quote:Originally posted by MattLeo: You seem to be missing the point of Mr. Taleb's theory. The point is that you have to prepare for high impact events even if they are rare and unpredictable. That doesn't mean we should try to predict them using non-scientific methods. It means we should just plan for them happening.
A "black swan" event is by its nature unpredictable and impossible to prepare or plan for. A hundred-year flood, for example, may take place once in any given flood-prone area per century; however, when the peak flood will take place cannot be predicted, may be planned or prepared for perhaps. However, the law of diminishing returns implies plans or preparations may be limited to the point of ineffectual influence. Why should a homeowner buy flood insurance if floods don't happen but once per century in the region? For example. A thousand-year flood event is another order of magnitude that illustrates the law of diminishing returns' influence.
Though Columbine's event and other recent rampage killings stand out in fresh memory, no, they did not happen in a vacuum of school rampage killings. Andrew Philip Kehoe, a Bath Township, Clinton County, Michigan school board administrator, set off bombs in 1927 in the township's school, his farm and homestead, and his pickup truck, killed forty-four people, his wife and himself included, thirty-eight of whom were school children, as well as several farm animals.
The issue is whether schools should be militarized to the point they are armed camps and unduly influence education and child development; not whether such events can be predicted, planned or prepared for, but how they can be prevented. Andrew Philip Kehoe gave off numerous signs he was disturbed and at least a danger to himself. Again, like Virginia Tech, Columbine, Newton, Connecticut, Aurora, Colorado, etc., no one acted upon those signs, reports, and suspicions.
The kind of alienation inherent in those rampages' causality was at root a matter of modern society's indifference to somewhat-off and out-of-sorts individuals with grudges. A common theme noted in literature: "Alienation; Modern culture is defective because it doesn't provide group ties which in primitive cultures makes alienation virtually impossible." Alienation works both ways: socially alienate persons--attack them whether aggressively or passively--and socially alienated persons strike back.
Not to say any and every individual who is alienated and behaviorally somewhat "off" need be overseen by expert law enforcement or clinical practitioners, etc., but that disruptive behavior patterns in such persons should be at least questioned or challenged--courteously concerned probing initially--by any person who is familiar with that person's normative behavior. Then reported to suitable authorities if some reason for greater concern arises. Crisis prevention, in other words. Which is exactly what happened to McLaw, sensationalized reporting notwithstanding.
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MattLeo said, "You seem to be missing the point of Mr. Taleb's theory."
I "seem"? This from one who argues for scientific evidence.
And MattLeo said,
"Of course free speech is not under attack."
Good. I'll leave it there since I understood that to be the point of this thread and my posts are being misconstrued.
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Extrinsic said, "Not to say any and every individual who is alienated and behaviorally somewhat "off" need be overseen by expert law enforcement or clinical practitioners, etc., but that disruptive behavior patterns in such persons should be at least questioned or challenged--courteously concerned probing initially--by any person who is familiar with that person's normative behavior. Then reported to suitable authorities if some reason for greater concern arises. Crisis prevention, in other words. Which is exactly what happened to McLaw, sensationalized reporting notwithstanding."
quote:Originally posted by TaleSpinner: MattLeo said, "You seem to be missing the point of Mr. Taleb's theory."
I "seem"? This from one who argues for scientific evidence.
You seem to be unaware that it's normal scientific practice to qualify any statements of opinion. Where a scientist says "it seems" a layman would say, "obviously".
quote:Originally posted by TaleSpinner: And MattLeo said,
"Of course free speech is not under attack."
Good. I'll leave it there since I understood that to be the point of this thread and my posts are being misconstrued.
You seem to have missed the point here too. Free speech needn't be "under attack" to need defending. Human malice isn't the only destructive force in the universe; good intentions can do quite a bit of harm too.
If I'm not mistaken, the substance of our disagreement is the benefit of the doubt the government should be given in this case. You see it as unlikely to be a deliberate attempt to restrict free speech. I agree with you, but it's not the intent that's the problem, it's the effect. It's easy to dismiss the chilling effect because (a) McLaw is (at present) a bad writer and (b) you don't work for a school. But I know several *good* writers who work for schools, one of whom has ten books (last count) traditionally published. They've got to be wondering if they might get into trouble writing about disturbing things.
Had the government been more discreet I'd be giving law enforcement the benefit of the doubt too. But as soon as a government official linked this case to Mr. McLaw's writing it changed the public character of the case.
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quote:Originally posted by MattLeo: Everyone is *for* free speech.
This is not true, unless the *for* is written that way to show that people feel obliged to make public statements supporting free speech right before they go on to argue for its obliteration. You know, hypocrisy being the honor vice gives to virtue and all.
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MattLeo said, "If I'm not mistaken, the substance of our disagreement is the benefit of the doubt the government should be given in this case. You see it as unlikely to be a deliberate attempt to restrict free speech. I agree with you, but it's not the intent that's the problem, it's the effect. It's easy to dismiss the chilling effect because (a) McLaw is (at present) a bad writer and (b) you don't work for a school. But I know several *good* writers who work for schools, one of whom has ten books (last count) traditionally published. They've got to be wondering if they might get into trouble writing about disturbing things."
This is why I took an active interest in this thread. (I usually lurk these days.) After a long hiatus away from writing I'm returning, to write a technical book, one that will disturb members of my profession and some corporations. While nobody is going to lock me up McLaw fashion, the libel laws here in England are draconian, worse than in the USA. They have been used by, for example, unscrupulous businesses to suppress publication of academic research papers that expose their reliance upon what some would describe as quack science; libel law could be used to shut me up too. I understand chilling effect, and have just been getting educated on how journalists navigate our libel laws.
There's a book called "Risk" by Dan Gardner that I and some risk managers find helpful because, based upon academic research, it says that we humans have two attitudes towards risk. We can either be rational, or emotional - and the emotional reaction is built into our DNA, so to speak: we can't help it. It's as simple as, if x feels bad, avoid x. It's how we survive.
So for example, people smoke; they know it kills, but it doesn't feel bad, so they do it anyhow. Another example from the book: after 9/11 many people avoided planes and took to the roads instead. An emotional reaction which ignored the fact that, tragic though those events were, they made no difference to the safety statistics: per passenger mile, air transport was still way safer than road. Sadly, road death statistics went up for a year, with a clear correlation to 9/11. (The year is emotional; we seem to come to terms with death, to some extent, on the one year anniversary.)
When something like the McLaw case happens along, we react emotionally or rationally according to our makeup, I think. And newspapers understand all this intuitively; using emotive language they emphasise what will appeal to our emotions, with a minimum of rational fact. Hysteria works the same way.
So while I don't think McLaw is sinister I can see that the combination of anxious parents, police, school managers and emotive journalism would be chilling.
I think this means that writers of difficult material need to be aware of the risks of emotional reactions from authorities, and journalists capitalising upon hysteria, and adopt appropriate strategies, pen names being one example.
If one's employers, school managers for example, might be disturbed by one's writings then yes, there's a real risk for teachers of a repeat of something like McLaw's situation.
My way through an analogous dilemma - how to write a book that would upset my employers - was to wait until retirement, which was then only a year off. (A pen name would not have worked, because they'd guess it was me from my writing style, and I want to capitalise upon my real name, such as it is, to sell it.) Now retired, I no longer worry about being fired. But I do worry about libel, so I'll write it as close to the line as I dare, and get it reviewed for libel before publishing.
I think that for some teachers their choice may be as stark: either write, or teach. While one might argue they should be able to do both, given our emotional reactions to risk, it may not always be realistic.
Now this is just me; others may be different. But when I write I want to be comfortable that if my kids read it, I won't feel ashamed and it will give them good examples to follow. Yes, old fashioned, and others will have other views; each to their own. So if - if - I were a teacher, I'd write stuff I'd feel able to defend to the kids I taught, their parents, school managers and so forth. This would mean, for me, working for a school that would happily have employed Heinlein when he was writing "Time Enough for Love", for my sexual morality, one I've taught my kids, is simply, "don't have kids you don't want." There are no doubt many, many schools that would not employ me on that basis. So be it; I'd have to either find a compatible school, not write, or write under a pen-name and hope never to be found out. Not facing that dilemma, I don't know which I'd choose and sympathise with those who face it. Especially when one can never be quite sure who's going to get upset by what - and safe, inoffensive writing isn't to everyone's taste. And we surely need subversive teachers, unafraid to take us and our kids where no person has gone before ...
quote:Originally posted by TaleSpinner: So for example, people smoke; they know it kills, but it doesn't feel bad, so they do it anyhow. Another example from the book: after 9/11 many people avoided planes and took to the roads instead. An emotional reaction which ignored the fact that, tragic though those events were, they made no difference to the safety statistics: per passenger mile, air transport was still way safer than road. Sadly, road death statistics went up for a year, with a clear correlation to 9/11. (The year is emotional; we seem to come to terms with death, to some extent, on the one year anniversary.)
Not entirely irrational, as car travel is an individual endeavor and so it's possible for the individual to take steps to mitigate risks, which is not possible on an airplane. That people in aggregate are not as good at it as an airline (insisting on driving while exhausted, for instance) is neither here nor there when looking at individual choice.
Also, a simple increase in road death statistics doesn't say anything, as the stats will increase by virtue of there being more people on the road, similar to how the stats for property damage by hurricane increase by virtue of more development rather than by the storms being any more powerful.
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Successful technical writing follows a few basic fundamentals that apply as well to fiction writing, though from creative slants; beyond entertainment interest factors, foremost is an objective report in the senses of no self-involvement--impersonal report--and verifiable, reproducible research.
Further factors include persuasive argumentation: a valid claim, stated substantive reason for the claim, claim supported by valid evidence with suitable citations to prior knowledge, establishment of new knowledge, objections to the claim and the evidence anticipated and rebutted, and a conclusive end (Stephen Toulmin's Argumentation Theory, not too coincidentally, a 1910 update to ancient Greek declamation-type argumentation theories).
Other essential factors include meeting a reasonable burden of proof standard, and not too chaotic a composition organization. Going beyond long and widely held traditional standards of rational and logical thought process philosopies, the very real and unfortunate human condition that inconvenient truths upset and threaten an entrenched status quo need be considered and accommodated. The emotive appeal factor can be turned to productive effect in such considerations: controversy and scandal appeal, market a product persuasively.
Scholars introducing new knowledge in their respective specialty fields encounter this resistance to their publications during peer review processes:
Scholar Smith proposes that the Earth is a globe, not a flat platter, and not centric to the cosmos, nor is the Sun centric, the Wanderers are, in fact, other planets, not stars, and the stars themselves are distant, moving suns with planets orbiting them.
Scholar Jones, upset by the prospects of Smith's argumentation, not having logically or rationally considered Smith's evidence, dashes off a rabid dissenting opinion. Scholars Nod, Wink, Nudge, Heck, and Libel tear into Smith and Jones' and each others' arguments.
The conversation lasts past their lifetimes, endures for a thousand years. Parts are debunked, parts are validated, parts are added. Many competing and mutually exclusive factions emerge. Eventually, a "science" consensus emerges that agrees on general principles, though doesn't span a unified and complete model proof. Gaps are left for future generatiions to fill or debunk.
In other words, the appeals of logos (logical reasoning), ethos (status, reputation, and persuasive argumentation), kleos (expertise through inherited-knowledge pedigree from education, training, and experience), kairos (the opportune, timely occasion for sharing), and pathos (emotional reactions).
However, mid twentieth century argumentation theory added a new twist, from the great social, cultural upheaval of the times labeled Postmodernism. From Wikipedia: "Karl R. Wallace's seminal essay, 'The Substance of Rhetoric: Good Reasons' in the Quarterly Journal of Speech (1963) 44, led many scholars to study 'marketplace argumentation' - the ordinary arguments of ordinary people. The seminal essay on marketplace argumentation is Ray Lynn Anderson and C. David Mortensen,'Logic and Marketplace Argumentation' Quarterly Journal of Speech 53 (1967): 143-150.[2][3] This line of thinking led to a natural alliance with late developments in the sociology of knowledge" ("Argumentation Theory").
In other words, how everyday folk make, say, do, think, reason, believe, know, share, respond to knowledge. Folk since then have been freed from coercions of force majeur majority rules to accept any given declared, presupposed notional "fact" represented as a must-believe, as even the wildest and most dubious "facts" are open to personal interpretation, anymore.
The central claim of this sociology of knowledge--Knowledge, no matter how factual, scientific, valid, true, dubious, outright simplistic or plain error, whatever: "In this new hybrid approach[,] argumentation is used with or without empirical evidence to establish convincing conclusions about issues which are moral, scientific, epistemic, or of a nature in which science alone cannot answer. Out of pragmatism and many intellectual developments in the humanities and social sciences, 'non-philosophical' argumentation theories grew which located the formal and material grounds of arguments in particular intellectual fields."
In other words, no matter how factual a belief's bases and proofs, inconvenient truths must be gentled, as Emily Dickinson claims:
"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant -- Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind --"
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