It is entirely possible that as an American I am just getting oversensitive to this. But all I ever seem to hear on HN (and Reddit) is everything bad about the US. To someone who has never lived here, I suppose it must seem pretty dystopian.

I do think you should visit :). Every time I visit a new country I am struck by just how different it is in real life compared to everything I've ever heard about it. It's the primary reason I like to travel at all. I'm not really into the tourist stuff, I love to get off the beaten path and see how people actually live.

At least go visit Canada. Might be surprising, or not, but it shares a lot of cultural similarities with the US.

It’s probable that many of those interactions are omitting important information or are exaggerating: the conversational equivalent of an affluent white teenager walking past a friendly cop with his hands over his head, which I’ve seen multiple times.

Not in my case. The people who told me the stories were well-established adults who very rarely lose their cool (but some cops have a way to piss you off so they can then justify their violence towards you).

So a good general suggestion from your side but doesn't apply to what I've heard and experienced.

I’m skeptical, but fair. :) Well, I hope you at least visit other areas of the world besides the US someday.

Can you clarify on the "I'm skeptical" part, please?

It's like, I have nothing to do today, oh I know, I'll just come to HN and lie about experiences with cops. Is that what you're implying?

I’m skeptical that you’ve sampled a good cross-section of experiences. It sounds like you exposed yourself to a high volume of anecdotes from a narrow category of respondents. You may also have been exposed to liars or exaggerations; you yourself aren’t lying.

Hopefully that’s stated directly enough for you.

It's your right to be skeptical -- although I can't fathom why. I got nothing better to do, I'm here specifically to mislead you.

Heh, okay.

Again, to be clear, I think you’re misled; you’re communicating sincerely.

As to why any of us are here, fair question!

We all judge by what we see. Obviously that's never the whole truth -- that much has always been true. So I never claimed to have the whole truth of the situation; of course I don't, it would be hugely naive for me to claim otherwise.

My general stance basically is "don't look at what's written, look at what people can do and get away with it because that's exactly what most people will do".