quote:

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The part I don't buy is the suggestion that there's any intent on the part of anyone to use abortion as an anti-crime measure. I think that most people are utterly unaware that there is any correlation.

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quote:

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Originally posted by BannaOj:
Correlation is not cause.
Correlation is not cause.
Correlation is not cause.
Correlation is not cause.
Correlation is not cause.
Correlation is not cause.
Correlation is not cause.
Correlation is not cause.
Correlation is not cause.
Correlation is not cause.

---

quote:

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There really is global warming going on, but it's way less than the fanatics claim, and it's a natural part of the environment.

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quote:

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There really is global warming going on, but it's way less than the fanatics claim, and it's a natural part of the environment.

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quote:

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Wake up Card, you aren't going to make 40's style values and good times appear magically in the ghetto just by outlawing abortion.

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quote:

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And while there is some evidence to suggest that this might be part of a natural warming trend, there isn't enough data to say with certainty that man isn't intensifying the effect beyond what the natural cycle of the environment would do. There's less data on historical climatology than there is on the current state of the world and our effects on it. Saying otherwise is pure conjecture.

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quote:

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I don't think teaching kids about what a condom is encourages sex, I think it encourages more informed decisions, especially for those who would have sex anyway.

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Doesn't seem very sensible to me. And while the rhetoric of people who oppose environmentalists is often head-in-the-sand, the rhetoric of those who support them is often scare-tactics.

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Like the claim that schools are unfair to girls (the so-called “Ophelia Complex”) when in fact the opposite is dramatically true – schools are actually hostile to boys. There is no evidence that the person who claimed to have proved the Ophelia Complex ever had any facts at all. But the claim spread through our society and shaped our perception of school, without any scientific basis whatsoever and in the face of substantial contrary evidence.

---

If not, he's certainly making a very strong claim in the opposite direction, yet without providing any more evidence (less, actually) than the supporters of the Ophelia Complex do.

This is one of the issues I have with OSC's articles. He states things as facts which are not, repeatedly.

Also, he makes an extremely faulty assumption in his logic: that the rate of unmarried pregnancies parallels the rate of unmarried births. That's an implied assumption for his "proof" that people in the 1950s were better at restraining himself. An alternate potential hypothesis is that many of the people not restraining themselves back then went and got married when there was a pregnancy.

Without that element, his argument is significantly flawed. There may well be other issues as well, when I came to that logic error I reduced the scrutiny I put the rest under.

Statistics which suggest this may be the case can be found here: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005061.html

A roughly 25% rise in average marriage age, particularly as nearly everyone getting married is at least 17 or 18 yet the average marriage age in 1950 was 20.3 for women, is huge, and indicates many, many people are getting married older, on average.

Significant further research would need to be done for OSC to be able to make the leap from a lower birthrate outside of marriage in the 1950s to a meaningfully lower rate of sex outside of marriage, and I strongly suspect it will turn out to be impossible.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Oh, also, there are statistics which call into question Levitt's assumptions upon which his abortion-crime argument rests:

http://www.isteve.com/abortion.htm
 

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Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
 
I didn't have time to read the entire book, but I don't think the Ophelia Complex stuff is in there. A quick look at the chapter previews at http://www.freakonomics.com/ makes me more certain that it wasn't in there.

I know all of the 1950's better morality stuff wasn't in the book. Steve Levitt says something along the lines of: the people who are most likely to have abortions are also the people who are most likely unable to raise a child well (resource-wise). Teens, unwed, poor, people with too many children to handle already: these are the people that Levitt mentions as correlated with abortions. These are also the people who are less likely to have good resources and/or enviroments to raise a child in.
 

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Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
 
The link you posted (isteve) is very intersting, fugu, but I don't buy the guy's arguments. I think they're best presented in a Slate dialougue between Lewitt and Steven Sailor, the isteve guy, at http://slate.msn.com/id/33569/entry/33571/
His argument seems to be saying that there are so many other things, such as the crack boom and bust fo the 80's and 90's, that predict crime better, therefore abortion doesn't predict crime. Clearly a problem in that reasoning, and Lewitt points it out in the dialouge.

Lewitt's regression, as I understand it, took all of the *typical* predictors of crime rates, such as the crack thing, and then added in abortion, which resulted in a better R squared (which can be thought of as the amount that the dependent variables correlate with the independent variable. Even if there's a minor improvement in the R squareed, it's still a big deal when dealing with huge problems that have so many affecting varibles. I got a .2 correlation in my research on foreign direct investment patterns this summer, and I was thrilled.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Funny thing about this whole essay is that it is even more unprovable than the crap he was bitching about....and he admits it. Then he goes off and says whatever he wants, warping facts and ignoring the scientific method, just to "prove" his own preconceived notion of right and wrong.

Never mind that spending on crime prevention and control reached new highs at those same time....never mind that correlation and causation are the first thing WRONG with most statistical models on crime....hell, on most things. It is the single most common error in the entire field, and has been demonstrated over and over again.


It is all the fault of the Pill and Abortion...and anyone who disagrees with this has to have poor impulse control.


Thanks god they are godless abortionites...think of what their children would have been like if they weren't murdering them in the womb...

For the first time I am truly disgusted with OSC and his views.


And that makes me sad, and angry, and most of all disappointed.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
I think the guy's positive arguments have flaws, yes, but his negative arguments are pretty persuasive (unsurprisingly; its much easier to make negative arguments).

Ignoring for the moment the question of correlation, the statistics he points out seem to significantly undermine levitt's causality argument. I don't doubt levitt's correlation argument is pretty well constructed, but a correlation also doesn't tell us very much.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
I saw this book month ago...isn't he the same guy who wrote The Tipping Point?
 

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Posted by RoyHobbs (Member # 7594) on :
 
No, thats Malcolm Gladwell.

FYI I have read FREAKONOMICS, and on my first thought back to it, I seem to remember that the "Ophelia" stuff was in there.

More later...
 

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Posted by Jaiden (Member # 2099) on :
 
*sighs*
That article made me sad.
I now remember why I don't read OSC's articles.
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 

quote:

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That article made me sad.

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You're telling me.
 

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Posted by Oobie Binoobie (Member # 8059) on :
 
Hoo!

I don't think people want to hear that abortion and crime are related in any way, *or* that the 50's were better/safer/saner than today...

It was like I was telling my daughter just yesterday, If you're angry, outraged, disgusted, frustrated...

Check yourself. Start asking yourself *why* you feel that way. Chase the counter rhetoric in your head all the way back to its premises and turn *those* over. (I prefer it to counting to ten, personally. It's more productive.)

Once the surge of hormones has passed, and the ideas are merely ideas again, *then* the conversation can start.

Once we got that far with my daughter, her anger was *funny* to her, instead of hot rage, and her disgust with my parenting skills was gone.
 

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Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
 
A podcast interview with Stephen Dubner, co-author of "Freakonomics." is at:

https://www.radiogodaddy.com
Click on "View Broadcast Archives"
Scroll down to "6/8/2005"

I read the book because of the interview, and found everything to be very believable and quite surprizing. The main reason it was believable is because Levitt doesn't come off as having any agenda whatsoever, other than to figure things out.

The abortion = less crime argument is very pursuasive because of states who legalized abortion first saw the drop in crime first.

But you have to remember, this is low-life crime. The book also deals with white colar crime, like what happened at Enron. I can't remember the exact conclusion, but I think it goes along the lines that we really have no idea how much white colar crime goes on because it is rarely discovered. Dead bodies and missing people are hard to ignore. But CEO's pocketing money often never goes discovered.

I don't remember reading about the Ophelia Complex.

Another interesting point of the book. If you have kids and you send them to a house with a gun, are your kids safe? Safer than sending your kid to a house with a pool? Pools kill more children than guns. And the ironic part of it is that the deaths are so preventable.

And another interesting point was that upper class people change names for children like they do clothing fashions. And ironically, the lower class start naming their kids the cast off names of the upper class, presumably because they want to be upper class.

My favorite part of the book was where the author detailed how the KKK was destroyed by... SUPERMAN! I'm not kidding. Read the book.
 

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Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
OSC wrote a much longer article on the Ophelia Complex several years ago (not on Hatrack). I have seen it pop up several times. I am feeling lazy now, but knowing that it exists, maybe you can find the write search terms to Google it with.
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 
I've noticed that no one here is offering any more evidence than OSC did, while deriding him for not offering evidence.

I HAVE read many of the books that he has based his opinions on (including Freakonomics and The War Against Boys ... where he got the stuff about the Ophelia Complex), and he DOES have good reasons to say what he says. You may not agree, but that's fine — just don't accuse him of making things up out of whole cloth. He really believes in and lives by the intellectually-rigorous attitude he promotes in the article. That doesn't mean he's always right, but it DOES mean that he doesn't deserve most of the harsh criticism he is receiving in this thread.

Lyrhawn, I'd like you to point out where he said that outlawing abortion would cause a return to '40s-era culture. I seem to recall that he saw the lack of that culture as one of the reasons that abortion became tolerable ... but I never saw him lay out a plan for returning to the old system. And where did he, at any point, adopt a typical conservative anti-welfare position?

Kwea, read the book and see what it says about crime spending and crime-prevention programs before you try to lay that down as a trump card. And you can stop putting words in his mouth. He didn't say anything about the impulse control of people who disagreed with him.

I get the impression that people reading this thread who have not read the article are probably imagining a completely different essay that what is actually there.
 

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Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
 
The point of the chapter was to show that abortion is the only phenomenon with statistics that match those of the crime decrease, showing the strongest correlation: there's almost nothing about causality.

Further, the author goes further, to indicate that even if you DO assume causality, there are mixed moral implications, because the number of lives saved by the decrease in violent crime is still far outweighed by the number of fetuses aborted. You can be pro-life or pro-choice and still use the correlation as a means of backing up your opinion: the pro-choice crowd will use the numbers to demonstrate that abortion should continue and is a benefit to society, while the pro-life crowd will use the numbers to demonstrate that while there may be a correlation, we're committing more murders than ever.

I don't really see what people are upset about.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
This article is classic OSC punditry:

1) Read a book that, from your point of view, reinforces one of your existing biases. Call it brilliant and present it as a revolutionary new blow for underdog truth.

2) While discussing the brilliance of one of the points "proved" in the book, briefly mention one of the other largely unfounded assumptions you hold to be fact and cite it as yet another example of the way the liberal elites keep "truth" from the ears of the people, even though there may not in fact have been any real controversy (much less suppression) regarding the first point, the one made by the actual book being "reviewed."

3) Find a way to insult the Baby Boomers.
 

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Posted by Celaeno (Member # 8562) on :
 
Puppy and erosomniac--thank you. You said a lot of what I was planning to.

I think much of the conflict and anger in this thread is due to people either skimming the article (if they read it at all) or never picking up the book.

I highly recommend that you read both carefully before posting. Without doing so you only clearly demonstrate your ignorance. Don't get upset unless you're sure there's something to get upset over.

For example, many of you are going on and on about correlation not being the same as causation. If you'd read the book, you would have noticed that the author clearly and frequently emphasizes this very same thing.
 

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Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
Puppy -

quote:

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We expected people to control themselves, and we kept them from having the freedom to act on their impulses until they had learned how to control them.

Compare this with the method we use today: Letting mothers have someone kill their babies for them. What we used to do with words and customs, now we do in blood. With eugenics.

And the third alternative? Sexual freedom without responsibility – and the resulting children grew up to be disproportionately criminal, making the whole society less viable for everyone.

I pick A. I think B and C are both vile. That’s my opinion. But at least I took the available information into account when I reached it.

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quote:

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If you still think the abortion explanation makes more sense, take a look at conservative communities in which abortions are not commonplace. If OSC's argument were correct, such communities would NOT experience a drop in crime during the 90's, without the equivalent increase in abortions.

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If OSC's argument is correct, such communities would not have a great deal of crime to begin with.
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 

quote:

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OSC is making just the sort of off-the-cuff hypothetical claim that we need to fight against.

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quote:

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This easy explaination is this:

Crime isn't as cool now.

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quote:

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Yes, but what you're getting at is not correct. Whereas OSC's explanation was elaborate and lacking any method of evidence, my explanation requires only a slight leap and is fairly simple to prove or disprove, using the tests I suggested. You can poll people's attitudes towards criminal behavior, and it doesn't take much of a stretch to believe as people dislike being criminals more, they will be less likely to commit crime.

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quote:

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For the sake of accuracy, we should note that it is not OSC's explanation

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quote:

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Unless we happened to do this during the entire decline, we can't perform this test.

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Your explanation might require only a slight leap on your part, but it requires a huge leap on my part.

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quote:

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For example, many of you are going on and on about correlation not being the same as causation. If you'd read the book, you would have noticed that the author clearly and frequently emphasizes this very same thing.

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quote:

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Even though films and novels tried to spread the new belief and normalize promiscuity and premarital sex – and today have made many people believe it is completely normal – slightly more than half our society still believes these things to be wrong.

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quote:

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Like the claim that schools are unfair to girls (the so-called “Ophelia Complex”) when in fact the opposite is dramatically true – schools are actually hostile to boys. There is no evidence that the person who claimed to have proved the Ophelia Complex ever had any facts at all. But the claim spread through our society and shaped our perception of school, without any scientific basis whatsoever and in the face of substantial contrary evidence

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quote:

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OSC pushes the same, tired fantasy of the way we never were back in the 1950s.

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quote:

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The part I don't buy is the suggestion that there's any intent on the part of anyone to use abortion as an anti-crime measure.

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quote:

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OSC took on a different subject: what do we do when we're presented with scientific evidence we're uncomfortable with? Ignore it? Try to minimize it?

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quote:

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Except that we know from his previous articles that he falls into the same trap. OSC tends to herald as "accurate" science that science which already supports his worldview, and derides as "false" science that science which suggests conclusions which contradict his philosophies.

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quote:

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No, I consider it a large leap that people now think crime is less cool. I haven't seen you provide any evidence that this is the case.

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quote:

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Are you seriously contending that crime is less cool? What on earth do you base this on that doesn't require a huge leap?

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its entirely possible the lesser occurence of this wasn't actually caused by the systems of morality, but things like fears of consequences

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quote:

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Tres, abortion and crime increasing are based on collected statistics.

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The problem (well, one of the many) you're looking at is that attitudes towards things are often more of an epiphenomenom than a root cause.

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quote:

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This is true - it would be somewhat difficult to prove the causation is there, I suppose. However, if there is both a decrease in crime and a decrease in the desirability of criminal behavior, OSC needs to at least offer a good reason to get me to believe his more difficult-to-buy abortion cause rather my simpler alternative.

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quote:

---

I HAVE read many of the books that he has based his opinions on (including Freakonomics and The War Against Boys ... where he got the stuff about the Ophelia Complex), and he DOES have good reasons to say what he says. You may not agree, but that's fine — just don't accuse him of making things up out of whole cloth. He really believes in and lives by the intellectually-rigorous attitude he promotes in the article. That doesn't mean he's always right, but it DOES mean that he doesn't deserve most of the harsh criticism he is receiving in this thread.

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quote:

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Anyone who's been on this forum over the past few months has seen him totally misread posts people make and attribute to them meanings which are not there and, further, be unwilling to admit to that mistake.

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quote:

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We already went into the divorce statistics for different religions.

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quote:

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Not just because it tends to blunt human potential ...

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I would love to see the statistics you use to back up a value judgment like this

I'm still not sure where you feel we should draw the line between responsible impulse control and repression. It seems that the two are on the same spectrum, but you draw the line in a very different place than I do. How do you arrive at your decision to place it where you do?

I am living, right now, in a system where the strategies that OSC recommends actually work. They worked for me. They worked for many of my close friends. I was not psychologically damaged by the experience, and neither were they, as far as any of us can tell. We look back with relief at the decisions we didn't make, and we're glad.

I also know people for whom it hasn't worked, of course, and I can cite many reasons why. I think every day about how I can improve my own pursuit of these strategies to make them more effective in my life, and in the lives of my children.

The point is, however, that a strategy I have SEEN work, firsthand, again and again for my entire life, is being treated as though it is preposterous, impossible, and a lie. By you. You have to understand that no amount of asserting that "What your people are doing is repression, and repression is BAD!" is going to bear much weight against a lifetime of experience to the contrary. Maybe many people doubt this because they haven't lived it. Or because they have lived versions of it that failed for one reason or another. I can understand that. I'm operating from my own experience, so I can hardly expect other people to do differently.

But realize that if this strategy can work this well in small pockets of society, we have to consider that — at least MAYBE — it might have some value to the larger picture. Instead of dismissing us out of hand and batting our ideas away with the sort of ease that comes only from strong cultural prejudice, why don't you speak to us as equals — as people with a unique experience that might actually be relevant to the grander solution?

quote:

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I have pretty consistently argued against the reliance on external repression as a way to deal with problems with sex and marriage.

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quote:

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Especially when you consider that current trends have divorce around the lowest in the "liberal" population that has a much lower level of the type of externally imposed morality that OSC is championing.

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quote:

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Conservatives want to get rid of abortion, and they want to cut much of welfare.

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quote:

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Dag,
But you are then agreeing with Storm's assessment of OSC's behavior and disagreeing with Geoff's holding him up as a standard of intellectual rigor, yes?

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quote:

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OSC's views in that article go a lot further than that book does...and not because anything other than it happens to match his existing views.

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quote:

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So, lets get this straight....of you are in favor of abortion rights, or use the pill...in disagreement with his morals and values.... you are now much more likely to have poor impulse control and be a criminal,

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That isn't what he said. He didn't say that people who believe those things have poor impulse control. Believing those things doesn't mean you'll run out and get an abortion just for kicks. People get abortions — which are often difficult, emotionally-devastating procedures — for the most part, because they feel like they have to. They are backed into a corner with no good choices. He is suggesting that many of those situations arise from an individual having poor or untrained impulse control. He wants to remove the demand for abortions by training people, in general, to make fewer destructive choices.

I'll admit it's not my favorite part of the article, mostly because I'm not sure we can establish a connection between a person's genetics and their ability to make wise, restrained decisions. But it's not a verse from the Necronomicon, either. Don't read a bunch of hateful stuff into it that isn't there.

[ September 20, 2005, 03:48 AM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Funny thing is, I bet on a personal leve, with regard to one should live their life, I bet Card and I pretty much see eye to eye about most things. I didn't sleep around much before marriage even though I didn't until I was 33, I don't even want to hear the word "abortion" from my wife's mouth (not would she ever say it ), and I live a fairly conservitie lifestyle in my own personal life.


I just don't think that my way is the only way to have a good life...I just know it works for me.


I know, or at least I believe, that a lot of what Card tries to do in these articles in just to stir the pot, to make people think, and in that he has succeded, at least a little.

Howerver, I still have a huge problem with both his methodology and his conclusions in this article.
 

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Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
 
Here's a question for Squick. How would you recommend that we act to prevent people from making terrible decisions that harm themselves and others? If my people are doing it wrong, what is the right way to do it?
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Hey, I just cleared up a sentence, and added something....didn't want you to think I was ambushing you by changing it, it just happened to be the part you quoted so I thought I would let you know.


I thin it is sickening that he thinks...and states in that article...that people might disguise these "results", which I don't think he actually proved existed in the first place, because it works but they don't want people to know about it.


So, if you are a judge that thinks abortion rights are necessary, you probably are aware (consciously of subconsciously) that it is just pre-crime prevention?

Talk about demonizing your opposition....


My main point was that his conclusions are unprovable at worst, tenuous at best...but that didn't stop him from claiming that the sexual repression of half the population is better than allowing people to decide what they should do with their own bodies, and implying that if they disagree with that view they most probably belong (or are affiliated with) a group of promiscuous, impulse challenged people who can't be trusted with decisions that affect their own lives...because they are geneticaly predetermined to make poor choices.... and that somehow we should just do what he says and revert to the 1950's morality he prefers.


I make assumptions about his personal views based on what he personally has written...he makes assumptions, completely unproven, on entire swathes of people based on social classes and political views, without ever having contact with them on an individual basis whatsoever.


Guess which assumptions are probably close to reality.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 

quote:

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How would you recommend that we act to prevent people from making terrible decisions that harm themselves and others?

---

I will take a stab at this , if you don't mind..


Either kill them as babies, so they don't EVER make a mistake....


Or let them make their own mistakes, and let them either learn from them or not, just like they will do for you.


The first suggestion being a joke, of course.

You don't have the right to prevent them from making those mistakes. They might not even consider the same things a msitake at all.

To some people, my cousin Tony might have been a mistake. He was born autistic, some people might have not had him if they would have known he was autistic at birth. With genetic tech advancing so fast, these types of tests will become availible to more and more pregnant wonem.


If my aunt didn't have Tony, I would have never met him, and my life would be poorer for it.

I would never assume to tell another couple that they had to make a specific choice about something like that, although MY choice would be completely clear. It isn't my responsibility, nor do I have the right.
 

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Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
 
It's hard to argue against the fact that to SOME degree, we have not only the right, but the responsibility to intercede with people when they are making terrible decisions.

For instance. The father of a struggling family climbs a tower and threatens to commit suicide. It may be his life, but if he kills himself, his family will be left with no prospects, and will potentially face homelessness or a move to a dangerous housing project. Not to mention the emotional pain the loss will cause his family, and the far-reaching effects it will have on his children and their descendants.

Do we have a responsibility to intercede and stop this man from killing himself? To give him therapy and teach him that the feelings of self-loathing that led him to attempt suicide are wrong, and are not to be heeded? To search for the causes of these feelings and find ways to teach our own children such that those feelings are less likely to develop?

Would we have those same responsibilities to a person who DIDN'T have any dependents?

What if someone is making a choice that isn't as obviously self-destructive, but which can still have far-reaching effects on their and their children's futures? To what degree should we intercede?

I'm not talking about passing laws to force them to behave a certain way. I'm talking about shaping culture such that they are taught a constructive framework for decision-making that leads them away from destructive mistakes. It seems to me that creating such a framework for people isn't just a good idea. It's an obligation. If we don't offer something along those lines, we're little better than crocodiles (who live solitary lives and abandon their young to fend for themselves) at developing communities.
 

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Posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion (Member # 6473) on :
 
Once again, Mr. Card reminds me why he is my hero.
 

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Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 

quote:

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Card has been alive for over 54 years. He didn't just start formulating his opinions as you started reading them. He has spent decades applying his rigorous thought process to everything he has studied. If he seems a little set in his ways now, it is because he has come to trust opinions that have been borne out many times by his observations.

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quote:

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Dag,
But you are then agreeing with Storm's assessment of OSC's behavior and disagreeing with Geoff's holding him up as a standard of intellectual rigor, yes?

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No, I am not agreeing with Storm's assessment. I have clarified my post to make it clear what "this behavior" referred to. I have seen OSC do it, and have called him on it on at least two occasions, but I stand by my assessment that he does it far less often, even taking into account his posting frequency, than many other posters here. And frankly, he puts up with so much crap that it's at least understandable when he does it, even if that doesn't excuse him.

By the way, this post is a perfect example of why I tend not to express disagreement with either OSC or Bush here: because some joker will try to seize on it for rhetorical points.

As for intellectual rigor, certainly World Watch wouldn't stand up to academic standards.

Of course, OSC is not writing for an academic journal. He's writing an ongoing op-ed column in which his opinions are the baseline. He doesn't need to support every assertion he makes in every column with citations to original sources. He can use controversial conclusions from previous columns as a premise in future columns. Certainly this doesn't mean he's right all the time, but it's not a lack of rigor. It's an understanding of the forum in which he's writing that seems to be lacking here.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
I'm just going to start calling you Geoff due to all this name changing

Geoff: its not at all clear what was happening in the 1950s was intercession; the differences in rates of so many things back then appear to have been the consequences of an incredibly complex set of pressures, not least the recent end of one of the most devastating wars we have ever known.

OSC talks about how if we did it before we can do it again, but that's not really true. Lots of things have been true in society before that will never be true again absent major catastrophes or hundreds of years of highly unlikely changes.

While periods like the 1950s seem so "close", in terms of the changes the population and society generally have undergone, they're not. A consideration of how the internet alone has changed the operation of society suggests incredible issues with any attempt to return to a societal structure as would be necessary to evince the morality OSC intends.

Dag: I'm not expecting intellectual rigor, but I am expecting him, when he's ridiculing things such as news punditry with a similarly expected level of rigor for not being rigorous enough, to rise above the level he's ridiculing them for. Or for when he's talking about people just not putting thought into how things work economically to at least gloss major, economically obvious flaws in his argument (as the possibility of a disconnect between births outside of marriage and sex/pregnancies outside of marriage is).
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
'Crime isn't cool anymore'? Huh? Did I miss the memo?

Crime is certainly still cool, for better or worse. Underage drinking, drug-use, fighting, drinking and driving, hedging on taxes, speeding, skipping school, roughin' up a suspect to get a confession, activities that glorify crime, cheating at all sorts of things...

All still cool. For all that I question Card's take on the way things are today, Tresopax, honestly I can't wrap my head around what planet you're living on right now that you think 'crime isn't cool anymore'.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Geoff, I thing you italicized the wrong word....OFFER is the important one.

Suicide would be an obvious example of making a detrimental choice...but putting promiscuity, interfering with peoples sex live? That is another kettle of fish.

We already offer lots of programs, of varying success, to anyone who wants to avail themselves of those choices.


What we DON'T have it the right or the power to force people to accept our choices for them, to accept that just because your father (or anyone else) doesn't approve of them taking the Pill they should stop.


Their definition of making a bad choice could involve publishing an opinionated, unsubstantiated attack on abortion rights, categorizing it as a crime prevention measure based on genitic predispositions....but they don't have the right to stop your father from doing so either.
 

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Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 

quote:

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For all that I question Card's take on the way things are today, Tresopax, honestly I can't wrap my head around what planet you're living on right now that you think 'crime isn't cool anymore'.

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I didn't argue that "Crime isn't cool anymore." I said "crime isn't as cool now" which implies that crime IS in fact still cool, but not as much so as it once was.

If you're going to make sweeping statements about people not living on this planet, please make sure you are at least basing those statements on positions they actually take.
 

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Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
 
I think this thread illustrates OSC's point very well. We have some facts (readily available, in the book). These facts make us uncomfortable. We're doing exactly what people do when they're uncomfortable with information: killing the messenger, minimizing, or reluctantly considering it. I suggest the last one. If the facts really don't hold up, we won't need the other behaviors anyway.
 

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Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
 
I don't think it's the facts that most people here are uncomfortable with, but rather the way in which those facts are being presented and used.
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 

quote:

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What we DON'T have it the right or the power to force people to accept our choices for them

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quote:

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I'm not talking about passing laws to force them to behave a certain way. I'm talking about shaping culture such that they are taught a constructive framework for decision-making that leads them away from destructive mistakes.

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Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
 
It surprises me that many people apparently do not draw a distinction between "encouraging/teaching/believing" and "forcing"
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 

quote:

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Proving Cause and Effect

Of course, a causal assertion like that is hard to prove – though people make even more sweeping assertions on less evidence all the time. But we’re far more likely to accept, without evidence, the causal assertions that fit our beliefs. Those that don’t fit, we try hard to ignore.

This one doesn’t fit anybody’s beliefs...

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quote:

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Why They Get It Wrong

The trouble is that too many of these reporters either deliberately lie – they have an agenda (either the promotion of their own career or the advancement of a cause) – or they are too lazy to question the lies and mistakes that others tell them.

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quote:

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In the process of reading it, you’ll also be given a short but effective course in analyzing causal assertions – or, in other words, you’ll be trained to hear statistical assertions skeptically, because you’ll have a clearer idea of how they can be massaged and manipulated and misunderstood.

You’ll also be given a wake-up call about how many of the statistics on which we base public opinion and policy are simply made up.

You know, lies.

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quote:

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I'm not talking about passing laws to force them to behave a certain way. I'm talking about shaping culture such that they are taught a constructive framework for decision-making that leads them away from destructive mistakes.

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quote:

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Neither you, nor Card, nor almost any other Mormon on this forum approaches anything like an open mind. It's been decided for you ahead of time.

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quote:

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It surprises me that many people apparently do not draw a distinction between "encouraging/teaching/believing" and "forcing"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Storm Saxon:
Neither you, nor Card, nor almost any other Mormon on this forum approaches anything like an open mind. It's been decided for you ahead of time. At least, this has been my experience on this forum with Mormons. As Mr. Card mentioned,"No book can withstand a hostile reading." There is no give and take. There's only ever one answer, with the other answer being viewed with hostility (which is not to say at all that the Mormon is hostile), and that answer is that people who are like Mormons are right, ideas that generally agree with Mormonism are right, and everyone else is wrong.

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quote:

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

quote:

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It surprises me that many people apparently do not draw a distinction between "encouraging/teaching/believing" and "forcing"

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Geoff, there are times when I wonder whether your father does. And that's largely what scares me; he's getting increasingly authoritarian in his old age

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What do you imagine he will eventually do?
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
I've predicted a second rennisance of more lenient thought patterns when he has oodles grandchildren to dandle on his knees.

AJ
 

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Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
 
So Geoff better get busy, then, huh?
 

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Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
 
I'm wondering if people imagine that OSC can't help but eventually cross the line between "encouraging/teaching/believing" and "forcing".
 

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Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
 

quote:

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So Geoff better get busy, then, huh? [Wink]

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I thought the process was already underway.
 

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Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by human_2.0:
I'm wondering if people imagine that OSC can't help but eventually cross the line between "encouraging/teaching/believing" and "forcing".

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quote:

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I've got an idea. Why don't we stop making ad hominem attacks against him, when he stops making them against us?

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quote:

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My mom talks about how she was an outsider for having the only divorced parents in her neighborhood. Today we get divorced for about anything where back then it would have taken a great deal to split a couple.

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quote:

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Abortion goes hand in hand with divorce IMO.

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quote:

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We still cringe over Princess Leah cutting herself, but what probably led to her behavior was her family situation, and the New Morality will do anything to protect that destructive environment.

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quote:

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As opposed to a majority that supports no family rights I wonder?

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quote:

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So, they shoudn't make comments about what is destructive to other people before getting those people's opinion, because they don't understand what is true and might work for non-religious social conservatives.

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quote:

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Neither you, nor Card, nor almost any other Mormon on this forum approaches anything like an open mind. It's been decided for you ahead of time. At least, this has been my experience on this forum with Mormons.

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This is probably one of these statements that later will be excused away. After all, YOU'RE not writing an op-ed column. Therefore your beliefs are less relevant, and we shouldn't pay them much attention when you say things remarkably similar-almost identical, really-to the things you chastise OSC for on a regular basis.

Not just you, of course. It's pretty routine.

I'm a Latter Day Saint, Storm Saxon. I'm a registered independant. I think homosexuals should have the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexuals-to live with and marry and raise children with the partner of their choice. I'm against the death penalty. I think the Bush Administration is screwing the pooch in a big way. I think that not raising taxes right now is ridiculous. I don't think that "...under God..." should be in the Pledge of Allegiance, and I'm not even sure it should be required to be said in school.

I don't think abortion should be criminalized.

How's that for an open mind? I suppose I'm either an intolerant bigot, or else 'one of the good ones'. How comforting.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Tresopax,

Fair enough. I didn't include the 'as'.

I still disagree. Crime is still very cool. Watch some TV, listen to the radio, go see a movie, play a video game. Crime sells.
 

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Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
 
Obviously Tresopax isn't a Firefly fan.
 

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Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
 
Grand Theft Auto, anyone?
 

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Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by dean:

quote:

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My mom talks about how she was an outsider for having the only divorced parents in her neighborhood. Today we get divorced for about anything where back then it would have taken a great deal to split a couple.

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How is it good to punish kids further by ostracising them because their parents got a divorced? Do you really know that people get divorced for just "about anything"? Do they do it because they're bored or what?

---

quote:

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quote:

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Abortion goes hand in hand with divorce IMO.

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How so? Divorced people get abortions?

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quote:

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quote:

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The New Morality will do anything to protect that destructive environment.

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You mean liberals want Leah to cut herself? Or liberals want to make Leah's family situation so bad that she'll feel that she has to cut herself?

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quote:

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quote:

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As opposed to a majority that supports no family rights I wonder?

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What do you mean by this? Aren't Mormons as free as non-Mormons to have whatever kinds of families they want?

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quote:

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I read Freakanomics. I felt that the explanation of how abortions and crime rates are linked was in fact very compelling. I think it's a terrific book, and very well-written.

However, my conclusions were worlds' apart from OSC's.

It seems to me like that indicates that if a woman wants an abortion she likely has a very good reason to think that that's for the best. It indicates to me that many of the women having abortions were making sensible choices for their circumstances. What this confirms in my mind is that the woman having an abortion is likely not a stupid reprobate, but a person who weighed the pros and cons and made the best choice for herself. And, it turns out, there is an unexpected windfall for society.

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quote:

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I didn't draw the same conclusions as OSC either. Mine were:

1). White collar crime is probably higher than ever so abortion did nothing but reduce the visible crime.

2). The root cause of crime is children who aren't wanted.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

quote:

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I didn't draw the same conclusions as OSC either. Mine were:

1). White collar crime is probably higher than ever so abortion did nothing but reduce the visible crime.

2). The root cause of crime is children who aren't wanted.

---

These two conclusions don't seem compatable with each other.

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quote:

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The worst thing that ever happens to children of divorced families has nothing to do with how society treats them. It all happens in the walls of her own home.

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quote:

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Aren't gays as free as anyone else to have whatever kind of gay relationship they want?

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quote:

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Originally posted by dean:
PS. Freakanomics does talk about white-collar crime. It indicates that from what they can tell, it's stayed fairly constant over the years, with a sharp dip immediately following September 11th 2001.

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quote:

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Originally posted by dean:

quote:

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The worst thing that ever happens to children of divorced families has nothing to do with how society treats them. It all happens in the walls of her own home.

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Sure. But how does it make that better when the child further feels like an outsider or (like what happened with my Mom) other children are told not to play with her as though divorce is a disease that could be catching?

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quote:

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(That is leaving aside the fact that when my parents divorced my life instantly got better.)

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quote:

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And yes, both divorce and abortion are more common now in the US than they were in the fifties. But how is that a universal correlation? And if there is a correlation, what does it have to do with anything? I mean, I'm unsure what point you're trying to make in the initial post.

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quote:

---

quote:

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Aren't gays as free as anyone else to have whatever kind of gay relationship they want?

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I think you misunderstand me. Your original post implied that the "New Morality" supports no family rights. But how are the rights of conservative-family-types being abridged? Mormons are free to have families in which morality is defined in their own way and although some people will disagree with them (vociferously), no one is making any laws to say you can't do this or that or preventing Mormons from marrying each other and raising children. Mormons have the same rights under the law and anyone who supposedly doesn't believe in morality.

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quote:

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As opposed to a majority that supports no family rights I wonder?

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quote:

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Eventually nobody will get married.

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quote:

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Originally posted by starLisa:
There really is global warming going on, but it's way less than the fanatics claim, and it's a natural part of the environment.

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quote:

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Mormons, and other religious social conservatives, do not understand what is and is not destructive for other people because they seperate themselves ideologically, if not often physically, from the rest of society from birth on, and thus do not understand things that the rest of society understands.

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quote:

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Mormons specifically grow up in a culture that is alien to most of the people in the U.S., with beliefs which leave you unable to appreciate anything that you've been taught lies in the category of sinful.

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quote:

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Most Mormons are converts

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Are they? I know that more are converted than are born in in any given year (I checked awhile back for a hatrack thread), but is this the case for general membership of the church?
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 
Actually, I don't know the official statistics, but it seems reasonable when I estimate in my head There were only a couple million of us in the sixties, and now there are like THIRTEEN million. We gain twice as many members through conversion as we do through birth. It seemed reasonable to me that more than half of the Mormons currently alive would be converts.

It's just an estimation. No real statistics.

But just to be sure, I padded my assertion with the "some degree of inactivity" thing. Many of the active Mormons I know either grew up inactive, or went inactive briefly in college, or have a non-Mormon parent, or what-have-you.
 

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Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
 

quote:

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It seemed reasonable to me that more than half of the Mormons currently alive would be converts.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog:
It surprises me that many people apparently do not draw a distinction between "encouraging/teaching/believing" and "forcing"

---

Talking about re-educating people, and saying that their genetics are the reason (or a major reason) they disagree with you about birth control and abortion is not a rational position to take if you expect them to listen to you.


Will, what "facts"? All I saw were baseless speculation, unsupported by actual research and/or documentation....Card even admits much of that in the article itself...and then goes on repeatedly as if it were established fact nonetheless. Let me repeat...I HAVE read a good deal of that book. I will probably read the rest of it, I was intrigued with it two months ago when I ran into to it at the bookstore, but with my impending move I have not had the time to go back and finish it....or the cash to buy it.


The points I am arguing against have more to do with Card's points, most of which are NOT presented in that manner in that book, that is why I ma discussing it. Also, not all of the concepts in that book are all that radical, and have been discussed before, by me and others. We talk about bias on a regular basis her at Hatrack, and some very good points have been made about that in other threads.


Since Card went FAR beyond what the book said, simply reading the book won't settle anything...although it is a good idea anyway, of course.


Geoff, I never said he was going to force people to do anything....but that was where your argument was leading. You used the suicide argument for effect...what would the first action be in that case?


Restraining him, then medicating him, then shipping him off to a hospital to be treated.


Removing the right to the Pill and abortion is forcing, no matter how you look at it....and last I checked your dad had made arguments, some even in that article itself, for doing all of that.


Now he wants to turn back the clock to a time when sexual repression and discrimination was at the highest point in the last 50 years, and say it is all better?


Sure...as long as you live at home with mom and dad, with a stay at home mother who doesn't work outside the house....and aren't gay, or a woman.


For decades women were sexually assaulted by fathers, and were not taken seriously when they complained...and were punished by the same rigid society even if they were believed by people who thought she "must have encouraged it".

Kids were beaten bloody, and had no recourse.


When things finally because better, all of that was reported....


And along come people from the same era, and the said " Look at all the crime now!".


I will take the freedoms that came with the lessening of societies restrictions on sex and consider it a fair trade. It may have gone too far, but we should never go back to where we were. Ozzie and Harriet are no more real than Will and Grace, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.


Most likely books and newspaper articles.


I will take a pass, thank you very much....despite the fact that I live my life pretty much that way by choice right now.

Well, not the living at home with mom and dad part.
 

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Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by human_2.0:
As opposed to a majority that supports no family rights I wonder? I'm not saying that is the 2 options, I'm just wondering if the argument could be boiled down to that. Because I think that is how a lot of us feel. That is how I feel.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by The Rabbit:
The one thing that simply doesn't work with this abortion leads to low crime theory is that it doesn't actually line up with the rest of the stats.

Despite abortion, the fraction of children living in single parent homes is on the rise. Despite abortion, a larger and larger fraction of US children are living below poverty level. Despite abortion, a larger fraction of US children are born to minority and underprivileged parents.

In fact, in every group that has a higher rate of criminalism, there is a higher birth rate than in groups with low criminal rates.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fugu13:
I'm not sure if that's a respone to me, Jhai, but even if his stats are rigorous, that doesn't mean his causal analysis is. Proving causality with stats requires controlled experiments beyond that he appears to have done (likely in part because they're not possible). Absent that, all one can make is a logical argument, and the stats by the guy I referenced certainly undermine the logical argument, which involves assumptions such as abortion leading to an decrease in unwanted births.

---

But I have no problem to his reports on it, as long as he presented them like he did in the book....he didn't draw the same conclusions Card did from them, that is for sure, at least not that I remember.


It would be interesting to discuss this with him and see what he thinks about this conversation, and about the way Card attempted to use his book to support claims that can't possibly be proven, given his disdain for people who try to warp statistics....and given the conclusions Card drew from them.

quote:

---

That "everything" that is being held constant includes things like a higher number or percentage of children living below the poverty line, larger percentages of minority children, and anything else you can think of

---

Not to mention the rise in technology like DNA sampling that allowed the police to track and convict many more people, and the rise in spending on crime prevention methods and police spending.


I know that in this area we had more police per person on the streets than ever before about 5-6 years ago, and crime dropped a huge amount...and as soon as the city began cutting the police presence due to budget constraints we had a HUGE influx of violent crime, at least compared to previous years. Almost double the murders and violent assaults in half the time period.


But I am sure if we look hard enough we can discount that fact and find a way to blame the Pill and abortion again.
 

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Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 

quote:

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Don't imagine for a second that I haven't considered living outside the bounds of the Church, and how much easier, freer, and more fun that might be. Don't think that many of us haven't tried it.

In the end, I live as a Mormon, not because I am ignorant of the rest of the world, but because I have made a value judgment about what I want out of life. I share the ideals of the Church. I want what it has to offer. I appreciate the way my life changes when I align my choices with the teachings of the prophets. I love the kind of community that is created by many people trying to do the same thing.

---

I greatly disagree with the idea that living outside of the LDS church (or any highly structured organization) is inherently easier that living inside of it. Freer, most definately. But that very freedom can make life very difficult. You have a very clear path set before you by the teachings of your prophets and as you said, you try to live by it. I'm sure that following it is not always easy for you. But at the same time, choosing to live by that path frees you from the process of making a myraid of difficult decisions. I have lived in a highly structured organization and I have lived outside of one. Both certainly have their pros and cons, but I think it's silly to say that one way is clearly "easier."
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Dammit, I just had a HUGE post about this topic, including some new points that were very sensitive to my family, get eaten by firefox.


I am pissed.
 

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Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 
That sucks.

Going to rewrite it?
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
No...it was a REALLY long, personal post about my family history, and the fact that Card just lumped people I know (although I am not related to them) into a huge, genetically deficiant population groups...and then said that their child was "murdered" for crime prevention, rather than aborted to save her life.


Enough said, and in about 1000 words less, too.

[ September 21, 2005, 12:20 AM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 

quote:

---

You have a very clear path set before you by the teachings of your prophets and as you said, you try to live by it. I'm sure that following it is not always easy for you. But at the same time, choosing to live by that path frees you from the process of making a myraid of difficult decisions. I have lived in a highly structured organization and I have lived outside of one. Both certainly have their pros and cons, but I think it's silly to say that one way is clearly "easier."

---

I didn't mean to suggest that living outside the Church was easier in every way. Just that at certain points in my life, certain situations would probably have been easier for me to handle, had I not felt bound to live by the moral code and community that I had attached my life to. Then again, in retrospect, I think that the choices I did make were good ones, and ultimately led to greater happiness than the "easier" choices would have.

Your suggestion that decisions become easier to make once you have signed on to a way of life like mine is problematic to me. If you mean "easier" in the sense that my religion provides encouragement and direction that help me make better decisions, then yes, I suppose so. If you mean to suggest that my decisions are "easier" because I somehow think about them less or consider fewer alternatives, then you're wrong about me.
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
Puppy, I think you must be able to agree that living inside and outside the church is just as hard for opposite reasons. One side, because the choices are "already made" and the other because the choices aren't "already made". (I say "already made" in quotes because as you pointed out you don't actually have to follow your church's rules.)

The choice between what is right and what is easy ( ) does not belong exclusively to one "side" or the other...

It's not "easier" or "more fun" to live outside the church. Those outside the church have the same moral questions to come face to face with. They have the same devils and the same angels, temptations, wishes and fears. We just don't have so many rules (you used the words "encouragement and direction" which are sort of equivalent to "guidelines") already made regarding them.

I don't deny that it's probably a lot "freer" to live outside the church, though, because of the smaller set of guidelines.

If you mean to suggest that my decisions are "easier" because I somehow have less moral reasons to make "good" decisions, then you're wrong about me.

See, it works either way. The church and its members does not have the monopoly on morals or values.
 

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Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 
Teshi said it perfectly.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
That's pretty much what I was getting at, that the people he was lumping together into one nice little group were very different, and his attempts to fit them all into a nice neat catigory was insulting, even if it wasn't intended to be.

Not everyone who gets an abortion wants one, or has poor impulse control, nor does every woman on the Pill. As a matter of fact, a lot of women are on teh Pill long after they are able to have children, and some are put on it for completely medical reasons....but if the Pill wasn't available to them then what?


Or do we only outlaw/restrict it for controlling reproductive functons...and if so who regulates that? Is a woman on the Pill for medical reasons treated differently than someone who is looked down upon and labeled as having poor impluse control... when though she needs it for MULTIPLE reasons, not "just" birth control?

There are a lot of ways to live a good life, and while the Mormon way works for you it may not for others...adnI object to anyone who thinks they have a lock on the truth, as if there was only one truth for all people.


There isn't, not for situations like thins.
 

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Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
I appreciate the serious responses and consideration given my last post. Thanks.

To be clear, I like many of the Mormons/religious social conservatives on this board. I would enjoy having a beer with any of you.

I recognize that Mormonism has a lot of truth to it and works for many people. I just am frustrated in the breakdown in understanding, or the lack of desire to understand, that seems to occur quite frequently when discussing things, and this frustration kind of vented itself in this thread.

[ September 22, 2005, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: Storm Saxon ]
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
It's nice to be thought of as a likeable yet close-minded lackwit. Assuming you were speaking of me and not anyone else. I expect other Mormons will be thrilled.
 

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Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
I aims to please.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
I wonder how that sort of 'clarification' would fly with you were it coming from the mouth of Dubya in a political thread?

(Not that it's unlikely Dubya would say something along those lines...)
 

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Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Storm Saxon:
I would enjoy having a beer with any of you.

---

Just as long as you don't mind me having a water!

Seriously, I've had "drinks" with many people. Nearly all of my coworkers aren't Mormon, so.
 

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Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
Rakeesh, I don't know. I don't care. I'm honestly not sure what you're getting at.

Rakeesh, I'm not going to lie to you or anyone else about how I view the general character of most of the Mormons/religious conservatives after my three+ years here. What would be the purpose? I have seen things the way I have seen them. Lying to you won't change what I have seen to be true here. If you want to believe that my perceptions are false, so be it. I respect that. But I do like you and a lot of the other Mormons, etc. on this board.
 

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Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
I know, human. I was kidding.

You're one of my favorite Mormons on this board, you know. I kind of have you, Geoff, Beverly, and Rabbit in the 'Mormons that are fun to have a converation with' and whose posts I enjoy reading.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
What I'm getting at is that I think you'd be pretty angry at that sort of talk if it were, say, about Muslims. Or about blacks. Or that sort of 'clarification' coming from President Bush.

"You're mostly a bunch of intolerent, close-minded twits. But you're OK!"

You know, for all that many complain-with some justification-how oppressive the social conservative atmosphere and demographic here can be sometimes...I can't remember the last time I heard something so directly intolerent and offensive stated so baldly.

Spare me your explanations.
 

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Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
If someone said that I, as a white American, should presume that I know the reality of Muslims or blacks, and presume that I know what's best for them, or have an opinion on a situation pertinent to them, without listening to what they have to say first, I would say they were full of crap.

If, after discussion with Muslims and blacks, I totally ignored what they said and continued to insert my reality for their own, I would be full of crap.

Edit: I don't mean to say that after listening to someone, you can't or shouldn't disagree with them. I do say you should make the effort to understand where they are coming from and not totally ignore what they are saying.

Now, even though I might be full of crap, if the Muslim or black person was insightful, they would see that there was plenty of other common ground to be found with me--that we liked some of the same movies, food, games, and whatnot, and they could enjoy my company for that, despite the fact that I was obviously unable to listen to them regarding their experiences as a black/Muslim. I rather suspect this is how some people of the various 'races' in this country get along day to day. 'She's an ignorant WASP, he's an insensitive spic. They fight crime!'

[ September 21, 2005, 03:34 AM: Message edited by: Storm Saxon ]
 

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Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Storm Saxon:
You're one of my favorite Mormons on this board

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Cool! And I've only been here regularly for a month!
 

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Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jhai:
I think you guys are missing the *point* of the analysis. Saying that abortion is inversely correlated with time-lagged crime rates doesn't mean that abortion is the only factor influencing crime rates, or evern the largest one

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In the book Levitt also discussed other correlations:

Innovative policing strategies
Increased reliance on prisons
Changes in crack and other drug markets
Aging of the population
Tougher gun contorl laws
Strong economy
Increased number of police

3 can be said to contribute to the drop in crime. Which 3? He plays these guessing games in the book.
 

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Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
On behalf of the Mormons on this board, I thank you for the much-needed lesson in tolerance and listening.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

quote:

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I wonder how that sort of 'clarification' would fly with you were it coming from the mouth of Dubya in a political thread?

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quote:

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Bush posts here? *suspicious look* He's Blayne Bradley, isn't he?

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quote:

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What I'm getting at is that I think you'd be pretty angry at that sort of talk if it were, say, about Muslims. Or about blacks. Or that sort of 'clarification' coming from President Bush.

"You're mostly a bunch of intolerent, close-minded twits. But you're OK!"

You know, for all that many complain-with some justification-how oppressive the social conservative atmosphere and demographic here can be sometimes...I can't remember the last time I heard something so directly intolerent and offensive stated so baldly.

Spare me your explanations.

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quote:

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It would appear I'm the only one irritated by this at all.

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quote:

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So, they shoudn't make comments about what is destructive to other people before getting those people's opinion, because they don't understand what is true and might work for non-religious social conservatives. When they get their opinions, Mormons and other religious conservatives should defer to them, understanding that they don't understand, and they need to defer to the person with understanding.

Likewise, non-religious social conservatives should let Mormons, etc, live their own lives and defer to their opinions on their reality.

Mormons specifically grow up in a culture that is alien to most of the people in the U.S., with beliefs which leave you unable to appreciate anything that you've been taught lies in the category of sinful. All you want to do is make the rest of the world more Mormon-like. That's your answer for everything. "Our beliefs work really well, and if you just became more like us and believed what we do, you'd be much happier!" You're always a missionary for Mormonism. It never stops.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If someone said that I, as a white American, should presume that I know the reality of Muslims or blacks, and presume that I know what's best for them, or have an opinion on a situation pertinent to them, without listening to what they have to say first, I would say they were full of crap.

If, after discussion with Muslims and blacks, I totally ignored what they said and continued to insert my reality for their own, I would be full of crap.

Edit: I don't mean to say that after listening to someone, you can't or shouldn't disagree with them. I do say you should make the effort to understand where they are coming from and not totally ignore what they are saying.

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quote:

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'similar thoughts and biases' does not equal 'close-minded and intolerent'. Ugh. It would appear I'm the only one irritated by this at all. You're an ignorant, close-minded, intolerant lackwit, Eddie. But I like you just fine.

Now tell me all about how if I said that to you and I were serious, you wouldn't be upset, too.

I give up.

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quote:

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It is not a good idea to call people closed-minded, because you don't really know, and closed-minded people wouldn't recognize they are closed-minded anyway.

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Well, one might hope, but it's highly doubtful.

quote:

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So let me get this straight, Storm Saxon.

If we agree with you, or change some of our opinions because of your arguments, we're open minded.

If we don't, we're closed minded.

We could just as well say you're closed minded for not changing your mind about the things you believe to be true. Give me a break.

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quote:

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Recognize .. . that you approach things in life to justify your faith rather than believe things that will undermine it.

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quote:

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Yes, well Eddie, you and I have talked about this before. You do think religious people are brainwashed and stupid for believing in something that any intelligent person could see isn't there.

Don't patronize me, please. It's not cute, it's not funny, and it's not effective.

But beyond that, I'm done talking about it. I won't waste anymore time telling people that no, in fact, I'm not close-minded and intolerent...because after all, that's a waste of time.

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quote:

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What I have said, in a nutshell, is that you should recognize, and be honest about, why you believe what you believe and how you approach life and the fact that belonging to a religious community brings a price with it. Recognize that you are very much different from others who don't share your beliefs and aren't a part of your religious community, and that you approach things in life to justify your faith rather than believe things that will undermine it.

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I know I am different from others. How could any Mormon, especially those who post on Hatrack, not know that many people don't find premarital sex wrong or drinking coffee wrong or having a family essential? I know you don't agree with me; I don't expect you to.

I also think that every Mormon on this board has questioned his or her beliefs at one point or another. I know I have, especially relating to homosexual marriage. Just because I haven't changed my mind on abortion doesn't mean I haven't thought the issue through, that I blindly accept the teachings of my church. What I'm saying is that all you see is the action, so you cannot judge the thought or lack thereof that lead to it.
 

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Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
 
Wow, I'm surprisingly un-annoyed at Lalo, at least for the moment

quote:

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What I have said, in a nutshell, is that you should recognize, and be honest about, why you believe what you believe and how you approach life and the fact that belonging to a religious community brings a price with it. Recognize that you are very much different from others who don't share your beliefs and aren't a part of your religious community, and that you approach things in life to justify your faith rather than believe things that will undermine it.

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Storm, I'm pretty sure that I wasn't meant to be the direct subject of this paragraph, but I felt like it was being indirectly applied to me, in any case, and I thought I should respond.

My entire life has been defined by tension between what I believe through faith and what I observe through experience, or learn from other sources. Many of my observations back up my faith. Others do not. But I cannot dismiss something simply because it disagrees with my religion. Some people can think that way, and feel completely secure in the truth of their beliefs, and I think that they are the ones you are talking to in the paragraph I quoted above. But it takes more than that for me.

For me, "being honest about why I believe what I believe" means saying exactly what I've been saying from the beginning here. I value what my people do well because I've seen it work, and I share their ultimate intent, because I have chosen to, and not because I've been told to think that way. When things DON'T work or DON'T make sense, I see that too, and I'm honest about it, which gets me in trouble on a certain other website

I love this Church, and I am absolutely aligned with its ultimate purpose, which is why I do not turn each little flaw I perceive into an excuse to turn all negative and bitter. That's why I defend it as though my life depended on it, in spite of the things that go wrong.

But don't take my positive feelings about the Church, my belief in its ideals and general methods, my faith in its doctrines, and my defense of it against naysayers, as a reason to think I am an unquestioning person who seeks out evidence to bolster his faith, rather than seeking truth for its own sake, regardless of the tension it causes.

If you do so, you underestimate me.

[ September 21, 2005, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: Puppy ]
 

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Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
I just identified another hole in the abortion reduces crime argument.

In the 1950's and 60's, nearly all children born out of wedlock were given up for adoption. In fact, in many places the laws required a woman to give up her child for adoption if she was not married. So a very large fraction of the social group that is missing because of abortion, are children that were given up for adoption. Most of the criminals in the 70's and 80's were young men born during the 50's and 60's.

If the hypothesis that criminals are more likely to be aborted is correct, then we should find an unusually high of adopted individuals among the criminals in the 70s and 80s. I haven't done the stats, but my like experience suggests that this is very unlikely to be true.
 

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Posted by Kettricken (Member # 8436) on :
 

quote:

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Fossil fuels being solely responsible for global warming is a fairy tale.

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I’ve never heard anyone claim they are. A large part of the cause, yes, but not solely responsible. Other things have an effect including burning the rainforests – not only in carbon being emitted but a carbon sink being lost(the trees that are removed). I’ve even heard discussion about the amount of methane produced by cows.

It is very easy to mock an argument if you only take part of it.
 

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Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
 
Rabbit, I just want you to know that I am open to your sensible arguments against the theory OSC put forth. An interesting point.
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
They have some culpability, but not a large part, from my research.
 

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Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
 
I want to thank The Rabbit for showing us how it's done. No ridicule; no ad hominem; just reason.

I wonder what Freakonomics author would do with this one. It's pretty telling.

However, the abortion-stops-crime thing still might be true, if it turns out that women who would have aborted didn't give the baby up for adoption. This may be the case.
 

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Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by El JT de Spang:
They have some culpability, but not a large part, from my research.

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So can you please let us know a bit more about your research and explain why your findings differ from those most widely held in the scientific community? Could you also give me some reasons why I should accept the results of your research rather than the majority of results which have been published in the peer reviewed scientific literature.
 

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Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
Thank you all for the dialogue on my posts. It was very enlightening to me and I enjoyed having this conversation with you guys.
 

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Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
 
I don't think it puts a hole in argument at all. At least, not the argument presented in Freakanomics.

The book isn't saying that it's always the children born out of wedlock who are more likely to be criminals. That's not it claim, whatever OSC says. It's the children who are not well cared for that are likely to grow up to be criminals.

In the 50's, you say, that the children who were born out of wedlock were often given up for adoption (I don't know the validity of this claim, but let's assume that it's true). These children would be well cared for, most likely, which means that they won't grow up to be criminals.

Today, children born out of wedlock, just like children born into poverty, or children born to poorly-educated or abusive parents, are likely to be the children that are not well cared for. Therefore, it's these children who are likely to grow up to be criminals.

However, mothers today that don't want a child (which means they're unlikely to take good care of it), or simply believe that they can't take good care of a child (which is true for some mothers who aren't married or can barely make ends meet) have another option: abortion. So children that would have grown up in poor conditions (thus making them more likely to be criminals) instead are never born. Since there are fewer children growing up in poor conditions, there are fewer criminals 15 years in the future, when those not-born children would be starting to commit crimes.

To put it a different way: in the past there were children who didn't get good care. Today there are children who don't get good care. The fact that today those children who don't get good care are often those born out of wedlock doesn't mean that was true in the past. And it doesn't matter. What matters is the percentage of children who don't get good care.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
SO*, how do you explain Paris Hilton then?
 

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Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
 

quote:

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In the 50's, you say, that the children who were born out of wedlock were often given up for adoption (I don't know the validity of this claim, but let's assume that it's true). These children would be well cared for, most likely, which means that they won't grow up to be criminals.

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quote:

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SO*, how do you explain Paris Hilton then? [Wink]

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Oh that one's easy. Rich and spoiled != well-cared for.
 

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Posted by Audeo (Member # 5130) on :
 
The other problem with Rabbit's argument is that there was a much greater social pressure to get married if a woman became pregnant. It is much more likely that the type of woman who might have an abortion today, would in that time have been forced to wed the father. So those children might not have all been adopted out. Instead they would have been raised in a home with parents who didn't wish to be married to each other, and were unprepared to be good parents to the child. I'm not sure that's any better.
 

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Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
Squicky mentioned it, but I also recommend very highly The way we never were and the companion book The way we are.
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
Rabbit, it's cute for you to say "Look at all these scientists who agree with me. Surely you cannot stand against this." Do you really need me to go down the list of scientific facts over the last few centuries that ended up being totally off base? I don't know about you, but if I learned anything in college I learned to draw my own conclusions.

Could I give you some reasons to disagree with some of the unassailable findings of articles which appeared in peer reviewed journals? Yes, I could. And by the way, just because an article is peer reviewed doesn't mean it can't be wrong. Are you familiar with the programming term GIGO? If you base your findings on bad data, your results are all but worthless. I really didn't want to get into this, but I get tired of all the global warming wolf crying.

I'll dig up some stuff when I get home (where it's all written down) and you can tell me your side.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

quote:

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I really didn't want to get into this, but I get tired of all the global warming wolf crying.

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quote:

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I just try to find the evidence and draw my own conclusions.

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quote:

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If you see conclusions drawn from what you believe is suspect data, any rational person is obligated to object to it.

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quote:

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Rabbit, it's cute for you to say "Look at all these scientists who agree with me. Surely you cannot stand against this." Do you really need me to go down the list of scientific facts over the last few centuries that ended up being totally off base? I don't know about you, but if I learned anything in college I learned to draw my own conclusions.

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quote:

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Could you also give me some reasons why I should accept the results of your research rather than the majority of results which have been published in the peer reviewed scientific literature.

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(Bolding mine)

Excuse me from not pledging allegiance to the majority, but I learned a long time ago that no matter how many people hitch their wagons to an opinion it doesn't make it any less or more right.

It's not true because the majority of scientists agree on it. It's true because it's never been proven false. Scientific method 101.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Just checking in to see why this thread is still popping up.

I'm not following the logic that you become a criminal 10 years after you become a young man. I think criminality starts up with the hormones of youth, and would peter out as the prefrontal lobes complete formation around 25.

The theory is also that more children were conceived due to the sexual revolution.

I don't see how anyone can refute that abortion is a form of social darwinism, even if it wasn't meant to be, (eh, my statistics are remembered incorrectly)
Even slogans from the left about how conservatives believe life begins at conception and ends at birth (as far as the government's responsibility to support said children) underscores the fiscal considerations of the "lives" of the unborn.

[ September 22, 2005, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: pooka ]
 

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Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
 
EJdS, it's fine that you don't agree with Rabbit. We'd love to hear your reasons when you are good and prepared. And if that never happens, that's OK too. But your comments to Rabbit seemed inappropriately dismissive and emotionally weighted.

(Edit: Nevermind--I misunderstood what you said.)

Someone can support their point very well and still be wrong, true. But it isn't polite (IMO) to call them wrong just because we think they are. It is more appropriate to say we disagree and if we can, provide reasons and evidence for why.
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
I wasn't calling her wrong. What I said was that just because an article appears in a peer reviewed journal doesn't mean it's irrefutable. I think you're being oversensitive. I was dismissive though, because it seemed to me like she was trying to browbeat me into submission with the weight of his experts.

I have a good idea where she stands, and the evidence is pretty strong. My only notion was this: experts can be wrong, too. I try to consider both sides before making my decision. And I encourage this in everyone else as well. I don't think, in this case, there is a clearly defined "right" and "wrong".

So, to answer your last paragraph, I agree that it's not polite to call someone wrong for disagreeing with us. I think it's pretty clear that I disagree with conventional wisdom on this issue, and I'll be happy to provide my reasoning when I have a chance.

(I know that I said I'd do it after work, but Rita has turned towards Lafayette, so I may board my windows and all that stuff before I get into this.)

EDIT: For gender clarification.

[ September 22, 2005, 02:30 PM: Message edited by: El JT de Spang ]
 

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Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
 
Her. Rabbit is a she.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Physicians for reproductive choice and health
Okay, what I'm trying to say is that of the 1.28 million (not 1.8, sorry) only 7% of abortions were for the reasons covered by insurance: Rape/Incest (1%) Health concerns of mother (3%) and possible deformity of fetus (3%). The remaining primary reasons in order were:
Inadequate Finances 21%
Not ready for responsibility 21%
Womans live would be changed too much 16%
Problems with relationship/unmarried 12%
Too young, not mature enough 11%
Children grown, woman has enough 8%
Other 4%

Interestingly, 93% of women had more than one reason, the average number of multiple reasons being 3.7. I guess the 93% stuck in my mind because if you are in the 7% that have a medical reason, you are unlikely to have a multiple reason.

My question would be if the 11% not old/mature enough includes teens, since many minor pregnancies are going to result by definition from rape/incest.

The report put the number of 15,000 on pregnancies from rape and incest but did not put such a number on feti aborted after 20 weeks- which would be double that, or 30,000.

The group is dedicated to keeping awareness of what used to go on before the legalization of abortion and reducing stigma, but we have in exchange for that what goes on with it being the most commonly performed medical procedure.

So I would reframe my statement to say that 93% of abortions were justified by a combination of reasons, the leading reason being inadequate finances.
 

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Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
 
OK, EJdS.

quote:

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(I know that I said I'd do it after work, but Rita has turned towards Lafayette, so I may board my windows and all that stuff before I get into this.)

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Stay safe.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Yeah, be careful!
 

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Posted by Oobie Binoobie (Member # 8059) on :
 
Dang.

I wanted OSC's comments, but he returned to hatrack a day after this last post, and this forum is so freaky active...

Therefore, Bump!
 

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Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
 
Can't comment on most of the ongoing arguments here -- and I ain't going near the casual dismissal of Mormons except for the "good ones" -- but this thread did accomplish one thing.

I am now reading Freakonomics.

Two rebuttals I'll offer now:

If the hypothesis that criminals are more likely to be aborted is correct, then we should find an unusually high of adopted individuals among the criminals in the 70s and 80s. I haven't done the stats, but my like experience suggests that this is very unlikely to be true.

This would be true only if a disposition for criminal activity was purely genetic. If criminal behavior is a learned activity (or even a little of both, as I tend to think) then adoptees would have the same average as any other group. Maybe even a lower one, as adopted parents clearly wanted their children and may, as a group, offer a more loving home.

I suspect the reduction in crime was from a variety of reasons and that removal of babies -- whether by abortion or adoption -- from homes where they likely would not have been raised as productive individuals was a large and heretofore unrecognized factor.

And I don't think OSC believes that most abortions are directly due to poor impulse control. Rather I believe he places the blame on the poor impulse control that led to the situation now requiring abortion. By the time that abortion becomes a decision it may very well be the most sensible answer, but the decisions that led to that point are a different matter entirely. In the list of reasons prevented above, all of the non-insured reasons are things that perhaps should have been considered before the sex part.

That they weren't, or that not enough emphasis was given on them, is what I believe OSC bemoans as poor impulse control.
 

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Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
 
Freakonomics recently arrived on our doorstep. Neither one of us has started reading, though. Yet.
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
Same for me.

And I haven't forgotten that I owe The Rabbit and others a Global Warming thread. I just felt that with the current climate here (excuse the pun), I would hold off a while.
 

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Posted by owl232 (Member # 8682) on :
 
I like much of what OSC had to say, particularly about the importance of knowing the facts, and the unfortunate frequency of misinformation about politics. I also intend to get the book. However, I see 3 main problems with the essay.

1) The discussion centers on why crime fell in the 1990's, rather than "continu[ing] to rise in the radical way it had in the 1970's and 1980's." But the data I find on the Department of Justice web page indicates that there was no such crime increase in the 70's and 80's. Here are their graphs on rates of violent crime and property crime:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/house2.htm

They show property crime steadily decreasing since 1973, and violent crime holding about steady from '73 to '93.

2) OSC says that no one has proved that there is any harm to sexual repression. This ignores the possibility that sex might be good. In fact, this is the entire issue between the "old morality" that OSC champions and the "new morality".

3) OSC suggests that there are only three alternatives available: (a) we can continue to have large numbers of abortions, (b) we can have a higher crime rate, or (c) we can return to 1950's morality (basically, stop having sex). There might be other alternatives, for instance (d) more consistent and effective contraception to prevent pregnancy, and (e) other methods to prevent crime besides pre-emptive abortion. (c), incidentally, is pretty clearly impossible.
 

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Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
 
I believe the emphasis was on the rise of juvenile crime rates, not crime rates overall.

And don't assume that 1950's morality, assuming we could get a consensus on what that means, is gone forever. There have been more permissive societies than ours in history.
 

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Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
EL JT de Spang-

quote:

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I really didn't want to get into this, but I get tired of all the global warming wolf crying.

And I haven't forgotten that I owe The Rabbit and others a Global Warming thread. I just felt that with the current climate here (excuse the pun), I would hold off a while.

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