[d23]

Here are a few threads you might find interesting:

* https://twitter.com/maxberger/status/1654877506783137792

* https://twitter.com/hello__caitlin/status/165487177008270950...

* https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1655948197129494532

I'm having trouble finding another one I saw yesterday he tweeted basically implying black women were an order of magnitude more violent than white women.

Edit: ah, found it, along with a couple inane conspiracies to boot, which has become standard for him these days:

* https://twitter.com/maxberger/status/1655985143700389893

[slily]

The links you posted are inflammatory nonsense that try to draw a line between concern over mainstream media coverage of race and crime and "fascism". It's contrived at best.

Are the statistics wrong? Is it wrong to say that media coverage is slanted and focuses on the minority of racist white-on-black crime while ignoring the reverse? Seems like this is all fairly well documented. Slapping slurs on the posts that point that out and calling for the posters to be "cancelled" or suppressed by calling them "dangerous" - that, if anything, strikes me as fascistic.

[d23]

> The links you posted are inflammatory nonsense

What? They are screenshots of his responses!

> Are the statistics wrong?

They have been purposefully stripped of context and misrepresented to imply that black people are more violent than white people. The author literally worked backwards from the originally expressed percentages to deceive! It's not the statistics that are wrong, it's the way they've been presented.

Over the last 10+ years on this site, I have mostly found this to be one of the higher quality places for discussion on the internet, but occasionally over the last few years I have questioned whether this is the right place for me. The responses to this have once again made me rethink whether this community is one I want to be a part of.

I am genuinely revolted.

[concordDance]

Are you questioning whether this is the right place for you based more on quality of discourse or on the leanings of the views expressed?

I must confess the quality of discourse seems to have gone down over the last few years. Feels like we've had a migration from reddit.

[d23]

> Are you questioning whether this is the right place for you based more on quality of discourse or on the leanings of the views expressed?

Both. I am uninterested in hanging out with the 13/52 crowd.

[concordDance]

Having looked up what that means: am I missing something or is it the case that you don't want to interact with people who mention facts that can be used to support unpleasant narratives?

Because if so, that seems like a way of ending up with a very biased view of the world... while the murder ratio fact might be old news to you and something that shouldn't be dwelled on, there's bound to be one of the 10,000[1] just learning it for the first time and sometimes you'd be one of those 10,000 unless you cut yourself off from it.

[1] https://xkcd.com/1053/

[d23]

You are missing that this is one of many racist signalers and memes white supremacists and nazis use to justify their hatred. They're based on incomplete and misleading statistics designed to manipulate people without critical thinking skills.

[LudwigNagasena]

What does that have to do with phrenology? You could just say he is racist or whatever if you think so.

[d23]

It's pseudoscientific bunk (in this case, statistics manipulated to deceive) designed push a narrative of a specific race being more violent. It is no more moral, intelligent, or useful than phrenology.

[LudwigNagasena]

I think saying that it amounts to phrenology is a manipulation designed to push a narrative. I expected something completely different than what you’ve presented. I think you aren’t better than Elon Musk in that regard.

[d23]

I don't know how warped you have to be to look at that and think this isn't the most bottom of the barrel racism there is.

[concordDance]

If the worst racism possible is complaining about disproportionate media focus on white on black crime then I think we can safely declare the problem of racism solved. :)

To be a bit more constructive: looking at those links it seems obvious to me that the main point is about media focus, not the actual crime statistics.

[d23]

Complaining about "disproportionate media coverage" is a thin veil for the delivery of the more insidious message the dishonest graphic is conveying: why aren't they covering the real problem of all these black people committing violence.

And I didn't say it's the "worst" racism. It's cheap, low effort, dishonest, unintelligent, and designed to manipulate morons, which brings me back to my original comparison to phrenology.

[LudwigNagasena]

You said he promotes "what amounts to phrenology" and then linked to a tweet where someone calls Musk a white supremacist for commenting "wow" on a post about illegal immigration. That whole chain of justification looks to me like a total non sequitur.

[concordDance]

That doesn't seem like phrenology to me. Yes, there's a lack of context, but the fundamental points about media (both traditional and social) amplifying certain things (to get more shares mostly) seems sound... I certainly have been exposed to at least 10x as many reports of USA whites killing blacks than the reverse.

[dmuso]

Just add a bunch of political terms into your word block list. It helps make Twitter much more enjoyable.