5 ms·

Do you really think that a previous record and terrorist acts correlate significantly?

barking 14y ago
Yes. Membership of the domestic terrorist groups in my country correlates very strongly with a history of juvenile anti-social behaviour. These youngsters frequently come into contact with these groups either when subject to vigilante punishment or 'get taken under their wing'. Most terrorists aren't university graduates
- jlgreco 14y ago
  > Membership of the domestic terrorist groups in my country correlates very strongly with a history of juvenile anti-social behaviour. Is the reverse true?
  - barking 14y ago
    Can you explain what you mean by the reverse?
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Domestic terrorists may very likely have exhibited juvenile anti-social behavior. How likely is the reverse? That is, how likely is it that someone who exhibits juvenile anti-social behavior will eventually be a domestic terrorist? My money is on "it is very unlikely", and that is a problem.
      - barking 14y ago
        That's analagous to saying it's a problem that Health screenings are often targeted at high-risk groups when the vast majority of those groups won't get the disease in any case.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        .....and, where the cost of false positives is sufficiently high and the rate of false positives is sufficiently high, that is a very relevant consideration that is in fact made by the medical community. That is just a basic of modern medicine. The world is not black and white. These are things that must be weighed and considered rationally with real data, not emotionally with fabricated absolutes. You don't get to discard half of your equation because when you include it the results don't make you feel warm and fuzzy. P(A|B) = \frac{P(B | A)\, P(A)}{P(B)} Not a hard concept.
        barking 14y ago
        I'm sorry but you have gone off on a tangent there. We weren't arguing about the effectiveness of the policy just the rationale behind it, I believe. I don't have any stats on that, do you?
        jacquesm 14y ago
        You were never arguing. You were being educated.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        jlgreco 14y ago
        A rationale that includes P(B|A) but not P(A|B) is not a rational one. I have been asking you to evaluate the legitimacy of the rationale by considering P(A|B).
        barking 14y ago
        Given that terrorists are very rare then the P(A|B) using your terminology (where A = terrorist and B= bad record) will be very low. But for for a fixed P(A) and P(B) then the higher the value there is for P(B|A) the higher the value of P(A|B) will be. If you have an enornmous haystack to search it's more efficient to look first where you're most likely to find needles.

Yes. Membership of the domestic terrorist groups in my country correlates very strongly with a history of juvenile anti-social behaviour. These youngsters frequently come into contact with these groups either when subject to vigilante punishment or 'get taken under their wing'. Most terrorists aren't university graduates

jlgreco 14y ago
> Membership of the domestic terrorist groups in my country correlates very strongly with a history of juvenile anti-social behaviour. Is the reverse true?
- barking 14y ago
  Can you explain what you mean by the reverse?
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Domestic terrorists may very likely have exhibited juvenile anti-social behavior. How likely is the reverse? That is, how likely is it that someone who exhibits juvenile anti-social behavior will eventually be a domestic terrorist? My money is on "it is very unlikely", and that is a problem.
    - barking 14y ago
      That's analagous to saying it's a problem that Health screenings are often targeted at high-risk groups when the vast majority of those groups won't get the disease in any case.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        .....and, where the cost of false positives is sufficiently high and the rate of false positives is sufficiently high, that is a very relevant consideration that is in fact made by the medical community. That is just a basic of modern medicine. The world is not black and white. These are things that must be weighed and considered rationally with real data, not emotionally with fabricated absolutes. You don't get to discard half of your equation because when you include it the results don't make you feel warm and fuzzy. P(A|B) = \frac{P(B | A)\, P(A)}{P(B)} Not a hard concept.
        barking 14y ago
        I'm sorry but you have gone off on a tangent there. We weren't arguing about the effectiveness of the policy just the rationale behind it, I believe. I don't have any stats on that, do you?
        jacquesm 14y ago
        You were never arguing. You were being educated.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        jlgreco 14y ago
        A rationale that includes P(B|A) but not P(A|B) is not a rational one. I have been asking you to evaluate the legitimacy of the rationale by considering P(A|B).
        barking 14y ago
        Given that terrorists are very rare then the P(A|B) using your terminology (where A = terrorist and B= bad record) will be very low. But for for a fixed P(A) and P(B) then the higher the value there is for P(B|A) the higher the value of P(A|B) will be. If you have an enornmous haystack to search it's more efficient to look first where you're most likely to find needles.