3 ms·

> If you're looking, you can find them. Could you give us a hint?

mjd 5mo ago
Hit-and-run vehicle collisions. Innocent bystanders of gang violence. Factory workers killed by industrial machinery. That chemical tank in Los Angeles that is about to explode. Woman in Arkansas with ectopic pregnancy. (Abortion is illegal in Arkansas.) Now you think of one.
- like_any_other 5mo ago
  Abortion in Arkansas is legal to save the life of the mother: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Arkansas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Arkansas None of your other examples are comparable to the story. They're not deliberate deaths caused by adherence to some tradition. They wouldn't be prevented if people "just stopped doing it". They're accidents and violence, that we've taken reasonable steps to prevent (traffic laws, car safety standards, the criminal justice system, worker safety laws,...), but haven't been 100% successful.
  - mjd 5mo ago
    “She Faced a Life-Threatening Miscarriage. Under Arkansas’ Abortion Ban, Even Calls to the Governor’s Office Didn’t Help.” That's from this morning, reported in ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/arkansas-abortion-ban-miscarriage-care https://www.propublica.org/article/arkansas-abortion-ban-mis...
    - like_any_other 5mo ago
      Then the example is valid.
  - mjd 5mo ago
    The comment I was responding to asked for examples of “lotteries you don't see, because you're used to them, and they're just part of how the world works, like this one is to the people in the story”. The comment wasn't asking for “deliberate deaths caused by adherence to some tradition”.
    - like_any_other 5mo ago
      Expanding the idea of "lottery" that much makes it meaningless, and useless as social commentary. Sometimes people die of cancer, or lightning, or shark attacks, and eventually of old age. What insight is there in calling them "lotteries you don't see"?
      - gord288 5mo ago
        None of your three examples are actions that are willingly (either actively or passively) carried out collectively by people in society.
  - gord288 5mo ago
    Supposed “exceptions” for the life of the mother are largely ineffective in practice. By design. https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/jun/23/all-abortion-bans-include-exceptions-for-a-mothers/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/jun/23/all-abortion-...
digdugdirk 5mo ago
Being born to the wrong parents, or in the wrong neighbourhood, or with any number of medical issues.
jhbadger 5mo ago
At the time (1948), lynchings of Black people accused of crimes (or just not suitablely "humble") were still practiced in the South and some people seriously defended the practice as part of Southern tradition.
- like_any_other 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - gord288 5mo ago
    >overzealous lynching did I believe sometimes cross the line Very magnanimous of you to acknowledge that.
    - like_any_other 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - gord288 5mo ago
        Extrajudicial executions are never justified. They are normally referred to as “murders”.
  - wwweston 5mo ago
    And we treat the 2018 murders you're invoking as crimes. Problems to be solved. Most people do not accept that's just how it should be. Almost everyone believes murder should be illegal, policed, prevented where possible, charged prosecuted and punished where it can't be prevented so that it's discouraged. And done through a court / justice system where the process itself isn't just a lottery (whatever improvements we could make here). The lynchings? Part of the problem was that enough of the societies where they happened did accept those as part of the social order. And they were undisciplined in a way that allowed them to be esentially lotteries -- no requirement for any kind of hearing, no right to defense or appeal, no right for others to know how well any accusation stands up, no right for anyone to even know who the lynchers are. Supposed offenses could be trivial if not entirely fabricated, to cover nothing more than ugly bullying. The contrast between the two situations could scarcely be starker. And that's before we get to the ridiculous racial fearmongering that you're selling. You want to talk about 2018 murders? It doesn't look like you want to do that carefully and honesty. If anything the 2018 data shows white people as the disproportionate threat to white people. Because of the 3,315 white murder victims where an alleged/established perp has been identified closely enough to talk about their race, it appears that 2,677 were killed by white people. That's 80% of white murder victims killed by white people. This is above proportion of the population that's white at a level that's beyond noise (about 60% of the US is "non-hispanic white", maybe we move up to 75% if we're lumping in white-alone-identifying hispanics and assume that the criminal justice system also errs on the side of assigning perps "white"). 514 murders where the perp is black would mean about 15% of white murder victims were killed by black people. Estimates of the portion of the US that's black run about 12-15%, so this tracks proportion. 2018 statistics make it look like, if anything, whites are in more danger from their fellow white people than from a racially integrated society (and this sure tracks the lived experience of most white guys I know). And if someone says "well, of course white people are killed by more of their fellow white people because that's where they voluntarily associate" ... that wouldn't change the statistically demonstrated nature of the threat, it would only highlight how limited racial integration actually is (and how much more ridiculous it is to complain it "kills whites"). https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
wwweston 5mo ago
Perhaps like Jackson, I think it can be useful to prompt people in a way that might nudge them to notice on their own. Giving examples of specific "lotteries" I see is just as likely to activate those psychological mechanisms I talked about (or a partisan frame) as it is to open anyone's eyes. If you want hints, though, watch for where you see the psychological mechanisms in yourself or others. "Those people just didn't do the right things. They should have been more careful, more prepared, more like the people who didn't get stoned. They should have done it the right way. They should have known their place. And if it's their time, well, what are you gonna do, mondays amirite?" If you hear someone saying something like that, if you find yourself saying it... interrogate that. There may sometimes be real truth to it. But ask yourself: is that really all there is to it? Does the world have to be that way? If it were your child who "drew the lot", would you be satisfied?

mjd 5mo ago

Hit-and-run vehicle collisions. Innocent bystanders of gang violence. Factory workers killed by industrial machinery. That chemical tank in Los Angeles that is about to explode. Woman in Arkansas with ectopic pregnancy. (Abortion is illegal in Arkansas.) Now you think of one.

like_any_other 5mo ago
Abortion in Arkansas is legal to save the life of the mother: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Arkansas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Arkansas None of your other examples are comparable to the story. They're not deliberate deaths caused by adherence to some tradition. They wouldn't be prevented if people "just stopped doing it". They're accidents and violence, that we've taken reasonable steps to prevent (traffic laws, car safety standards, the criminal justice system, worker safety laws,...), but haven't been 100% successful.
- mjd 5mo ago
  “She Faced a Life-Threatening Miscarriage. Under Arkansas’ Abortion Ban, Even Calls to the Governor’s Office Didn’t Help.” That's from this morning, reported in ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/arkansas-abortion-ban-miscarriage-care https://www.propublica.org/article/arkansas-abortion-ban-mis...
  - like_any_other 5mo ago
    Then the example is valid.
- mjd 5mo ago
  The comment I was responding to asked for examples of “lotteries you don't see, because you're used to them, and they're just part of how the world works, like this one is to the people in the story”. The comment wasn't asking for “deliberate deaths caused by adherence to some tradition”.
  - like_any_other 5mo ago
    Expanding the idea of "lottery" that much makes it meaningless, and useless as social commentary. Sometimes people die of cancer, or lightning, or shark attacks, and eventually of old age. What insight is there in calling them "lotteries you don't see"?
    - gord288 5mo ago
      None of your three examples are actions that are willingly (either actively or passively) carried out collectively by people in society.
- gord288 5mo ago
  Supposed “exceptions” for the life of the mother are largely ineffective in practice. By design. https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/jun/23/all-abortion-bans-include-exceptions-for-a-mothers/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/jun/23/all-abortion-...

digdugdirk 5mo ago

Being born to the wrong parents, or in the wrong neighbourhood, or with any number of medical issues.

jhbadger 5mo ago

At the time (1948), lynchings of Black people accused of crimes (or just not suitablely "humble") were still practiced in the South and some people seriously defended the practice as part of Southern tradition.

like_any_other 5mo ago
[flagged]
- gord288 5mo ago
  >overzealous lynching did I believe sometimes cross the line Very magnanimous of you to acknowledge that.
  - like_any_other 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - gord288 5mo ago
      Extrajudicial executions are never justified. They are normally referred to as “murders”.
- wwweston 5mo ago
  And we treat the 2018 murders you're invoking as crimes. Problems to be solved. Most people do not accept that's just how it should be. Almost everyone believes murder should be illegal, policed, prevented where possible, charged prosecuted and punished where it can't be prevented so that it's discouraged. And done through a court / justice system where the process itself isn't just a lottery (whatever improvements we could make here). The lynchings? Part of the problem was that enough of the societies where they happened did accept those as part of the social order. And they were undisciplined in a way that allowed them to be esentially lotteries -- no requirement for any kind of hearing, no right to defense or appeal, no right for others to know how well any accusation stands up, no right for anyone to even know who the lynchers are. Supposed offenses could be trivial if not entirely fabricated, to cover nothing more than ugly bullying. The contrast between the two situations could scarcely be starker. And that's before we get to the ridiculous racial fearmongering that you're selling. You want to talk about 2018 murders? It doesn't look like you want to do that carefully and honesty. If anything the 2018 data shows white people as the disproportionate threat to white people. Because of the 3,315 white murder victims where an alleged/established perp has been identified closely enough to talk about their race, it appears that 2,677 were killed by white people. That's 80% of white murder victims killed by white people. This is above proportion of the population that's white at a level that's beyond noise (about 60% of the US is "non-hispanic white", maybe we move up to 75% if we're lumping in white-alone-identifying hispanics and assume that the criminal justice system also errs on the side of assigning perps "white"). 514 murders where the perp is black would mean about 15% of white murder victims were killed by black people. Estimates of the portion of the US that's black run about 12-15%, so this tracks proportion. 2018 statistics make it look like, if anything, whites are in more danger from their fellow white people than from a racially integrated society (and this sure tracks the lived experience of most white guys I know). And if someone says "well, of course white people are killed by more of their fellow white people because that's where they voluntarily associate" ... that wouldn't change the statistically demonstrated nature of the threat, it would only highlight how limited racial integration actually is (and how much more ridiculous it is to complain it "kills whites"). https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

wwweston 5mo ago

Perhaps like Jackson, I think it can be useful to prompt people in a way that might nudge them to notice on their own. Giving examples of specific "lotteries" I see is just as likely to activate those psychological mechanisms I talked about (or a partisan frame) as it is to open anyone's eyes. If you want hints, though, watch for where you see the psychological mechanisms in yourself or others. "Those people just didn't do the right things. They should have been more careful, more prepared, more like the people who didn't get stoned. They should have done it the right way. They should have known their place. And if it's their time, well, what are you gonna do, mondays amirite?" If you hear someone saying something like that, if you find yourself saying it... interrogate that. There may sometimes be real truth to it. But ask yourself: is that really all there is to it? Does the world have to be that way? If it were your child who "drew the lot", would you be satisfied?