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Post by starlightcriminal on Sept 6, 2011 12:30:18 GMT -8
It begs a *thorough* reading please, not a brief glance at Wiki. And still you have this data usage issue, we can only compare directly if the context is identical. This is a conceptual issue so 4 vs. 1500 means nothing, and social programs barely existed then. In fact this is largely what inspired their invention. Wow. Plus what about the fires? No mention of the fires, no mention of climate of the party with authority, no mention of relative population percentage, etc. etc. etc. You qualify your argument with information that doesn't relate the way you are trying to make it. It's like "media" arguments, throwing out some random facts in an order that sounds like it is agreeing with how you feel or at least confusing the audience. I think very critically, you are going to have to better than that.
91% young males with criminal histories? There's not very many people rioting or there's not very many non-criminal males in the UK? Or is "criminal history" defined as "got a parking ticket once"? Which is it? See how ambiguous that number is, it really doesn't tell you much at all.
You still misunderstand anyway- people on the fringes are more likely to react. That's why poor countries have revolutions often and rich ones get fatter and more complacent. It's a long standing historical trend with countless examples all throughout recorded history. Happy people react less violently to the same bad stimulus.
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Post by wingedwishes on Sept 6, 2011 13:16:58 GMT -8
I assumed criminal history was self explanatory. I'm sorry. You will have to look up the meaning of Criminal yourself as I am a bit surprised by that statement. You are not thinking critically, you are being hyper critical. I promise to include common definitions in future posts. Actually, to demonstrate, I will do what you have asked....
I pointed out differences. 4 (meaning coming right after the number 3 and represented by the number of individuals arrested by law enforcement in this argument) as opposed (in this reference in opposition meaning few by the predecent and being followed or coming after in order of argument but not necessarily in time or scope by a much larger number) to 1,500 (a comma used to divide thousands from hundreds as is customary in the United States when such numbers are used) people being arrested (detained and following a law enforcement individuals due cause requirements under the requirements of most developed countries locked up in a location in which to wait until due process enables the detained individual to face a magistrate) who also had a criminal history (criminal history defined by breaking such laws as to have been found guilty or adjudicated for violating the written laws and not codices of a given jurisdiction followed by said violation being recorded in a manor in which the historical actions of individuals can be recalled).
That was fun. I'm sure I could have written it more cogently with more time but that was making me laugh.
You can choose to be happy or not. Now I'm just poking at you.
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Post by wingedwishes on Sept 6, 2011 13:24:32 GMT -8
I now see - You used an ambiguous statement to state that the number I gave was ambiguous. You did not define fringes. Are these the people who live where border or edging of hanging threads are located? Do they live at the fringe of economics? Do they live in a manor where their belief system is dictated by fringe science (poke)? Do they live at the extreme borders (fringe) of their territory where living is physically more difficult? Are they mentally unstable (a fringe element)?
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Post by wingedwishes on Sept 6, 2011 13:33:58 GMT -8
You asked me to look up the Cleveland riots and I did. I did not use Wikipedia. I never do. Wrong assumtion again. When I pulled information from more than one source and said there were differences, you then denigrated the information calling it "ambiguous" rather than argue it. This is not like but eerily feels like this comparison.................."Honey you called me stupid when I brought you the glass of water you asked for. Why?" ..................."Because the water was not in my favorite cup."
I think we are done here. I am pretty sure anything you or I post after this will have already been discussed, just in a different colored cup.
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Post by wingedwishes on Sept 6, 2011 13:40:27 GMT -8
LOL - The riot info I spoke about I could not find in Wikipedia. I knew there was a reason I did not use it.
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Post by saturniidave on Sept 6, 2011 14:41:13 GMT -8
Just to throw in my two pennorth, it was reported on the news today that 75% of those arrested during the riots were repeat offenders. Also many of the others were from well-to-do families or in decent jobs. Where does the poverty thing come into that?
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Post by starlightcriminal on Sept 6, 2011 14:45:03 GMT -8
Calling something ambiguous is not derogatory. Ambiguous means "unclear." Those statistics you give have no context so they are by definition "ambiguous" meaning open to interpretation. Without the context they don't mean anything because they don't define the parameters. 91% is just a ratio of some number we don't have in some number of total we don't have and being defined by a term which you don't define ("criminal background" the current laws governing labor in modern UK vs. 1933 Chicago, and so on). It means no insult to the number, the word "ambiguous"- it simply says in the most concise way possible that you are trying to imply conclusions with data that doesn't say what you think it does or what you are trying to make us think it does.
Since you don't use wikipedia and are an excellent internet researcher, check out a reference called Merriam Webster for "ambiguous" so that you will see it is not denigrating at all. It is just a word, not good or bad... it's... well... ambiguous.
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Post by wingedwishes on Sept 6, 2011 15:28:39 GMT -8
I did. The number is clear. The meaning of the number should have been clear when used to compare. I'm sorry it was not clear to you. I make a simple statement and you say it is not clear. I go get more info to accompany it and you obfuscate it to mean something else. If you say there is no cumulative difference of all of the things I pointed out then you are not looking at the big picture. When the police arrest 1,500 people, the social dynamics of a mob rapidly change. I say that a small part of the big whole is relevant to seeing the whole. You say it is not. Ok Fine. I say that the make up of the crowds are different. I say that the reasons for the riot were very different. I say that where one riot experienced deaths and the other did not is relavant. I say that one riot looting and the other not looting is important. You say these little things have no meaning to the big picture. I say each little thing is a piranha waiting for the school. Why do I think this? There are 2 reasons: The first is that you said go look it up and the facts I saw led to my conclusion; The second is many years ago, I read about the Seldon Plan as it was written by Isaac Asimov (a personal hero so don't say anything bad about him) in the Foundation trilogy. I was fascinated by the theory that large groups of people can be mathmatically predictable. I have my own theories as to how groups react when there are certain elements but there are those beginning to research it and write about it. I further think that these things are important too when predicting crowds: Color of uniforms, temperature, recent sporting events, tragedies, population density, ethnic backgrounds, and more. This isn't the place to discuss psychohistory though.
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Post by starlightcriminal on Sept 7, 2011 4:50:50 GMT -8
Ok, let's just clarify briefly how numbers are used when we are talking about statistics. You ahve to give us the parameters of the set you are talking about or you just have a ratio. So is that 9 out of 10 people total, is that 90% of the 1500. That's what I am asking for, because otherwise it is hard to interpret that value in context which means that I can't make any conclusions one way or the other from it.
Moreoever, as Saturniidave points out, his value is 75%. So now we are certain that at least one of those two numbers is bogus. Obviously the stats here are skewed somewhere. It's really not important though, it in fact just demonstrates my point anyway. But do you see how the numbers can be finessed so that they aren't the same? It's not the both numbers are wrong, it's that however these numbers were determined probably didn't use the same parameters so the feedback is not identical. We've discussed the issue with statistics out of context before I believe.
And, the bigger point is that both of those figures are supposed to indicate the number of people who have criminal backgrounds. Let's say that the number is the average of the two, just to be fair. The trend, regardless of the exact value, would suggest that a large portion of the people involved in the rioting have less than glowing backgrounds.
To get to your question now, saturniidave, what is the common thing shared amongst most people with criminal backgrounds? Poverty. So if the overwhelming majority involved in the riot have spotty records, and the overwhelming majority of people with criminal backgrounds (especially if these really are 91% young males) are from disadvantaged backgrounds it's hard to make the distinction between the reciprocal nature of the two. I will restate that people who are living already on the fringes are much easier to incite. The current global conditions make those fringe populations even less stable so things that would usually slip by with less production become volatile quickly. That is also what functioned in Chicago, which is why they are similar. The details are not so important, it's the position the people who are involved in general started from that matters because that is the commonality amongst rioters throughout history. Very very rarely do we ever see any kind of rioting coming from people with lots of money, it takes a big national movement like the anti-Vietnam War movement (and even that was mostly arguably relatively poor folks as most were young- age, another thing often fairly uniform with rioting).
The remaining portion that are from normal backgrounds with some having jobs and so on would be the "group mentality" portion that Winged is interested in. That of course is really interesting to anyone who likes psychology and social dynamics. "Mob mentality" causes all kinds of problems to become rapidly exacerbated and it does not exclude those with criminal backgrounds. I would wager that every riot ever has at least in some facet the involvement of the "mob" type of thinking which draws in seemingly un-connected people. What I am trying to point out is that people who are most likely to be lured out by the "mob" are people who are least likely to have something to lose as a result of consequences from their involvement. This is the reason that psychohistory of the rioter includes many more features attributed underdogs and criminals than it does the wealthy classes. Those are extremely uncommon, difficult to even think of many examples of a cross-class riot or even just an upper or middle class riot. So when we have a time that is typified by larger parts of society being included in that group of people who are most likely to riot it isn't all that surprising that it happens.
Now this doesn't change that these people are obviously behaving terribly and being whipped up into a mob doesn't make you free of guilt. Or that these people might have been naughty previously. But it does follow the standard- riots are usually made up of underprivileged youth that find themselves in the midst of a social calamity of some form.
Seeing the small part of the whole can be relevant, or it cannot be. It really depends a lot on what you are trying to study and then if you are taking one small part that you don't forget all the other important small parts too. That's like seeing an elephant and a hyaenna and saying they have nothing in common because you can see one is big and one is very small, but not noticing they are both mammals, they're both from Africa, and so on. Of course there are specific details that are different, when has there ever been two exactly identical events in history?
Those "nice families" were not paying there bills, some of involved in illegal business such as bootlegging. They were living in houses that they refused to pay for. I don't know what you call that other than a crime- you are stealing rent. They beat police officers, with fists, rocks and sticks. This is also a crime. And obviously they were poor- some of them suddenly so, as they could not pay their rent and had no job. Many of them also belonged to groups that were considered highly subversive (communist, socialist) at the time. Hmmm... why does that sound familiar? So in context, these are the same fringe families that we are seeing now- people who turn to crime because they have little else to live by and people who were painted very ugly during their time. Both events involve people who don't have what they want taking out their frustration on authorities because they were pushed beyond what they perceived to be the limit.
Asimov is a really interesting read BTW, no bad comments from me.
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