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On 02/05/2010 9:34 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Well, yes. I was using "mexicans" to mean "people who look mexican" in
> that sentence. Since I already pointed out that your immigration status
> can change based on factors completely irrelevant to your appearance, I
> figured that was already understood.
I know, I thought that I was supporting your argument by playing Devil’s
Advocate.
I’ll tell you something. This Friday I get Dr John so drunk that he will
regret starting this thread.
Or die trying.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On 2-5-2010 23:01, Warp wrote:
[ignoring darren's possible slip]
> Now you are not arguing only against me, but against the law of Finland.
> Random sobriety tests are a common practice here, and nobody is complaining.
I assume random here means at a random place and then checking everybody.
Actually also one of the tools the police here use for finding illegal
immigrants: Going into a workplace and asking everybody their papers
(and there should be a copy at the employer).
Border control might even be a better counterexample, because racial
profiling is definitely used there*. Then again, you could argue that it
is more effective this way. I haven't done the math for this case.
*) I have some colleagues that you should not be in line behind when
going to the states. They will be picked out of the line for
questioning** and you too because they want to hide the fact that they
only pick out Arab looking people.
**) One of the better openings to ensure a long stay with the border
control guys: After the general opening: 'what do you do for work?'
answering 'I research drugs that cause sudden death'. From an Iranian
that was born in Afghanistan.
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On 2-5-2010 22:38, Stephen wrote:
> On 02/05/2010 8:22 PM, andrel wrote:
>> you want to kill a mosquito using a canon (or whatever the English
>> expression is).
>
> FWI: Taking a sledgehammer to crack a walnut or making a mountain out of
> a molehill.
Thanks.
> * No mosquitoes were harmed in this explanation
> ** May contain nuts.
> :-)
:)
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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
>>>> Not here. It's illegal. Why? Because people who drive SUVs didn't want to
>>>> get randomly stopped just because 0.1% of the people driving SUVs might be
>>>> intoxicated.
>>> Is that so? Well, then that's something I don't agree with. I'm glad if
>>> this kind of police work reduces the risk of car accidents caused by drunken
>>> drivers. It increases my safety alongside everybody else's.
>
>> If it did, that would be a different story. But it doesn't.
>
>> If you stop people for driving drunk even when you can't tell they're drunk,
>> how does that reduce accidents?
>
> Now you are not arguing only against me, but against the law of Finland.
> Random sobriety tests are a common practice here, and nobody is complaining.
That doesn't answer the question, tho. It doesn't matter whether it's the
law or not.
And sobriety tests aren't immigration tests, either. Random checkpoints of
sober people can reduce the number of people driving drunk, because that's a
choice you make on a day by day basis.
Randomly stopping people to ask if they are citizens isn't going to make a
citizen more likely to stay that way, nor make an illegal immigrant more
likely to go back to where they came from.
>> You can disagree with simple baysian inference math, but you'd be wrong.
> Then I suppose our law is stupid for doing that...
For one, it's a different circumstance, as I explain above. For another, do
you actually know if they profile the type of car you drive or anything like
that in pulling you over? If not, you're begging the question.
>>>> Basically, people here are generally against getting arrested before a cop
>>>> knows a crime has been committed at all.
>>> I'm not talking about arresting someone. I'm just talking about *checking*
>>> the alcohol levels of drivers.
>
>> That's being detained, at the least. We have this whole "innocent until
>> proven guilty" thing going on here. If there's *no* evidence you've done
>> anything wrong, why would you need to prove your innocence more than that?
>
>> Plus, you act like false positives are unheard of.
>
> You still write as if this random driver sobriety testing was my idea.
No, I'm writing as if you brought it up as a good example of why your ideas
work. Why did you bring it up if you don't think it's a good idea? Why even
mention drunk driving in a discussion on immigration if you don't think
there are parallels that support your assertions?
See, this is where I get annoyed with these sorts of discussions with you.
You make assertions, you're argued against, and rather than seeing "Yes, I
see where that might be valid," you try to act like you weren't saying what
you did, or something. It makes you sound dishonest, as well as unwilling
to admit you may be mistaken, at which point why continue the conversation?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> "Pointing out"? Maybe you are, but I just can't follow your logic.
>
>> It's simple math.
>
> So you are, indeed, nitpicking on my math rather than the overall idea
> I was expressing with my example.
What was your overall idea? I thought it was that if you use racial
profiling to target people of races who make up the majority of illegal
immigrants, then you'll have a more efficient way of finding illegal
immigrants, right?
> whole core idea of "distributing law enforcement resources according to
> statistics" is flawed. Sorry, that doesn't follow.
But it *doesn't* follow, for most crimes. That's the point. The number of
people who are breaking the law is slim compared to the amount of work you
have to go through to find those people, if you're no more discriminating
than checking what their skin looks like.
If you *are* more discriminating, it's no longer racial profiling.
>>> (Sure, my suggestion of devoting x% of resources for x% of illegals is
>>> cold, hard, inhuman math, and there are other more humanistic sides to the
>>> whole issue. I'm not denying that. I'm just arguing that from a resource
>>> distribution point of view it would make sense.)
>
>> A percentage is a ratio between two numbers. You don't have a simple
>> "percentage of illegals." Percentage of *what population* are illegals?
>
> Stop nitpicking on the numbers, and start discussing the idea I'm
> expressing.
I'm trying to. You're arguing that using statistics would make the process
more efficient. I'm showing you that mathematically, no, it wouldn't. Then
you say "Stop arguing the details of the math. Discuss how the math can make
things more efficient, instead." You're not making sense.
> Although if your argument is "your math does not work on this more
> complicated case, hence your idea is wrong", then I suppose there is
> nothing to discuss. If you disagree with the idea, then say so rather
> than nitpick about some percentages.
I disagree with the idea that using statistics to stop people who have given
no indication of wrongdoing makes the process any more efficient. I disagree
*because* your math is wrong. When you use the actual math, it turns out
that it's less efficient.
> You are nitpicking on the details of the example rather than on the idea.
No, I'm really not.
> Fix the math in whatever way you need to suit more complex situations.
> That doesn't change the point I'm expressing. You are nitpicking on the
> percentages.
But don't you understand that the point I'm making is that the math does not
support the point you're expressing? You can't "fix the math" to make it
support your assertion.
>> If he's asking you because he just wants to know, and you refuse, then he
>> should say "have a good day."
>
> So basically you are saying that police officers should not check
> people's IDs.
No. I'm saying that police officers shouldn't check IDs unless checking IDs
will actually help them do their job of catching criminals.
And you keep saying "ID" as if that's the same as "Proof of legal
residence." It isn't.
> (Why check them if it's completely inconsequential whether
> they have it or not?)
Why indeed? That's exactly why we have laws saying the police don't get to
do that.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> "Pointing out"? Maybe you are, but I just can't follow your logic.
>
>> It's simple math.
>
> So you are, indeed, nitpicking on my math rather than the overall idea
> I was expressing with my example.
You wrote:
> Let me rephrase: If 90% of illegal immigrants are Mexicans, then 90% of
> illegal immigrants will look like Mexicans. Hence it only makes sense to
> devote 90% of the law enforcement resources to check Mexicans.
That's *wrong*. Incorrect. Please rephrase what you were actually trying to
say, rather than telling me I'm nit-picking your math. I can only argue for
or against what you're actually saying. You're saying "Darren, please read
my mind and come up with something we'd both agree with so I'm not wrong."
Instead, you should say "Gee, I didn't realize I had the math wrong. Let me
try again." instead of complaining that I pointed out a flaw in your
thinking caused by a flaw in your math.
And you still didn't answer whether you'd agree that it might be more
efficient to target people in churches than people who look central
american. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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>> Mad Cap'n Tom Independent
>
> and we need go no further in our considerations of who to vote for.
Oh, is that this guy?
http://www.tomscott.com/
I didn't connect the two.
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On 5/1/2010 9:39 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 01 May 2010 11:29:55 -0400, John VanSickle wrote:
>
>> The notion that any nation must permit any person to immigrate is simply
>> nuts, and does not appear to be the operating principle of any nation on
>> earth.
>
> No, but the notion that you can pick someone up because they *look* like
> an illegal immigrant (which BTW violates the 4th amendment right to
> protection against unreasonable search/seizure) *is* patently racist.
>
> The law goes further, though, by making it possible for people to sue law
> enforcement for *not* enforcing the law - so if someone thinks their
> neighbor is an illegal and calls the police, and the police do nothing
> about it, then the neighbor can sue the state for failing to take action
> (so I understand).
>
> Jim
Yeah. One person put it like this: "Damned if you do, damned if you
don't, so you are just damned 'period'."
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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On 5/1/2010 10:51 AM, Warp wrote:
> Stephen<mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> On 01/05/2010 6:13 PM, Warp wrote:
>>> Jim Henderson<nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>>> No, but the notion that you can pick someone up because they *look* like
>>>> an illegal immigrant (which BTW violates the 4th amendment right to
>>>> protection against unreasonable search/seizure) *is* patently racist.
>>>
>>> Why does it have to be racism?
>>>
>> ...
>>> Likewise with illegal immigration: The vast majority of illegal immigrants
>>> don't look like locals. Hence it only makes sense to prioritize the scarce
>>> resources law enforcement has and concentrate on people who don't look like
>>> locals. This is not racism. This is practicality. Questioning people equally
>>> is only going to waste resources, which wastes taxpayers' money, and causes
>>> less crimes to be stopped.
>>>
>
>> Obviously Finland does not have a large immigrant population, about 1%
>> excluding Finnish Swedes as far as I can make out.
>
> 3%. But I don't understand what that has to do with anything. It still
> doesn't change the fact that immigrants typically tend to look distinctively
> different from natives. Especially illegal ones (because it's rare for
> someone who could pass for a Finn to want to immigrate illegally here).
>
> I'm pretty sure that a significant percentage of illegal immigrants in
> the US can be distinguished by their looks. If you saw a Finnish person
> there I don't think it would be highest in the list of suspects of illegal
> immigration.
>
> You can call it racism if you want. That will not change the facts.
>
This is actually not accurate in many cases. Something like 90% of some
areas of Southern California **do** all look just like the illegals, and
not because they are all illegals. The same argument was made for going
after Middle Easterners, instead of whites, and the last, and only two,
idiots captured trying to blow up planes in the US have been
***white***. Ok, you could argue its not *quite* the same thing, but
seriously, ethically, and rationally, you need to at least *try* to be
neutral about this BS, because some not too bright twit might just let
through the one, "He don't look like no illegal", that turns out to be a
serial killer, or something, instead of a guy that takes a menial job
washing pots at the local restaurant.
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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On 5/1/2010 11:10 PM, Warp wrote:
> I'm not saying that's a right thing to do, but I would still be interested
> in knowing whether that behavior is based more on prejudice or on statistics.
>
Given that the place it happened most obviously was LA, and the police
there are nearly *all* the same ones that nearly got 100% of the force
fired for **obviously** racist actions, during a huge scandal..
Sure, in a vague sense it may be "statistically" likely, but the problem
that makes it racist isn't that. What makes it racist is that the white
guys that **do** get caught doing it often don't get similar harassment,
even when caught *in* the vehicle, get less jail time, or even get off
entirely free, with warnings. Some places, it wasn't uncommon, very
recently, to get beat nearly to death for being the wrong color, and
just "looking" like you might plan to steal a car. There are whole court
cases on the issue, complete with film of the beatings. And, again, as I
said before, if you spend 90% of your time looking for the 80% that
happen to be the right color, you miss the 10% that ***are not***
completely, and harass another 10% that don't deserve it besides. And,
if you pull that in places where there are no grounds to assume they
"are" the major cause, statistically or otherwise, you miss 100% of the
real criminals, chasing innocent people.
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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