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The issue here is semantics and definitions of words. "Crime" is far too broad a word for there to be an overwhelming consensus as to whether it's going up or

The issue here is semantics and definitions of words. "Crime" is far too broad a word for there to be an overwhelming consensus as to whether it's going up or down. That's the main issue. If Scott A. had said "actual murders, property crime (defined as ____ ), ... and NOT perceptions of these" then there would be a more fruitful conversation. All this stuff about greek is a red herring. "Crime" is a collection of discrete events that occur or don't occur. There are more or fewer of them per time period. Whether or not those events are recorded correctly or that people are more or less aware of them can be debated, but the actual numbers are the numbers.

bombcar 6mo ago
There's also tons of nuance that doesn't get caught in "feelings" - if the homeless outside your gated community are repeatedly murdering each other, you have a "high crime rate" that you may not care about at all. But if suddenly they stop murdering each other and only kill you (or someone like you) during the year, the crime rate has gone way, way down, but your perception of it has skyrocketed.
- ronsor 6mo ago
  There's a serious problem where people look at statistics and assume the constituent components are 100% evenly distributed. This is rarely the case.
  - traderj0e 6mo ago
    People keep telling me I'd be safer if I chose a self-driving car, citing overall car crash stats. Those include people who DUI, text while drive, are way too old, or drive a Tesla or Altima, where I'm none of the above.
d-us-vb 6mo ago
No, the issue, as outlined in the post, is real problematic behavior of real people on the internet who are inclined to tell anyone who is skeptical regarding the data (whatever it may be) that they should more or less discount their personal observations, reasoning, and experience when it goes counter to the data. The post is about the author, not crime. The critique of Scott. A's posts is an example of the kind of online content that led the author to become "apostate to the Church of Graphs".
- refulgentis 6mo ago
  I'm now in LA. There are illegal food stalls over over the place. Some people like them but irrelevant, a crime is being committed, nothing is being done. So every day I see these crimes. They weren’t here 10 years ago. Hence, my experience is crime is up since I visibly see it every time I go out. This is the first example provided. It is not new, and it is legal. Don't mean to be curt, just, puzzled me to read to say the least. Googled it myself 2 months ago. [1] In general, the problem is that the strong arguments in the essay are epistemically local - they say specific things about specific measurement gaps - but they're translated into a general license to privilege vibes over data. And that move is where the essay falls apart for me. [1] https://la.streetsblog.org/2024/07/22/l-a-street-vendors-celebrate-removal-of-no-vending-restrictions-in-huge-win-against-city https://la.streetsblog.org/2024/07/22/l-a-street-vendors-cel... (note: this just removed the last barriers, temporary events (i.e. sports), farmers markets, schools)
  - BrenBarn 6mo ago
    > It is not new, and it is legal. I think this is an important point lurking behind a lot of disagreements about these kinds of issues: basically, there are a fair number of things that are legal that people don't want to be legal, and there are a fair number of things that are not legal that people do want to be legal. The first category likely includes, for instance, all manner of tax trickery practiced by the wealthy; the latter category includes things like going 75 mph on the freeway. There are also cases where it's not entirely clear what most people want, but where (I would say) the legality should be based on what most people want, but it is instead based on a complex apparatus of legal jousting and machinations by small groups of people. I would put the food stalls in this category. If more people want the food stalls in LA than do not, then they should be legal; if more people do not want them, then they should be illegal. But their legality should not depend on which advocacy group was able to muster a bigger war chest to fund their legal fees and win a court judgment one way or the other. I believe this is a symptom of fundamental failures in our system of law and government that have caused it to be quite unresponsive to the actual desires of the citizenry. This causes us to waste a lot of time and energy fighting over things like "crime" without making much progress because we are working against the grain of the social/legal apparatus that some people put in place over a long period of time.

bombcar 6mo ago

There's also tons of nuance that doesn't get caught in "feelings" - if the homeless outside your gated community are repeatedly murdering each other, you have a "high crime rate" that you may not care about at all. But if suddenly they stop murdering each other and only kill you (or someone like you) during the year, the crime rate has gone way, way down, but your perception of it has skyrocketed.

ronsor 6mo ago
There's a serious problem where people look at statistics and assume the constituent components are 100% evenly distributed. This is rarely the case.
- traderj0e 6mo ago
  People keep telling me I'd be safer if I chose a self-driving car, citing overall car crash stats. Those include people who DUI, text while drive, are way too old, or drive a Tesla or Altima, where I'm none of the above.

d-us-vb 6mo ago

No, the issue, as outlined in the post, is real problematic behavior of real people on the internet who are inclined to tell anyone who is skeptical regarding the data (whatever it may be) that they should more or less discount their personal observations, reasoning, and experience when it goes counter to the data. The post is about the author, not crime. The critique of Scott. A's posts is an example of the kind of online content that led the author to become "apostate to the Church of Graphs".

refulgentis 6mo ago
I'm now in LA. There are illegal food stalls over over the place. Some people like them but irrelevant, a crime is being committed, nothing is being done. So every day I see these crimes. They weren’t here 10 years ago. Hence, my experience is crime is up since I visibly see it every time I go out. This is the first example provided. It is not new, and it is legal. Don't mean to be curt, just, puzzled me to read to say the least. Googled it myself 2 months ago. [1] In general, the problem is that the strong arguments in the essay are epistemically local - they say specific things about specific measurement gaps - but they're translated into a general license to privilege vibes over data. And that move is where the essay falls apart for me. [1] https://la.streetsblog.org/2024/07/22/l-a-street-vendors-celebrate-removal-of-no-vending-restrictions-in-huge-win-against-city https://la.streetsblog.org/2024/07/22/l-a-street-vendors-cel... (note: this just removed the last barriers, temporary events (i.e. sports), farmers markets, schools)
- BrenBarn 6mo ago
  > It is not new, and it is legal. I think this is an important point lurking behind a lot of disagreements about these kinds of issues: basically, there are a fair number of things that are legal that people don't want to be legal, and there are a fair number of things that are not legal that people do want to be legal. The first category likely includes, for instance, all manner of tax trickery practiced by the wealthy; the latter category includes things like going 75 mph on the freeway. There are also cases where it's not entirely clear what most people want, but where (I would say) the legality should be based on what most people want, but it is instead based on a complex apparatus of legal jousting and machinations by small groups of people. I would put the food stalls in this category. If more people want the food stalls in LA than do not, then they should be legal; if more people do not want them, then they should be illegal. But their legality should not depend on which advocacy group was able to muster a bigger war chest to fund their legal fees and win a court judgment one way or the other. I believe this is a symptom of fundamental failures in our system of law and government that have caused it to be quite unresponsive to the actual desires of the citizenry. This causes us to waste a lot of time and energy fighting over things like "crime" without making much progress because we are working against the grain of the social/legal apparatus that some people put in place over a long period of time.