Topic: Gun free zone - page 7. (Read 21931 times)

I don't believe I ever mentioned my political affiliation. Why should it come as a surprise?

Edit: The novels that had the greatest effect on my political outlook was Ursula Le Guin's "The Dispossessed" and Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". I leave as an exercise to the reader to determine which of these attracted and which repelled me.

Most people are anarchists at heart but don't realize it.

I agree, the data is weak no matter how you look at it. Appeals to science, statistics have no place in informing public policy at this point.

As soon as I post I knew you were going to pick that. An anarchists and his spots, huh?

It depends on what you mean by "force" and in which circumstance. In my preferred social structure (which does not exist and probably never will) if a majority of a society thinks it's abhorrent (or necessary) to carry guns, then a person violating that societal tenet would be subject to non-violent social ostracism.

Edit: And so that is what I would do. Non-violently ostracise someone who had a belief in extreme opposition to mine.

I hate to say this but while you could indeed be correct you're not providing any way to determine which are useful stats and which are not. I would tend to believe you more if you were able to provide an insight into how you determine which statistics are correct, and which are not. For me, if proponents of both sides of an argument agree on the data, then that's a good start. After that it's all about the analysis. Which brings us to .....


Argh! You mean there's no provable conclusion because the data (if available) is either biased or based on faulty analysis? I don't want to have to have an opinion, dammit! I also want a simple but provable answer that tell me what I should think.

In all seriousness, though, the discussion on gun control will go no where unless there is a explanation sufficiently convincing for both sides to agree. Since it appears that both pro- and con- sides of the debate have almost no ability to comprehend the other side's arguments, such an convincing explanation is just as likely as one that convinces Christians that Allah is the one true god, and vice versa.

Do I correctly read this to mean that if you get more people together, they can?

Oh, wow. Ouch. You're right, sorry. Shows me not to link to a site without looking at it, even if it is the "official" one.
This is a much more readable presentation of their views and goals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPFO

will do, though I doubt I'll understand the math behind it very well.

The real manipulators use real stats to determine what they do. Thats why it gets trotted out every war then the evidence it was used is suppressed, and academic use is discouraged. Look up the enigma device, origin of monte carlo methods, etc.

I honestly tried, but that website looks like it was created by someone for whom "user friendliness" is a foreign concept. My eyes bled a little. Mind posting a better link or a summary of what they believe and why it's relevant? My aching eyes thank you.

I wouldn't force anyone to do anything. I don't think single person should. But I would be able to present the argument that "citizens must have guns or end up as slaves" as being as likely as other unpleasant occurrences that we don't spend time thinking about.

I'm actually using this kind of thing to help me with stock trading, I have a theory about it which may make me fantastical amounts of money if I'm right lol, I'm still working through it in my head though and I hope I'm not being too confident about it but basically I think with this kind of knowledge you can get ahead of the curve so to speak more than most people. I've realised though that you need a lot of patience to wait for everything to happen because I haven't realised just how far ahead you get of everyone, should be interesting to see what happens after the crash next year.

It's much worse than even that. Really I got my data and actually tried to understand how to analyze it,(apparently this is rare amongst scientists these days) then found out pretty much no scientist knows what they are doing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_testing#Controversy

I've seen these kind of numbers used to represent the opinion of an entire country unfortunately and from the BBC no less.

If it's a true representative sample, 5000 people is a good representation of at least the city that they're in. But selection bias is far, far too easy to fall into with those sorts of surveys.

+100000

Many statistics are pushed by propaganda and not presented properly or people outright lie using them, so for instance, they'll present you with a poll from about 5000 people or something and then claim because 5000 people said this that automatically represents the majority of the people when that's barely going to be even a small portion of the actual country they are in. Bitcoinbitcoin113 you don't even need to understand math particularly well to understand bogus statistics when you see them, usually it's just a matter of reading through the fine print rather than just believing the simple percentages these dick heads come up with to fool people who don't know better.

Honestly unless you know what you are doing with statistics ( you love math) better to use your personal opinion and experiences with a dash of some expert dude who used statistics said this. Most who collect and analyze then publish the data fuck it up somehow. 8 times out 10 at least.

Ask the JPFO what they think.

I'd like to understand that point of view a bit better since it's alien to me. Are people who believe this to be true concerned with some other citizen enslaving/stealing from them, or their own government or some other government doing the same? If the latter case why is it thought the armed forces can't do their job? If one of the first two, what makes you think it's likely to happen? Does anyone know the probability of a western developed nation falling?

I'm not being facetious. I'd like to be able to compare the combined probability of
1. a government without hostile neighbours enslaving the inhabitants of their own or another developed nation
2. a citizen of a developed nation being killed when owning a gun might have saved him

with

1. surviving to old age without ever having owned a gun, in a developed nation.

If the first two are exceedingly remote compared to the second, then I would tend to consider them to be in the same category as plane crashes - possible, but we don't factor them in to our everyday lives. In which case the "strongest argument for the right to bear arms" would be a pretty poor kind of argument based on the fear of the improbable occurring.

The the former two are more likely than the latter, then I think that fact would be the strongest argument for the right to bear arms.

This is essentially the same point made by Holliday:


But yours is more pithy. Either way, it is the strongest argument for the right to bear arms.


It is both.

... and I'm starting to understand why everyone in the US is afraid of everyone else in the US (gross generalisation notwithstanding).