5 ms·

It is the supporters of racial profiling who need to show that it is an "actual statistical factor", and that it's significant enough to spend time, money, poli

by dalke 10y ago

It is the supporters of racial profiling who need to show that it is an "actual statistical factor", and that it's significant enough to spend time, money, political capital, and social will, to use. To start with, it needs to be more effective than singling out "males" (who really are "a predominant number of actual culprits") and "engineers". You say you "don't see what's wrong with racial profiling", but you don't even know if it's effective? Do you want to waste money on useless policies?

coldtea 10y ago
>It is the supporters of racial profiling who need to show that it is an "actual statistical factor", and that it's significant enough to spend time, money, political capital, and social will, to use. The first is beyond dispute -- if anything is almost a tautology. If one combats terrorists from Syria, Iraq and other arab countries, they should by definition add a weight to such ethnicities in their profiling for potential actors of such acts. It's not Alaskans or Norwegians who predominantly (if at all) enroll in ISIS. >To start with, it needs to be more effective than singling out "males" (who really are "a predominant number of actual culprits") and "engineers". Actually, no it hasn't. Since "males" and "engineers" will be additional weights. Who even said it has to be a single deciding factor? >* You say you "don't see what's wrong with racial profiling", but you don't even know if it's effective? Do you want to waste money on useless policies?* Who said that I don't even know if it's effective? It's very effective where it's applied e.g in Israel etc.
- dalke 10y ago
  As I pointed out, what is "terrorism"? If you start by saying that "ISIS = terrorism" then there's no predictive knowledge in knowing someone's ethnicity, because your definition is inherently geographically biased, and ethnicity is correlated to geography. As you say, it's a tautology, but you think that's meaningful, when it's actually a decision made by fiat. And wouldn't nationality be more predictive than ethnicity? Are those who attack abortion centers and abortion doctors terrorists? If so, is "Christianity" another factor? If not, why not? Is the Charleston church shooting an example of terrorism? If so, is "being white" another factor? When the US-backed Contras used murder, rape, and torture against the civilian population, was that terrorism? And if so, what were the key predictive factors we could use to help identify terrorists and terrorist supporters? Who gets to choose what is terrorism, who gets to choose the factors that go into the predictive model, and does that choice have a built-in bias which makes the model useless for screening purposes? And again, why is it the least powerful who are often designated the most suspicious?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >If you start by saying that "ISIS = terrorism" then there's no predictive knowledge in knowing someone's ethnicity, because your definition is inherently geographically biased, and ethnicity is correlated to geography. I fail to see how it doesn't have "predictive knowledge" under those assertions. The fact that my "definition is inherently geographically biased" and "ethnicity is correlated to geography" implies exactly the opposite -- that it's an obvious correlation.(The predictive power obviously coming from using that knowledge for excluding, or putting a less weight, to other ethnicities). >And wouldn't nationality be more predictive than ethnicity? Not necessarily. Some western ex-pat working in such a country, even if he got the nationality, would be less likely to share the same affiliations, backstory, religion and culture with those turning out to be terrorists. And inversely, culprits in Europe for example often have gotten the European nationality (or even have been born there in the first place), but most still share such (non-European) ethnicities. >Are those who attack abortion centers and abortion doctors terrorists? If so, is "Christianity" another factor? If not, why not? They could be said to be terrorists too. I didn't suggest anything about them though -- I said racial profiling is OK at airports and for catching the other kinds of terrorists (and for which such programs as TSA started anyway), not for each and every kind of loony. Airports are not abortion clinics, so they won't attract as many Christian zealots. >When the US-backed Contras used murder, rape, and torture against the civilian population, was that terrorism? Yes, but obviously not the kind that the US government tries to prevent now -- so outside the scope of this discussion. If people from certain rural areas tended to be Contras and one wanted to guess them out in such a scenario as with TSA, then racial profiling would be totally applicable there too.
    - dalke 10y ago
      Sorry, you're right. I meant that you are using ethnicity as a proxy for geographic location. For something as broad as "Arab", it's not predictive - just like "Christian" is not predictive for figuring out who might kill an abortion doctor, or "Japanese ancestry" is not predictive for who will sabotage US military installations on the territory of Hawaii. (Hint: none of them; and the US has apologized for the internment camps.) It's predictive in the way that saying African Americans tend to get worse grades in school. The primary correlation is with poverty - African Americans tend to be poorer than average - not ethnicity. So, even if you think ethnicity is important, how do you know that other characteristics aren't even more important? Look at the VAM for schools to see how difficult it is to be predictive even when you have lots of data points. > "Not necessarily" That's approaching a movie plot scenario. Either you have evidence or you don't. Hand-waving counter-examples is not evidence. > "I said racial profiling is OK at airports and for catching the other kinds of terrorists (and for which such programs as TSA started anyway)" Racial profiling is illegal in the US. Therefore you have no US evidence that it would be effective. How would you even measure effectiveness ? Fewer hijackings every year? Fewer bombings? For that matter, why do you keep picking race as the key predictive feature? Why aren't you arguing for sex screening? Look at all the male terrorists. Why aren't you proposing that women should automatically be allowed to use the TSA Pre-Check lanes, so the TSA can put more resources on searching the men? Once that's done, then argue for screening by race, which we know is less effective. > "They could be said to be terrorists too. I didn't suggest anything about them though" I know you didn't. That's because you're picking the lazy solution for the easy problem that doesn't really exist. Think of it this way. There are 10M people of ethnic group X in a country. Of them are 10 who plan to carry out a terrorist action. If we put racial screening in place, we can catch 2 of them. On the other hand, there's a 1-in-a-million chance that the added frustration, humiliation, and resentment will cause someone to snap, and decide to carry out a terrorist action. Congratulations, you now have 10 new terrorists to replace the 2 you caught. Yes, this is also approaching a movie plot scenario. But since that's all you really have to back your views, then that's what I'll use too.

by dalke 10y ago

coldtea 10y ago

>It is the supporters of racial profiling who need to show that it is an "actual statistical factor", and that it's significant enough to spend time, money, political capital, and social will, to use. The first is beyond dispute -- if anything is almost a tautology. If one combats terrorists from Syria, Iraq and other arab countries, they should by definition add a weight to such ethnicities in their profiling for potential actors of such acts. It's not Alaskans or Norwegians who predominantly (if at all) enroll in ISIS. >To start with, it needs to be more effective than singling out "males" (who really are "a predominant number of actual culprits") and "engineers". Actually, no it hasn't. Since "males" and "engineers" will be additional weights. Who even said it has to be a single deciding factor? >* You say you "don't see what's wrong with racial profiling", but you don't even know if it's effective? Do you want to waste money on useless policies?* Who said that I don't even know if it's effective? It's very effective where it's applied e.g in Israel etc.

dalke 10y ago
As I pointed out, what is "terrorism"? If you start by saying that "ISIS = terrorism" then there's no predictive knowledge in knowing someone's ethnicity, because your definition is inherently geographically biased, and ethnicity is correlated to geography. As you say, it's a tautology, but you think that's meaningful, when it's actually a decision made by fiat. And wouldn't nationality be more predictive than ethnicity? Are those who attack abortion centers and abortion doctors terrorists? If so, is "Christianity" another factor? If not, why not? Is the Charleston church shooting an example of terrorism? If so, is "being white" another factor? When the US-backed Contras used murder, rape, and torture against the civilian population, was that terrorism? And if so, what were the key predictive factors we could use to help identify terrorists and terrorist supporters? Who gets to choose what is terrorism, who gets to choose the factors that go into the predictive model, and does that choice have a built-in bias which makes the model useless for screening purposes? And again, why is it the least powerful who are often designated the most suspicious?
- coldtea 10y ago
  >If you start by saying that "ISIS = terrorism" then there's no predictive knowledge in knowing someone's ethnicity, because your definition is inherently geographically biased, and ethnicity is correlated to geography. I fail to see how it doesn't have "predictive knowledge" under those assertions. The fact that my "definition is inherently geographically biased" and "ethnicity is correlated to geography" implies exactly the opposite -- that it's an obvious correlation.(The predictive power obviously coming from using that knowledge for excluding, or putting a less weight, to other ethnicities). >And wouldn't nationality be more predictive than ethnicity? Not necessarily. Some western ex-pat working in such a country, even if he got the nationality, would be less likely to share the same affiliations, backstory, religion and culture with those turning out to be terrorists. And inversely, culprits in Europe for example often have gotten the European nationality (or even have been born there in the first place), but most still share such (non-European) ethnicities. >Are those who attack abortion centers and abortion doctors terrorists? If so, is "Christianity" another factor? If not, why not? They could be said to be terrorists too. I didn't suggest anything about them though -- I said racial profiling is OK at airports and for catching the other kinds of terrorists (and for which such programs as TSA started anyway), not for each and every kind of loony. Airports are not abortion clinics, so they won't attract as many Christian zealots. >When the US-backed Contras used murder, rape, and torture against the civilian population, was that terrorism? Yes, but obviously not the kind that the US government tries to prevent now -- so outside the scope of this discussion. If people from certain rural areas tended to be Contras and one wanted to guess them out in such a scenario as with TSA, then racial profiling would be totally applicable there too.
  - dalke 10y ago
    Sorry, you're right. I meant that you are using ethnicity as a proxy for geographic location. For something as broad as "Arab", it's not predictive - just like "Christian" is not predictive for figuring out who might kill an abortion doctor, or "Japanese ancestry" is not predictive for who will sabotage US military installations on the territory of Hawaii. (Hint: none of them; and the US has apologized for the internment camps.) It's predictive in the way that saying African Americans tend to get worse grades in school. The primary correlation is with poverty - African Americans tend to be poorer than average - not ethnicity. So, even if you think ethnicity is important, how do you know that other characteristics aren't even more important? Look at the VAM for schools to see how difficult it is to be predictive even when you have lots of data points. > "Not necessarily" That's approaching a movie plot scenario. Either you have evidence or you don't. Hand-waving counter-examples is not evidence. > "I said racial profiling is OK at airports and for catching the other kinds of terrorists (and for which such programs as TSA started anyway)" Racial profiling is illegal in the US. Therefore you have no US evidence that it would be effective. How would you even measure effectiveness ? Fewer hijackings every year? Fewer bombings? For that matter, why do you keep picking race as the key predictive feature? Why aren't you arguing for sex screening? Look at all the male terrorists. Why aren't you proposing that women should automatically be allowed to use the TSA Pre-Check lanes, so the TSA can put more resources on searching the men? Once that's done, then argue for screening by race, which we know is less effective. > "They could be said to be terrorists too. I didn't suggest anything about them though" I know you didn't. That's because you're picking the lazy solution for the easy problem that doesn't really exist. Think of it this way. There are 10M people of ethnic group X in a country. Of them are 10 who plan to carry out a terrorist action. If we put racial screening in place, we can catch 2 of them. On the other hand, there's a 1-in-a-million chance that the added frustration, humiliation, and resentment will cause someone to snap, and decide to carry out a terrorist action. Congratulations, you now have 10 new terrorists to replace the 2 you caught. Yes, this is also approaching a movie plot scenario. But since that's all you really have to back your views, then that's what I'll use too.