Journal bmetzler's Journal: Statistics, Probability, and Oh Yeah, Something Else 3
When 70% of the people who get arrested are black, in cities where 70% of the population is black, that is not racial profiling, it is the Law of Probability.
His opinion is fascinating, but notable misguided, as the_mad_poster pointed out:
Besides, the bigger issues with prison populations are the increasing numbers of non-violent, minor drug offenders and the situations that are causing so many black people to go to jail. If you shoot and kill someone you ought to go to prison, but if you're statistically more likely to do it just because of your skin color... THAT'S what should be studied for answers.
Obviously, we have a somewhat accurate figure for what's behind bars racially. What we don't really know is what that means, both socially and statistically.
Statistically, we know that one persons actions don't affect anothers. That means that if 2 of us flip a coin, your chance of getting heads is not affected by whether I flipped a head or not. If we got a long row of people together and they flipped a coin, we'd expect that even though the coins don't affect the outcome of each other, we'd end up with 50% heads and 50% tails. Furthermore, if your line was 70% black, you would reasonably expect that 70% of the heads and tails each would be in black hands. That's the point SiliconJesus was making.
The logic is flawed though when you realize that crime is not a 50-50 chance. Each person has a choice whether to break the law or not. The fact that one does choose to doesn't make the next person less likely to not to. Hence, white people tend to have the not breaking the law part of life down a little better then black people. Since black people break more laws then white people, it is not unlikely that they are incarcerated in larger numbers. And that is the_mad_posters point. This is, of course, obvious, since in a perfect environment, we'd like the ratio of crime and justice to be 1:1.
However, the most interesting statement was the_mad_poster's last sentence. He seems to think that the color of your skin might predispose you to a certain behaviour. Which, statistically we know is rediculous. But, I like the idea. I've decided that the color of my skin has predisposed me to steal car stereos. In the_mad_poster's honor, I've decreed Jan 29th as "Choose Your Predisposition" day. Please use this JE to tell the world what the color of your skin predisposes *you* to do.
PS. I know the_mad_poster is a troll. Have fun!
Troll is as troll does... (Score:1)
Otherwise, as many times as I've seen TMP troll, I've also seen him try to make an intelligent argument - at least from a certain point of view. TMP signal to troll ratio goes higher the deeper down the 'reply' line you read, though...
That said, I believe that the supporting context left out of the statement prabably was:
The economic conditions, and the social/survival hierarchy that is prevailent in poor, urban neighborhoods, predisposes a
Family Matters (Score:2)
What a strange feeling (Score:1)
Family does matter, and I've long believed that the practice of breaking up slave families has obviously been a huge f