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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   38610 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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Do you really need machine learning or AI to do this analysis? I feel like if you gave me arrest records in an excel spreadsheet with data I could 65% of this just eyeballing and 95% if I did some regressions in excel.

My guess is you already assumed my point, and your main point is maybe outsourcing this to AI gets you thru the politics some how.

I believe the old joke is, "Machine learning is just OLS with constructed regressors."

No you don't, but you gotta get those buzzwords in if you want to get the clicks.

Saying that you used "machine learning" is so much cooler and "truthy" than making a list of everyone under 30 who's been riding with the Hell's Angels or hanging out with Crips.

Under thirty seems old. More like 'not old enough to drink'.

And my impression was that biker gangs were a bit lower risk, even as they often engaged in illegal activities they preferred not to do things the stupid way.

You're probably right.

Everyone here or like 98% knows this, but the average reader it’s probably 3-5% knows this fact.

My money would be on the reverse.

My suspicion is that most users here don't know how to spot a drug house or potential ambush where as 98% of regular folk (or at least those that have had some experience with the seedier elements of society) do, and thats why this result is being treated as novel.

Specifically meant the math bit. That this doesn’t require AI but simpler stuff.

You are probably right that society realizes a hells angel guy is more likely to die than the average citizen. I do think this place has their eyes wide open and could compete with the average guy but typical blue tribe might not.

I may have been being a little uncharitable there.

Identifying potential victims fits more easily into progressive ideology than identifying (inconvenient) perpetrators. The people victimized by crime are not, primarily, white people or the well-to-do. It's poor people and black people. If you can more effectively frame policing reform as "we need policies to protect vulnerable population from victimization from criminals," it's both harder to argue against and true. People may be willing to overlook a black man murdering an elderly Asian woman for ideological reasons, but it's much harder to take the position "we need to allow criminals to murder black people with impunity in order to protect black people."

The question is how identifying previctims benefits them. Are you going to attach a secret service detail to them?

How about this: “According to our algorithms, you have at least a 13% chance of being shot if you stay in this city. Perhaps it’s time for a new start. Join our New Leaf program today and we’ll relocate you to a new metro area on the other side of the country, and find you a basic job and lodging.”

I know, I know, I’m being hopelessly naive and idealistic. But maybe there’s a tiny fraction for whom this kind of algorithmic warning might serve as a life-changing trigger.

Unironically not even a terrible idea. See for example the studies about giving people free money. Presumably, this won't help someone deeply involved in for example a gang, but it probably would help a lot of other youths stuck in a bad economic/friend situation. Give them a housing stipend, for example, to relocate, and it could be pretty potent. At least in theory, you could even fund this with property taxes and come out ahead, since shootings do decrease property values at least a little. Or if the state ends up shouldering the medical bills, you might come out ahead too by giving them a portion of that money directly, if it actually works as an intervention. IDK how exactly the math would shake out.

I think the problem is, of course, that these shooting victims are likely people who make the places they go worse.

The elderly Asian woman getting murdered wouldn’t be overlooked. The race of the perpetrator would.

And, like, obviously, the headline from this is ‘black men more likely to be murdered by x%’. We already know this, obviously- even for unsolved homicides we have the race of the victim.

I don’t think this is any kind of breakthrough on criminal justice politics.

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