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TBH I don't understand what you're saying. I'm having the same debate on 2 threads now so here's my quote to the other person who posted the same link: "I look

by beaner 5y ago

TBH I don't understand what you're saying. I'm having the same debate on 2 threads now so here's my quote to the other person who posted the same link: "I looked at it and the study doesn't account for anything. For example, if a certain demographic were 2x more likely to die in an encounter, but 4x more likely to respond to a benign pullover with violence, then they're actually 2x more likely to be treated with less force than their actions require. This is basic, the study (at least on my glance) appears to not account for anything like this at all."

burkaman 5y ago
I agree with that. The study doesn't account for that because it doesn't make any sense, how could skin color make a person more likely to respond with violence? Can you explain the mechanism for how a racial demographic could be "more likely to respond to a benign pullover with violence"?
- beaner 5y ago
  Oh, I see. You're arguing in bad faith. I don't even know how to account for that, really. Is it your honest interpretation of what I'm saying that black pignment is the literal cause of violent responses? Geez... I mean, I don't think this discussion will be fruitful now, but just in case: This is like logic 101. We're not debating that race causes behavior - it does not. But that doesn't mean there isn't an overlap between demographic and behavior. For example, there is an overlap between being black and being lower-income in this country. There is a relationship between low-income/poverty and violence. Do you understand that? Skin color is not the cause. I'm completely happy to ignore it. You could equally say "people who respond aggressively are 3x likely to be shot." It is you making the racial connection, not me.
  - dang 5y ago
    Flamewar comments like this will get you banned on HN. Please review the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and please don't post like this in the future. This is obviously particularly important on provocative and divisive topics, where allowing your comments to degenerate in this way amounts to vandalism if not arson. That's seriously not cool. Edit: there are two other problems: (1) It looks like your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed, regardless of which ideology the account is battling for or against. Why? Because HN is supposed to be for curious conversation, and ideological battle is the antithesis of that. We ban accounts that are using HN primarily for this, so if you'd please stop doing that, we'd appreciate it. (2) Given your arguments in this thread and your commenting history, I'm remembering that someone complained to us about your username being an ethnic slur (https://www.google.com/search?q=%22beaner https://www.google.com/search?q=%22beaner). I emailed you about this on June 24 and you never replied. At a minimum, the username is trollish given these associations, and trollish usernames are not allowed on HN. I'm not going to ban your account for this right now because I think it's fair to give you a chance to course-correct your account to conform to the site guidelines. At the same time, I think you should be using a different username. If you want to pick a different username, we can rename it for you.
    - symlinkk 5y ago
      How is this a flamewar comment?
      - dang 5y ago
        "Oh, I see. You're arguing in bad faith." "Is it your honest interpretation of what I'm saying that [...]? Geez" "I mean, I don't think this discussion will be fruitful now" "This is like logic 101." "There is an overlap in this country. There is a relationship. Do you understand that?" "It is you making the racial connection, not me."
        ignoramous 5y ago
        Can you replicate or scale yourself and moderate reddit too? Also, twitter. If possible, youtube. And if you're up for it, then instagram. It wouldn't also hurt to police (no pun) tiktok (: There's got be a way?
  - burkaman 5y ago
    I'm following you, I agree with all this. I'd say the study I posted does somewhat account for this because it looked at many different geographic areas and therefore income levels, and found a higher proportion of Black deaths in all of them. But I agree it doesn't directly consider what you're asking. I'm not sure if the data exists for this. You'd need to record a huge sampling of police interactions and somehow classify the behavior of the civilian independent of the police to see if they were "aggressive" or "escalated", which is quite difficult. And part of the issue is that many behaviors that police often claim are aggressive are obviously not, so who gets to define these words? Very tough. Overall, I think I agree that given the data we've discussed in this thread, there's no way to prove whether or not disproportionate deaths are caused by police bias. I started this conversation to respond to a question in the Twitter thread you linked: "I'm going to keep tweeting this until someone can explain to me how this is possible if there is truly pervasive racial bias in policing". I maintain that it is absolutely possible, and seems likely given the data we have here, but definitely not proven.
- hackinthebochs 5y ago
  The issue isn't skin color causing certain behavior, but whether skin color is correlated with certain behaviors. For example, it might be the case that black people are more likely to be poor, and poor people are more likely to respond aggressively to police authority.
- ryan93 5y ago
  Compare the black and asian murder rate. But yeah you are obviously right that melanin isn't causing the violence.

by beaner 5y ago

burkaman 5y ago

I agree with that. The study doesn't account for that because it doesn't make any sense, how could skin color make a person more likely to respond with violence? Can you explain the mechanism for how a racial demographic could be "more likely to respond to a benign pullover with violence"?

beaner 5y ago
Oh, I see. You're arguing in bad faith. I don't even know how to account for that, really. Is it your honest interpretation of what I'm saying that black pignment is the literal cause of violent responses? Geez... I mean, I don't think this discussion will be fruitful now, but just in case: This is like logic 101. We're not debating that race causes behavior - it does not. But that doesn't mean there isn't an overlap between demographic and behavior. For example, there is an overlap between being black and being lower-income in this country. There is a relationship between low-income/poverty and violence. Do you understand that? Skin color is not the cause. I'm completely happy to ignore it. You could equally say "people who respond aggressively are 3x likely to be shot." It is you making the racial connection, not me.
- dang 5y ago
  Flamewar comments like this will get you banned on HN. Please review the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and please don't post like this in the future. This is obviously particularly important on provocative and divisive topics, where allowing your comments to degenerate in this way amounts to vandalism if not arson. That's seriously not cool. Edit: there are two other problems: (1) It looks like your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed, regardless of which ideology the account is battling for or against. Why? Because HN is supposed to be for curious conversation, and ideological battle is the antithesis of that. We ban accounts that are using HN primarily for this, so if you'd please stop doing that, we'd appreciate it. (2) Given your arguments in this thread and your commenting history, I'm remembering that someone complained to us about your username being an ethnic slur (https://www.google.com/search?q=%22beaner https://www.google.com/search?q=%22beaner). I emailed you about this on June 24 and you never replied. At a minimum, the username is trollish given these associations, and trollish usernames are not allowed on HN. I'm not going to ban your account for this right now because I think it's fair to give you a chance to course-correct your account to conform to the site guidelines. At the same time, I think you should be using a different username. If you want to pick a different username, we can rename it for you.
  - symlinkk 5y ago
    How is this a flamewar comment?
    - dang 5y ago
      "Oh, I see. You're arguing in bad faith." "Is it your honest interpretation of what I'm saying that [...]? Geez" "I mean, I don't think this discussion will be fruitful now" "This is like logic 101." "There is an overlap in this country. There is a relationship. Do you understand that?" "It is you making the racial connection, not me."
      - ignoramous 5y ago
        Can you replicate or scale yourself and moderate reddit too? Also, twitter. If possible, youtube. And if you're up for it, then instagram. It wouldn't also hurt to police (no pun) tiktok (: There's got be a way?
- burkaman 5y ago
  I'm following you, I agree with all this. I'd say the study I posted does somewhat account for this because it looked at many different geographic areas and therefore income levels, and found a higher proportion of Black deaths in all of them. But I agree it doesn't directly consider what you're asking. I'm not sure if the data exists for this. You'd need to record a huge sampling of police interactions and somehow classify the behavior of the civilian independent of the police to see if they were "aggressive" or "escalated", which is quite difficult. And part of the issue is that many behaviors that police often claim are aggressive are obviously not, so who gets to define these words? Very tough. Overall, I think I agree that given the data we've discussed in this thread, there's no way to prove whether or not disproportionate deaths are caused by police bias. I started this conversation to respond to a question in the Twitter thread you linked: "I'm going to keep tweeting this until someone can explain to me how this is possible if there is truly pervasive racial bias in policing". I maintain that it is absolutely possible, and seems likely given the data we have here, but definitely not proven.
hackinthebochs 5y ago
The issue isn't skin color causing certain behavior, but whether skin color is correlated with certain behaviors. For example, it might be the case that black people are more likely to be poor, and poor people are more likely to respond aggressively to police authority.
ryan93 5y ago
Compare the black and asian murder rate. But yeah you are obviously right that melanin isn't causing the violence.