How long are we going to keep ignoring the fact that statistics do not show any racial bias in police killings, and if anything they show bias against white perpetrators rather than black?
Then someone could argue that the difference in violent crime rates is itself a result of racism, and someone else could argue that that is a separate question from whether the police, rather than e.g. high school guidance counselors (or just factors like parental income), are the root cause of the disparity.
By this point there is enough space between the error bars that each side can declare victory because the other side hasn't been able to prove that their position isn't within them, even though nothing has really been decided and the level of data collection and detailed analysis required to get there is more work than anybody is ever actually willing to do.
It seems to me the better solution is to just solve the problems. Stop spending all day arguing about whether the criminal justice system is racist and instead do something about the fact that the US has the world's largest prison population. Do something about housing costs. Do something about barriers to starting a small business.
These problems may disproportionately affect black people, but they still affect everybody and solving them is a net benefit either way. Conditioning a solution to a problem on the existence of racism when the problem exists regardless is just drawing useless tribalist lines that get people fighting each other instead of solving things.
Mostly agree. It certainly couldn't be done with perfection, as there are essentially an infinite number of discreet variables in existence, many of which we do not even know the existence of, most that we do not have measurements on (or even a way to measure them), and all these variables have inter-relations that we don't understand (or even know of), resulting in randomness of outcome making predictions even harder.
But what do we do instead? The majority of the time we look at, say, 1 to 3 variables, and then form highly confident conclusions based on this trivially and obviously (if you actually think abstractly about it) simplified perspective, all under the guise that we are discussing reality. In these discussions, we (and this also includes the bright minds here on HN) are not actually discussing reality, but rather a comically simplistic version of reality. And then on top of it, many here mock others for their "simple-minded" beliefs, when the reality is that typically a big part of the reason behind the difference is that different people have different working sets of variables, and different weighting on those variables due to holding different values. The irony is rich.
And most of this occurs in the subconscious (so they say), so even if one makes a valiant effort to think more properly, much of the truth (on how different people think differently) is hidden from not just the observer, but the person who holds the thoughts in the first place.
> It seems to me the better solution is to just solve the problems. Stop spending all day arguing about whether the criminal justice system is racist and instead do something about the fact that the US has the world's largest prison population. Do something about housing costs. Do something about barriers to starting a small business.
Mostly agree. But again, this entire process suffers from this same phenomenon (roughly, we do not know, or care, what is true), and democracies are particularly vulnerable to the problems that derive from it. I suspect this gives China a major leg up over Western powers in the coming decades - if they can stumble upon an operating model that works better (accommodates the real variables, regardless of whether they see and understand the system better than us or not), they can enforce compliance far more easily than democratic nations.
In my opinion, step 1 in improving this state of affairs is gaining an understanding of what the situation actually is (aka: doing an "appropriate" system analysis) - but even the geniuses here on HN not only cannot do that, but often become angry with anyone who even dares suggest it (as it implies that their wild-guess of a theory may not be correct - the horror).
Is the absolute root of the problem not the human mind? Outside of natural events/disasters that are not caused by man, do most all other things (beliefs, practices, culture, initiatives, resource allocation, governance decisions, you name it) not derive from the mind (or collection of minds)? And yet, how much attention do we pay to this, in any venue? Here again, I would say the advantage goes to countries that do not adhere to a scientific-materialist religion [1] like most Western peoples.
> These problems may disproportionately affect black people, but they still affect everybody and solving them is a net benefit either way. Conditioning a solution to a problem on the existence of racism when the problem exists regardless is just drawing useless tribalist lines that get people fighting each other instead of solving things.
100% agree, based on the above.
Which is bad enough in general, but in this case there are political implications, so no matter what conclusion you reach from doing that, the people who want the opposite conclusion can accuse you of choosing the wrong factors and add enough of their own to lead where they prefer. If you only add factors that all point in a single direction you can reach any conclusion you want, but if you let each side keep adding factors in their favor indefinitely then you exceed the limits of statistical significance before either side runs out of factors in their favor.
But it's also important to notice that this is only a statistical problem. It means that statistics can't really tell you what happens in the aggregate, but that doesn't mean you can't investigate individual cases. If you have an email from the hiring manager saying not to hire you because you're black, you shouldn't need statistics to win that lawsuit. So if that sort of thing is prevalent then prove the individual cases, and keep doing that until it's not.
Meanwhile you solve the underlying problems which takes care of the cases you can't prove. The cops can't be murdering disproportionately many black people if the cops aren't murdering anybody whatsoever, which they shouldn't be doing for any reason racism or otherwise.
This is my point. When people cherry pick statistics to "prove" their point, it's easy to cherry pick other statistics that disprove that point. Reality is incredibly complex, but even relatively smarter people seem unable to discuss it accordingly, and also seem unable to realize they are debating in an unintelligent/dishonest manner, *while calling their adversary in the argument "stupid". It's interesting to observe human behavior, particularly self-perception.
> But it's also important to notice that this is only a statistical problem. It means that statistics can't really tell you what happens in the aggregate, but that doesn't mean you can't investigate individual cases. If you have an email from the hiring manager saying not to hire you because you're black, you shouldn't need statistics to win that lawsuit. So if that sort of thing is prevalent then prove the individual cases, and keep doing that until it's not.
I agree - dealing with precise details of individual cases is superior. But people on both sides of "the argument" seem intent on broadcasting mistruths based on cherry picked statistics (dimensions of reality, etc), which is how we end up in these silly, never ending arguments, which increases polarization, which begets more silly argument, and around and around we go.
Or, we could discuss reality as it is, to the best of our ability. The way I think about things, I believe more intelligent people should take that burden upon themselves, because they have greater ability to do so. If their argument is just and accurate, they should be able to win the argument, should they not? And yet, they seem to insist on sticking to a disingenuous rhetoric approach, and finding holes in these arguments is very easy so the fight never ends.
A rough outline by the authors is here, you can search scihub for the actual paper.
https://research.msu.edu/the-truth-behind-racial-disparties-...
As for the Professor Hsu controversy, here's some additional data:
> the main thrust to oust Hsu came because the professor touted Michigan State research that found police are not more likely to shoot African-Americans
> The graduate union told The Fix that administrators should not share research that runs counter to public statements by the university.
> “It is the union’s position that an administrator sharing such views is in opposition to MSU’s statements released supporting the protests and their root cause and aim,” Ackles wrote in an e-mail to The College Fix.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/scholar-forced-to-resign-over-...