🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@peterdrake

> 1) It’s a coincidence. Significance tests and replication can rule this out.
> 2) A causes B.
> 3) B causes A.
> 4) A and B are both caused by a third factor.

So.. this is sorta valid but a gross oversimplification. As a professional who tries to do this stuff quite often it might help if i explain how we map these things...

So A causing B is what we call a "conditional probability". In reality there isnt just "some third factor" but a huge map of conditional probabilities with A effecting B effecting C and D effects B as well, etc etc. So we have a MAP of probability. We call this a "graphical model". The job of a data scientist is to discover that graphical model, define the probabilities between the individual links, and from that model the events.

When your graphical model is incomplete and you have influencing factrs you havent mapped we call that "confounding", sorta.

> Your one example does show a spike a few years later, but it disappears immediately. What we ideally need is a control country that is like Ireland in every other way but didn’t confiscate guns in 1972. Without this policy, aside from the one-year spike, would homicide rates increase, stay steady, or decrease?

You are correct of course that I am giving somewhat shallow arguments here, largely because if i get too technical it will probably be too complex for the scope here When I discuss this issue with fellow data scientists our models are far more involved. I am trying more to show the simple to understand elements that are part of a much bigger and more rigorous line of research one would need to do.

> (BTW, is there an easy way to quote text with >?)

You just have to do it manually as far as i know :(

> 1) The media overemphasizes school shootings specifically. Your child is extremely unlikely to die this way.

Yes this was one of my main points

> 2) Because of these splashy mass shootings, the media makes too big a deal out of gun deaths. It would make more sense to worry about lightning, which is more likely to kill you.

That was more for dramatic effect than a literal point, no.. My point is more that both of these things are such exceedingly rare events they arent really worth being our focus.. Problems with overall violence, and if guns have a role worth considering in that, is the bigger issue.

> (I assume being hit by lightning is almost always fatal, so I didn’t distinguish between being hit or killed.)

90% of people struck by lightening survive actually.

> If you “never argued mass killings (by gun or any other means) was something we shouldnt address”, I apologize for misreading that.

Mass killings, and really any killings, are a huge problem that needs addressing... Guns just arent really the problem anymore than spoons are the problem when it comes to physical health in the USA... our problem is lack of access to mental health, and generally poor environment.

Ironically this problem is usually very much exemplified in most internet threads on gun violence where people are so hateful and toxic to eachother it gets vile, demonstrating the very mental-health issue driving the violence, far more than the guns.

> How do you suggest we address that problem?

1) is the hardest solution, its social.. we have to teach people to be caring to other people, something that as i point out, is usually at its most vile when we discuss these topics.

2) prioritize access to mental health.. im not talking asbout fixing healthcare, thats just aprt of it, but also normalizing mental health and psychiatry and many other aspects.

@trinsec

@freemo How about youth pastors, teachers at church schools, et al.?

I agree that the Catholic church has been scapegoated (probably shades of ancient anti-Catholic prejudices in general). They've covered up plenty of abuse, but they're certainly not the only offenders, and probably not the worst ones. My point is that these days, religious conservatives in the US label things like teaching LGBTQ kids to be comfortable in their own bodies as "grooming" ... while having an *extremely* well-documented history of covering up the real thing.

@LadyDragonfly True, but it forgets to mention the devistating effect this has had in violent acts, and rape cases. They replaced the death of a child or two and traded it for tens of thousands of rape and other victims... Not really a win IMO.

@rdaily Also more to the point (and can be seen even in your chart if you look carefully), mass shootings **increased** by about 30% immediately following and during the assault riffle ban (clearly it didnt work)... once the ban was lifted mass shootings continued to rise at about the same 30% rate.

This would suggest that the assault riffle band had absolutely no positive effect on mass shootings of any kind.

@rdaily Here are some very similar patterns from all over the world too.

@rdaily Here isd a similar chart of historic homicide rates and points where major democrat led gun control acts were enacted...

I care alot more about homicide, something that is rampant and an actual issue than I care about school shootings which, while tragic, a child is about two times more likely to get struck by lightening than to die in a school shooting.

@timorl Actually after a bit more consideration I think I was a bit hasrsh with you in both my tone and my judgement,... While I do feel I was justified I think you have some point in the fact that diect linking provides easier access to harassment.. though as I said I wouldnt say that is the same as promoting harassment, and you are right, explicitly stating to my followers not to harass could have been a cautious step to take.

@freemo

The 24 hour news cycle, with it's competitive rush-to-be-first incentives, will never connect harmlessly with masses who'll take anything and use it to reinforce whatever they already believe, declaring it as justification to double down on their beliefs.

That's not even going into social media's reward mechanisms: "We don't know" won't get 1000 RTs, "This is because of (outgroup)!" can get enough traction to go to war.

Combined, it's a golden age for fear-mongering and scapegoating.

@freemo it's not even that, it's the same people that are usually defending against the same accusations whenever a nut that aligns with their group is the shooter. It takes a special kind of stupid to go from "just because one right-wing r****d shot up a school doesn't mean all right-wing people are insane" directly to "some trans r****d shot up a school therefore all trans people are insane".

On the other hand, I'm sure a lot of those people don't actually think that unironically and are instead taking it out on the situation usually being the reverse, "journalists" crapping out articles that imply a shooter is a good representation of a group they belong to.

#introduction
Greetings, I'm a Christian, husband, dad, and computer programmer in Texas, USA.

My hobbies include powerlifting, and, uh, ...

Wish I had more time for gardening, reading, photography.

Making an Espresso Machine with open source hardware

https://sohl.substack.com/p/espresso-and-open-source-hardware

@freemo @trinsec
I was was within 20' and felt and saw it about 15 seconds before.

@freemo Always. But when they send the alerts I want people to know what the people of Kyiv are going through

Extremely interesting video about how sharing information with other people might lead us to worse decisions.

I guess this finally gives an authoritative explanation to my belief that election polls are detrimental to democracy.

https://youtu.be/25kqobiv4ng