Why am I no longer an anarchist

[teo123]

usions are statistically absurd.[/quote]
Well, they were cited as one of the most important pieces of evidence in the pro-2nd-Amendment Supreme Court decisions. That would strongly suggest you are missing something if it seems absurd to you.

You'd have to speculate that people somehow knew to have their guns nearby when in mortal danger to ward it off

That doesn't seem to be like "speculation" to me. Let's say somebody threatens you that he will come to your house and rape you. You think such situations are rare? Why?

that they almost never fire it in doing so

Well, according to the Gary Kleck's study, in around 20% of DGUs, the gun was actually fired. I wouldn't call "20%" "almost never".

that virtually all criminals flee rather than using their own weapons.

That's what one would expect under the "soft target" theory of violent crime.

I suggest you find some known statistics that make it seem remotely plausible that the opposite of what is indicated by game theory is the dominant behavior.

The fact that mass shootings happen at all suggests that game theory doesn't predict violent crime correctly. What possible incentive (in the game theory sense) does one have to commit a mass shooting?

The only time a gun is realistically useful is in an extended situation of infrastructure breakdown due to disaster or war wherein you're defending your hoard of resources (if you're a prepper) against neighbors who are life or death desperate for them -- they will choose the house without the armed protector if you make it known you are armed.

And what makes you think a war in Croatia is unlikely? I can think of two scenarios of how a war might break out in Croatia that both seem plausible to me.
Scenario 1:
1) Some Russian-supporting person gets elected as the president of the USA.
2) The military aid to Ukraine stops.
3) Putin wins the war against Ukraine.
4) Putin doesn't stop there and proceeds to attack Hungary.
5) Putin wins the war against Hungary and proceeds to attack Croatia.
Scenario 2:
1) Serbia stops tollerating the abuse of the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and attacks Bosnia and Herzegovina.
2) Croatia stands with Bosnia and Herzegovina and attacks Serbia.
I am not feeling safe from war here in Croatia. Sure, I feel safer than I would feel if I were in Serbia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, but far from perfectly safe.

A gun used by a woman against an unarmed adult male assailant at close range will likely be taken from her simply because it's very easy to do so (given the safe assumption that the man is significantly stronger physically).

Oh, come on! How often do women use guns in self-defense each year in the US? Hundreds of thousands of times, if not millions of times, if Gary Kleck's study is remotely correct. How often do they have guns taken away from them and used against them? It's so rare it makes it into the news when that happens.

You're probably less likely to have your wallet stolen, in exchange for a drastically higher chance of dying.

What makes you think that? I'd expect your chances of dying to be slightly lower, rather than drastically higher.

This is all very silly, and I don't know why "pro-gun" is the next conspiracy theory train you've hopped on Teo.

And where is there a conspiracy?

[brimstoneSalad]

Well, they were cited as one of the most important pieces of evidence in the pro-2nd-Amendment Supreme Court decisions. That would strongly suggest you are missing something if it seems absurd to you.

What do you think you're saying here?
Citing political ideology is not an argument. Refrain from doing so, and stick to studies and reasoned logic.

That doesn't seem to be like "speculation" to me. Let's say somebody threatens you that he will come to your house and rape you.

Yes, that is the definition of you doing speculation dummy. Stop it and provide some evidence for why the normal reaction contradicts game theory.
If gun carrying were response to threats, those are crimes and there would be more broad evidence of them: that's what the police are for. Threats of violence should be reported.

Well, according to the Gary Kleck's study, in around 20% of DGUs, the gun was actually fired. I wouldn't call "20%" "almost never".

Firing into the air, or firing to scare somebody away is common for trespassing where the gun user is not threatened. Firing for any reason but to kill is not supported by game theory in situations of threat.
If you're speculating that these people are just terrible shots, gunshot wounds still have to be reported, and untreated otherwise non-fatal gunshot wounds are more dangerous than Hollywood depicts.

Your speculation doesn't hold up.

that virtually all criminals flee rather than using their own weapons.

That's what one would expect under the "soft target" theory of violent crime.

That would be the effect of open carry prior to target selection. Not actual gun use. The question was gun use in self defense, not speculation that you were never attacked in the first place only because you had a gun visible.

If somebody is planning to rape and murder you and has a gun his or herself as conservatives believe, then the correct game theory response is to shoot you when you reveal after target selection that you have a gun to minimize personal risk of being shot to death. This person was already planning to murder you, so there's not a moral factor compelling him or her to take upon personal risk to protect your life.

The fact that mass shootings happen at all suggests that game theory doesn't predict violent crime correctly.

Mass shootings are products of mental illness, these people are normally already suicidal with sociopathic impulses.
Game theory predicts precisely that these people will kill as many as possible on their ways out.

You need to look at the motivations involved.

And what makes you think a war in Croatia is unlikely? I can think of two scenarios of how a war might break out in Croatia that both seem plausible to me.
Scenario 1:
1) Some Russian-supporting person gets elected as the president of the USA.
2) The military aid to Ukraine stops.
3) Putin wins the war against Ukraine.
4) Putin doesn't stop there and proceeds to attack Hungary.
5) Putin wins the war against Hungary and proceeds to attack Croatia.

I didn't say it was unlikely. I'm arguing against your specific take, and saying it does make sense in those cases.
Teo, if you want a bunch of guns, then get whatever permits you need and buy them. Just keep them locked up, and in a time-delay safe so you don't shoot yourself with them. You'll have plenty of advanced notice if Russia invades.

I'm not arguing against gun ownership, or that it should be banned, or anything like that. I'm saying your particular argument was stupid and that "study" is bad.

Oh, come on! How often do women use guns in self-defense each year in the US? Hundreds of thousands of times, if not millions of times, if Gary Kleck's study is remotely correct.

It's not, and this is an asinine argument Teo.

How often do they have guns taken away from them and used against them? It's so rare it makes it into the news when that happens.

Why do you think that would be known or newsworthy?

You're probably less likely to have your wallet stolen, in exchange for a drastically higher chance of dying.

What makes you think that? I'd expect your chances of dying to be slightly lower, rather than drastically higher.

That's not what game theory or the extant evidence says (limited as it is).

[teo123]

Citing political ideology is not an argument.

Well, ideally, SCOTUS shouldn't have a political ideology, it should be following the evidence. Do you think that's not what happens?
And please keep in mind that the Gary Kleck's study is not the only such study. There are dozens of studies with slightly different methodologies arriving at similar results. The NCVS'es study is an outlier, not the Gary Kleck's study.

Firing for any reason but to kill is not supported by game theory in situations of threat.

Well, that's what the evidence indicates. And nearly all studies on DGUs suggest that, in around 20% of DGUs, the gun is actually fired. The only outlier, as far as I'm aware of, is the John Lott's study, which suggests it happens in around 5% of DGUs.
Look, if you want to trust a-priori reasoning (game theory) over evidence, then go into philosophy, don't try to do social sciences that way.

Mass shootings are products of mental illness

Well, it's way more complicated than that. Having a diagnozed mental illness is not a good predictor of being a mass shooter. And don't take that from me, take that from a left-leaning website called Psychiatric Times: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/m ... ntally-ill

get whatever permits you need

Well, good luck with that. I have a diagnozed mental illness (a psychotic disorder), and lawmakers here in Croatia believe that myth that having a diagnozed mental illness is a good predictor of being a mass shooter.

Just keep them locked up, and in a time-delay safe

You need to realize that safe storage laws are unconstitutional precisely because they make guns much less useful for self-defense.

It's not, and this is an asinine argument Teo.

Look, having your gun taken away from you and used against you is rare, and will become even more rare in the future with the advent of smart guns with fingerprint sensors.

[brimstoneSalad]

Well, ideally, SCOTUS shouldn't have a political ideology, it should be following the evidence. Do you think that's not what happens?

You have no idea.
There's ambiguity, plus different theories of law (originalism, textualism, living constitutionalism), and the choice of interpretation is highly subjective.

Conservatives and liberals are inconsistent in opposite ways: favoring individual rights when convenient to their ideologies and opposing them when not.

And please keep in mind that the Gary Kleck's study is not the only such study. There are dozens of studies with slightly different methodologies arriving at similar results. The NCVS'es study is an outlier, not the Gary Kleck's study.

It's bad quality evidence with bad methodology with implausibly high numbers Teo. NCVS's has better methodology, which is why it's an "outlier".
Those doing most of these self defense studies are pro-gun, they're not motivated to use reliable information, they're motivated to find large numbers.
Quantity does not override quality.

And nearly all studies on DGUs suggest that, in around 20% of DGUs, the gun is actually fired. The only outlier, as far as I'm aware of, is the John Lott's study, which suggests it happens in around 5% of DGUs.

That's an absurd number of discharges.
Both absurdly low as a percentage in legitimate scenarios of life threatening self defense, and absurdly high as a total number if the claims are remotely accurate.

Objective evidence like the statistics on justifiable homicide using a gun are more useful as a floor.
That's a little over 200 a year.
Since 90% of so of violent crimes are not committed with guns, it's reasonable that gun self-defense would not result in shooting the perpetrator.
That gets us to at least 2,000 crimes defended against with a gun.

Start there.

Look, if you want to trust a-priori reasoning (game theory) over evidence, then go into philosophy, don't try to do social sciences that way.

Are you trying to get banned again by misrepresenting my argument?

Mass shootings are products of mental illness

Well, it's way more complicated than that. Having a diagnozed mental illness is not a good predictor of being a mass shooter. And don't take that from me, take that from a left-leaning website called Psychiatric Times: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/m ... ntally-ill

There you go misrepresenting my argument again.

Just keep them locked up, and in a time-delay safe

You need to realize that safe storage laws are unconstitutional precisely because they make guns much less useful for self-defense.

And this is the third time you've misrepresented my argument. No more posting on this issue for a month Teo.
Also, you do not understand the U.S. constitution. Read first before talking about it. You have a month to do so.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The wording explicitly refers to the point of it being for allowing well regulated militias. Nothing in requiring certain forms of storage infringes on that. When a would-be dictator is gathering forces to take over the country, you definitely have a few hours notice to unlock your guns and assemble your militia.

[teo123]

By the way, @Red, it is kind of creepy that, if you ask today's artificial intelligence something nontrivial about computer science or linguistics, it will talk gibberish you can't imagine a human being writing, and yet, when asked something nontrivial about politics (such as about the Gary Kleck's study), it basically passes the Turing Test. My guess is that it has something to do with this:

[teo123]

@brimstoneSalad, as educated as you are about natural sciences, you appear to be extremely ignorant about social sciences and unable to realize when you are wrong. Like my father, you never concede that I might be right about something we disagree on.
You appear to misunderstand economics worse than most anarchists. I think most anarchists don't think that if the animal feed gets ore expensive, that necessarily means meat gets more expensive. I think most anarchists understand what is the labor theory of value and why it's wrong.
Now, as for the soft-science-versus-hard-science debate, I concede that you guessed correctly that the study of the Croatian toponyms is a soft science. I was wrong that the p-value of that k-r pattern in the Croatian river names is around 1/10'000. A better model that takes into account the collision entropy of different parts of the grammar of the Croatian language suggests that the probability of that k-r pattern occurring by chance is somewhere between 1/300 and 1/17. And you can make some hard-to-test but somewhat-plausible ad-hoc hypotheses as to why even 1/17 would be an underestimate ("What if the collision entropy of the nouns of the Croatian language is significantly lower than the collision entropy of all the words in the Aspell word list for the Croatian language?"...). So, yeah, it's not entirely absurd to suggest that the study of the Croatian toponyms is describing coincidences. However, you were also claiming that the Havlik's Law is an example of a soft science. How can that be the case? How can the Havlik's Law possibly be describing a coincindence? I still think we can be reasonably certain that the Havlik's Law is true or at least that it is a very good approximation. As for the Grimm's Law, well, it's complicated. We don't have written records of Proto-Indo-European, so you can say something like "How do we know that the exact opposite of the Grimm's Law isn't true? Maybe Armenian and Germanic haven't undergone massive sound-changes, but all the other branches of Indo-European have. (And almost all etymologies involving pre-historic borrowing to and from Proto-Germanic are wrong.)" without sounding like a Flat-Earther. But I wouldn't call it soft science because of that. Soft science means weak p-values, the p-value of the Grimm's Law would, if calculated, still be rather strong, it's just that there is an alternative interpretation of the evidence.

You have no idea.

OK, to me it seems like the Supreme Court is following the evidence in this case.

Those doing most of these self defense studies are pro-gun, they're not motivated to use reliable information, they're motivated to find large numbers.

And what do you think is happening in the Gary-Kleck-like studies?
Do you think that it's massive telescoping, that people are misremembering events that occurred eight years ago as if they occurred less than a year ago? Gary Kleck responds to that objection in his study by citing a study showing that people on average tend to remember events that occurred 14 months ago as if they occurred less than a year ago, not events that occurred 8 years ago. Now, you might argue that defensive gun uses are very stressful events so that telescoping would be much greater, but to say it would increase the number by 8 times... That's just a weird assertion, not to mention obviously ad-hoc.
Do you think that people are dreaming that they are using guns in self-defense and are mistaking those dreams for reality? That seems rather implausible to me. To me, it usually happens the other way around: I sometimes remember real events as if they were dreams. Is it different when you don't have a psychotic disorder?

That's an absurd number of discharges.

But what could possibly lead to such a giant error in the Gary-Kleck-like studies?

That gets us to at least 2,000 crimes defended against with a gun.

Start there.

The lower-bound number should, if anything, be around 100'000, as the NCVS statistics suggest that there are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100'000 defensive gun uses per year, and it's not at all obvious how could NCVS statistics be an overestimate (but it's obvious how they could be a giant underestimate).

There you go misrepresenting my argument again.

I don't see how I straw-manned you, I am quite sure there is no evidence for what you are saying. I am quite sure you are using your intuition here, rather than looking at the evidence. OK, the article by Psychiatric Times may be slightly off, it's not exactly true that the mental health profile of mass shooters is similar to that of the general population, but what's true is that no mental illness is proved to make you more likely to be a mass shooter. Around 20% of mass shooters have a diagnozed mental illness, compared to around 8% of the general population. And there is certainly evidence that mass shooters are significantly more likely to have an anxiety disorder than the general population. But, like Shane Killian says, the mere suggestion that the relationship is causal seems ridiculous. Why doesn't the anxiety disorder make them lie on the floor in the foetal position, rather than grab a gun and start shooting strangers? Ironically, the mental illnesses that the media is usually blaming for mass shootings, such as paranoid schizophrenia, actually make you less likely to be a mass shooter.
And as a mentally ill person myself (I am suffering from a psychotic disorder), I find blaming mass shootings on mental illness rather insulting.

You have a month to do so.

And I hope that in the meantime you have familiarized yourself with the Garry Kleck's study.

The wording explicitly refers to the point of it being for allowing well regulated militias.

In the explanatory clause, not in the operative clause. It has no legislative effect. The 2nd Amendment consists of an explanatory clause and an operative clause. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" is an explanatory clause without a legislative effect, and "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is an operative clause with a legislative effect.

When a would-be dictator is gathering forces to take over the country, you definitely have a few hours notice to unlock your guns and assemble your militia.

You think that arming the civilians helps against the tyrannical government? Well, I'd say it's complicated. I'd say it mostly does, but that there are some striking exceptions. What would have happened in Mao's China if more people had guns? The answer seems obvious to me: more sparrows would end up being killed, the invasion of the grasshoppers would be worse, and the famine would be worse. But why focus on that? The evidence that guns are useful for self-defense is overwhelming (countless Gary-Kleck-like studies), the evidence that guns protect against tyrannical governments is conflicting anecdotes.

[teo123]

I've made a YouTube video against gun control in the Latin language, attempting to emulate Late Latin (by using quia+indicative where possible instead of Accusative with Infinitive and Nominative with Infinitive, by using "quoniam" for "because"...): https://youtu.be/Lh3qBwQcSEo

[brimstoneSalad]

@brimstoneSalad, as educated as you are about natural sciences, you appear to be extremely ignorant about social sciences and unable to realize when you are wrong. Like my father, you never concede that I might be right about something we disagree on.

Quite the contrary, I avoid taking position on issues I don't know enough about because I prefer not to be wrong about things.
You, on the other hand, talk out of your ass and come to constant wrong conclusions such as believing the Earth is flat, believing bombs don't exist because you don't understand basic thermodynamics, etc.

Your position on social sciences are simply harder to address most concisely and definitively because of the nature of the field, so like that XKCD comic you're getting away with bullshitting (and bullshitting yourself too) for longer.

I don't have strong view on most social science topics.
Your ignorance on economics and your strong belief in some fringe theories mirrors your claims on thermodynamics around bombs.
It's not worth my time to try to talk you out of these fringe beliefs anymore Teo. If you spam the forum with them you'll get banned. Stay out of other people's threads, particularly new members. This is your final warning.
Make your own threads if you must.

I think most anarchists don't think that if the animal feed gets ore expensive, that necessarily means meat gets more expensive.

Teo, you're not going to be allowed to ignore math.

Minus government subsidies which are a complicated issue, if grain to feed a cow costs $1,000, the meat from the cow can not be sustainably sold for less than $1,000.

Feed prices are a major factor in production, and put a lot of pressure on the margins of farmers.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ ... tId=104424
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2024/04 ... 711655540/

Low margins push farmers out of the beef business, meaning less beef, meaning lower supply and higher prices until the system reaches a new equilibrium. This is common knowledge in the industry and across economics.

Go to your university and talk to an economics professor about it if you do not understand the concept. It's not my job to explain basic economics or math to you.

This has all been explained to you multiple times. It will not be explained again. Find a new conspiracy theory. Continued spamming on this issue will be regarded as what it is -- spamming to troll people into a meaningless debate on your nonsense -- and you will be banned indefinitely.

Now, as for the soft-science-versus-hard-science debate, I concede that you guessed correctly that the study of the Croatian toponyms is a soft science. I was wrong that the p-value of that k-r pattern in the Croatian river names is around 1/10'000. A better model that takes into account the collision entropy of different parts of the grammar of the Croatian language suggests that the probability of that k-r pattern occurring by chance is somewhere between 1/300 and 1/17. And you can make some hard-to-test but somewhat-plausible ad-hoc hypotheses as to why even 1/17 would be an underestimate ("What if the collision entropy of the nouns of the Croatian language is significantly lower than the collision entropy of all the words in the Aspell word list for the Croatian language?"...). So, yeah, it's not entirely absurd to suggest that the study of the Croatian toponyms is describing coincidences. However, you were also claiming that the Havlik's Law is an example of a soft science. How can that be the case? How can the Havlik's Law possibly be describing a coincindence? I still think we can be reasonably certain that the Havlik's Law is true or at least that it is a very good approximation. As for the Grimm's Law, well, it's complicated. We don't have written records of Proto-Indo-European, so you can say something like "How do we know that the exact opposite of the Grimm's Law isn't true? Maybe Armenian and Germanic haven't undergone massive sound-changes, but all the other branches of Indo-European have. (And almost all etymologies involving pre-historic borrowing to and from Proto-Germanic are wrong.)" without sounding like a Flat-Earther. But I wouldn't call it soft science because of that. Soft science means weak p-values, the p-value of the Grimm's Law would, if calculated, still be rather strong, it's just that there is an alternative interpretation of the evidence.

The softness of science isn't just about what you assume the P value of things to be, it's in the underlying assumptions and the methodology. Linguistics as a field is a softer science.
I'm not interested in discussing Havlik's Law, which is a post-hoc observational claim with exceptions. That's not a scientific theory, it's too specific to a case and makes no generalized predictions of the evolution of languages which is what you'd need to consider it. This kind of "working backwards" is a hallmark of a soft science, because that's the only category of strong claim (descriptive ones) soft sciences can make. There's nothing wrong with observational trends, but they need to predict something outside of their scopes to be scientific theories.

If you want to talk philosophy of linguistics, that's more interesting. Give me something like Grice's Maxims that serves as an axiom and has broad implications on purpose.

But what could possibly lead to such a giant error in the Gary-Kleck-like studies?

Cognitive or political biases of the people answering, lying in the responses because people want to represent guns favorably or feel pressure to answer with a story of their own, Incompetence or fraud on the part of the surveyors. Maybe all of these.
This is a weak study done by partisans on a politically charged issue. It is not particularly credible on its own. It comes to unrealistic conclusions, which makes it less credible.

I don't have very strong views on gun control Teo, I've expressed this. It's a smaller issue in the world compared to matters like climate change and protecting the rules based international order that helps dissuade aggressor states from trying to conquer others by force.

I do have a strong opinion on bad science. And I have a strong opinion on not promoting garbage that indirectly supports bad actors in politics who support dictators.

I don't see how I straw-manned you, I am quite sure there is no evidence for what you are saying.

There's no evidence for any of this shit Teo, it's bad science. My point is confounding variables and the lack of evidence by expressing alternative explanations so stop misrepresenting me.

I am quite sure you are using your intuition here, rather than looking at the evidence.

Do not tell me I don't have evidence again. The point is that there's no good evidence on the subject. There probably aren't even enough mass shooters to develop a good profile. It's not that common an event.

And I hope that in the meantime you have familiarized yourself with the Garry Kleck's study.

I'm not wasting any more of my time on this Teo, it's bad science. Spending more time on it won't fix that.
It would be interesting to see some good science to help resolve the issue so politics can stop revolving around gun debate, but it's unlikely to happen any time soon due to the overly political nature of the issue.

The wording explicitly refers to the point of it being for allowing well regulated militias.

In the explanatory clause, not in the operative clause. It has no legislative effect. The 2nd Amendment consists of an explanatory clause and an operative clause. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" is an explanatory clause without a legislative effect, and "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is an operative clause with a legislative effect.

Regarding legislative effect, that depends on the legal theory. There's a reason the spirit of the law was explicitly stated rather than implied or unstated here. Only a particular brand of conservative textualist who came up in the last twenty years or so interprets it the way YOU want to interpret it.

Your interest in defending guns seems to stem from the same place as your interest in believing the Earth was flat, and it's accompanied by a similar effort to make claims of science. There's just not a lot of good evidence on the topic of guns, so a reasonable person would be inclined to leave it alone.

[teo123]

You, on the other hand, talk out of your ass and come to constant wrong conclusions such as believing the Earth is flat, believing bombs don't exist because you don't understand basic thermodynamics, etc.

Sure, but I admit when I get things wrong. You, on the other hand, as far as I know, have never admitted that you got things wrong.

Your ignorance on economics and your strong belief in some fringe theories mirrors your claims on thermodynamics around bombs.

I am not sure what you mean by that.

Go to your university and talk to an economics professor about it if you do not understand the concept. It's not my job to explain basic economics or math to you.

OK, I've sent this e-mail to my economics professor:

Pozdrav, profesorice Crnjac-Milić!
Ovdje Teo Samaržija, bivši student FERIT-a. Ne znam sjećate li me se, pretpostavljam da ne. Dobio sam dvojku iz Ekonomike poduzeća.
Jedna stvar u vezi ekonomije nejasna mi je, i volio bih da mi je netko pojasni. Ako se cijena stočne hrane poveća, hoće li se i cijena mesa povećati? U marksističkoj ekonomiji i Adam Smithovoj ekonomiji, odgovor je očit: povećat će se. Te ekonomske teorije bazirane su na labour theory of value. Ali moderne ekonomske teorije kažu da je labour theory of value kriva. Pa što onda one kažu po tom pitanju? Meni to nije očito. Očito, na povećanje cijene proizvodnje u svom poduzeću ne smiješ odgovarati tako da povećaš cijenu proizvoda: ako staviš cijenu veću od tržišne (cijene koju određuje odnos ponude i potražnje), dodatno ćeš si smanjiti profite. Ali što se događa makroekonomski kada se svima koji nešto proizvode poveća cijena proizvodnje? Što se dogodi kad cijena proizvodnje nekog proizvoda skoči iznad tržišne cijene tog istog proizvoda? Prestaje li onda taj proizvod biti dostupan na tržištu? Ili ostaje dostupan, samo po većoj cijeni?
Meni se čini da to ima velike implikacije. Primjerice, imaju li smisla poljoprivredni poticaji kao pokušaj da se smanji cijena hrane (nauštrb, naravno, većih poreza)? Isto tako, ima li smisla za porast cijena kriviti porast minimalne plaće?
Unaprijed zahvaljujem na odgovoru!

Find a new conspiracy theory.

OK, what do you think about the conspiracy theory that Rosetta 2 doesn't exist?

The softness of science isn't just about what you assume the P value of things to be, it's in the underlying assumptions and the methodology.

Now it seems to me that you are shifting the goals post-hoc.

Cognitive or political biases of the people answering, lying in the responses because people want to represent guns favorably or feel pressure to answer with a story of their own, Incompetence or fraud on the part of the surveyors. Maybe all of these.

That's not an explanation of any kind. That's somewhere between not-even-wrong and word salad. An explanation would be: "Telescoping of stressful events is by an order of magnitude greater than Gary Kleck supposes it to be. Here is an experiment to prove that.".

rules based international order that helps dissuade aggressor states from trying to conquer others by force

Well, maybe guns can help with that. There is a reason why Hitler didn't even try to conquer Switzerland: he was afraid of armed civilians.

And I have a strong opinion on not promoting garbage that indirectly supports bad actors in politics who support dictators.

If the implication here is that I support Donald Trump, then... You don't even deserve a response.

My point is confounding variables and the lack of evidence by expressing alternative explanations so stop misrepresenting me.

Umm... Re-read what you wrote 6 months ago. You literally claimed that mass shooters tend to have sociopathic and suicidal tendencies.

Spending more time on it won't fix that.

Sorry, but, in order to refute a scientific theory, you need to have a deep understanding of it.

Your interest in defending guns seems to stem from the same place as your interest in believing the Earth was flat, and it's accompanied by a similar effort to make claims of science.

Sorry, I don't see the connection. Being pro-gun is the mainstream social science, after all, Gary Kleck is one of the most influential sociologists of the late 20th century. Flat-Earthism hasn't been mainstream science for 2 millennia. Pro-gun position appears to be supported by mathematics: Gary-Kleck-like studies, the evidence that telescoping is unlikely to have a significant effect on them... Flat-Earthism is pretty much the rejection of mathematics.

[Red]

Teo, you were just unbanned, are you trying for another?

Sure, but I admit when I get things wrong. You, on the other hand, as far as I know, have never admitted that you got things wrong.

I've seen brimstone admit a few times he's been wrong on things, but have you considered that maybe the reason why brimstone is usually not wrong is because he's done countless debates and discussions wherein he was the wrong one and gradually learned how to be less wrong, and also learned not to take hardline positions on things he doesn't know much about? Maybe you oughta take a page out of that book.

Considering your track record of being egregiously incorrect about 99% of the time and brimstone being modestly incorrect about 1% of the time, I doubt we've stumbled onto one of the instances where you're right and brimstone's wrong.

Your ignorance on economics and your strong belief in some fringe theories mirrors your claims on thermodynamics around bombs.

I am not sure what you mean by that.

It's your immense ignorance leading you to absurd conclusions.

Well, maybe guns can help with that. There is a reason why Hitler didn't even try to conquer Switzerland: he was afraid of armed civilians.

Teo you've said a lot of really dumb things but this is easily top five, at least in regards to social science and history. This sentence's sheer magnitude of historical ignorance is hard to put into words.

Hitler not taking over Switzerland mainly had to do with its geography since it was in the mountains, it would've been easy for the Swiss to make any invasion difficult and costly (see National Redoubt), not to mention that taking Switzerland wasn't really all that important compared to other countries Hitler wanted (USSR in particular, which had the resources Hitler wanted). Switzerland staying neutral also helped the Axis, serving as a hub of sorts for diplomacy and finance (and with the Allied blockade, allowed for trade). Also, the Swiss citizens weren't just handed guns, the men were also given military training and kept the guns given. Unless of course you think we should bring back conscription.

On top of all that, are you really going to say with a straight face that Hitler was intimidated by civilians with guns but didn't have any reservations with taking on the Red Army, the world's largest army at the time? Come on now. I'm curious what nutjob you heard this nugget from.

And I have a strong opinion on not promoting garbage that indirectly supports bad actors in politics who support dictators.

If the implication here is that I support Donald Trump, then... You don't even deserve a response.

Keyword there is indirectly. But I find it funny how you think you're acting like you're being the better man in this situation. It's cute.

Umm... Re-read what you wrote 6 months ago. You literally claimed that mass shooters tend to have sociopathic and suicidal tendencies.

That sounds like a confounding variable to me.

Sorry, but, in order to refute a scientific theory, you need to have a deep understanding of it.

Why oh why are you clinging endlessly to this shitty study with godawful controls and methodology that has been criticized by other social scientists?

Even if there were a professional consensus on the matter of gun control (as far as I can tell, it's pretty cut down the middle), I wouldn't take it all that seriously since people's cultural and political bias strongly outweigh empirical evidence when it comes to forming an opinion on the matter. Even amongst "experts" the issue is divided along party lines and their positions are motivated by ideological reasoning (both on the left and right). Which is sort of an issue with a lot of fields in social science.

Sorry, I don't see the connection.

I do.

Being pro-gun is the mainstream social science, after all, Gary Kleck is one of the most influential sociologists of the late 20th century.

In order for something to be mainstream science it has to be consensus, one dubious phone-study from a partisan sociologist doesn't qualify.