The Political Thread

[TordelBack]

WHAT KIND OF RULER WOULD YOU BE?

12 inches.


No damnit, Democratic President 77%.  Gruddamnit, that's no fun.

[NapalmKev]

WHAT KIND OF RULER WOULD YOU BE?

12 inches.


No damnit, Democratic President 77%.  Gruddamnit, that's no fun.

74% Anarchist.

Cheers

[JayzusB.Christ]

My own result - 86% Big Brother. My people are like children, easily led and unsure of what is in their best interests.

May I refer you back to the Ayn Rand discussion a few pages back? 

NapalmKev; I think my Anarchist score was lower than yours; so I'll be the Evey to your V.

[Dandontdare]

yup, another anarchist here!

[TordelBack]

I'm still pretty disappointed to find I'd be just as boring a Glorious Leader as I am a Lumpen Prole.

Very well then, if I can't be an anarchist I'll just have to reinvent myself in course of a long journey through the dark heart of the emerald isle, and emerge with a hate-filled manifesto of rigid propriety and adherence to an imagined norm.  You'll be sorry, you'll all be sorry.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

I'll just have to reinvent myself in course of a long journey through the dark heart of the emerald isle, and emerge with a hate-filled manifesto of rigid propriety and adherence to an imagined norm.

So you're coming up north to join the DUP?

[TordelBack]

So you're coming up north to join the DUP?

Damn you!  Even in my sacrificial rejection of all I hold dear, I end up conforming! 

I now see where Ribena Hardly-Lucidberry was coming from.  Grape costume it is, then.

[Proudhuff]

Blip Blip!!

[TordelBack]

Anyone see the always-wonderful Hans Rosling's Don't Panic on the Beeb last night?  If not, get thee to iPlayer: a great overview of a brilliant man's thoughts, with his usual showmanlike exploration of global demographics, poverty and resource distribution, worth a look for the remarkable still-cutting-edge animated Trendalyser graphs he presents alone, and the gift of being able to drop the phrases 'Peak Child' and '80% literacy' over after-dinner drinks at the club.

Yes, it had all the patronising stylings you'd expect from a Swedish UN doctor-statistician sword-swallower, but there's so much to like in Rosling's conclusions and attitude, even if you're already aware of the raw numbers.  He offers population expansion not as an uncontrollable malthusian crisis but as an inevitable map of the future with clear stages, geography and outcome - and thus a well-defined set of (massive) challenges that can be addressed rationally. 

His numbers are clear, and in aggregate largely irrefutable: 11 billion people by 2100: 1 billion in Europe, 1 billion in the Americas, 4 billion in Africa, 5 billion in Asia.  And then that is it, no further growth.  "All" we have to do is make those numbers work with the resources we have, and given the global improvement in living standards over the past 40 years, why shouldn't we: if we know the future, we can plan and act, and most important of all, not panic.

Taking this on board along with the Pinker book I've been frothing all over in another thread, it's all very inspiring, if terrifying.

[Frank]

Addressing the comments made on another thread regarding the incidence of inter-racial gun deaths in the USA, the assertion that "There's (sic) more whites shot by blacks, but overwhelmingly more blacks shot by blacks" is both wrong and right. 16.9 African Americans per 100,000 die as a result of gun homicide, compared to 9.2 per 100,00 of the white population. 67% of all homicides in the US involve firearms.

In terms of murder more generally, the FBI's NCVS shows that the great majority of murders involve members of the same ethnicity - "About 93% of black homicide victims and 85% of white victims in single victim and single offender homicides were murdered by someone of their race". So, it's perfectly true to say that (in the nominal terms used above) more African-Americans murder black people than murder their white countrymen.

More black people are arrested for murder annually (4,149) than vice versa (4,000), it's just that not that many more. It is, however, true to say that African-Americans are proportionally held responsible for a greater share of all homicides in the USA (49.7%), since they account for just 13.6% of the total population. White Americans account for 74% of the population, and 48% of all arrests for murder.

[The Legendary Shark]

The majority of deliberate gun deaths in the US, I remember reading somewhere so correct me if I'm wrong, are the result of suicides.

[TordelBack]

...the great majority of murders involve members of the same ethnicity...

Which is hardly surprising, since about a quarter of murders in the US are by a family member of the victim, and over half by someone they know - given the high levels of racial segregation still present both spatially and socially.

[Frank]

The majority of deliberate gun deaths in the US, I remember reading somewhere so correct me if I'm wrong, are the result of suicides.

Suicide accounts for 60% of all adult firearm deaths - I'm fairly sure those taking their own lives in that way aren't racists. The FBI stats I quoted above are for homicide arrests.

[The Legendary Shark]

True - it's just that suicide figures often get lumped in to the Gun Deaths category, skewing perceptions.

[Frank]

Don't you think it's interesting that folk are more interested in debating the intricacies of netiquette - whether it was right or wrong to re-post something a creator had said online - than whether what Brendan McCarthy said was factually correct or not? Whether you would want to characterise the remark as racist or not does depend on whether what he said was true or not, and on what particular point he was making.

Someone can make the factual observation that most winners of the Olympic Men's 100m or the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship in recent times have been African American males, and that's not racist - it's a fact. That observation only takes on a racist character if it's used in support of an argument of genetic difference and racial superiority, or in support of the US slave trade as a form of eugenics.

The argument McCarthy was using his observation to support concerned the tribalism and selective reporting of the US media, and the way childishly right-baiting sites such as Salon (and their right wing counterparts) distort facts and hijack tragedies like the one under discussion, reducing them to anecdotes in support of their party political talking points. His argument had fuck all to do with race.