4 ms·

> Without showing the real answers, this article is more about validating people who hold an existing position rather than trying to spread knowledge to, or con

> Without showing the real answers, this article is more about validating people who hold an existing position rather than trying to spread knowledge to, or convince, people holding a neutral or contrary position. I think this is exactly the opposite of the takeaway. Republicans have been promoting the idea that Democrats are weak on crime and their city's are overrun with murders. They have been running on this message since at least Reagan in the 80s. This challenges that existing position with actual data about states. It might not be as deep as you like, but it certainly challenges the existing narrative (that's why you see so many people upset in the comments).

giantg2 5y ago
But are those upset people actually questioning their position, or defending it? Will this lead to change or better understanding? I don't think it will. Even the basic premise of the article has been essentially strawmaned - comparing states to cities. Let's look at the distribution throughout the states, look at the socioeconomic factors at play in the various locations, etc. So yeah, it's not as deep as I'd like. It seems like there's not much actual information in the article other than 80% of the top 10 states for murder rate voted for Trump, which I don't find useful or actionable.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  > But are those upset people actually questioning their position, or defending it? If they aren't questioning their assumptions, then they are engaging on the wrin > Even the basic premise of the article has been essentially strawmaned - comparing states to cities It doesn't really compare cities to states. It mentions how cities are in states, which we know. It is about how Republicans use crime in cities as a hammer to hit Democratic policies and this data shows that narrative might not reflect reality. > look at the socioeconomic factors at play in the various locations, etc. These are also a function of government in some way, so it's hard to add this to the analysis without biasing the data.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "It is about how Republicans use crime in cities as a hammer to hit Democratic policies and this data shows that narrative might not reflect reality." If it's not looking at cities, then how can it refute that claim? Is it not possible that city murder rates drag up the murder rate for an entire state? Just looking at the top state for murder rate we see the state level is about 12, while the first 3 cities in murder rate are all over 30 and run by Democrats. I'm not saying that this validates Republicans positions, but it certainly doesn't provide evidence against it. My whole point is that this is a distraction.
    - long_time_gone 5y ago
      > I'm not saying that this validates Republicans positions, but it certainly doesn't provide evidence against it. But it does. It shows that Democratic run states (California, New York, Illinois, Washington, etc.) have lower murder rates than Republican run states (Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, etc.) REGARDLESS of what the murder rate is in cities (of which Democratic-run states states tend to have more of). None of the most urbanized states (NJ, CA, MA, NV, etc.) are in the top-10 murder for states [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...
      - giantg2 5y ago
        "It shows that Democratic run states (California, New York, Illinois, Washington, etc.) have lower murder rates than Republican run states (Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, etc.)" It's only showing the top ten. If it's actually claiming that, then we would need to see the comparison of all states, because some of the Republican run states have lower rates than some some of the Democrat run states. So it seems that we can't make that absolute statement. We can see things like how New England is split between party and yet the rates are similarly low regardless of party running the state (still not addressing the city level claims). The article makes no mention of this. It simply picks the top ten, as Republicans could do for the cities with the highest murder rate. Neither address policies or the true underlying issues. On top of that, it's looking at states that voted for Trump. Why did they choose this instead of looking at the governor's party? If they did that, the top state would flip categories. Again, this article feel like a distraction that is highly politicized, mismatches counter argument to argument, and offers very little actual substance. Not to mention, the article is not presented in a way that would do anything other than validate one side's already held belief rather than dig into the topic.
- cbsmith 5y ago
  > It seems like there's not much actual information in the article other than 80% of the top 10 states for murder rate voted for Trump, which I don't find useful or actionable. I guess it depends on what you mean by actionable. If by actionable, you mean "changing my vote won't necessarily have an impact on the murder rate", I'd very much agree with you. However, I'd say it's actionable as in, "I should stop accepting and/or repeating a false narrative", I think that action is warranted. Sure, if you could find data showing that when you look at the city level, that there was a distinct rise in the murder rate based on partisan leadership that differed from state-level trends, you could maybe make that case. However, it seems incredibly implausible that states with larger cities, cities more often lead by Democrats, and with a larger portion of their population in those cities, would have a lower murder rate and a lower increase in their murder rate, yet the larger trend of increased murders would be due to disproportionate increases in murder in cities lead by Democrats. At the very least, it would require that States that broadly vote Democrat would in aggregate have dramatically lower murders and increases in murders, which would also be in conflict with the partisan narrative. Confirmation bias tends to manifest as a desire for more in-depth analysis for statements that violate one's expectations, but the rational case here is that the prevailing narrative needs far more in-depth analysis to deserve any kind of support.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    What I mean is that if policies are are supposedly linked to increases in crime, then we should be evaluating them at a policy level, not a partisan level. The surface debate is just a bunch of partisan finger pointing and strawmanning (especially for the point of politicians getting their comments on the news), which covers up the real debate about underlying policy. I don't know, but I feel like wanting to have articles that report meaningful information and analysis on the policies is not confirmation bias, but a desire to have informed debate about things that actually matter.
    - cbsmith 5y ago
      > What I mean is that if policies are are supposedly linked to increases in crime, then we should be evaluating them at a policy level, not a partisan level. Yes, I would totally agree, but that isn't the nature of the prevailing narrative. > The surface debate is just a bunch of partisan finger pointing and strawmanning (especially for the point of politicians getting their comments on the news), which covers up the real debate about underlying policy. Bingo! You've hit the central point of the article. > I don't know, but I feel like wanting to have articles that report meaningful information and analysis on the policies is not confirmation bias, but a desire to have informed debate about things that actually matter. Agreed, wanting to have more meaningful information & analysis is not about confirmation bias. Wanting to have more meaningful information & analysis before accepting/repeating a narrative is confirmation bias. The article isn't trying to suggest that Republicans or their policies are causing an increase in crime. It's trying to show that if you're looking at national trends in the data, it doesn't point to anything supporting the prevailing narrative. The natural next thought is, "what is the data supporting the prevailing narrative?", and the answer to that ought to raise at least as many questions about the prevailing narrative as it does this article.

giantg2 5y ago

But are those upset people actually questioning their position, or defending it? Will this lead to change or better understanding? I don't think it will. Even the basic premise of the article has been essentially strawmaned - comparing states to cities. Let's look at the distribution throughout the states, look at the socioeconomic factors at play in the various locations, etc. So yeah, it's not as deep as I'd like. It seems like there's not much actual information in the article other than 80% of the top 10 states for murder rate voted for Trump, which I don't find useful or actionable.

long_time_gone 5y ago
> But are those upset people actually questioning their position, or defending it? If they aren't questioning their assumptions, then they are engaging on the wrin > Even the basic premise of the article has been essentially strawmaned - comparing states to cities It doesn't really compare cities to states. It mentions how cities are in states, which we know. It is about how Republicans use crime in cities as a hammer to hit Democratic policies and this data shows that narrative might not reflect reality. > look at the socioeconomic factors at play in the various locations, etc. These are also a function of government in some way, so it's hard to add this to the analysis without biasing the data.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "It is about how Republicans use crime in cities as a hammer to hit Democratic policies and this data shows that narrative might not reflect reality." If it's not looking at cities, then how can it refute that claim? Is it not possible that city murder rates drag up the murder rate for an entire state? Just looking at the top state for murder rate we see the state level is about 12, while the first 3 cities in murder rate are all over 30 and run by Democrats. I'm not saying that this validates Republicans positions, but it certainly doesn't provide evidence against it. My whole point is that this is a distraction.
  - long_time_gone 5y ago
    > I'm not saying that this validates Republicans positions, but it certainly doesn't provide evidence against it. But it does. It shows that Democratic run states (California, New York, Illinois, Washington, etc.) have lower murder rates than Republican run states (Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, etc.) REGARDLESS of what the murder rate is in cities (of which Democratic-run states states tend to have more of). None of the most urbanized states (NJ, CA, MA, NV, etc.) are in the top-10 murder for states [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...
    - giantg2 5y ago
      "It shows that Democratic run states (California, New York, Illinois, Washington, etc.) have lower murder rates than Republican run states (Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, etc.)" It's only showing the top ten. If it's actually claiming that, then we would need to see the comparison of all states, because some of the Republican run states have lower rates than some some of the Democrat run states. So it seems that we can't make that absolute statement. We can see things like how New England is split between party and yet the rates are similarly low regardless of party running the state (still not addressing the city level claims). The article makes no mention of this. It simply picks the top ten, as Republicans could do for the cities with the highest murder rate. Neither address policies or the true underlying issues. On top of that, it's looking at states that voted for Trump. Why did they choose this instead of looking at the governor's party? If they did that, the top state would flip categories. Again, this article feel like a distraction that is highly politicized, mismatches counter argument to argument, and offers very little actual substance. Not to mention, the article is not presented in a way that would do anything other than validate one side's already held belief rather than dig into the topic.
cbsmith 5y ago
> It seems like there's not much actual information in the article other than 80% of the top 10 states for murder rate voted for Trump, which I don't find useful or actionable. I guess it depends on what you mean by actionable. If by actionable, you mean "changing my vote won't necessarily have an impact on the murder rate", I'd very much agree with you. However, I'd say it's actionable as in, "I should stop accepting and/or repeating a false narrative", I think that action is warranted. Sure, if you could find data showing that when you look at the city level, that there was a distinct rise in the murder rate based on partisan leadership that differed from state-level trends, you could maybe make that case. However, it seems incredibly implausible that states with larger cities, cities more often lead by Democrats, and with a larger portion of their population in those cities, would have a lower murder rate and a lower increase in their murder rate, yet the larger trend of increased murders would be due to disproportionate increases in murder in cities lead by Democrats. At the very least, it would require that States that broadly vote Democrat would in aggregate have dramatically lower murders and increases in murders, which would also be in conflict with the partisan narrative. Confirmation bias tends to manifest as a desire for more in-depth analysis for statements that violate one's expectations, but the rational case here is that the prevailing narrative needs far more in-depth analysis to deserve any kind of support.
- giantg2 5y ago
  What I mean is that if policies are are supposedly linked to increases in crime, then we should be evaluating them at a policy level, not a partisan level. The surface debate is just a bunch of partisan finger pointing and strawmanning (especially for the point of politicians getting their comments on the news), which covers up the real debate about underlying policy. I don't know, but I feel like wanting to have articles that report meaningful information and analysis on the policies is not confirmation bias, but a desire to have informed debate about things that actually matter.
  - cbsmith 5y ago
    > What I mean is that if policies are are supposedly linked to increases in crime, then we should be evaluating them at a policy level, not a partisan level. Yes, I would totally agree, but that isn't the nature of the prevailing narrative. > The surface debate is just a bunch of partisan finger pointing and strawmanning (especially for the point of politicians getting their comments on the news), which covers up the real debate about underlying policy. Bingo! You've hit the central point of the article. > I don't know, but I feel like wanting to have articles that report meaningful information and analysis on the policies is not confirmation bias, but a desire to have informed debate about things that actually matter. Agreed, wanting to have more meaningful information & analysis is not about confirmation bias. Wanting to have more meaningful information & analysis before accepting/repeating a narrative is confirmation bias. The article isn't trying to suggest that Republicans or their policies are causing an increase in crime. It's trying to show that if you're looking at national trends in the data, it doesn't point to anything supporting the prevailing narrative. The natural next thought is, "what is the data supporting the prevailing narrative?", and the answer to that ought to raise at least as many questions about the prevailing narrative as it does this article.