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Oof. I hate this article. Statistics have to be interpreted. Creating a "Statistic of the Year" is about as asinine and self-congratulatory as Blake Shelton
by rukittenme 9y ago
Oof. I hate this article.
Statistics have to be interpreted. Creating a "Statistic of the Year" is about as asinine and self-congratulatory as Blake Shelton being declared "Sexiest Man Alive".
What does it even mean?
Take Mrs. Kardashian West's post. Its sufficiently political to cause a controversy and sufficiently vacuous for readers to imprint their own thoughts and feelings on it.
What is an "Islamic", "Jihadist", "Immigrant"? If a terrorist travels to America, with an intent to kill but not an intent to obtain permanent residency, are they not included in the statistic? If a terrorist kills a group of people but a "Jihad" has not been formally declared by a group associated to the terrorist, is that terrorist not included in the statistic? If a terrorist is inspired by Wahhabis propaganda but is not himself a "true" Muslim (as defined by the researchers), is he included in the statistic?
The problem with these "award winning" statistics is that they are not, in fact, statistics. They are award winning implications which themselves are not born out of the data but are instead imprinted upon it.
The implication that toddlers are more dangerous than terrorists is absurd. Armed toddlers are the result of freak accidents and careless people. Terrorist attacks are the result of intentional policy choices. It's not hard to wonder why people focus so much time, effort, and attention on one rather than the other.
Consider the following scenario:
You are locked in a room with two other people. To your left, an armed toddler. To your right, an armed, islamic, jihadist, immigrant, terrorist. Your mission is to disarm both parties before you are allowed to leave the room. Who do you disarm first?
If you're the authors of this article, you disarm the toddler. If you're sane you disarm the terrorist.
- chimprich 9y ago> The implication that toddlers are more dangerous than terrorists is absurd. Armed toddlers are the result of freak accidents and careless people. Terrorist attacks are the result of intentional policy choices. Armed toddlers are also a result of intentional policy choices. You will struggle to find a statistic about deaths from armed toddlers in the UK, because gun laws mean that the chance of such a situation occurring is minuscule.
- mkl 9y agoThat scenario is misleading as it assumes there are equal numbers of relevant toddlers and terrorists.
- rukittenme 9y agoFirstly, the scenario is exact in its implication. All things held equal, an "Islamic", "jihadist", "immigrant" is treated with greater caution than an "armed" "toddler". Secondly, you can not infer the population of "armed" "toddlers" or "Islamic", "jihadist", "immigrants" from this statistic. Terrorists could be incredibly common and safe or uncommon and dangerous. Increasing their commonality might not be desirable. Which directly contradicts the implication of the tweet. Thirdly, proportion the population of toddlers and terrorists however you wish. Under any proportionment the terrorist would be addressed first. For the simple fact that terrorists have intent to harm, whereas toddlers are more likely to harm themselves.
- bovine3dom 9y agoI think the authors would argue that the statistic tells you more about the situation where there is a gun in the room, a toddler, and an adult who looks a bit foreign. Who should you be more worried about keeping the gun away from?
- jimmux 9y agoIf the terrorist is not posing an immediate threat, I would consider disarming the toddler first. This could more easily supply me with a weapon, which would improve my odds against the terrorist. Not relevant to the discussion, I know, but an interesting thought exercise the more I over-think it.