• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

U.S. Border and Immigration

Roboramma said:
You really need to learn about Bayesian reasoning.

You had a lot more than zero information about the prior probability of the person in that news story being an illegal immigrant.
Click to expand...

A lot more? I disagree. What we had was a) he's Mexican, and b) unnamed sources from a source known for its unreliability and extreme bias, saying he was an illegal. Unless you assume that all Hispanics in America are illegals, I don't see this as anything more than a guess. Anything more is surely just motivated by personal bias.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
A lot more? I disagree. What we had was a) he's Mexican, and b) unnamed sources from a source known for its unreliability and extreme bias, saying he was an illegal. Unless you assume that all Hispanics in America are illegals, I don't see this as anything more than a guess. Anything more is surely just motivated by personal bias.
Click to expand...
Yes, I think citing probability misses the point. A guess is a guess even if it's a good guess, and even if it comes true. It does not retroactively become a statement of fact.
 
Roboramma said:
You really need to learn about Bayesian reasoning.

You had a lot more than zero information about the prior probability of the person in that news story being an illegal immigrant.
Click to expand...


When Bogative calls attention to a news story, certain Bayesian priors are indeed quite high.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
A lot more? I disagree. What we had was a) he's Mexican, and b) unnamed sources from a source known for its unreliability and extreme bias, saying he was an illegal. Unless you assume that all Hispanics in America are illegals, I don't see this as anything more than a guess. Anything more is surely just motivated by personal bias.
Click to expand...


It was an educated guess based off of behavioral patterns.

This sentence:
Neither the bulletin nor the press release from the DA's office mentioned Sarabia's immigration status or a possible immigration detainer.
Click to expand...

and of this sentence:
"I want to emphasize that this is an ongoing investigation, and there may be additional victims who have yet to come forward," added a statement from Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón.
Click to expand...

are dead giveaways.


George Gascon is a ****lib and his behavior is more predictable than tomorrow's weather.
 
W.D.Clinger said:
When Bogative calls attention to a news story, certain Bayesian priors are indeed quite high.
Click to expand...


Is this going to just be a cheap shot at me or do want to put your money where your mouth is?

It's a major four day holiday weekend so there will be a lot of mass shootings. Gun Violence Archives has not, as of yet, posted any. I have no prior knowledge of the upcoming news stories.

The majority of the known shooters will be black.

Here's your chance to prove that my posts are based on prior knowledge of the news story. I have offered this challenge to many other forum members, will you be the 1st to take it up and prove that I am selective on the stories I post?
 
Cosmic Yak said:
A lot more? I disagree. What we had was a) he's Mexican, and b) unnamed sources from a source known for its unreliability and extreme bias, saying he was an illegal. Unless you assume that all Hispanics in America are illegals, I don't see this as anything more than a guess. Anything more is surely just motivated by personal bias.
Click to expand...

The source was known to be unreliable. I think that's an important part of any establishment of priors. But how unreliable? What's the base rate here? Are 90% of their stories false? 10%? The unreliability of the source certainly means that their reporting it doesn't make me assign a 99% probability to it being true, but it does shift my credence, and yes, toward it being a fact.

As for "assume that all Hispanics are illegal", of course not. But what percentage of hispanics living in the US are illegals? Again, that establishes a base rate that can be adjusted by other facts. If for instance 5% are illegals (I have no idea at), and the rate of violent crime is similar for illegal and legal immigrants, then if we have only a story about a hispanic person committing this crime a 5% chance that it was an illegal is a reasonable credence. The news story reporting that the person was an illegal shifts that credence, but the fact that the source is unreliable means maybe not that much, maybe it gets us to 30%, say.

It's all sort of a meaningless point though. Bogative's post doesn't have much point to it. Of course illegal immigrants commit violent crimes. There are lot of them, and any large group of people will include some criminals. The more interesting question is whether or not the rate of crime is higher among illegal immigrants than among the population at large, and by how much? Enough to be seriously concerned about it?

My understanding is that it isn't, but the real way to address that isn't by posting some anecdotes but by looking at the statistics.
 
In the following quotation, Bogative tells us he doesn't have the slightest idea of what is meant by a Bayesian prior.

Bogative said:
W.D.Clinger said:
When Bogative calls attention to a news story, certain Bayesian priors are indeed quite high.
Click to expand...


Is this going to just be a cheap shot at me or do want to put your money where your mouth is?

It's a major four day holiday weekend so there will be a lot of mass shootings. Gun Violence Archives has not, as of yet, posted any. I have no prior knowledge of the upcoming news stories.

The majority of the known shooters will be black.

Here's your chance to prove that my posts are based on prior knowledge of the news story. I have offered this challenge to many other forum members, will you be the 1st to take it up and prove that I am selective on the stories I post?
Click to expand...


A few relevant quotes from Wikipedia:

There are many ways to construct a prior distribution. In some cases, a prior may be determined from past information, such as previous experiments.
Click to expand...
Bogative's previous posts have given us ample information concerning the nature of news reports he likes to cite.

This example has a property in common with many priors, namely, that the posterior from one problem...becomes the prior for another problem...; pre-existing evidence which has already been taken into account is part of the prior and, as more evidence accumulates, the posterior is determined largely by the evidence rather than any original assumption...
Click to expand...
 
20-year-old Giovanni Mendoza-Jimenez, a 20-year-old Mexico native and illegal alien, killed 45-year-old Jon Douglas Ratcliffe as he sat on his motorcycle behind a school bus that was picking up schoolchildren. Mendoza Jimenez plowed into the back of Ratcliffe, crushing him between a van and the school bus.

Killing an American citizen and traumatizing schoolchildren is a small price to pay for future democrat voters.

Americans kill other Americans in car crashes, Bayesian priors… or something.

Link
 
Bogative said:
20-year-old Giovanni Mendoza-Jimenez, a 20-year-old Mexico native and illegal alien, killed 45-year-old Jon Douglas Ratcliffe as he sat on his motorcycle behind a school bus that was picking up schoolchildren. Mendoza Jimenez plowed into the back of Ratcliffe, crushing him between a van and the school bus.

Killing an American citizen and traumatizing schoolchildren is a small price to pay for future democrat voters.

Americans kill other Americans in car crashes, Bayesian priors… or something.

Link
Click to expand...

Thank goodness real Americans never have car accidents.
 
Stacyhs said:
I think I understand what you meant, but technically, given a choice between two things (right or wrong), it is a 50-50 chance. After all, when bogative made the claim, no information about his legal status was provided except for bogative's claim he was an illegal immigrant.
Click to expand...

sir drinks-a-lot said:
So if I say that Santa Claus exists, there's a 50/50 chance that I'm right versus wrong?
Click to expand...

So you've missed all the public information provided by credible sources that Santa Claus doesn't exist?
 
Roboramma said:
The source was known to be unreliable. I think that's an important part of any establishment of priors. But how unreliable? What's the base rate here? Are 90% of their stories false? 10%? The unreliability of the source certainly means that their reporting it doesn't make me assign a 99% probability to it being true, but it does shift my credence, and yes, toward it being a fact.
Click to expand...

Media outlets quoting unnamed "sources" is a well-worn ploy for smuggling in made-up stories and presenting them as fact. Those sources could well be Fox News' own reporters. There's no way to tell. Then add to that the fact that Fox News and The Blaze are highly biased and sometimes counterfactual sources themselves. Now we've got an unsourced claim, from a group that has a vested interest in making such a claim, and a know record in making up such claims. All I have said is that this is not enough to assume the claim is true. Nor, for that matter, is it enough to assume it is false. Based on that information, I think it better not to form a conclusion at all.

The Great Zaganza said:
As for "assume that all Hispanics are illegal", of course not. But what percentage of hispanics living in the US are illegals? Again, that establishes a base rate that can be adjusted by other facts. If for instance 5% are illegals (I have no idea at), and the rate of violent crime is similar for illegal and legal immigrants, then if we have only a story about a hispanic person committing this crime a 5% chance that it was an illegal is a reasonable credence. The news story reporting that the person was an illegal shifts that credence, but the fact that the source is unreliable means maybe not that much, maybe it gets us to 30%, say.
Click to expand...

Do you really assign a percentage probability to every news item you encounter? Does this help you in any way?
My point is that Bogative's hostility towards immigrants, Democrats, people of colour and progressives, led him to conclude that Sarabia was an illegal. Not 30% sure: 100% sure. This is not critical thinking: this is partisan prejudice.

The Great Zaganza said:
It's all sort of a meaningless point though. Bogative's post doesn't have much point to it. Of course illegal immigrants commit violent crimes. There are lot of them, and any large group of people will include some criminals. The more interesting question is whether or not the rate of crime is higher among illegal immigrants than among the population at large, and by how much? Enough to be seriously concerned about it?

My understanding is that it isn't, but the real way to address that isn't by posting some anecdotes but by looking at the statistics.
Click to expand...

I'm sure Bogative has those figures to hand, ready for just that very question.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
Media outlets quoting unnamed "sources" is a well-worn ploy for smuggling in made-up stories and presenting them as fact. Those sources could well be Fox News' own reporters. There's no way to tell. Then add to that the fact that Fox News and The Blaze are highly biased and sometimes counterfactual sources themselves. Now we've got an unsourced claim, from a group that has a vested interest in making such a claim, and a know record in making up such claims. All I have said is that this is not enough to assume the claim is true. Nor, for that matter, is it enough to assume it is false. Based on that information, I think it better not to form a conclusion at all.
Click to expand...

I agree that we shouldn't form a conclusion, I disagree that we have zero information. This discussion probably doesn't really belong in this thread, though.


Do you really assign a percentage probability to every news item you encounter? Does this help you in any way?
Click to expand...

Not quite so explicitly, but yes I think it's helpful to reason within uncertainty with a bayesian framework, even if not actually explicitly doing the math. Our knowledge about the world is much more fine grained than yes/no/maybe, and seeing new information not as either confirming or disconfirming facts but instead as simply adding information that adjusts credences is useful to me in finding clarity in my reasoning.


My point is that Bogative's hostility towards immigrants, Democrats, people of colour and progressives, led him to conclude that Sarabia was an illegal. Not 30% sure: 100% sure. This is not critical thinking: this is partisan prejudice.
Click to expand...
Yes, I agree that he is wrong here.

I think he's not only wrong to be certain, but also wrong about the implications of the fact. As I said, no number of news stories about crimes committed by illegal immigrants should shift anyone's views on this subject materially. If what we care about is crime rates among illegals, then we should be discussing crime rates, not anecdotes, so I think he's completely wrong to bring them up at all.

For what it's worth I'm probably more radically pro-immigration than anyone else here.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
Nope: you first. Is a provable lie not a provable lie if the proof of that lie comes from a non-rightwing source?
While you're thinking about that, the numerous failed fact-checks on The Blaze are listed in the link I provided. You could try reading them: you might then be able to answer your own question.



Please name the source for this allegation. Bet you can't. For that matter, please cite a source proving that he is, indeed, an illegal alien, not an alleged one- and a source that predates your claim here. Again, bet you can't. You are assuming facts not in evidence, because it suits your personal biases.
I am not in any way excusing what this man did. What I am condemning is the usage of this case by rightwingers like yourself, to score political points.
Click to expand...
It seems that only the rightist news sites are making the 'illegal alien/migrant' claim.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom