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Douglas_Knight comments on What false beliefs have you held and why were you wrong? - Less Wrong Discussion

28 Post author: Punoxysm 16 October 2014 05:58PM

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Comment author: Douglas_Knight 18 October 2014 12:35:20AM 2 points [-]

Until about 3 days ago, I was convinced that claims that mass shootings were increasing in the US were due purely to media scare tactics and general human tendencies to see things as getting worse. This article made me strongly update against that.

The last 30 years of such claims are not due to anything that happened in 2011.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 18 October 2014 02:15:28AM *  0 points [-]

Sure, that's certainly a valid point. It doesn't make the people saying this in the 1980s or the 1990s or the 2000s correct in any way shape or form. And it is possible that the media's current claims are completely disconnected from the uptick. The relevant bit is updating that there really has been a statistically significant uptick. (Especially because my priors based on general declining crime rates would have been to if anything suspect the opposite.)

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 18 October 2014 03:30:34AM 2 points [-]

Also, what about you? Did you have this opinion before 2011?

Comment author: JoshuaZ 18 October 2014 12:08:17PM 0 points [-]

What do you mean? I thought I made that clear. My opinion was well before 2011 and remained my go to comment until I read that article that there was no increase at all and that any claimed increase was purely media hype.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 19 October 2014 05:51:46PM 2 points [-]

Your opinion about newsmedia was correct the whole time. This led you to ignore Mother Jones in 2012, but still your beliefs about the trends were correct for most of the time you held them.

What is the correct course of action?
Ignoring the newsmedia is clearly optimal. In particular paying attention to MJ writing on the same data set in 2012 would have produced the belief that spree killings had increased in 2006, an error according to your current MJ beliefs, though of course MJ doesn't notice the change. Maybe if you wait a few years, they'll convince you that nothing changed in 2011, only in 2015.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 20 October 2014 02:45:19PM 0 points [-]

I don't think so. I had read similar articles in the past and was generally unpersuaded.

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