5 ms·

Charts like this are misleading because they don't take age into account. It's not really noteworthy that old people die of heart disease and cancer. I believ

Charts like this are misleading because they don't take age into account. It's not really noteworthy that old people die of heart disease and cancer. I believe a better chart would be weighted by life expectancy loss. For example if a 12yo gets murdered society considers it a much more significant loss than a 90yo having a heart attack. Similarly your level of safety in a city is more a function of the rate of random crime vs. the often cited city's overall murder rate. This difference explains why some cities that feel safe actually have a high homicide rate and vice-versa. In some cities crime is unpredictable whereas in others it is more confined to areas where visitors rarely travel.

j-bos 1y ago
Agreed, this would make for a great standard in mortality metrics.
BeetleB 1y ago
> For example if a 12yo gets murdered society considers it a much more significant loss than a 90yo having a heart attack. All you're saying is that the news coverage is a reflection of the biases people have (like the one above).
- Braxton1980 1y ago
  Or they report on what they think people would be interested in. I suppose that's a bias but it's an suspicious use of the word. Biases become a problem if a person has one and doesn't take it into account when making a decision. The news is making the coverage decision not the person with the bias unless you count an indirect viewership loss that may occur.
  - jakeydus 1y ago
    Agreed. I think the newscaster joke in arrested development was a solid demonstration of this point. For those who don't know it, the showrunners would frequently insert a news clip of the same reporter summarizing whatever silly plot was going on, ending with: "What this means for your weekend, at 10." Honestly that's what people watch the news for. What are external factors that they were previously unaware of that might impact their lives (or weekends)? Most (not all) people are aware of the dangers posed by heart disease. They're not watching the news to learn about something they're already aware of. I might be beating this horse to a second death, but there's a section of road near where I live that's dangerous, and we all know it's dangerous. It's not newsworthy. If another section of road collapsed and introduced a new danger, then that's newsworthy. News is newsworthy because it's new and unfamiliar. If something is reported on that's old and unfamiliar, then that's a documentary. If it's new and familiar, then that's a paradox. Or maybe a fun anecdote at a party.
    - bkettle 1y ago
      > there's a section of road near where I live that's dangerous, and we all know it's dangerous Clearly not enough people know it’s dangerous or how dangerous it is, or one of them would do something about it
      - jakeydus 1y ago
        It's a rural area with limited resources. We drive slow for that turn.
tidbits 1y ago
City Nerd made a good video on how crime statistics often incorrectly compare to a cities overall safety: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m4jG1i7jHSM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m4jG1i7jHSM
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
giantg2 1y ago
You could also just cap it 49 or 54 years old. A lot of medical research does this when looking into things like cancers. It gives a pretty good indication of whats going on during early and prime year without as much longevity bias or 'old age/natural causes' deaths skewing the data. If you make it fully age weighted then you might adjust away things like murder for the 35+ crowd, or overinflate things like SIDS, drowning, and childhood cancers.
andrewmutz 1y ago
> Charts like this are misleading because they don't take age into account. It's not really noteworthy that old people die of heart disease and cancer. I think this is the whole point of the article. The news does not cover reality as it is, it selects information that is noteworthy and drives clicks/views/engagement/ad revenue. This is why the news has been shown to increasingly misrepresent reality: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32026 https://www.nber.org/papers/w32026
- monero-xmr 1y ago
  It also has to do with “deserving” death, or injustice. Someone who is obese dies of a chronic illness, or a smoker, etc. doesn’t register as news, or even the cause themselves, because the vast majority of obese people and smokers know themselves that their lifestyles lead to illness and early death. But dying from a criminal act? It’s undeserved and arguably more easily preventable than grand lifestyle changes across the whole population. If a felon with 50+ arrests murders someone, a “quick” adjustment in laws could prevent it in the future
  - atonse 1y ago
    I wonder gang related violence gets more coverage only if it results in innocent victims. Deserved vs undeserved. Probably does.
    - monero-xmr 1y ago
      Gang violence among gang members is a life style choice. For children involved in gang violence it’s much more problematic. An adult who freely chooses to make their living on the street is a bit less unnerving as the lifestyle can lead there. When an innocent person is shot during gang violence, it is much more newsworthy. I would also like to stop gang violence but this often means “throwing the book” at gang members, which is often disliked by many activists. I myself live in a safe area of a major city, and there are gang murders in my neighborhood occasionally. It makes my relatives and friends ask how I can live here. But a grown man shot in his car at 3am over a drug deal doesn’t make me feel that less unsafe, and I have kids here
jowea 1y ago
I believe homicide rate is frequently cited simply because it's the only crime rate that is remotely reliable. Other crimes get underreported but it's hard for the police to ignore a body with a gunshot wound. Although it would be an interesting chart. But the distinction between what is noteworthy/newsworthy and what actually kills is precisely the point of investigating this topic.
hombre_fatal 1y ago
On the other hand, you're most likely to die of heart disease, yet the interventions needed push heart disease well into old age should start as young as possible. So if you wanted to improve your diet and lifestyle, it makes more sense to first pull the major levers that avoid or postpone your most likely killers before you, say, worry about food dyes. Yet not even our new HHS seems to understand that.
themafia 1y ago
> Charts like this are misleading because they don't take age into account Age is not evenly distributed across the population. You could just break this down into age brackets and show a chart for each bracket. > I believe a better chart would be weighted by life expectancy loss. The original data does have adjusted statistics similar to this: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db521.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db521.pdf > Similarly your level of safety in a city is more a function of the rate of random crime vs. the often cited city's overall murder rate. Accidental death is the #3 cause of death. Your level of safety is primarily down to your own actions. Ladders are the most dangerous piece of equipment commonly owned. Murder and random crime are a minor fraction of this category. Suicide is twice as common as murder. > crime is unpredictable Types of crime maybe. Location of crime? Almost completely predictable.
- thfuran 1y ago
  >Age is not evenly distributed across the population But luckily, unlike wealth inequality, age inequality is decreasing. Fewer people have little of it and more people have more of it than ever before in this country.
AstroBen 1y ago
In terms of younger people, a really surprising thing I learnt the other day: "for Americans age 18-45, the leading cause of death is fentanyl overdose" Odd this article doesn't even mention it.. well actually apparently its "4x over-reported"
ekianjo 1y ago
It's not about age. It's about deviations from expectations. No newspaper is going to write "grey elephant crosses street" but you can be sure they will report "pink elephant crosses street" because it's unusual.
paulddraper 1y ago
Same thing happened with COVID. An overwhelming majority of deaths were the elderly. Weirdly so. Kids (outside of pre existing conditions) were basically immune, better off than the flu. The “life expectancy loss” metric was much different than raw numbers.
- paulryanrogers 1y ago
  Was COVID less harmful to kids than the flu? Organ damage and lung capacity may tell a different story as the cohort ages.
  - alexey-salmin 1y ago
    The real question is: was COVID less harmful for kids than lockdowns. I'm relatively confident it was.
Vaslo 1y ago
But almost no 14 year olds get murdered. When you take it as a percent of all 14 year olds, it’s almost nothing. Certainly not an excuse to pull guns from millions of legal owners who have a right to protect themselves no matter how much the media and the left sensationalize it.
- bdufiddbrnrnf 1y ago
  You have the right to own guns so that they can be used to defend against a tyrant attempting to take over the country. You have guns so that you can defend the fundamental principles and rights on which your country was founded. Now that you have elected a tyrant, who wants to destroy everything that made America special, I don’t think you should really be allowed to own guns. The premise for that right has been invalidated. We are living through a demonstration of its failure. Why should you be allowed to own a gun? What is the rationale for that right? Because as far as I can tell Americans have proven that they never deserved it. The constitution does not talk about self-defence. The constitution does not talk about hunting. The constitution does not talk about sports shooting. The constitution talks about protecting freedom, and instead you have voluntarily surrendered it. You don’t deserve guns and you don’t deserve freedom. You deserve nothing.

j-bos 1y ago

Agreed, this would make for a great standard in mortality metrics.

BeetleB 1y ago

> For example if a 12yo gets murdered society considers it a much more significant loss than a 90yo having a heart attack. All you're saying is that the news coverage is a reflection of the biases people have (like the one above).

Braxton1980 1y ago
Or they report on what they think people would be interested in. I suppose that's a bias but it's an suspicious use of the word. Biases become a problem if a person has one and doesn't take it into account when making a decision. The news is making the coverage decision not the person with the bias unless you count an indirect viewership loss that may occur.
- jakeydus 1y ago
  Agreed. I think the newscaster joke in arrested development was a solid demonstration of this point. For those who don't know it, the showrunners would frequently insert a news clip of the same reporter summarizing whatever silly plot was going on, ending with: "What this means for your weekend, at 10." Honestly that's what people watch the news for. What are external factors that they were previously unaware of that might impact their lives (or weekends)? Most (not all) people are aware of the dangers posed by heart disease. They're not watching the news to learn about something they're already aware of. I might be beating this horse to a second death, but there's a section of road near where I live that's dangerous, and we all know it's dangerous. It's not newsworthy. If another section of road collapsed and introduced a new danger, then that's newsworthy. News is newsworthy because it's new and unfamiliar. If something is reported on that's old and unfamiliar, then that's a documentary. If it's new and familiar, then that's a paradox. Or maybe a fun anecdote at a party.
  - bkettle 1y ago
    > there's a section of road near where I live that's dangerous, and we all know it's dangerous Clearly not enough people know it’s dangerous or how dangerous it is, or one of them would do something about it
    - jakeydus 1y ago
      It's a rural area with limited resources. We drive slow for that turn.

tidbits 1y ago

City Nerd made a good video on how crime statistics often incorrectly compare to a cities overall safety: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m4jG1i7jHSM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m4jG1i7jHSM

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

giantg2 1y ago

You could also just cap it 49 or 54 years old. A lot of medical research does this when looking into things like cancers. It gives a pretty good indication of whats going on during early and prime year without as much longevity bias or 'old age/natural causes' deaths skewing the data. If you make it fully age weighted then you might adjust away things like murder for the 35+ crowd, or overinflate things like SIDS, drowning, and childhood cancers.

andrewmutz 1y ago

> Charts like this are misleading because they don't take age into account. It's not really noteworthy that old people die of heart disease and cancer. I think this is the whole point of the article. The news does not cover reality as it is, it selects information that is noteworthy and drives clicks/views/engagement/ad revenue. This is why the news has been shown to increasingly misrepresent reality: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32026 https://www.nber.org/papers/w32026

monero-xmr 1y ago
It also has to do with “deserving” death, or injustice. Someone who is obese dies of a chronic illness, or a smoker, etc. doesn’t register as news, or even the cause themselves, because the vast majority of obese people and smokers know themselves that their lifestyles lead to illness and early death. But dying from a criminal act? It’s undeserved and arguably more easily preventable than grand lifestyle changes across the whole population. If a felon with 50+ arrests murders someone, a “quick” adjustment in laws could prevent it in the future
- atonse 1y ago
  I wonder gang related violence gets more coverage only if it results in innocent victims. Deserved vs undeserved. Probably does.
  - monero-xmr 1y ago
    Gang violence among gang members is a life style choice. For children involved in gang violence it’s much more problematic. An adult who freely chooses to make their living on the street is a bit less unnerving as the lifestyle can lead there. When an innocent person is shot during gang violence, it is much more newsworthy. I would also like to stop gang violence but this often means “throwing the book” at gang members, which is often disliked by many activists. I myself live in a safe area of a major city, and there are gang murders in my neighborhood occasionally. It makes my relatives and friends ask how I can live here. But a grown man shot in his car at 3am over a drug deal doesn’t make me feel that less unsafe, and I have kids here

jowea 1y ago

I believe homicide rate is frequently cited simply because it's the only crime rate that is remotely reliable. Other crimes get underreported but it's hard for the police to ignore a body with a gunshot wound. Although it would be an interesting chart. But the distinction between what is noteworthy/newsworthy and what actually kills is precisely the point of investigating this topic.

hombre_fatal 1y ago

On the other hand, you're most likely to die of heart disease, yet the interventions needed push heart disease well into old age should start as young as possible. So if you wanted to improve your diet and lifestyle, it makes more sense to first pull the major levers that avoid or postpone your most likely killers before you, say, worry about food dyes. Yet not even our new HHS seems to understand that.

themafia 1y ago

> Charts like this are misleading because they don't take age into account Age is not evenly distributed across the population. You could just break this down into age brackets and show a chart for each bracket. > I believe a better chart would be weighted by life expectancy loss. The original data does have adjusted statistics similar to this: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db521.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db521.pdf > Similarly your level of safety in a city is more a function of the rate of random crime vs. the often cited city's overall murder rate. Accidental death is the #3 cause of death. Your level of safety is primarily down to your own actions. Ladders are the most dangerous piece of equipment commonly owned. Murder and random crime are a minor fraction of this category. Suicide is twice as common as murder. > crime is unpredictable Types of crime maybe. Location of crime? Almost completely predictable.

thfuran 1y ago
>Age is not evenly distributed across the population But luckily, unlike wealth inequality, age inequality is decreasing. Fewer people have little of it and more people have more of it than ever before in this country.

AstroBen 1y ago

In terms of younger people, a really surprising thing I learnt the other day: "for Americans age 18-45, the leading cause of death is fentanyl overdose" Odd this article doesn't even mention it.. well actually apparently its "4x over-reported"

ekianjo 1y ago

It's not about age. It's about deviations from expectations. No newspaper is going to write "grey elephant crosses street" but you can be sure they will report "pink elephant crosses street" because it's unusual.

paulddraper 1y ago

Same thing happened with COVID. An overwhelming majority of deaths were the elderly. Weirdly so. Kids (outside of pre existing conditions) were basically immune, better off than the flu. The “life expectancy loss” metric was much different than raw numbers.

paulryanrogers 1y ago
Was COVID less harmful to kids than the flu? Organ damage and lung capacity may tell a different story as the cohort ages.
- alexey-salmin 1y ago
  The real question is: was COVID less harmful for kids than lockdowns. I'm relatively confident it was.

Vaslo 1y ago

But almost no 14 year olds get murdered. When you take it as a percent of all 14 year olds, it’s almost nothing. Certainly not an excuse to pull guns from millions of legal owners who have a right to protect themselves no matter how much the media and the left sensationalize it.

bdufiddbrnrnf 1y ago
You have the right to own guns so that they can be used to defend against a tyrant attempting to take over the country. You have guns so that you can defend the fundamental principles and rights on which your country was founded. Now that you have elected a tyrant, who wants to destroy everything that made America special, I don’t think you should really be allowed to own guns. The premise for that right has been invalidated. We are living through a demonstration of its failure. Why should you be allowed to own a gun? What is the rationale for that right? Because as far as I can tell Americans have proven that they never deserved it. The constitution does not talk about self-defence. The constitution does not talk about hunting. The constitution does not talk about sports shooting. The constitution talks about protecting freedom, and instead you have voluntarily surrendered it. You don’t deserve guns and you don’t deserve freedom. You deserve nothing.