Quote of the Day
Last month, at the City University of New York, I lectured about how evolutions in data-led policing strategies helped New York City reduce annual murder numbers from 2,245 in 1990 to just 292 in 2017 — and from 93 annual fatal police shootings in 1971 to just six a half-century later. At the same time, city jail and New York State prison populations have also seen their numbers more than halved.
The “war on data” made its biggest inroads during the administration of former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who prioritized feelings and emotions over cold, hard facts during debates about his landmark prison reform initiatives.
My presentation was layered with both data and descriptions of the tensions inherent in researching neighborhood crime dynamics. Following my talk, I invited students to discuss these notable statistical shifts. What I heard from those bold enough to actually speak floored me: They told me it was racist to use data to discuss policing. All the more so, because I’m a white woman.
Hannah E. Meyers
March 11, 2023
Why NYC crime policy-makers are now ignoring data
Emphasis added.
We may be headed into a new Dark Age. Prepare appropriately.
It’s going to be harder to find engineers that can engineer, doctors and nurses that can medicine, mathematicians that can math, chemists that can chem, physicists that can physique…
And the ones who can will make BANK.
For the rest of society, we’re going to suffer from a plague of snake oil salesmen.
Make bank? No, likely not, except in rare cases.
Instead, I suspect the bad ones – the ones who politic and connive rather than actually do anything productive – will be fine. The good ones who actually care will not get recognition when they can manage to keep things working, and will bear the blame when they can’t. I would suggest the Venezuelan oil industry serves as an exemplar.
I’m more inclined to believe that my welding, gunsmithing and other practical skills would be more useful than quantum mechanics or gene splicing expertise. I, for one, look forward to a new role as a feudal overlord.
Hm. How many barons, counts and dukes were blacksmiths, back in the Middle Ages?
In the event, I would hope to be more or less left alone, and trade for my skills, than have to answer to an overlord. The old trade between freedom and job security, albeit in a slightly different context. 🙂
At the risk of belaboring the blindingly obvious…
If one declares that some topics are verboten from a white woman, then other topics will be verboten when coming from a black woman. We really don’t want to go there.
If using data is racist to discuss policing, then soon enough it will be racist to use data in other fields. And then we will have bridges that fail, medicines that don’t work, and time-tested policies abandoned for feel-good measures that won’t even feel good.
Math is the least racist field we have! Math works exactly the same way for everyone.
And to those who cry ‘racist’ for things that are not racist at all… well, we remember what happened to the boy who cried wolf.
Your points would work if you were dealing with semi-rational and semi-honest people, but that isn’t the case.
On racism: you’re up against the notion that certain classes of people by definition can’t be racist. So no, a black woman would not run into the same problem, ever. (Consider Ilhan Omar for evidence, or for that matter Louis Farrakhan.)
On math: indeed it works the same for everyone, but that isn’t the issue. The people pushing such notions as astronomy being a white supremacist discipline aren’t interested in facts or reality — they are pushing an anti-human agenda. For a better understanding, you need to consider the likes of Floyd Ferris in Atlas Shrugged.
Today, there is no fact or evidence that is more powerful than the most pitiful claim made in the name of social justice. If we fight fire with fire, do we fight ignorance with ignorance? We certainly can’t fight ignorance with knowledge; that doesn’t work anymore.
Interesting point.
I would like to think you are wrong about it not working. Perhaps it doesn’t work much of the time.
I’m tempted to claim that we need to hold the course on logic and facts. Yes, they will scream and yell about the racism/fascism/capitalism/etc. But like the lead characters in an Ayn Rand novel, we just do our thing and let “reality” overtake them. Most of the time “reality” will be the laws of physics/economics/etc. Other times it will be people fed up with their crap and push back.
I’m not certain it will work. But it is a path to retain the moral high ground.
Dark ages? Ya, if one is ignorant enough to vote for Bill DeBlasio. Your already in the dark ages.
The only reason there was a dark age in the first place was because, well, Europe. And the attitude of most Europeans toward monarchy.
That and the fact that they didn’t have firearms like the AR-15.
Petty warlords are going to find it a little harder to maintain their fiefdoms. And once armed people get hungry. Governments don’t have much of a say anymore either.
America is a nation of builders. We love building. Everything. Those natural tendencies are being artificially suppressed. Not for much longer though.
This world is just witnessing the end of global government. It’s going to be painful and bloody. As it always is.
Dark ages always end. Because they actually have to be imposed on a people. That imposition is going to be much harder to maintain this time around.
Always end? I’d like to think so, but for example China has been in a dark age for at least 5000 years.
Yes, had one imposed on them for that long. The funny part is that the Chinese are very predatory capitalist. Naturally.
But rather than fight, (which they do on occasion), they generally just wait till you get tried of standing on their neck. And as soon as you let up. They go right back to it.
Mao/real murdering communism, tried everything they could. Then gave in to Nixon and Wall St.
Cracks are showing there. Even with all the lock-downs and social media control. They just got finished having some big-ass riots.
I think the Chinese people are seeing a little light. Hopefully.
Were the one’s in the deep kim-chi.
Dark Ages?
Well, probably, at least for a while. But…..
This is America. It is a very different place from the rest of the world. Very different.
There will come a point at which, “things with which we will not up with put” will be reached and Things Will Get Different, very quickly and very severely. That will not occur everywhere, but it will occur in enough places that Things Will Change. Look up “preference cascade.”
I suspect we are closer to that point than many imagine, and the reason is there is a societal cohort which remembers How Things Used To Be and will reach their Point of Maximum Tolerance of Today’s Bullshit pretty much all at the same time.
It will not be the slightest bit pretty when it happens, but it will be necessary.
The Dripping Left intellect keeping the Propaganda Alive. Zero FACTS.
They all live entirely in the world of make believe