Gun Control Memes

After noticing a trend in Facebook memes where people "prove" their gun control position by pointing out one place, I thought I'd find more:

If you're anti-gun control, you're likely to accept this data point on it's face. No skepticism required!

If you're pro-gun control, you're likely to dig deeper. Research. Fact check. And if you can't scrape up a reason why it's false, then it doesn't matter anyway. Probably just the exception and not the rule.

And in places like Chicago, clearly it's violent despite gun control, not because of gun control. Without gun control Chicago would be even worse. Gun control works, but nobody said it works miracles. Right?

Washington DC, Detroit, and Chicago are all in the same category. They're places where the violence got so bad that we had to pass gun control. It's not like Gun control what made it bad in the first place. Right?

Now we're going to do a different slew of gun memes from the other side.

If you're pro-gun control, then of course this meme is persuasive. No need to check to see if it's true. Learn from Sweden!

But if you're anti-gun control, you're likely to check this fact out. Isn't Japan the one with the high suicide rate? I'll be they're not counting gun suicides and that's why they get such a low number for Japan. Right?

Looks like we have some homework to do. Gotta debunk this liberal logic. And why would they even think about bringing Germany into this? Right?

Apparently Australia is a spokescountry for both sides

I want to be generous, so lets just say numbers are hard for some people. But here's what I notice, numbers are really easy when they tell a story we like, and then numbers get complicated when they tell a story we don't like. That's because people are only compelled to investigate stories when they contradict our preferred conclusion.

This is how psychologists say we fool ourselves. Nobody chooses to believe something they know is false. They simply exercise more or less intellectual discipline based on what answers they want to find. 

If it's something they like they do very little digging and give it a high benefit of the doubt. 

If it's something they don't like they dig into the data and give it a high burden of proof.

So how should we think about all these data points being thrusted in our face on Facebook?

There's one possible answer that applies to all arguments about regulation, including gun regulation. It is that we're in a sub-optimal middle ground.

There's no reason why gun control and gun violence are either correlated or inversely correlated at every level. The curve could look something like this.

Dude, I made it in a kid's graphmaker website. Cut me a break.

Low gun control countries like Israel and Switzerland are on the left of the graph. High gun control countries like Sweden and Japan are on the right side of the graph. Australia is that little green dot on the right because who knows what's up with them. And the United States is in the wishywashy middle ground, where there's too much gun control for a criminal to fear citizens, but still so little gun control that a criminal to easily obtain a weapon.

I don't think that's how things really are, but it's a totally possible position that nearly nobody takes. Gee, why I would nobody take this perfectly competent position? Did it sleep with their mom?

I also think that when we talk about more or less of any kind of regulation, we're missing the point. It seems clear enough that we want more good regulation, and less bad regulation. Not all regulation is the same, so wanting more or less bypasses thoughtful discussion about kinds of regulation.

There's another way of thinking about all these gun control memes; gun control matters, but it's not the only thing that matters. So Sweden's gun crime rate has more to do with Sweden being Sweden than Swedish gun control laws. Or Chicago's gun crime rates has more to do with Chicago being Chicago than Chicago's gun control laws. It's not like we could plop down Sweden's gun control laws on top of Chicago, and all of the sudden Chicago will see Swedish gun violence rates.

Culture matters. Saying that the United States has a culture of violence sounds vague, but I think it's true. You can start to see it when you look at the US's high non-gun violence rate. So to some extent it's not about gun control, but whether you're the kind of culture that supports gun control.

If it's not in a Meme it's like it didn't happen

Some of these memes compare violence rates before and after gun control. For a skeptical mind, there's on obvious problem with this. Violence rates are going up and down no matter what. In the last 10 years the United State's homicide rate dropped dramatically while gun control has stayed roughly stayed the same. So with lots of possible countries or states to choose from, one can easily find some where gun control was followed by whatever you want it to be followed by.

I see these pics on Facebook and I wonder, do they know the other side is posting the exact same evidence to support the other side? And if you find your evidence so appealing, why is their parallel evidence so unconvincing?

I don't think left or right. I don't think pro or anti gun control. I think partisanship or openmindedness. There are people in this world who are actually trying to reason through the evidence, to build a solid argument, to respond to criticism, and to intellectually empathize with their opponents. And there are people who really don't care. They're trying to usurp the moral high ground so they can win the debate. They can't see past their "us vs. them" mentality to realize that some of this stuff really effects people. It's that tribal attitude that causes many times more damage than the sins of the "other side".

Does Conditionalism lower the priority of Evangelism?

Over the years, I've come to a view called Conditionalism. It basically says that the consistent view of the biblical authors was that the fate of the unsaved is not eternal conscious torment, but complete annihilation. I might write my own post for why I think this is probably right, but for now Rethinking Hell does a damn good job outlining the reasons.

But some of my fellow conditionalists don't want to accept all the implications of our view. Specifically: A) that annihilation is preferable to eternal conscious torment, and B) that it reduces the importance of evangelism.

It's easy to see why evangelicals especially would not like these implications. Evangelism has been a deep priority of evangelicalism for a long time. And anything that waters down that priority, even a little bit, is resisted.

Still, I think they should admit that A and B are actually implications of their view. And just because it makes the fate of the wicked doesn't look as bad and evangelism doesn't look as good, that doesn't mean death isn't horrible and evangelism isn't wonderful.

So why should we believe that Annihilation is preferable to eternal conscious torment? Well it seems to me like everybody has a suffering threshold beyond which they'd prefer death. Maybe it's higher in some people than others, but at least for most of us that point exists. If you can't think of one, use your imagination. What's the most awful thing you can imagine? Would you rather die than experience it?

Still need help? Consider this picture, wouldn't you be begging for death?

Sorry for this, but point made?

It seems like for the people who believe that hell is eternal conscious torment, it's the worst of the worst eternal conscious torment.

The thing about the eternal conscious torment view of hell is that it's about has bad as anyone can imagine it to be. It's kind of the worst thing by definition.

What about B? Does that mean the need to evangelize is disincentivized?

If you think that when the price goes down, you should buy, then it has to, but only on the margin. The cost of hell is a little bit lower under conditionalism, so of course people should invest less in saving people from it. That doesn't make it any less than top priority, but still, there are so many hours in the day and evangelism surely isn't the only priority. To say otherwise is nothing less than a mathematical mistake. Invest more in higher valued goals. If the goal falls in value, invest less.

The logical consequences of conditionalism hasn't deterred me from accepting the reasons behind it. When something is true, you take the step wherever it leads. It's a basic condition of integrity. Conditionalism leads to less evangelism, so what?

The Importance of Mass Shootings

Suppose an angel came to you and offered an altruistic choice. A) You could end all mass shootings in America for 10 years, or B) reduce car accident fatalities by 10% for 1 year. What decision does your heart make? What choice does your head make?

Your heart might say to go with A. I think it was Stalin who said, "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." Society is absorbed in the tragedy of every school shooting, most people don't even know the car accident fatality rate has been falling for years. They don't spend their limited attention on such statistics, but a moving story? We'll debate the implications on Facebook for weeks.

Use your head and you'll realize that by picking A, you've killed over 2,000 people. NOW use your heart to decide whether that's a good and moral choice.

The fallacy is in thinking that you have to choose between your head and your heart. Simply use your head and then use your heart. Don't ask your heart head questions and don't ask your head heart questions.

So what does our hypothetical story about the angel have to do with real life? When you assess mass shootings in proper proportion is seems dubious to base on it federal policy that effects 300 million people. The blip that is mass shootings cannot be what guides our policy decisions. Moreover, attention is a finite resource. We do ourselves no favors by hyper focusing on something that is quantitatively negligible.

Is Death the Ultimate Example of Loss Aversion

Psychology teaches that human beings have a weird mental quirk called loss aversion. We hurt more from loss than we feel good about gain. Give a man a fish and he'll be mildly happy. Take a fish away and he'll be very sad.

It makes me wonder if our fear of death is the ultimate example of loss aversion.

I first heard this idea from Penn Jillette, in connection with the atheist's view of the afterlife. He said, where were you in 1800? Nowhere. Was it scary? So why are you afraid of where you'll be in 2200? You'll be in the same place.

I like Penn Jillette's argument, but it deviates wildly from how we treat murder and suicide. Suicide is awful and murder is horrible. I have yet to hear from the defense in a homicide trial, "Look judge, I just took the victim back to where she was the day before she was born."

So it seems like life is extraordinarily valued only once you have it. It is cheap to give, and expensive to take away. If a misfired nerf gun accidentally sterilizes a man, we don't usually charge the shooter with two counts of manslaughter. Though on average that man would likely have had 2 children. But once those two children are born we value their lives tremendously, and if you end them you're in serious trouble.

So the question is, is this just a severe case of loss aversion? And if it is, what should we do about it?

Were Schools Safer in the 90s?

The latest in Everything is Awesome Nobody is Happy: Schools are safer than they were in the 90s.

A few random thoughts:

If you measure not incidents per year, but victims per year, the darker colors would have much more impact. I'm not sure how it would change the peaks and troughs of the graph, but it makes me curious.

I don't think trends in something with so few numbers are helpful for assessing much of anything.

I was ready to say that the trend of lower incidents correlated with the last 30 year's tendency toward more gun control. This would be some evidence that gun control works (some evidence /= knockdown argument). But when I look at whether we actually have stricter gun control, I'm a little bit surprised that we may not (here first, then here and here). So I have to reverse the argument and admit that this is at least some evidence that gun control does not work.

Tryers Vs. Slackers

From Nate Soars, Half-assing it with everything you've got,

Both the slackers and the tryers are pursuing lost purposes. The slackers scoff at the tryers, who treat an artificial quality line like it's their actual preferences and waste effort over-achieving. The tryers scoff at the slackers, who are taking classes but refusing to learn. And both sides are right! Because both sides are wasting motion... 

My teachers used to say that I could do great things if only I applied myself. I used to tell them that if they wanted me to apply more effort, they would need to invent higher letter grades.

Social Security Privileges the Living over the Dead

Life Expectancy in the U.S. is 79 years, but we all understand that life expectancy is not a life guarantee. If you do die before your life expectancy, you may also die before the full retirement age of 67, just like 17.4% of the population that dies before 65. Sooooo... there's roughly 17.4% chance that all those dollars you've seen taken out of your paycheck for "social security," you will never see again.

People tell me that Social Security is a program people pay into when they're young, and get paid from when they're old. It's more accurate to say they get paid from if they're old.

Much of the logic underlying arguments for social security is based in compassion for the vulnerable. I think of this guy from the Simpsons:

This guy never hurt anybody, he DESERVES Social Security

He's frail, kind, and unlike Mr. Burns doesn't seem particularly wealthy. He seems like just the kind of guy you'd want to help. But once you realize that the wealth and age are highly correlated, Social Security starts to look regressive. It takes from the poor young and gives to the rich old.

But poverty isn't the only metric one becomes a vulnerable member of society. People who die young will pay into social security and never receive a benefit. That seems just wrong to me. Throw in that the people who are more likely to die younger are poorer anyway, and we have another regressive aspect.

Just because we've had something a long time doesn't mean it's good. Humans are very susceptible to status quo bias, and will rationalize unendingly in defense of programs they can't imagine life without. I think that's why we don't give Social Security a good hard look and ask whether America's #1 expenditure is as valuable as we think.

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Extra notes

1. Some people retire before 67, so a few more people than stated will receive social security before they die

2. I used % of population that will die before 65 for the availability of the statistic, so a few less people than stated will receive social security before they die.

3. Much of the wealth of the elderly is held in their homes. They should put their house up for sale, making housing cheaper for new homeowners, and live off the wealth.

4. It seems like society already have a built-in retirement program, it's called a mortgage. You get a home to raise kids in when you're young, you get retirement money and a 1 bedroom apartment when you're old.

5. So you're saying that after spending 25 years paying off their homes, they should just turn around and sell it? Yes.

5. But what about the elderly in need? I didn't say we should ignore them, we could replace social security with something actually progressive.

6. I also didn't even say we should get rid of social security. I'm just saying that because it's the holy grail of public opinion, we're unable to see that in terms of helping the vulnerable it's not as useful as we assume.

7. Social Security is paid out to your spouse if you die, if you have a spouse and if she lives that long. It's probably more fair than paying nobody, but it's less fair than paying the person who's life was taken from them.