Dude!!!! Lots of people are discussing this. Key distinction to make, definitely go for basic income over the means tested welfare we have now. Click on that link ASAP.
There’s more where that came from via Scott Santens. A quick search of Scott and Crime on twitter gets you all these tweets that have links to follow up on.
Neat. I will do this.
It’s like, I see your demonizing of minorities, and draw your attention to all this horrible white violence — because you have such a flaming double standard, and I’m going to keep shouting about it as long as you keep doing your shouting, release the bots.
I don’t know dude. I feel like I write pretty detailed, pretty well sourced stuff about guns and gun control, and the Medium staff has literally stopped curating it. Doesn’t even add it to the Gun Control topic list anymore, while this stuff still gets curated:
Ok, but then don’t you think the people freaking out about mass shootings, the ones you’re dismissing, also realize they are statistically small, but worry about them becoming a bigger problem?
I don’t. I think they think they’re commonplace. The polling data bears this out.
FYI, I’ve read SA Pinker’s “Better Angels of Our nature.” I’m aware violence has gone way down compared to the good old days of yore. But note that the reasons he gives for this decline are empathy (which we are losing with that horrible presidential rhetoric), a perceived impartial police presence(which we are losing when it appears they are not held accountable), and better standard of living all around, so more motivation to preserve peace rather than fight over survival.
I’m not convinced there’s not more concrete reasons. I quite like the lead-crime hypothesis, honestly. Pinker is an interesting thinker, but I’m not always convinced he’s latching onto the correct reasons for trends.
In particular, I don’t think the perceptions of police impartiality changed at all between the 1990s and today, so I don’t see how it could possibly be behind the drop in crime. Does he support that assertion with data?
The El Paso shooter had no empathy, delighted in racism, and also had an eco-fascist message of an impending lack of resources. We need to deal with this. On the eco-fascist front, I’m working on it. Here’s a vision of the future of climate solutions that requires no murder. Only idiot losers murder. #NOEcoFascism.
The ecofascism thing fascinates me. Not that I agree with it at all, but rather that it fascinates me that it’s rising. I read the NZ manifesto, for instance. His analysis was, in my opinion, wrong, but it was an obvious conclusion to draw based on his givens. His givens were/are wrong, IMO. I thought about writing a full article on that, but figured it might get me kicked off Medium by the NZ government.
Again, this only bolsters the case for panic that people are feeling as mass shootings seem to be rewarded. It doesn’t take much more to hit a tipping point. Even if your action in taking away guns does not seem to materially be relevant to reducing ability of people to engage in mass shootings — it communicates that we want to change this, and that people are willing to make sacrifices (restrictions in gun rights) for the sake of each other. It’s about the collective relationship. People are asking for proof of compassion, and you’re giving them statistical arguments.
My writing on guns is definitely clinical. And all I can do is apologize. I’m an engineer, and we didn’t well-wish ourselves to the moon. We did the math.
So here’s some math, using Syria’s 1% combatant number.
30% of the USA owns guns. If one gun owner in ten decided to shoot back during a nationwide gun collection scheme, that would triple the Syria combatant participation rate for all sides.
Well, a lot of people don’t feel that way. [safe] It’s nice that you do.
The thing that alarms me is why they don’t feel safe. They don’t feel safe because they don’t live in the real world, the blue and red tribes are increasingly living in the “smartphone feed world,” and that’s a terrifying problem. And likely at least partially responsible for what mass shootings we do have.
Also, hey, you shouldn’t be talking about presidential assassinations. Or maybe, apply some statistical perspective on that. Like most of those took place before 1902 — so back in the wild, more violent days. Only one in the past century. Presidents should feel a lot safer these days : )
Our last two were actually 1963 and 1981. Reagan survived, but he still counts as a data point. If I didn’t know the Gambler’s Fallacy, I’d say we were due.
I hope nobody shoots who wins in 2020. I think it would be tremendously bad. But yeah, after watching communists and Nazis clash in the streets of Charlottesville VA and political gangs take over downtown Portland, I am a bit worried about it.
