5 ms·

The U.S. is a multicultural society. Aggregate measures don't tell much.

by invalidOrTaken 1y ago

lordgroff 1y ago
So is Canada -- more so in fact -- and yet...
- invalidOrTaken 1y ago
  That's my point though: and yet what?
  - lordgroff 1y ago
    It seemed to me that you were attributing the lower life expectancy due to US' diversity compared to many wealthy nations. My point was: Canada is similarly diverse and yet its life expectancy is higher.
    - invalidOrTaken 1y ago
      No, I was saying the diversity of American society means that aggregate measures won't tell us much. If Canada is similarly diverse (that seems contested, but accepting it for argument's sake) then aggregate measures there also won't tell us much.
- lapcat 1y ago
  > So is Canada -- more so in fact No, that's not a fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada?#Visible_minority_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada?#Visibl...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mystified5016 1y ago
[flagged]
- IncreasePosts 1y ago
  You're certainly reading a lot into OPs post.
  - os2warpman 1y ago
    The reply has been flagged but if they implied that the OP was being a bigoted dickhead then they were correct. Practically every single time a comment like that is made, with exceptions so rare as to be irrelevant, the commenter is implying "Well if it weren't for the blacks and immigrants we'd be on top" which isn't true.[1] But I couldn't be sure, so I looked into it. The OP is a far-right (his self-description NOT mine [2]) Christian unhealthily obsessed with commenting on posts that contain an opening into which their opinions on race and/or gender may be inserted. So, if the now-flagged comment was somehow asserting that the commenter was being a bigoted dickhead, the exact right amount of reading into was done. [1] Excluding all non-white Americans the average life expectancy would be the same. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9256789/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9256789/ (figure 1) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30468615#30470259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30468615#30470259
jimt1234 1y ago
I'm really not sure what this means. Yeah, the U.S. is a multicultural society, but so what? Are we supposed to focus only on the certain cultures and ignore others when we talk about health and life expectancy? I think I've heard this argument before in the context of gun violence in the US - as in, the US wouldn't have a gun violence problem if we excluded cities like Chicago and Baltimore from gun violence research. Is this the same basic argument?
- msgodel 1y ago
  It makes a lot of sense actually, a lot of this stuff comes down to what the smaller groups are doing. It's for the same reason no one cares about global gun violence statistics. Talking about behavior patterns of US people like they're all part of a single nation stopped making sense long ago if it ever did.
- nonameiguess 1y ago
  It matters in discussion forums like this involving ordinary people. There are two reasons we might care about statistics and trends like this. One, you're a public health official or maybe even just a voter trying to weigh various policy options or assess the success of what has already been done. In this case, sure, you have to care about national averages and other measures of central tendency and ways to characterize distributions. Two, you're an individual American trying to figure out how much you should worry about an early death. In this case, national averages or even per-culture averages seemingly mean next to nothing for you. I can't speak for all Americans, but I expect to outlive the average by quite a bit. For gun violence, it's often travelers and visitors worried they're going to get shot if they come to the US, and we're trying to tell them that whether they really need to worry heavily depends on where they're visiting. Even if they're actually visiting Chicago or Baltimore, gunshot deaths in tourist districts are damn near unheard of, and besides which, the vast majority of people ever killed by guns at all are either killed by themselves or someone who knows them. There aren't a whole lot of random stranger attacks happening anywhere.
- Muromec 1y ago
  It"s a racist dog whistle, not an actual argument

The U.S. is a multicultural society. Aggregate measures don't tell much.

lordgroff 1y ago

So is Canada -- more so in fact -- and yet...

invalidOrTaken 1y ago
That's my point though: and yet what?
- lordgroff 1y ago
  It seemed to me that you were attributing the lower life expectancy due to US' diversity compared to many wealthy nations. My point was: Canada is similarly diverse and yet its life expectancy is higher.
  - invalidOrTaken 1y ago
    No, I was saying the diversity of American society means that aggregate measures won't tell us much. If Canada is similarly diverse (that seems contested, but accepting it for argument's sake) then aggregate measures there also won't tell us much.
lapcat 1y ago
> So is Canada -- more so in fact No, that's not a fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada?#Visible_minority_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada?#Visibl...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

mystified5016 1y ago

[flagged]

IncreasePosts 1y ago
You're certainly reading a lot into OPs post.
- os2warpman 1y ago
  The reply has been flagged but if they implied that the OP was being a bigoted dickhead then they were correct. Practically every single time a comment like that is made, with exceptions so rare as to be irrelevant, the commenter is implying "Well if it weren't for the blacks and immigrants we'd be on top" which isn't true.[1] But I couldn't be sure, so I looked into it. The OP is a far-right (his self-description NOT mine [2]) Christian unhealthily obsessed with commenting on posts that contain an opening into which their opinions on race and/or gender may be inserted. So, if the now-flagged comment was somehow asserting that the commenter was being a bigoted dickhead, the exact right amount of reading into was done. [1] Excluding all non-white Americans the average life expectancy would be the same. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9256789/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9256789/ (figure 1) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30468615#30470259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30468615#30470259

jimt1234 1y ago

I'm really not sure what this means. Yeah, the U.S. is a multicultural society, but so what? Are we supposed to focus only on the certain cultures and ignore others when we talk about health and life expectancy? I think I've heard this argument before in the context of gun violence in the US - as in, the US wouldn't have a gun violence problem if we excluded cities like Chicago and Baltimore from gun violence research. Is this the same basic argument?

msgodel 1y ago
It makes a lot of sense actually, a lot of this stuff comes down to what the smaller groups are doing. It's for the same reason no one cares about global gun violence statistics. Talking about behavior patterns of US people like they're all part of a single nation stopped making sense long ago if it ever did.
nonameiguess 1y ago
It matters in discussion forums like this involving ordinary people. There are two reasons we might care about statistics and trends like this. One, you're a public health official or maybe even just a voter trying to weigh various policy options or assess the success of what has already been done. In this case, sure, you have to care about national averages and other measures of central tendency and ways to characterize distributions. Two, you're an individual American trying to figure out how much you should worry about an early death. In this case, national averages or even per-culture averages seemingly mean next to nothing for you. I can't speak for all Americans, but I expect to outlive the average by quite a bit. For gun violence, it's often travelers and visitors worried they're going to get shot if they come to the US, and we're trying to tell them that whether they really need to worry heavily depends on where they're visiting. Even if they're actually visiting Chicago or Baltimore, gunshot deaths in tourist districts are damn near unheard of, and besides which, the vast majority of people ever killed by guns at all are either killed by themselves or someone who knows them. There aren't a whole lot of random stranger attacks happening anywhere.
Muromec 1y ago
It"s a racist dog whistle, not an actual argument