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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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I think that going from "wide variability" without mentioning the range does matter on its own, even as someone that wishes Kleck was a bit more fastidious on his research. Not just that it's hiding or papering over data, though that's not great, but that a lot of mainstream activism relies on and communicates that these numbers are far, far lower than downsides like unlawful homicide or assault. GVA objects to even the lower-end estimate (60k) from the previous report for that reason.

And there a bunch of more complex issues, where to many people it seems like the desire to wipe the board and start again with new research coincides a) with the places with the greatest political disagreement, rather than disagreement with the merits, and b) where changes in political affiliation with likely researchers and with publications make it unlikely to see the same reads present, even if they were true.

On the other hand, I didn't write this up in June, even though I'd been keeping an eye on MorosKostas well before that. Nor did the Reload, even as its lead writer did.

Having a couple major gun control advocacy group specifically say that they want the number taken down because it undermines their policy goals, and then the CDC doing it because the gun control advocacy group asked, makes it a far bigger deal. This one is small, and not that aggressive, and ... it's the one they got caught on.

I don't object to the claim the evidence illustrates GVA is biased. I object to the claim that it provides convincing evidence the CDC is biased. In order to demonstrate that, I don't think what you showed is sufficient.

For instance, the fact the advocates were ignored by the CDC prior to getting support from the White House suggests that the CDC is not prioritizing leftwing advocates. Likewise, the fact this exchange took place over months suggests this isn't simple activism.

Moreover, the basic argument that this conversation caused the website to change doesn't indicate bias unless we take it as granted that the decision-making was bias. The more charitable explanation is that the advocates drew attention to a problem and the CDC eventually agreed in a neutral manner, at which point the only reasonable option was to change the website.

As I see it, the only way to demonstrate your preferred theory over the more charitable one is to demonstrate that the website change was, in fact, biased/unreasonable. IMO, you haven't done so.

to many people it seems like the desire to wipe the board and start again with new research coincides a) with the places with the greatest political disagreement, rather than disagreement with the merits, and b) where changes in political affiliation with likely researchers and with publications make it unlikely to see the same reads present, even if they were true.

What slate is being wiped clean? The CDC original reports are still publicly available. No research has been rescinded. I'd be shocked if future literature reviews just flat out ignored research from before year X.

I object to the claim that it provides convincing evidence the CDC is biased.

I don't think I made that claim; my objections remain if the CDC 'merely' revises their outreached based on poor arguments backed by Senators and the White House.

The more charitable explanation is that the advocates drew attention to a problem and the CDC eventually agreed in a neutral manner, at which point the only reasonable option was to change the website.

In a report that could not be recorded or presented to FOIA requests? Where none of these compelling arguments be summarized by any member? Where no 'expert' except the handful of the most bombastic gun control advocates were questioned, including the people the site had previously cited, about the matter?

What slate is being wiped clean?

Would you prefer I use the term 'buried' (or compare)? MorosKostas noticed this specific matter because The Trace used the removal here to argue as evidence that the study should be and was in the process of being re-evaluated.

I'd be shocked if future literature reviews just flat out ignored research from before year X.

I think you're vastly underestimating the available degrees of freedom for meta-study or literature review authors. Starting from whether such a broad literature review to note natively exclude data from before a start date is done.

I don't think I made that claim

It seems to me that if you believe the CDC revised its outreach due to poor arguments by liberals, there are a couple hypothesis

  1. The CDC is leftward biased.

  2. The CDC just bends to the administration in power.

  3. The CDC just acts mostly randomly out of both scientific and political incompetence.

The fact you are accusing the CDC of "papering over" data suggests you don't believe #3. So, it seems to me you either believe #1 (despite apparently denying it here) or you believe #2. That is my perspective, but I apologize for putting words in your mouth and am open to being wrong here.

In a report that could not be recorded or presented to FOIA requests? Where none of these compelling arguments be summarized by any member? Where no 'expert' except the handful of the most bombastic gun control advocates were questioned, including the people the site had previously cited, about the matter?

Is it normal to archive arguments for a change to a single sentence on one of the CDC's many websites? Honest question.

Would you prefer I use the term 'buried' (or compare)?

Why would you expect the specific string "Armed resistance to crime" to appear on the CDC website? Or "defensive gun uses". There are myriad ways to discuss either topic that don't use those specific strings. The topic itself is discussed quite a bit by the CDC, and there must be something wrong with Google because even the literal phrase "defensive gun use" is used on the CDC website.

But more generally, the idea that it's buried, imo, rests on the assumption that the new wording specifically "buries" the unfavorable study (2.5 million) and not the favorable one (60,000). This seems not true to me, or at least not obvious.

I'm completely get how literature reviews can be biased, but when you use phrases like "wipe the board and start again" - that, to me, literally implies ignoring all studies before year XXXX - including favorable studies. If all you mean was that this specific study would be dropped or all right-leaning studies would be dropped.... then say that? Why use totalizing rhetoric? And then provide evidence this will actually happen when the CDC reviews the evidence.

It seems to me that if you believe the CDC revised its outreach due to poor arguments by liberals, there are a couple hypothesis

Again, I don't particularly care whether it was #1 or #2 from your hypothesis, or that it's some excluded option (eg, the CDC bends to the first Senator to ask, and red tribers know not to ask because them doing this would be far greater a scandal).

Is it normal to archive arguments for a change to a single sentence on one of the CDC's many websites? Honest question.

At least in theory, it's a good deal of the point behind FOIA, although it can sometimes be excluded from FOIA under the b(5) exception (this is probably legitimate for the redacted 'drafts' of the new webpage). That's why there's 100+ pages that the CDC found responsive.

It's just that none of them contain a better argument than Hughes' insistence that his system was complete, somehow; most don't even contain a worse one. Instead, they're almost all about harm or visibility, or about The Trace asking on the topic.

Why would you expect the specific string "Armed resistance to crime" to appear on the CDC website?

That's the name of the underlying Kleck study.

Or "defensive gun uses".

That's the term of art used in the 2013 NASEM piece.

The topic itself is discussed quite a bit by the CDC,

From the top of my search list:

There are no direct mentions of even the low-end estimates from the previous "Fast Facts" page, and there are no serious engagement with the concept. Does your search look different?

If all you mean was that this specific study would be dropped or all right-leaning studies would be dropped.... then say that? Why use totalizing rhetoric?

Because I think this is more serious a problem, from a perspective of social trust.

So when was the last time that right-wing advocates pointed an issue out to the CDC and they made a change over it? If they’re unbiased, there ought to be some such instances.

I didn’t claim they’re unbiased. I claimed this incident isn’t good evidence that they are biased.

But even if I had claimed that, this retort is not convincing when the entire evidence in favor is N=1 and had to be leaked.

  • -12

So do you think they’re unbiased? Or are they biased and you’re just defending them on this point anyway?

Every individual piece of evidence is N=1, you can dismiss anything you want as long as you go one piece at a time. If you don’t see this as part of a broader trend then I question how much attention you’ve been paying.

And what on earth does its being leaked have to do with its evidential probity? If anything that makes it more reliable because people weren’t speaking guardedly.

So do you think they’re unbiased? Or are they biased and you’re just defending them on this point anyway?

I truly don't have an opinion on whether they're biased. But, I thought decoupling was considered a virtue on this site, so I think its appropriate for me to push back on what I see as pure confirmation bias here: the CDC can be biased and this can be terrible evidence for that hypothesis.

Every individual piece of evidence is N=1, you can dismiss anything you want as long as you go one piece at a time. If you don’t see this as part of a broader trend then I question how much attention you’ve been paying.

I mean, all the evidence I've seen against the CDC has come from opponents. Any distribution can be skewed with a biased filter, and whatever I think about the CDC, I definitely do think the people this website is biased against the CDC in the sense that anti-CDC content gets attention, while pro-CDC content does not.

So, no, I don't think me noticing a bunch of anecdotes that are anti-CDC is good evidence the CDC is biased. I think the much stronger evidence is simply the prior based on their demographics (i.e. very educated).

Likewise, I think the fact this took months to resolve and only happened after boosting from the White House is evidence contrary to the "bias" interpretation being pushed here. That's not what I'd expect from an institution suffering extreme bias, and is, imo, stronger evidence than the HTML change itself.

And what on earth does its being leaked have to do with its evidential probity? If anything that makes it more reliable because people weren’t speaking guardedly.

No, I'm saying that we don't get many leaked emails from the CDC. If we had 10 and 2 of them show left-leaning bias and 0 show right-leaning bias, this is, in fact, not great evidence for bias or for right-leaning bias to not exist. It being leaked matters insofar as it means our sample size is tiny and even that sample is biased (someone had to be motivated to leak it).

  • -10

while pro-CDC content does not.

Pro-CDC content like what? What is there lately worth praising the CDC for? What is its proportion to the blameworthy stuff? You can't just assert that it doesn't get posted as evidence the forum is biased if there's simply none of it to be posted.

Also, for someone complaining about bad evidence of bias, you haven't given any evidence of bias on the part of this site, you've merely asserted your own opinion as if that should suffice. By your standards, what we really need is a double-blind statistical analysis of a representative sample of every post on the site and the subreddit containing the word "CDC" in the past 5 years, compared to some privileged benchmark. Good luck with that.

That's not what I'd expect from an institution suffering extreme bias, and is, imo, stronger evidence than the HTML change itself.

But who's saying they're extremely biased, in particular? Plus they still caved - compare to all the times e.g. bureaucrats under the Trump admin just straight-up ignored instructions, leaked them to the media, then suffered no repercussions. I don't see how it's supposed to be evidence against bias that they didn't immediately do whatever, given that they did do it after a bit of cajoling.

It being leaked matters insofar as it means our sample size is tiny and even that sample is biased (someone had to be motivated to leak it).

Evidence is evidence is evidence. A small sample size is not as good as a large sample, but that doesn't make it worthless. Plus, the mere fact that leaking requires a motive doesn't mean it's necessarily biased. Any action requires a motive, but that doesn't make every action biased.

Pro-CDC content like what? What is there lately worth praising the CDC for?

Well, for instance, 85% of the CDC's budget is in grant-making, which you can view here. Much of it funds medical research. But, instead of focusing on that, this sub focuses on a one sentence change on one webpage in their enormous website. That is as pure an example of picking the bias needle out of the haystack as I can think of.

Yes, if you wanted to demonstrate bias, use the Internet Archive, and write a scraper to compare all the webpages archived for the CDC. Check in, say, 2019 and now. Look at the changes and compute the percent that demonstrate leftward biased - you could use a differ and a sentiment NPL model. This is quite do-able for a software engineer and, if open-sourced, would be strong evidence of leftward bias in the CDC. I don't expect anyone in this forum to do it, because it's funner to complain about terrible "evidence" than collect strong evidence against your outgroup. I won't do it, because I don't actually care if the CDC is biased - I just unhealthily care about how everyone here is using this silly innocuous event as evidence of deep instituitonal bias, because that is just poor reasoning hygiene that I thought we were all supposed to be working to above.

Plus they still caved

No, they didn't. The CDC pushed back in those emails and refused to include a study the advocate suggested. Again, not anything anyone in this forum apparently cared enough to notice or signal boost.

compare to all the times e.g. bureaucrats under the Trump admin just straight-up ignored instructions....

You see, this is my point. Either

  1. Y'all are using this as evidence of bias. In which case, I think you're wrong, as I've been arguing.

  2. Y'all pre-supposing bias and then saying, "since we know the CDC is biased, this isn't surprising." But if that's the case, this entire thread is nothing more than an elaborate "Boo outgroup" and should be nuked by the mods.

A small sample size is not as good as a large sample, but that doesn't make it worthless.

True, but the fact that I personally don't have an example of right-wing advocacy going is then easily explaiend.

Plus, the mere fact that leaking requires a motive doesn't mean it's necessarily biased.

Well, biased towards the extremes at the very least. Otherwise, why leak it?

Well, for instance, 85% of the CDC's budget is in grant-making, which you can view here. Much of it funds medical research. But, instead of focusing on that, this sub focuses on a one sentence change on one webpage in their enormous website.

I strongly dislike the government grant system and the cartelization of science that I think it has produced, so I’m not the person to wave grants in front of as proof of the CDC’s goodness. In any case, you've still given evidence of bias on the part of the site that's just as bad as the evidence about which you're complaining is supposed to be, so how important can you really think that that standard is?

No, they didn't. The CDC pushed back in those emails and refused to include a study the advocate suggested. Again, not anything anyone in this forum apparently cared enough to notice or signal boost.

The CDC compromised on their original position by altering their website because activists, a Senator, and the WH browbeat them into doing it. Whether they did literally everything the activists asked is neither here nor there in evaluating whether they caved relative to their original stance.

True, but the fact that I personally don't have an example of right-wing advocacy going is then easily explained.

I don’t think that this is the only example we have of activists influencing the CDC and I reckon they’d add up to plenty over time. (See e.g. the teachers’ unions dictating school responding policy to CDC behind the scenes or the influence of gay activists on the CDC’s renaming GRID to AIDS). Surely there must be at least one right-wing example in the last few decades.

Well, biased towards the extremes at the very least. Otherwise, why leak it?

Because they want to encourage the CDC to be less pliant in the face of political pressure?