough to become communicative in that language, theoretically you could speak 3 to 10 languages by now if you spent this time learning instead of staring at a mediocre game’s screen.

      Or even get a real PhD. On average it takes 10k hours.

      Entertainment is not 🚫 a thing you want to master. Watching 1000 movies gets you nowhere. Reading 1000 self care and business books will get you higher than binging TV.

      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        101·
        11 months ago

        Or you could spend 12k hours enjoying your life and not worrying what others consider “productive”

        • vsh@lemm.eeEnglish
          19·
          11 months ago

          Be as productive as you want. However laying in bed for 12k hours straight would be a massive waste of time, at least for me.

            • vsh@lemm.eeEnglish
              12·
              11 months ago

              Cookies? Might as well lay in the coffin to speed up the process

                • vsh@lemm.eeEnglish
                  1·
                  11 months ago

                  I got one. It’s in my garage, you might be the second person laying inside.

      • squirrels@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        9·
        11 months ago

        Entertainment is not 🚫 a thing you want to master. Watching 1000 movies gets you nowhere. Reading 1000 self care and business books will get you higher than binging TV.

        Lmao fam really thought they were doing something with this

      • daltotron@lemmy.worldEnglish
        51·
        11 months ago

        1000 self care and business books

        Will rot your brain thoroughly. If you had spent that time instead reading 1000 pieces of actually good literature, there’s plenty of stuff you could’ve actually learned, instead of just having people tell you that you can count your golf trips as business expenses, and “stop being depressed it’s all about your growth grindset”, and “please buy the next book in this course it will really tell you how to make a bunch of money” and then it’s just a pyramid scheme.

        You could’ve learned some sort shit like the vimes boot theory, which is pretty good, and is a pretty good example of something you could learn from a totally random book. You could’ve learned all about medieval speech and castle architecture. if you were addicted to hardcore pulp sci-fi, you could’ve learned about xenobiology and a bunch of different math and science that those books tend to use as the basis for their outlandish premises. If you’d read a bunch of classic french literature, you could’ve become a pretty good expert in that very particular field, same with watching 1000 random french movies from like the 50’s or 60’s. If you’d spent 10,000 hours skateboarding, instead, you’d probably be able to do a kickflip, and at that point, the world’s your oyster. You’ve won, you might as well quit now, since you can kickflip. 10,000 hours hacky sacking and you can probably juggle almost anything with your feet, and that’s pretty cool, I would think. 10,000 hours playing modded fallout 4, even though I don’t like that game very much and think it sucks, 10,000 hours doing that, and you might know enough just based on the shit you have to do to be able to play the mods, to be able to do some professional tech work. You might even just know how to make your own mod, at that point, if you’re interested enough in it. I know that 10,000 hours of dwarf fortress will basically have gotten you there.

          • daltotron@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            11 months ago

            Bro’s like “oh nah you should go read some books, that’s a better use of your time” and then is also like “that’s too long I can’t read that shit”.

            Trolling used to be impressive, you know?

      • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
        42·
        11 months ago

        I speak 7 languages and have an MfA in Design and Technology from Parsons. I also know several programming languages.

        go judge someone else.

        edit: I’m happy, and that’s what matters. I’m sorry you’re not.

          • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
            82·
            11 months ago

            you should probably take your own advice rather than getting so twisted up about how random strangers live their lives.

              • gregorum@lemm.eeEnglish
                62·
                11 months ago

                wow, I feel sorry for you that my talking about my gaming habits triggered this level of insecurity in you. I suggest you talk to someone about that.

                I hope you feel better.

  • dasgoat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    37·
    11 months ago

    It’s also not just the amount of training they receive, but the content of the training. When you learn in Police academy that 1) everyone is armed and dangerous and 2) everyone is out to kill you, you tend to be more aggressive. And this is drilled into their skulls with the equivalent of a jackhammer. No wonder you get cops that are completely devoid of empathy, reason and humanity, but rather trigger happy assholes who will use violence for every single issue.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      From what I understand the system is little bit more involved. In the Academy they technically teach you all the rules you need to abide by. But they drill the self and buddy defense imperative into you at every moment. This is so they can point at the training regimen whenever reformers make a stink.

      But that’s not the end of training for police officers. There’s two more crucial steps. First you have to get through probation where it’s really easy to fire you and your training officer basically controls that 100%. So it’s a vibe check. Then they send you to continuing training seminars that propagandize police into a Hollywood Western mindset and teach them to not feel guilt or shame at killing people. Basically lowering the psychological barrier to shooting people.

      Which for the record, isn’t even a step the military takes. It’s not hard to dehumanize someone threatening you. The only reason you’d need a class to do so, is if you’re trying to dehumanize people before hand.

    • MeaanBeaan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      11 months ago

      Their justification for it is such an open and obvious lie too. He might get bored and quit? Because he’s too smart? Makes zero sense. On the list of jobs one might do I don’t think being a cop would rank very high in the boredom rankings.

      • michaelmrose@lemmy.worldEnglish
        71·
        11 months ago

        Are you judging the profession based on television? The majority of cops sit somewhere for a long ass time waiting for something to happen then when it does its mostly something boring like hauling a drunk driver in, writing a speeding ticket, or responding to a domestic violence call to either play therapist or MAYBE haul the guy off for the night knowing that nothing will happen except a tearful reunion.

        On TV cops fire their guns twice in 30 minutes whereas in reality 68% NEVER fire a firearm in their career. There are almost a million officers in the US you have no doubt seen many in passing. Did it seem like on average they are out doing exciting things?

        • fidodo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10·
          11 months ago

          The bigger flaw in the logic is that since when do dumb people get bored less easily? If anything they get bored more easily because they’re not observing potentially interesting things in mundane scenarios.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              11 months ago

              No such thing when we’re talking about people making life and death decisions. In the military we were told the deadliest weapon is your brain. Once again Cops want to cosplay but not put the work in.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        You’d be surprised. Unless you’re in very specific parts it’s a lot like the military. Boredom for 99 percent of the time and 1 percent “action”. Add on to that, the second they find out you’re a “smart guy” you’re going into an office job where you stare at spreadsheets all day.

    • adrian783@lemmy.worldEnglish
      26·
      11 months ago

      this comes up again and again and it’s always only this one case. iq and being a good cop is not even directly related so I wish people would stop bringing this up as some sort of gotcha.

      • michaelmrose@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        11 months ago

        Actually IQ is correlated to problem solving which literally makes you a better everything just not obviously by itself. While this case is an extreme example of scaring off smart people there are lots of less direct ways you can discourage them from joining your ranks. Promoting idiots to positions of power and allowing them to erect dysfunctional systems that people l lower on the totem pole aren’t allowed to change, punishing anyone who snitches on their fellow cops misbehavior, and promoting your idiot cronies are all pretty effect and pervasively practiced.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    11 months ago

    Compare that to the federal standard 3-5 years of University-like education with loads of theory and practice parts they need in my country to be a basic police(wo)man. Topics like deescalation techniques, basic communication in several languages, and psychological training are integral parts of the curriculum. And much more important than knowing how to shoot or beat up someone.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
    303·
    11 months ago

    While I agree that police need more training and psychological evaluations… How much of this is because job training schools lobbied for needless licenses and things to be covered under those licenses? Does someone really need 1600 hours of training to cut hair?

    • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.worldEnglish
      91·
      11 months ago

      It differs state to state but being a barber and cutting hair are not the same thing. A barber’s license is one of a few different ones used to get a job cutting hair. The thing that barbers generally do that others don’t is provide a shave. Use of a straight razor along with health and safety is part of the training.

      For context a full time bachelors student is pulling about 600 hours in one 15 week semester.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        11 months ago

        You can absolutely use a safety razor. Best haircut place I ever went to for my military cuts did so. If it’s a scissors and buzzers cut, anything over 40 hours is just exploitation.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.eeEnglish
    181·
    11 months ago

    If you had STUDIED instead you would now legally be able to beat your wife kill minorities and watch kids die because it’s too scawy!

  • Driveway4964@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    11 months ago

    Can I just say that this is the most interesting table layout I’ve seen? The column headers (state names) are the center column?!