No Wonder So Many People are Depressed

[stui magpie]

This is an interesting yet slightly depressing read, so it fits right in here.

http://www.coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/resources/e7964843-7985-4a25-8abd-5060c26edc4d/website+version+-+adfvdrn_data_report_2018_.pdf

It's a report done by the coroners court of Victoria into all domestic violence deaths in Australia during the period 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2014.

A couple of key takeouts.

1. During that 4 year period, 121 women died at the hands of a male partner or recently ex partner. Significantly less than the ' 1 a week' figure quoted so often, but still way too many.

2. The number of men killed by a female partner was 28. 18.6% of the total deaths due to domestic violence. Less than the 1 in 3 we see quoted.

3. in 60% of the male deaths at the hand of the female partner, the deceased male was a perpetrator of domestic violence against the woman who killed him.

4. Almost 20% of the males who killed a female partner were Aboriginal. 50% of the females who killed a male partner were Aboriginal

5. Over 20% of males who killed their female partner died of suicide.

6. Almost 50% of males and females who killed their partner were using alcohol at the time.

Interesting data in a lot of ways.

[K]

^^^ On a similar note, the following comments from another thread seem interesting enough and 'slightly depressing' enough to quote here.

Mugwump: "I agree with [WPT's] comment, but I wonder if there is really a population difference between the propensity for evil between men and women. Men are certainly more violent, and it was 99% certain that this idiot would be male. But I’ve met many women with a capacity for doing harm in other ways. I suppose it depends on the way we define evil."

think positive: "I agree.
I know a few evil women! Sneaky, probably why I get along with blokes, I don’t like game players. Men are simple creatures. Probably a good thing that in general women are not as physically strong as men! Mental pain can do even more damage."

David: "If we defined evil as something like “desire to do harm”, then I agree that many women have such impulses and that they may not always manifest with as much physical immediacy. But that doesn’t necessarily indicate that this desire averages out to exist more or less equally between men and women. As a case in point, why do men dominate in nearly every category of crime perpetration, not just those that depend on physical strength? Shouldn’t we see an equal (or, indeed – because of their limited desire/ability to commit other crimes – greater) number of women vs men involved in crimes like fraud and blackmail if this hypothesis were true?"

[stui magpie]

Not sure what's depressing about them, it's all true., particularly TP's comment about women being more adept at basically psychological torture.

[K]

^^^ I'm actually a little unsure what's depressing about this thread. (I don't mean that I cannot imagine how this thread can possibly be depressing; I mean that I don't know which parts of it people find depressing --- though it's presumably not discussion of Solow's work.) Of course, this thread is about people being depressed, and whether they have good reason to be depressed, but is discussion of that itself depressing? As I mentioned above, I found the tale of happiness research rather comedic.

I'm also unsure of other things, such as who your mystery friend is and what his or her interest in this thread is.

[stui magpie]

^

I come to the VPT for discussion.

The quoting of data can be a starting point or form part of a discussion, but when a thread becomes post after post of quoted data, graphs and sourced information, with little to no actual discussion, I have little interest in it to be honest.

I prefer opinion and discussion. If data serves as a starting point, great (as per my splitting the family violence stuff to it's own thread) but if I wanted to read academic tomes and research, I would. Elsewhere.

[K]

^ Okay, but I guess that means you are not depressed by it, but instead just not interested in it. Is that just you, or is that also what someone else you know feels?

[stui magpie]

Are you not familiar with the term "asking for a friend" when you're actually asking for yourself?

[K]

I was just seeking confirmation, because I didn't want to presume.

[K]

David, a question for you:

The chart below is apparently EN, Fig. 15-2, p. 218 (for US, '04 on, from the currently dominant web search engine's "trends" function). [Nicksters who wish to avoid viewing figures should log out & proceed as guests.]

Does it say in the caption or text (incl. endnotes, etc.) who made the chart originally (the primary source, which could be the book's author) and how exactly he made it??

[Clearly, there's the question whether searches for jokes is really a good proxy for anything, but that's a separate question...]

TBC


Pinker's Fig. 15-2:

[K]

[ctd. from above]

Right now, the chart above seems to be a load of bollocks.

How so? I got curious about the rainbow-hued company's not-so-new toy. I know: Curiosity is a Terrible Sin, you say. Okay, I sinned. I just wondered what this 'trends' toy could do and whether it could be used for anything actually interesting or useful. I went to the website and, still not knowing what could possibly be useful about it, put in the presumed search term for the medium-dark line above. It gave me the pic below.

Do you see how this pic can possibly give the line in the chart above?? Forget about the wiggles. One can do (legit) things to smooth out the curve and presumably that's what was done. But will it really give that large-scale shape? Could whoever made that chart really have got something so seemingly simple so wrong? Or is it an optical illusion?

TBC

[Mugwump]

^ Yes, that contrast is interesting. It illustrates one of the problems of an Internet age. Facts are created and accessed with very little rigour.

One or other of those charts is probably wrong. But it is also possible that these effects arise because of quite subtle differences in method. Is it the term “racist jokes” that is being searched ? Or is it actual racist jokes ? If the former, then we cannot know whether an increase reflects racism or anti-racism, since I suspect the people searching for “racist jokes” are more likely looking for what offends them, to prove a point.

If actual racist jokes are being individually searched for, then how are these defined and classed ?

Once upon a time, knowledge depended upon carefully constructed individual experiments. Now it is synthesised from casual hypotheses, cursorily tested. Thus we know less through having more information.

[K]

^ The function searches for search terms, i.e. specific word strings, so it cannot do some AI-like thing and parse meaning from other things (and, for example, judge that a search was for something racist). However, you can search for other terms, either instead or in addition (combined with a logical OR). For example, you could search for "bikes" or "bicycles" or both. Anyone can try different combinations for himself, to see if that makes a difference...

[HAL]

No I don't think I can do search for other terms either or combined with a logical OR.

[K]

EN caption and text for figure above:
( http://magpies.net/nick/bb/viewtopic.php?p=1846312#1846312 )

I think the labels and caption too inaccurately describe the actual search terms listed after "Source"... At least we now know what the real search terms were, but this stuff sprouts like weeds in other media without that info.

[New question for David: what is footnote 13 about?]

[Mugwump]

As I suspected, it is a very porous dataset. Instead of searching for “N***** jokes”, people may nowadays search for “non-PC jokes”, for “racist jokes”, for “black deaths matter” jokes, or other combinations.

I suspect there has been a decline in the taste for such jokes, after years of (very proper) stigmatization of those beliefs. I am just not sure that it can be
established in this way.