Luis M. Rocha @lmrocha@qoto.org

["https://www.publico.pt/2046921"]

@BLMG https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2216948120 More ventilation! #ComplexSystems #modeling

["https://www.publico.pt/2046261"]

In a sane country, these child abusing profiteers would lose custody of their children, not be elected. #nraisaterroristorganization

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/15/south-dakota-governor-kristi-noem-grandchild-guns-nra?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

@freemo that is very silly. Vaccines demonstrably save many lives (with antibiotics the key reason for population explosion in xx century). In contrast there is zero, zilch, nada evidence that guns save lives ---the net effect in killings is demonstrably more death as you acknowledged, while the opposite is true for vaccines. You think they do, but, alas, no demonstration.

This comparison with anti-vaxxers makes no sense at all

@pj @thatguyoverthere @mike805

@freemo

That is just completely false. Compute all statistics you want. Your odds of dying from a gun (suicide or homicide, together or separately) in Europe are lower than in the US. And if your US household has guns, you are much more likely to get shot than if it doesn't (after controlling for income, neighborhood, etc ). Guns don't make you or society safety. They just make you feel that way. But feeling is not science.

Don't bother saying you computed this otherwise in some data savvy way, if you have not published it. And don't insult us with saying we don't know statistics. I have been doing AI and data science professionally since the late 80s with the resume and published work to back that up.

@pj @thatguyoverthere @mike805

@freemo keep playing fantasy science. I'm out.

@thatguyoverthere @mike805 @pj

@freemo @thatguyoverthere @mike805 @pj I thought you were better than this.

@Moon @mike805 @freemo that would apply too, but, no, I meant reification (including it's Marxist "Verdinglichung” connotations.)

@freemo @thatguyoverthere @mike805 @pj yes, the statisticians who publish in the new England journal of medicine and lancet areb known to be rookies... #fantasy

@thatguyoverthere @mike805 @freemo @pj they did. The studies I sent, separate these, obviously.

@freemo @thatguyoverthere @mike805 @pj I don't have to provide data for what *you* are arguing. That's your job. Go ahead and publish it. I gave you published evidence in strong support of my claim: more guns --> increased mortality. If you have evidence against the current scientific evidence, which can sustain peer-review, by all means publish it. Restating your beliefs without proof (beyond your own mind) is not enough and it is dishonest to claim your belief invalidates current peer-reviewed and replicated studies without demonstration.

@freemo @thatguyoverthere @mike805 @pj that is just patently false. All data points to the opposite. No evidence whatsoever (from all other similar countries) that regulating the use of guns leads to people dying en masse. That's just silly and totally false.

@thatguyoverthere @mike805 @freemo @pj I meant: "certainly two swords would not have been enough."

@thatguyoverthere @mike805 @freemo @pj there is much context, and prophecy parallelism, in that passage to make that such a simple case. The sermon on the mount is much more relevant to understand Jesus' moral teachings, than confusing/ambiguous (”two swords are enough”) prophetic statements just prior to arrest.

Personally, and this is just me, I read that passage as an indication of the futility of the few arms his disciples could buy from selling their clothes, in the presence of the might of the Roman army. Certainly two swords weird have both been enough... So, I interpret this as as call to focus on what matters about his message, which is the opposite of swords.

@freemo @mike805 I posted papers in response to you saying there is no evidence that more guns increase mortality. The papers I posted are 100% relevant to the discussion. In both individual households and society at large, greater availability of guns leads to higher mortality (after controlling for all sorts of demographic factors) , not just in suicide but also in homicide rates.

You want to argue that such analysis is irrelevant to our discussion, which is absurd. It is very much the central point.

You also want to argue that those papers are not considering the whole gestalt of the problem, because they don't account for crimes guns may have prevented. First, that is an orthogonal problem. Even if guns were shown to prevent some crimes (no evidence of that in gun use by civilians), the papers I referred show that, OVERALL, more guns, more death. That is, any putative reduction in crime due to guns, is not sufficient to prevent an increase in mortality with more guns. Now, if this is a topic that interests you, by all means go ahead and publish research that shows that guns reduce some forms of crime, if you can. But a loose hypothesis you have without evidence, does not invalidate the overwhelming conclusion of the papers I showed you. Your dismissal of those, without any peer-reviewed counter evidence is, to use the expression you so like to use, dishonest.

@thatguyoverthere @mike805 @freemo @pj "be prepared" is not the same as "be armed". I was raised Catholic, and the idea of using a Christian conception of God to defend gun-based self-defense is, frankly, diabolical---especially when we know it leads to incident children being killed over and over again.

@freemo @mike805 the papers I sent are not irrelevant. They are precisely on topic, well performed analyses. You just don't like their results. That's a different matter. Hell, I think that gravity is a bitch, but won't waste time arguing against newton and falling apples.