site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   39199 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

On the topic of a small number of relatively 'known' people being involved in an outsized portion of the crime problem

or

AI is sometimes allowed to say things that are otherwise not allowed to be said, so long as they make sure to say that it's definitely not racist

Machine Learning Can Predict Shooting Victimization Well Enough to Help Prevent It is the name of the paper. They took arrest/victimization records in Chicago and tried to predict who was likely to be shot in the next 18 months. 644,000 people in the data; of the top 500 with the highest predicted risk, almost 13% were shot. That's the top line. 13% accuracy might not seem like much, but they claim that the rate is 128 times higher than that of the average Chicagoan. For context, that's 64 shooting victims over an 18mo period. I don't know what the total 'shot but maybe didn't die' rate is, but Chicago has in the ballpark of 600 homicides (by all means) each year.

This is not about who did the shooting; it's about who was shot. The implicit argument is that most shooting victims are close enough to the criminal world. Even if they were just purely victims before, it is at their doorstep. Plausibly, if a little old lady just happens to live in a really terrible neighborhood and had to report being the victim of various prior crimes, this could indicate that she is also at risk of getting shot, too.

They definitely go out of their way to say that, yes, Black males are more likely to have prior data in the system, but that the system still predicts with similar accuracy across demographics.

I don't know how practical these sorts of things will be to actually use for any purpose, but this paper dropping is definitely adding some fuel for the folks who think that a variety of criminal problems are mostly concentrated within a relatively small subset that could, at least in theory, be somewhat identified.

Do you really need machine learning or AI to do this analysis? I feel like if you gave me arrest records in an excel spreadsheet with data I could 65% of this just eyeballing and 95% if I did some regressions in excel.

My guess is you already assumed my point, and your main point is maybe outsourcing this to AI gets you thru the politics some how.

I believe the old joke is, "Machine learning is just OLS with constructed regressors."

No you don't, but you gotta get those buzzwords in if you want to get the clicks.

Saying that you used "machine learning" is so much cooler and "truthy" than making a list of everyone under 30 who's been riding with the Hell's Angels or hanging out with Crips.

Under thirty seems old. More like 'not old enough to drink'.

And my impression was that biker gangs were a bit lower risk, even as they often engaged in illegal activities they preferred not to do things the stupid way.

You're probably right.

Everyone here or like 98% knows this, but the average reader it’s probably 3-5% knows this fact.

My money would be on the reverse.

My suspicion is that most users here don't know how to spot a drug house or potential ambush where as 98% of regular folk (or at least those that have had some experience with the seedier elements of society) do, and thats why this result is being treated as novel.

Specifically meant the math bit. That this doesn’t require AI but simpler stuff.

You are probably right that society realizes a hells angel guy is more likely to die than the average citizen. I do think this place has their eyes wide open and could compete with the average guy but typical blue tribe might not.

I may have been being a little uncharitable there.

Identifying potential victims fits more easily into progressive ideology than identifying (inconvenient) perpetrators. The people victimized by crime are not, primarily, white people or the well-to-do. It's poor people and black people. If you can more effectively frame policing reform as "we need policies to protect vulnerable population from victimization from criminals," it's both harder to argue against and true. People may be willing to overlook a black man murdering an elderly Asian woman for ideological reasons, but it's much harder to take the position "we need to allow criminals to murder black people with impunity in order to protect black people."

The question is how identifying previctims benefits them. Are you going to attach a secret service detail to them?

How about this: “According to our algorithms, you have at least a 13% chance of being shot if you stay in this city. Perhaps it’s time for a new start. Join our New Leaf program today and we’ll relocate you to a new metro area on the other side of the country, and find you a basic job and lodging.”

I know, I know, I’m being hopelessly naive and idealistic. But maybe there’s a tiny fraction for whom this kind of algorithmic warning might serve as a life-changing trigger.

Unironically not even a terrible idea. See for example the studies about giving people free money. Presumably, this won't help someone deeply involved in for example a gang, but it probably would help a lot of other youths stuck in a bad economic/friend situation. Give them a housing stipend, for example, to relocate, and it could be pretty potent. At least in theory, you could even fund this with property taxes and come out ahead, since shootings do decrease property values at least a little. Or if the state ends up shouldering the medical bills, you might come out ahead too by giving them a portion of that money directly, if it actually works as an intervention. IDK how exactly the math would shake out.

I think the problem is, of course, that these shooting victims are likely people who make the places they go worse.

The elderly Asian woman getting murdered wouldn’t be overlooked. The race of the perpetrator would.

And, like, obviously, the headline from this is ‘black men more likely to be murdered by x%’. We already know this, obviously- even for unsolved homicides we have the race of the victim.

I don’t think this is any kind of breakthrough on criminal justice politics.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats