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It seems every time there's a mass shooting or a tragic suicide, people find out there were a bunch of social media posts beforehand that clearly broadcast the

by imgabe 11y ago

It seems every time there's a mass shooting or a tragic suicide, people find out there were a bunch of social media posts beforehand that clearly broadcast the perpetrator's intent. Every time we ask "Why didn't anyone see this coming?" Well, this is us "looking" to see these things coming, but now analyzing publicly available information is a violation of privacy?

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Its a question of false positives, and also the chilling effect. If we're all under a microscope that changes society fundamentally. Kids talk about lots of things, in jest or half serious. All the time. Getting paranoid about it would be a worse problem. As I heard Hodge say on Criminal Minds, "All teenaged boys profile as sociopaths"
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
izacus 11y ago
That's because the school shootings should be addressed by finding a root cause (after all, they seem to be a very much USA localized issue) instad of more orwellian surveillance which leads to false accusations and abuse.
- wyager 11y ago
  >after all, they seem to be a very much USA localized issue Absolutely false. Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Israel, and Switzerland all had more shooting rampages (and deaths thereof) per capita than the United States (at least from 2009-2013, which the data covers). http://archive.is/f4gbv http://archive.is/f4gbv
  - izacus 11y ago
    Does USA being a 4th most common place of shootings invalidate my point of trying to find a root cause instead of surveilance?
    - wyager 11y ago
      Not at all. I just hate the meme of "the US is super violent and dangerous". In reality, deaths from rampages are more or less statistically negligible. The idea that we have to "solve" rampages at all might be incorrect. It may be an unproductive use of resources, when there are many bigger causes of death that we could probably mitigate more effectively for the same cost.
  - sanbor 11y ago
    I disagree with your way of reading the numbers. United states has 38 "Total Fatal Rampage Shooting Incidents (2009-2013)". All other countries has 0, 1 or 2 incidents. How can dividing the victims per capita can help you understand if this kind of things happen more often in a country than in other?
    - barsonme 11y ago
      Not just per-capita victims. If you read the chart's third column: > Fatal Rampage Shooting Incidents (2009-2013) Per 1,000,000 The U.S. is 0.12, putting it behind Norway (0.19), Finland (0.37), Slovakia (0.19), Israel (0.25), and Switzerland (0.25). Simply looking at the raw number of shootings is misleading at best because: 1. Countries with a larger population are typically at higher risk of more shootings. (The two countries with >= 1/3 as large of a population as the U.S. are Japan and Mexico.) 2. It does not take into account culture or socioeconomic issues (other than only sampling the "Industrialized West") 3. Countries with more firearms will typically have a higher risk or more shootings
wyager 11y ago
When public institutions are engaging in industrialized surveillance (of children, no less), it's a violation of privacy. We also have no idea if Facebook posts are actually a good indicator of propensity to commit violence. To the best of my knowledge, there is not a proper study indicating that this may be the case.

by imgabe 11y ago

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Its a question of false positives, and also the chilling effect. If we're all under a microscope that changes society fundamentally. Kids talk about lots of things, in jest or half serious. All the time. Getting paranoid about it would be a worse problem. As I heard Hodge say on Criminal Minds, "All teenaged boys profile as sociopaths"

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

izacus 11y ago

That's because the school shootings should be addressed by finding a root cause (after all, they seem to be a very much USA localized issue) instad of more orwellian surveillance which leads to false accusations and abuse.

wyager 11y ago
>after all, they seem to be a very much USA localized issue Absolutely false. Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Israel, and Switzerland all had more shooting rampages (and deaths thereof) per capita than the United States (at least from 2009-2013, which the data covers). http://archive.is/f4gbv http://archive.is/f4gbv
- izacus 11y ago
  Does USA being a 4th most common place of shootings invalidate my point of trying to find a root cause instead of surveilance?
  - wyager 11y ago
    Not at all. I just hate the meme of "the US is super violent and dangerous". In reality, deaths from rampages are more or less statistically negligible. The idea that we have to "solve" rampages at all might be incorrect. It may be an unproductive use of resources, when there are many bigger causes of death that we could probably mitigate more effectively for the same cost.
- sanbor 11y ago
  I disagree with your way of reading the numbers. United states has 38 "Total Fatal Rampage Shooting Incidents (2009-2013)". All other countries has 0, 1 or 2 incidents. How can dividing the victims per capita can help you understand if this kind of things happen more often in a country than in other?
  - barsonme 11y ago
    Not just per-capita victims. If you read the chart's third column: > Fatal Rampage Shooting Incidents (2009-2013) Per 1,000,000 The U.S. is 0.12, putting it behind Norway (0.19), Finland (0.37), Slovakia (0.19), Israel (0.25), and Switzerland (0.25). Simply looking at the raw number of shootings is misleading at best because: 1. Countries with a larger population are typically at higher risk of more shootings. (The two countries with >= 1/3 as large of a population as the U.S. are Japan and Mexico.) 2. It does not take into account culture or socioeconomic issues (other than only sampling the "Industrialized West") 3. Countries with more firearms will typically have a higher risk or more shootings

wyager 11y ago

When public institutions are engaging in industrialized surveillance (of children, no less), it's a violation of privacy. We also have no idea if Facebook posts are actually a good indicator of propensity to commit violence. To the best of my knowledge, there is not a proper study indicating that this may be the case.