@Christian Well that was exactly the debate I was hoping to debunk.

But literally even the first sentence int he video has been debunked. The claim that there were 300 mass shootings in the united states last year. That debunked figure usually has its sources in Everytown's stated stats or similar sources that when the list is investigated turns out to be very easily debunked. Of course when you look to more reliable sources that verify well and have no bias to try to push an agenda for or against guns youll usually find the number of mass shootings in the USA is usually int he ball park of about 12, a far cry from the 300 figure stated.

Thats just in the first 2 seconds of the video, sadly this pattern of cherry picking extremely questionable or even flat out debunked data seems to be repeated throughout the video.

@freemo
The number of mass shootings that take place is not a core tenet of the argument here, that was merely an example of violence. And regardless of how many mass shootings there were, I think you'd agree that the vast, vast number of of them were committed by men.

What issues do you actually have the with the argument presented by the video?

@Christian It is simply the first example showing the very poor and selective use of statistics.

But sure, lets go on to talk about some of the core statistics mentioned. The next number they mention is violence, trying to suggest men are far more likely to perpetrate violence. But then when they go and try to cite a statistic they curiously dont use violence at all but specifically murder. There are many issues with this.

First when we look at the on-the-books murder rate disparity between sexes that disparity is higher than with violence. So of course it is a subset of the assertion picked for dramatic effect, what we would call cherry picking. If they had actually recited violence statistics you would find the percentage between women and men is actually quite small at only a few percentage points difference.

Even then the number stated is much higher than even the highest official numbers. Most are in the ball park of 75% male and 25% female. Which is a pretty large difference from what was suggested.

Still one might ask, why the disparity exists and this goes back to my original comment. Truth is women are physically at a disadvantage when it comes to murder. The way the law is written murder is only murder when you succeed, funny he didnt bother to look at stats on attempted murder which would have of course been much more relevant. At that point the numbers would be even closer to each other. so once you actually try to create a fair and reasonable statistical picture all the BS goes away and the differences between men and women in terms of violence disapear with it.

Another important point, which ive avoided since there is so much good evidence using established statistics, is that we have to understand enforcement bias too. Much as a black person is more likely to be accused of and persecuted for a crime than a white person we see similar patterns with crime and sex. A police officer is much more likely to take a violent act seriously from a man than they are from a woman, as is the general population. One place we can see this statistically is how male victims of violence from their partners (usually female partners) is often dismissed by violent shelters and the men are even often accused of being the perpetrator. The assumption in our society is that males are violent, as such the likelyhood of being convicted is higher.

@Christian Is it just me or did you actually unfollow me as a result of this conversation?

@freemo @Christian
I actually started to follow you as a result of this conversation :D

@irstm @Christian I appreciate that. I certainly dont mind if he unfollowed me due to it. Just curious so I asked. He is free to follow whoever he likes.

@freemo @irstm
Did I unfollow you? I don't have any memory of following you in the first place

@Christian
My mistake then, which is why I asked, it just seemed odd.

@irstm

@freemo @irstm
I watched a couple more videos from The Good Stuff, and he definitely has a habit of misrepresentating the facts, to put it mildly. I suspect it's just a result of poor research and poor writing. The video about SETI and Bitcoin was especially hard to watch.

@Christian
I cant speak to his motivations. I'd have to watch more of his videos to get a sense. It could be a political leaning, it could be just for dramatic effect, it could be he has "insights and draws conclusions and tries to back it up with data later.

Whatever the cause I think misrepresenting facts and data (usually with good intentions or for a good cause, and often even causes i agree with) are probably the most harmful thing for america right now. We need rational logical consideration, no more of these emotional tantrums. For that we need honest data.

@irstm

@freemo @Christian Unfortunately, america is not the only place with these issues. EU is full of them. Emotions seem to rule our world instead of rational thinking.

@irstm
While I do agree that it happens everywhere, the issue is 1000x worse in the america than anywhere else I've been.

I've visited many countries in my time and not one of them seems to even approach the levels of insanity we find in america.
@Christian

@freemo @Christian I'm not sure how long you have these issues in america but in EU it is just recently that people seem to be losing their minds. I live in one of the post-soviet countries and I feel like the world has gone from a sane place to a nuthouse in just a coule of years. I think it caught everyone off-guard. Sadly, nobody seems to have a clue as to what to do about this, but blurring the line between facts and opinions is only making it worse.

@irstm
I currently have a house in the Netherlands. I spend half my year in the EU traveling around (calling Netherlands home) and half in america.

While I can agree it certainly has gotten worse in the EU than it has in past years. As I said it doesnt even come close to approaching the levels we see in america. I can say this as a person who spends significant time in both cultures so has a real gauge to measure it by.

@Christian

@freemo @Christian I don't visit US so I can't argue about that and I won't. I just wanted to release some of my frustration with me being unable to do anything about it... sigh...

@irstm
Sadly I understand. I periodically do find the sort of people you reference in the EU. Thankfully the Netherlands is one of the better countries in the EU in that regard, perhaps due to the practical nature of the Dutch.

But it does scare me to see the country I love to be infected by this sort of behavior, to any extent.

@Christian