US and NA Politics (General)

[Disciple of Fate]

Aug 8, 2019 0:29:14 GMT -5 adurot said:

Who presses cell phones to their head? Everyone I know just texts.

Elon Musk wants us all to hook it up to our brains, so Elon Musk at least

[dusa]

Man body slams 13 year old to the floor and fractures his skull for not removing hat during anthem because “Trump told him to be a patriot”.

Go figure.

[adurot]

Aug 8, 2019 5:19:32 GMT -5 dusa said:

Man body slams 13 year old to the floor and fractures his skull for not removing hat during anthem because “Trump told him to be a patriot”.

Go figure.

Where did you get that quote? None of the articles I’ve seen on that story indicate he ever quoted or cited Drumpf, just that he claimed he had a right to do it because the boy disrespected the anthem.

[Deleted]

Aug 8, 2019 0:33:04 GMT -5 Disciple of Fate said:

Guns are not the cause, they are they symptom that makes the cause so absolutely fucking deadly. And yes, phone use in Europe is not behind the US, young people spend on average about 2+ hours per day on their mobile phone in Western Europe.

Well, at that point,then yes, you ARE behind the US, which is closing on twice that..  Two, the outcome is not necessarily mass casualty events.  Remember, as I pointed out, suicide can also be a symptom, as well as political violence.  You're also wrong about Germany, between 1945 and now, mass shootings make up a smaller minority in mass casualty events there than they do in the UK.  Further, some of them have taken place since, such as the 2016 Munich shooting.

And, as an interesting anomaly, while mass shootings are increasing, gun crime (including suicide) in the US overall has fallen, and has been dropping for decades.   It seems to be a specific *kind* of murder that's becoming more severe.

And, based on your post, you think that terrorism is something only Muslims do. In 2018, 100% of mass killings in the US had ties to right wing groups who would be considered terrorists in any sane country.   Only one incident could also be partially tied to Islam.  So, claiming 'False Equivalency' on that is a Whemblyism.

[Disciple of Fate]

Aug 8, 2019 9:07:07 GMT -5 @baroniveagh said:

Aug 8, 2019 0:33:04 GMT -5 Disciple of Fate said:

Guns are not the cause, they are they symptom that makes the cause so absolutely fucking deadly. And yes, phone use in Europe is not behind the US, young people spend on average about 2+ hours per day on their mobile phone in Western Europe.

Well, at that point,then yes, you ARE behind the US, which is closing on twice that..  Two, the outcome is not necessarily mass casualty events.  Remember, as I pointed out, suicide can also be a symptom, as well as political violence.  You're also wrong about Germany, between 1945 and now, mass shootings make up a smaller minority in mass casualty events there than they do in the UK.  Further, some of them have taken place since, such as the 2016 Munich shooting.

And, as an interesting anomaly, while mass shootings are increasing, gun crime (including suicide) in the US overall has fallen, and has been dropping for decades.   It seems to be a specific *kind* of murder that's becoming more severe.

And, based on your post, you think that terrorism is something only Muslims do. In 2018, 100% of mass killings in the US had ties to right wing groups who would be considered terrorists in any sane country.   Only one incident could also be partially tied to Islam.  So, claiming 'False Equivalency' on that is a Whemblyism.

Basic googling shows extreme fluctuations of estimates in the US between 2 hours and 6. The same goes for Europe, so I went with the lower estimates, but 4 hours is also quite often reported. Although the 4 hour band must include a lot of multi-tasking. So what is the critical level for this cell phone use then?

How was I wrong about Germany? I never compared it to the UK? I just brought it up because it had two high profile school shootings in the 2000's. After that they enacted more gun legislation. Pointing out that Germany does have them sure. But the Munich attack has been a single mass casualty event in a decade if you discount the jihadist Berlin attack. 2 events in 10 years while the US had 2 in 1 day, sure the population is larger but the ratio doesn't work. Of course some countries in Europe do it worse since 1945 due to domestic terror waves.

Rates do indeed fall for overall crime, a trend that is visible almost everywhere. A specific kind of murder does seem to be getting more severe in the US, but that is something not seen elsewhere to the same extent.

Based on my post I think terrorism is only something Muslims do? What kind of garbage is that? Have you not seen the pages of me arguing with Whembly on what constitutes right wing and left wing terrorism? I'm saying that most mass casualty attacks in the recent decade in Europe have come from jihadist extremism (some right wingers too like Breivik), but for the most part not 'normal' people like Dayton. I'm pointing out that when it comes to 'research' showing the US is no more violent than Europe over a certain time span, the 'research' is dishonestly representing numbers. They do this by including every terror cell attack from Europe (like Madrid, Paris and London), along with the regular other loner and terror attacks by individuals like Breivik. But then they only count mass SHOOTING attacks in the US. That's what I'm calling out as dishonest research and a false equivalency. Of course you can include all kinds of terror attacks, but if you do that for Europe you have to do it for the US or your just cooking your numbers is what I'm saying. That whole section was meant to point out that dishonest cooking of numbers is going on, not to somehow implicate its only Muslims, that's just absurd to even try and claim in Europe. Domestic righty/lefty terrorism was far worse then Jihadist terrorism has been so far in Europe and will likely remain so history wise.

I was even the first one to quote the 2018 ADL statistics you use there...

[Disciple of Fate]

That NRA drama just keeps getting more comedic. So now LaPierre needed a 6 million dollar safe space? I thought all he needed was a good guy with a gun? So far its been pretty entertaining watching it burn down, wonder if they will recover.

[laughingman]

Deutsche Bank and others just handed over Trump's financials to Congress. Twitter should be entertaining today.

[Deleted]

Aug 8, 2019 9:43:41 GMT -5 Disciple of Fate said:

(note, quote is screwing up all over the place)

Ok, ONE MORE TIME.

While the mass shootings in the US are A FACET of what's happening, that is NOT LIMITED to *just* Mass Shootings.  It is *JUST* how it's expressing in the US.  Are you following YET or will I have to use fucking neon signs?  The rise in terrorism that you seem to think is somehow separate, could very well be a facet of this.  Just as I pointed out Japanese teen suicide appears to be a facet of this.  "WE DON'T HAVE MASS SHOOTING SO YOU'RE WRONG' does not actually disprove what I've been saying. 

Now, if you had absolutely no crimes climbing anomalously compared to the rest of violent crime, you MIGHT have a point.  And I am including suicides with violent crime.  Which I know for a fact from BBCs recent stats on knife crime, you do have.

[Disciple of Fate]

I'm saying there is nothing to back it up, its grasping at straws for an explanation and connecting random dots to create some sort of overarching world wide issue. Knife crime is much more a UK phenomenon than European. Maybe it is related, but then why is is not prevalent in other European nations, what do other European countries have? You basically have to pick out the dots per country that fit in the narrative. How would you even prove such a theory?

But even if true, that does nothing to disprove the point that the prevalence of guns make the cause that much more deadly (even in suicide 'success' rate).

I get it, to many it is an acceptable side effect of gun ownership. Just like traffic deaths are an acceptable side effect around the world to have cars.

[Disciple of Fate]

Aug 8, 2019 11:09:55 GMT -5 laughingman said:

Deutsche Bank and others just handed over Trump's financials to Congress. Twitter should be entertaining today.

By now his supporters are so far up his ass that he doesn't have to worry about it.

[Deleted]

Aug 8, 2019 11:51:21 GMT -5 Disciple of Fate said:

I'm saying there is nothing to back it up, its grasping at straws for an explanation and connecting random dots to create some sort of overarching world wide issue. Knife crime is much more a UK phenomenon than European. Maybe it is related, but then why is is not prevalent in other European nations, what do other European countries have? You basically have to pick out the dots per country that fit in the narrative. How would you even prove such a theory?

I suspect it's cultural.  and again, if you'd have BOTHERED TO READ THE POST I WROTE WHEN I EXPLAINED IT AT THE START you'd see that you're bringing up points that i posted in the first place.  And, no, there have been studies linking cell phone usage to violence.  I even LINKED ONE A WHILE BACK.

Unfortunately, proving it would require better understanding of the changes cell phone use causes in the brain.  Which we don't have.  And then fight another multi billion dollar industry spreading disinformation, much as we had with tobacco.  I suspect that people effected by this are tending toward a form of violence they perceive as culturally acceptable within their group.  Which, again, varies wildly, not only between countries, but even within some larger countries. 

Also, as I've repeatedly pointed out, why then do NONE of these rates track withe increases and decreases in the availability of guns?  Because it's not a constant.

[Disciple of Fate]

I read the original sources you posted, its just very thin on any real conclusions or related to factors that cell phones have only helped spread. But even your assumptions are all true, that still leaves us nowhere with tackling the issue? How would you even?

Even if its not guns, do you agree that guns exacerbate the problem?

[Deleted]

Aug 8, 2019 12:43:26 GMT -5 Disciple of Fate said:

I read the original sources you posted, its just very thin on any real conclusions or related to factors that cell phones have only helped spread. But even your assumptions are all true, that still leaves us nowhere with tackling the issue? How would you even?

Ban cellphones.  or require that they alter the phone in a way that does not result in this. 

[Disciple of Fate]

That's even more implausible than a gun ban. We already know of many things bad for us/killing us that we don't do anything about that aren't even guns.

[Emblematic Wolfblade]

Aug 8, 2019 12:37:27 GMT -5 @baroniveagh said:

Aug 8, 2019 11:51:21 GMT -5 Disciple of Fate said:

I'm saying there is nothing to back it up, its grasping at straws for an explanation and connecting random dots to create some sort of overarching world wide issue. Knife crime is much more a UK phenomenon than European. Maybe it is related, but then why is is not prevalent in other European nations, what do other European countries have? You basically have to pick out the dots per country that fit in the narrative. How would you even prove such a theory?

I suspect it's cultural.  and again, if you'd have BOTHERED TO READ THE POST I WROTE WHEN I EXPLAINED IT AT THE START you'd see that you're bringing up points that i posted in the first place.  And, no, there have been studies linking cell phone usage to violence.  I even LINKED ONE A WHILE BACK.

Unfortunately, proving it would require better understanding of the changes cell phone use causes in the brain.  Which we don't have.  And then fight another multi billion dollar industry spreading disinformation, much as we had with tobacco.  I suspect that people effected by this are tending toward a form of violence they perceive as culturally acceptable within their group.  Which, again, varies wildly, not only between countries, but even within some larger countries. 

Also, as I've repeatedly pointed out, why then do NONE of these rates track withe increases and decreases in the availability of guns?  Because it's not a constant.

I want to point out that the only study you linked that goes specifically into violence (as far as I can tell at least) states the one other study that did something similar found a totally opposite conclusion, and that in this study, and this study only found a difference because of rebel groups. (from your first source)

However, few works have been concerned with the effect of new communication technologies in the political sphere. In particular, to our knowledge only Shapiro and Weidmann (2012) have examined how cell phone technology affects the propensity for political violence. Shapiro and Weidmann (2012) find that in the case of Iraq, the location of cell phone towers is negatively associated with violence.
In contrast, in this article we argue and provide evidence to show that cell phone technology can increase the ability of rebel groups to overcome collective action problems. In particular, cell phones lead to a boost in the capacity of rebels to communicate and monitor ingroup behavior, thus increasing in-group cooperation. Furthermore, cell phones allow for coordination of insurgent activity across geographically distant locations.

This is clearly saying the situation is different, and also not related to the radiation, but the ability to communicate.

then goes on to state a bit later:

The results in this article stand in contrast to the findings presented by Shapiro and Weidmann (2012) regarding the relationship between cell phones and violence in Iraq. However, we believe it is reasonable that the effects of cell phones are different across these cases. The context of political violence in African countries is much different from that in Iraq.

Oh, and the final one I think:

While government forces in Iraq have the ability to monitor cell phone activity of insurgents, this is much less likely for many African governments, especially with the more prominent role of private enterprises in spreading technology. In addition, explicit whistleblower programs have so far only been used rarely in Africa (Livingston 2011)

I really don't think cell phones are the problem. I think it's rhetoric. Rhetoric has proven time and again to inspire people to violence all through history. Cellphones might make that easier, but so does any form of mass communication (i.e. TV, newspapers, rallies)