COVID-19: Unwinding the Lockdown and Long Term Epidemic

[7Wannabe5]

The U.S. is still majority white, but the demographics are very age dependent. Majority of Americans under the age of 16 are now not white, with those who identify as “other” being one of the fastest growing groups.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/les ... shows/amp/

So, although the kind of votes that count at the polls are still being bolstered by primarily white Boomer generation, the votes that are counted in the marketplace are not. As always, the demographic corporate marketeers seek to influence is young women on the verge of becoming mothers, because that’s where the big flow of money well into the future is to be found in everything from diapers to donuts to Disney films. Corporate America doesn’t give a rat’s ass about frugal old white guys who maybe will buy a lawn mower replacement blade this month. And, obviously, the Media is well aware of from which hand it is being fed.

[Campitor]

I'm pretty confident we are probably talking about the same kind of conservatives after reading your post. The more sophisticated argument is to break down the issue in to one-off incidents that can be judged piecemeal and thus resolved without any fundamental scrutiny of the system itself. If the interlocutor has agreed with and proposed remedies for each grievance, it is churlish to then ask about any broader changes.

Public schools: burn it all down.
Police: this dude over here is racist; that dude over there wasn't; maybe that police department over there could use a bit more sensitivity training.

The same trick is used by liberals. Granularity to maximum for shit you want to go away; fundamental principles for things you care about.

Anyone who scrutinizes individual incidents and divorces them from the systems that allow these incidents to occur is not employing critical thinking; or maybe they are village idiots.

The claim is that racism is the primary reason why black suspects are killed in police custody or while struggling with the police. But the hard data indicates otherwise. For every black person shot to death, 2 white persons are shot dead by police. But this is not the data published to the public. Instead percentage by group ethnic population is the metric published: x percent of y group is shot.

I will use the following example to illustrate how death by percent of group identity is bad. I have a room filled with 20 people. 18 are White-American and 2 are Latino. 4 Whites and 1 Latino are killed. I can claim 50% of the Latinos were killed compared to only 22% Whites. Ergo the shootings must be racially motivated because the Latino death percentage was higher despite the fact the Latino only represents 25% of the total victims killed. It's hard to use the racist scapegoat theory when the aggregate data doesn't support it. Using death by percentage is deceiving. It's the error of "incidents judged piecemeal to be resolved without any fundamental scrutiny" of the overall data.

We could have an all African American police force and the shooting abuses would not stop nor would the black shootings percentages drop. The problem will not be resolved by removing racism from policing because racism is not the primary reason for death by cop. And please don't confuse what I'm saying - the vetting process for police candidates should include weeding out racists of all backgrounds.

The primary reason so many suspects are killed by police abuse is because of poor training, bad arrest/detention policies, lack of accountability, lack of yearly physical requirement testing (too many fat/weak cops), lack of simulation testing, lack of routine training in grappling techniques and sparring sessions, and lack of yearly psychiatric evaluations and counseling. In other words, most police organizations are set up to fail because their system and procedures are extremely subpar. If we vetted, trained, and avoided yearly physical requirements for airplane pilots similar to the police, we'd have airliners crashing every other day.

The solutions required to reform the police nationwide will never be achieved by defunding their budgets although an argument can be made that police budget line items could be redirected to implementing the aforementioned solutions.

[chenda]

I will use the following example to illustrate how death by percent of group identity is bad. I have a room filled with 20 people. 18 are White-American and 2 are Latino. 4 Whites and 1 Latino are killed. I can claim 50% of the Latinos were killed compared to only 22% Whites.

Isn't the point though that if you keep playing this as game theory the latino has a worse than a 1 in 4 chance of been killed each time (you kill 5 out of 20 each time) Which in itself doesn't prove racism but shows a disparity in outcome.

[Campitor]

Isn't the point though that if you keep playing this as game theory the latino has a worse than a 1 in 4 chance of been killed each time (you kill 5 out of 20 each time) Which in itself doesn't prove racism but shows a disparity in outcome.

In a perpetual running simulation, where 5 shots results in 5 deaths consistently, and there are 2 Latinos in a group of 20, which represents 10% of the overall group, the likelihood of getting shot would not be minimal. A disparity is guaranteed when the population ratios are this unbalanced; it takes just 1 Latino death to skew outcomes.

The solution to this problem is neither to increase the population of Latinos to reduce the disparity of outcomes or to hobble White populations rates to increase their negative outcomes. The solution is to stop the shootings. The focus on disparity of outcome is a failure of critical thinking.

[jacob]

I'm pretty confident we are probably talking about the same kind of conservatives after reading your post. The more sophisticated argument is to break down the issue in to one-off incidents that can be judged piecemeal and thus resolved without any fundamental scrutiny of the system itself. If the interlocutor has agreed with and proposed remedies for each grievance, it is churlish to then ask about any broader changes.

It's the phenomenon of in-group bias and it's generally hard to escape or detect in oneself from inside the group. Doing so would require leaving one's -ingroup and living in/with out-groups for a time. Like non-tourist traveling, going to out of state college, or joining the military. We're talking K3->K4 growth.

Bias is most blatantly and predictably expressed during mass shootings with a political component. Ours are due to disturbed or crazy individuals, while theirs are produced by deranged political beliefs. It seems like mass shootings have largely gone away during the lockdown, but just pay attention next time one happens. I practically guarantee this reaction insofar there's a political tinge to it.

However, in-group bias is found everywhere. Our freedom fighters, their terrorists. Our lucky break, their blatant violation of good sportsmanship. Our way of life, their exploitation. Our law and order, their oppression.

Resolving it would require groups working together towards a common goal, that is, actually agreeing on something. That ain't happening much anymore which is probably why in-group bias has become so visible these days. Sanders openly trying to tone down his never-Biden followers in order to defeat Trump or GOP leaders coming out against self-confirmed Nazis running under the R ticket are the only two examples in recent times that came to mind.

[jacob]

The claim is that racism is the primary reason why black suspects are killed in police custody or while struggling with the police. But the hard data indicates otherwise. For every black person shot to death, 2 white persons are shot dead by police. But this is not the data published to the public. Instead percentage by group ethnic population is the metric published: x percent of y group is shot.

Whoa! I think you (and perhaps the police and various talking heads) are committing what nerds call https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_of_the_inverse

If you're looking to see whether racism exists, you have to condition on race. What is the probability of getting killed given being black, that is, P(killed|black) and not what the probability of being black when killed, that is P(black|killed) which I think is what you're doing or trying to imply.

For actual numbers, I go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_bias ...

In 2016, US police shot and killed 1093 people. 574 were white and 266 were black. 95 of the white were unarmed and 42 of the black were unarmed.

Meanwhile blacks constitute 13% of the US population and the US population is 331 million.

So P(black|killed) = 266/1093 = 24.3% whereas P(white|killed) = 574/1093 = 52.5%.

However, those are just the probability of a person in the police morgue is either black or white. The reason there's a greater chance of the dead body being white is that there are more white guys in the population to begin with.

However, what we want to see if whether being black is more likely to get you killed when interacting with the police than white, that is, P(killed|black) and not P(black|killed). To do so, we use Bayes theorem which says that

P(killed|black) = P(black|killed)/P(black)*P(killed)= 24.3%/13%*(1093/331000000) = 0.00062%

whereas

P(killed|white) = P(white|killed)/P(white)*P(killed) = 52.5/60.4*(1093/331000000) = 0.00029%

In conclusion P(killed|black) is ~3 times higher than P(killed|white). IOW, as a black person, you're three times more likely to be killed by the police in this country.

I'll leave the question of being armed/unarmed as an exercise for the reader. You'd want to compare P(killed|unarmed&&black) with P(killed|unarmed&&white) for example. With more data (zip code, gender, age, education, economic status, dress, behavior, etc.) one might explain this 3x differential with other variables than race, but as it is, 3x is pretty suggestive of racism.

[Campitor]

Whoa! I think you (and perhaps the police and various talking heads) are committing what nerds call https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_of_the_inverse

If you're looking to see whether racism exists, you have to condition on race. What is the probability of getting killed given being black, that is, P(killed|black) and not what the probability of being black when killed, that is P(black|killed) which I think is what you're doing or trying to imply.

For actual numbers, I go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_bias ...

...In conclusion P(killed|black) is ~3 times higher than P(killed|white). IOW, as a black person, you're three times more likely to be killed by the police in this country.

I'll leave the question of being armed/unarmed as an exercise for the reader. You'd want to compare P(killed|unarmed&&black) with P(killed|unarmed&&white) for example. With more data (zip code, gender, age, education, economic status, dress, behavior, etc.) one might explain this 3x differential with other variables than race, but as it is, 3x is pretty suggestive of racism.

I was aware of the fallacy you elegantly described and its potential limitations similar to my earlier example and its limitations although in my mind I was describing a scenario where 5 shots kill 5 random people consistently in cyclical perpetuity. It was meant to highlight a fallacy of using stats in an isolated way just as your example also highlights my limited use of stats. Thanks for underscoring how logic can be co-opted by selective math and stats.

If the increased shooting rate per your math indicates racism does the increased rates in the below statistics indicate Blacks are more prone to crime? Or does the data suggest that perhaps other factors are the root cause and not the color of their skin. I strongly suspect the latter and their is strong evidence that indicates this.

Source: https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/uc ... &rdoData=r

• Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter
  • count: White (5,280) ; Black (6,380)
  • percent: White (44%); Black (53%)
  • rate: White (2.1) ; Black (13.8)

• Robbery
  • count: White (38,300) ; Black (47,750)
  • percent: White (43%) ; Black (54%)
  • rate: White (15.0) ; Black (103.2)

• Burglary
  • count: White (121,570) ; Black (52,610)
  • percent: White (68%) ; Black (29%)
  • rate: White (47.8) ; Black (113.7)

• Motor vehicle theft
  • count: White (59,130) ; Black (29,640)
  • percent: White (64%) ; Black (32%)
  • rate: White (269.1) ; Black (735.8)

• Vandalism
  • count: White (121,640) ; Black (51,880)
  • percent: White (68%) ; Black (29%)
  • rate: White (47.8) ; Black (112.1)

• Weapons (carrying, possessing, etc.)
  • count: White (91,650) ; Black (72,940)
  • percent: White (54%) ; Black (43%)
  • rate: White (36.0) ; Black (157.7)

[daylen]

If the increased shooting rate per your math indicates racism does the increased rates in the below statistics indicate Blacks are more prone to crime? Or does the data suggest that perhaps other factors are the root cause and not the color of their skin. I strongly suspect the latter and their is strong evidence that indicates this.

historical racial bias -> segregation -> ( selective policing <-> lack of opportunity <-> gang culture )

I think it is a mix of both in a positive feedback going way back. Hinting that the underlying problem is systemic.

[jennypenny]

It has been demonstrated in numerous studies that police are much more likely to stop, detain, and/or prosecute blacks. There are even memes about how whites don't get busted for pot anymore but blacks still do. That's why so many states announced they would no longer prosecute blacks for marijuana possession (2019? 2018?)-- because the data showed how skewed the arrest and prosecution rates were.

Those numbers Campitor linked to represent which communities we choose to police as much as which communities are more afflicted by crime.

[daylen]

Those numbers Campitor linked to represent which communities we choose to police as much as which communities are more afflicted by crime.

Precisely, indicating a positive feedback.

selective policing of a community leading to skewed stats <-> less investment in that community due to lack of predicted payoff <-> community cultural adaptation towards criminal activities organised by gangs

[Campitor]

It has been demonstrated in numerous studies that police are much more likely to stop, detain, and/or prosecute blacks. There are even memes about how whites don't get busted for pot anymore but blacks still do. That's why so many states announced they would no longer prosecute blacks for marijuana possession (2019? 2018?)-- because the data showed how skewed the arrest and prosecution rates were.

Those numbers Campitor linked to represent which communities we choose to police as much as which communities are more afflicted by crime.

I would agree with you but the stats regarding murder are harder to obfuscate and selectively enforce. Dead bodies are hard to hide. If we're going to dismiss the murder rate statistics then we equally have to dismiss the police shooting death stats. Also note that the race of the cop doing the shooting is conspicuously absent in the statistics. Why is that? Anyone have any links to that data?

Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter:
rate: White (2.1) ; Black (13.8)

[jennypenny]

Have you watched Just Mercy? I think it's on Amazon Prime right now. The number of people who've been wrongly convicted is staggering. The movie features the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.

eta: The movie is still available on Amazon prime.

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

historical racial bias

*slavery

Re propensity to criminality: crime has been defined differently for black vs white populations in North America since pre-United States, de jure until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and de facto through the present day. Recall also that the parents and grandparents of current lawmakers/enforcers made and supported the legal framework that criminalized black presence in white areas, disenfranchisement, miscegenation, etc etc. None of this is forgotten in a single generation. The last beneficiary of Civil War veterans benefits died earlier this month.

[daylen]

I didn't mean that racial bias is no longer present. That problem may even run deeper than culture given the studies of subconscious reactions to racial features.

[Jean]

"Every one knows that" "many studies shows" "science has proven", those sentence when repeated without ever citing a source a how masses are made angry. Same goes for unmeasurable (thus inachievable) demands.

https://www.policeone.com/deadly-hesita ... rRIShsXYs/

The same from a more leftist source:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/tru ... prise-you/

That's only one study, but I don't think anyone is in position to prove that amrican authorities are racist. And being killed by a cop is so less likely than being killed by diabetes or a black man. So why does it even matter?
Because of slavery? Most slaves were'nt even black, most slavers weren't even white. So that's not it either. People won't believe what is true, but what makes them feel better.

Every one is going to try to blame its problem on an outgroup. I do it too. Maybe an outgroup is really abusing you, but then, I think it's much more efficient to stop offering a grip for someone to abuse you.
It looks like BLM is asking white people to just submit and die. From my interaction with black american, It's hard to imagine that a majority of them think like that. But a movement like BLM is forcing people into picking a side. It could get ugly. I don't know why they don't let white peoples an happy way out of the argument. It looks like they overestimate themselves. Their actions have degraded my prejudice against africans so badly. I assume it's the same for most.
Maybe conflict are inevitable and race is just the most conveniente team-shirt.
I hope you all stay safe.

[daylen]

@jean

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=e ... acial+bias

Apparently, everyone is implicitly/unconsciously racist. So, there is no need to blame an outgroup. I was just trying to make the case that this is a systemic problem to avoid finger pointing. Many of the problems we face now are rooted in our tribal past and denial of this just further exacerbates our current situation.

That said I do not really know where I stand at the moment with respect to this whole movement, because the movement does not actually seem to be about black lives mattering.

[Campitor]

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings

Until recently, the only nationwide data on FOIS (fatal officer-involved shootings) was compiled yearly in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Report. On a voluntary basis, departments report the number of justifiable homicides by on-duty law-enforcement officers. Not only are these shootings underreported (by ∼50%; ref. 2), such reports do not provide information about the officers or circumstances surrounding these shootings. Beginning in 2015, news companies such as The Washington Post and The Guardian began to collect information about FOIS to address the issues with the FBI data. Through reporting and Freedom of Information Act requests to law-enforcement agencies, such organizations have created more complete FOIS databases. These databases provide information about shootings not available in federal databases: where they took place, what police departments were involved, and demographic information about civilians. However, even these databases fail to provide information about involved officers, which prevents asking whether certain types of officers are more likely to show racial disparities....

...What These Findings Do Not Show.
Our analyses test for racial disparities in FOIS, which should not be conflated with racial bias (21). Racial disparities are a necessary but not sufficient, requirement for the existence of racial biases, as there are many reasons why fatal shootings might vary across racial groups that are unrelated to bias on the behalf of police officers.

For example, we found that a person fatally shot by police was much more likely to be White when they were suicidal. This does not mean that there are department policies or officer biases that encourage fatal shootings of suicidal White civilians. A more plausible explanation is that White civilians are more likely to attempt “suicide by cop” than minorities (38). Similarly, Black and Hispanic officers (compared with White officers) were more likely to fatally shoot Black and Hispanic civilians. This does not mean that there are department policies encouraging non-White officers to fatally shoot minorities. Rather, the link between officer race and FOIS appears to be explained by officers and civilians being drawn from the same population, making it more likely that an officer will be exposed to (and fatally shoot) a same-race civilian.

We stress that these findings cannot incriminate or exonerate officers in any specific case. Findings at the national level do not directly speak to the presence or absence of bias in individual shootings. In other words, whether a particular officer shows bias in any individual case is a different question than whether officers in general show bias. Claims of national bias in FOIS requires examining fatal force in aggregate, and not just in one incident or racial group (39).

Conclusion.
Until now, researchers have been unable to test questions related to officer characteristics in fatal shootings. We created a near-complete database of fatal shootings in 2015 to test questions about racial disparities in FOIS. However, continued work on this issue will require more information about the officers, civilians, and circumstances surrounding these events. We encourage federal agencies to enforce policies that require recording information about the civilians and officers in FOIS to better understand the relationship between civilian race and police use of force.

[jennypenny]

Every one is going to try to blame its problem on an outgroup. I do it too. Maybe an outgroup is really abusing you, but then, I think it's much more efficient to stop offering a grip for someone to abuse you.

That comes pretty close to blaming the victim. If a woman goes out dressed really instagrammy and gets shitfaced, she's much more likely to be sexually abused. However, that has nothing to do with perpetrators of sexual abuse and what to do about them.

It's ok to tell those more likely to be victimized that they (unfortunately) need to be more careful, but only while also calling out abusers and judging them by their crimes, not their choice of victim.

Apparently, everyone is implicitly/unconsciously racist.

The difference is that some racism results in awkward stereotypes and some results in higher incarceration and poverty rates.

I get upset if I hear someone talk about how much they hate Catholics, but I know that 'hate' is very different than when someone says they hate Jews. The sentiments are the same on paper, but the experiences and outcomes have been very different. It's not just about 'other' ... certain others have been treated much more unfairly historically.

[daylen]

The difference is that some racism results in awkward stereotypes and some results in higher incarceration and poverty rates.

Yeah, individual vs. systemic racism. This is what I was trying to say initially. Implicit racism grounded in our evolutionary past lead to segregation of races by neighborhood which then lead to systemic racism based on statistical determinism. If the neighborhood is not on average successful then [success nurturing] resources will not find a way to the neighborhood, on average.

It just so happens that Europe was geographically determined to undergo an enlightenment and was predominately white. Whereas we know now that race is skin deep and has no genetic correlation with any important behavioral traits.

[Stahlmann]

let's create system of constant fear and then ponder why random people shoot at each other.
then, nerds online can discuss this :--DDD