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Lumifer comments on Open thread, Oct. 03 - Oct. 09, 2016 - Less Wrong
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Comments (175)
Can you provide any sources for this?
Is the incidence of police encounters with blacks elevated?
What are the reasons?
For example, there were 4,636 murders committed by white people and 5,620 murders committed by black people in 2015 (source). On the per-capita basis this makes the by-white murder rate to be about 2.2 per 100,000 and the by-black murder rate to be about 16.2 per 100,000.
Why is this?
You asked why is "the incidence of police encounters with blacks elevated". This is a direct answer.
If you want to know the reasons for different crime rates, this is going to get long and complicated.
Can/will you TL;DR your view?
As with any complex phenomenon in a complex system, there is going to be a laundry list of contributing factors, none of which is the cause (in the sense that fixing just that cause will fix the entire problem). We can start with
The opinions about the relative weights of these factors are going to differ and in the current political climate I don't think a reasonable open discussion is possible.
What is the best source for this in your view?
Is it your view that past slavery in America still has a large impact on African Americans in the present day U.S.?
It seems obvious to me that it does, and that the effects are wide and deep, as slavery (and Jim Crow) is relatively recent history—We're only a handful of generations from a time where a race of people was enslaved and systemically kept from accumulating wealth and education.
Meh. Maybe. I'd like to believe I'm a reasonable guy. My views on these issues are largely ignorant and I'm open to learning.
The raw data is plentiful -- look at any standardized test scores (e.g. SAT) by race. For a full-blown argument in favor see e.g. this (I can't check the link at the moment, it might be that you need to go to the Wayback Machine to access it). For a more, um, mainstream discussion see Charles Murray's The Bell Curve. Wikipedia has more links you could pursue.
My view is that history is important and that outcomes are path-dependent. Slavery and segregation are crucial parts of the history of American blacks.
Your social circles might have a strong reaction to you coming to anything other than the approved conclusions...
So have you actually learned anything from these discussions, in particular, are you willing to admit that the Hillary/Kane analysis of the "implicit biases" of police officers you cited in the OC is wrong?
Yes, though mostly indirectly. I've learned mostly from reading about neoreactionaries elsewhere. SSC, Moldbug, etc. I'm learning a lot. Very interesting. This discussion was the catalyst for my reading. So, thanks!
Yes, I've learned some directly from this discussion.
Mostly I've learned that people will get internet-hostile about certain topics. I was already aware of this, but my interaction in this discussion has re-cemented the fact in my mind. I've received a recent -37 karma lashing (to date). A lot of my downvoted comments were just simple sincere questions—I'd admitted my ignorance and was really seeking to understand these issues better. Maybe I'm just annoying to people to know more about these things and my questions seem obvious? I could understand people being annoyed... (Note: I kinda like a mixed karma bag. Nothing so negative so as to be perceived as any dumber than I am... but anything north of 90% on LW would worry me.)
I don't recall much of what I learned directly about this topic directly from this discussion. (Lumifer made some nice points that helped some things make more conceptual sense to me.) At any rate, what I actually learned about this topic from this direct discussion was a tiny percentage of what I've learned from reading elsewhere.
Also, it appears your account is very new—I'm hypothesizing this fact, along with my recent negative karma streak, along with the stories I've read about others' similar experiences when engaging in such topics...means you are the sock puppet of Eugine Nier. The Eugine Nier. That's super cool! Nice to meet you, Eugine. I've heard so much about you and I'm honored to... have drawn your ire. :)
Yes. Yes, I think there is a bit more to this than I realized.
I still think HRC's point was refreshing in the context of the debate, and potentially useful. But I'm wavering. I still believe people are (1) biased based on race (2) this bias can be unconscious and (3) this unconscious bias' effect would be pronounced in a high stress, high consequence environment where someone needed to act quickly (like what police officers face when they are in close proximity to a suspect). I'm cynical enough about politics not to be excited that HRC's one liner will change anything. Or that she intended it as very much more than a rhetorical judo move in that debate...
Anyway, I'm still thinking and reading about all of this stuff. My current epistemic status is "Oh Shit I'm Soooo Ignorant While Shaking My Head"
A sincere thank you for the interaction.
In particular did you know about the different rates of murder commited by blacks and whites before posting the OC?
Do you have any evidence for this belief? If so, why haven't you presented it anywhere in this thread? Or does "bias" in this case mean that the cops understand the differences in muder rates?
What do you mean with that question? How do you compare the present state of the US with a counterfactual US where African Americans weren't in slavery?
I think it's pretty easy to hypothesize about the possible effects of slavery vs. no slavery.
In the context of this thread, it was mentioned that the murder rate was much higher for blacks versus whites. If there are socioeconomic reasons for this, then I'm curious about slavery's contribution to those factors.
Politically, I'm generally empathetic toward ideas like affirmative action in the U.S. on the basis of race because there has been serious discrimination in the U.S. on the basis of race in the past. It makes practical sense to posit it created a "headstart" for races who were not... enslaved... and otherwise discriminated against and it makes ethical sense to employ measures to even the score.
I'm open to the idea ideas like AA may not actually practically work and could be persuaded as such by the evidence.
While we are at the topic of cognitive biases, how do you know that's the case? Quite many people believe that they are much more open than they are.
The fact that you for example didn't follow up with the request to explain your own view in this thread is a sign that you don't put effort into engaging in the kind of actions that require you to actually express your ideas explicitly enough to find flaws.
I would also be interested in your view.