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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
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.
In spite of book like 'Weapons of Math Destruction', books like Criminal (In)Justice still get published. The former presents plausible arguments for algorithmic bias, the other presents data about who commits crime and where. Black crime has been a supposedly awkward talking point since the 1970's. Jesse Jackson's comments marked a turning point in political honesty, but Sowell was happily publishing Black Rednecks and White Liberals not long after (which I found quite convincing). All of this stuff can and has been said. It's not some secret knowledge.
You (and others) have said this, that there's nothing new, everyone knows how this works, etc. Matt Yglesias didn't seem to know that. It's "wild" to him. Perhaps it is likewise "wild" to many others.
Just posting "despite..." in the right context is a meme. Yglesias said "This precrime paper is kind of wild". Thinking this implies he had no idea about the demographics of crime is kind of wild. Google trends seems to indicate that since 2004 "black on black crime" is about a common a trend as the highly secret sport of "pingpong". Just searching "black crime", it's about a common as searching for "Ethiopian food". (Random aside: I like spicy indian food, and Ethiopian food is like a cousin, which I also like. They frequently offer a spiced raw beef dish (kitfo). Veggies are good, sometimes too oily. All dishes pair well with beer).
Are you under the impression that all the algorithm determining likely victims does is look at race?
No. If it helps clarify things, I'm under the impression that looking at race might be the most important factor, perhaps tied with zip code.
I don't think that any one factor delivers an actionable level of accuracy. Given that actionable is the term under debate, really. The point of the data analysis, which I've seen done before without the mystical AI reference, is that it's actually a tiny sliver of poor Black men who are likely to be involved.
I don't think that people are shocked to find out about Black crime. Most PMC white libs actually vastly OVER estimate the frequency of crime among Black populations, they think everything is their little fantasies from trap music and the wire. What's shocking is that we can achieve a degree of discrimination where we CAN exclude the vast majority of blacks who won't be involved in a crime, and rather those that will.
You might life Manguels Criminal Injustice which talks about, in part, the degree of discrimination we can achieve. One block in NYC might have a 10x difference in violent crime rate, stable for 50 years. The geography of crime is wild. I recall some reporting circa 9/11 about the violent death rate in Compton being higher than in Iraq or Baghdad during times of crisis (vague memories here) Even contemporary Chicago is a fairly safe city if you never go to the 10% of areas which accounts for 80% of the crime. It's good general knowledge to have.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Let's walk through this, then. What do you think his tweet does imply?
Its wild that an algorithm can predict crime before it happens.
...and why would one say that it is wild?
Because it a SciFi concept come to life
Now I'm just very confused. I thought this was all just old hat, been done before, obviously out there for anyone who cares to see. Now it's a SciFi concept come to life. I have no idea anymore...
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link