Spectacle
Oh honestly. Not this again. “I am Skeptic, I can settle all this for you with some Facts.”
In the past 48hrs, the USA horrifically lost 34 people to mass shootings.
On average, across any 48hrs, we also lose…
500 to Medical errors
300 to the Flu
250 to Suicide
200 to Car Accidents
40 to Homicide via Handgun
Often our emotions respond more to spectacle than to data.
?????
Dude, we know lots more than 34 people die in the US every day. We know. But when one person with a big gun kills a lot of people in seconds, yes, we pay attention. We pay attention and we have emotions about it. We ought to have emotions about it.
I wrote a Free Inquiry column some time back quarreling with his claim that “Earth needs a virtual country: #Rationalia, with a one-line Constitution: All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence.” Same problem: he left out emotion. You can’t leave emotion out of policy, because policy is all about what we care about. If we don’t care, evidence is just a pile of meaningless facts.
And once again, let’s ignore the role that the rise of alt-right/incel/fascist ideology is playing in mass shootings and domestic terrorism.
So he’s saying that letting batshitcrazy people slaughter folks with guns is okay because more people die of other causes?
The same logic gets us to “we should ignore acts of terrorism because more people die of other causes” and “we should have ignored AIDS because more people die of other causes” oh, and “we should have ignored lynching, cops shooting unarmed people, people dying when badly build bridges collapse, airline accidents…”
Seriously, what kind of crazy logic is that?
What is it with educated people like him not understanding that emotion motivates action? That, without emotion, there is no impetus to do *anything*. Aside from our basest instincts for warmth and food, etc., it’s only by dint of feeling an emotion that we take an action.
Dear Muslima much?
Yo, NDT, does the gun lobby oppose ending medical errors? Will a Republican Supreme Court declare that the flu has a constitutional right to propagate? Does Fox demand an end to suicide-prevention efforts?
In terms of using policy to save lives, we are working on the other things.
Has NDT forgotten that all of those other things are also areas of political agitation for improvement?
I consider myself to be a rational scientist, and one of the most important lessons I teach my students is that emotions give us very important information. After all, you could make a perfectly rational argument to kill Grandma, but your emotions say, no, that’s Grandma, and I don’t want to kill her.
My students can understand this, even though most of them come into my class believing emotions are bad guides; why can’t some of the supposedly smartest scientists in the world? Could it be they aren’t as smart as they thin they are?
Even on strict rationality basis, Tyson is full of shit here.
First of all, unless the only use of our resources is “preventing death” — and the USA has enough luxury that this clearly isn’t the case — then we can attack more than one problem at a time. Especially if the costs aren’t as straightforward as money. If tougher gun laws are a good idea, then it’s the right thing to do independent of whether or not other problems are larger, unless you’re telling me that Congress can only pass the “Gun Safety Law of 2019” or the “Reduce Medical Errors Act of 2019” but not both.
If more children die from guns in the house than from a pool in the backyard, does that mean that houses with guns shouldn’t bother to put a fence around their pool? I’m more likely to die of heart disease than a car accident; does that mean I shouldn’t bother to drive carefully?
Second, when deciding how much effort to put into prevention, you have to be guided not by absolute numbers, but by marginal ones. In other words, what is the marginal cost of additional preventative steps versus the marginal benefits? The argument for gun control is that tougher gun laws would reduce the number of deaths by an amount that more than justifies the additional “cost” of those laws. Maybe we’ve already plucked all the low-hanging fruit in terms of reducing medical errors, and can’t reduce those deaths further without unacceptably high costs, whereas the low-hanging fruit is still there where it comes to gun deaths.
Now maybe Tyson disputes those examples. Maybe he doesn’t believe that tougher laws would reduce gun deaths, or he believes that the cost would be too high. But that’s the argument he needs to make, not this utter nonsense.
By the way, interesting that Tyson doesn’t have the balls to speak up about the fact that he’s an atheist, because he doesn’t want to reduce the reach of his audience, but he’s perfectly willing to wade into gun control in a half-assed way. I guess it’s safe to piss off liberals.
Screechy M:
Yeah, it’s been bothering me a lot that the internet is calling Tyson’s bullshit ‘hyper-rational’ when it is not rational at all. I know, I know, most people are talking about his attitude, he believes he’s being hyper-rational rather than being so. But nowhere near enough people are pointing out – as you did – how obviously irrational his argument is.
There quite a few reasons why this issue isn’t just about numbers. To continue in the ‘hyper-rational’ vein we could talk about how risks – and our ability to mitigate them – change regardless of our perception of risk (we humans are very bad at that). But I think what’s more important is that the increase in attacks like this (more than one a day in the US this year) should – if we are rational – indicate that there’s a rabbit away. That people are getting worse. That society is getting worse. And that we should do something about it. Rather than look at a 48 hour snapshot, a rational person might prefer to look at trends and how they correlate. She might take drastic measures and make emotional appeals to get the point across. Which would be rational.
That is something a rational person, concerned about data rather than emotion, might conclude, based on an assumption of minimising harm, for example. An assumption that would seem rational, wouldn’t it, because harm is bad…. Oh dear, that’s an emotional response, isn’t it? Mustn’t think like that.
And too few people are pointing out that Tyson’s argument is itself an emotional one. It’s a value judgement, right? He’s telling us what we should and shouldn’t care about. He cares about what he thinks we should care about. Isn’t that second-order emotion?
Hey, Neil, remember when you got so cross because the stars in the Titanic movie weren’t accurate? And you spent hours writing a letter to Cameron and presumably more hours working out what the proper positions should be and then had a bunch of meetings with studio people and eventually got that one single 2 second shot changed? Great work, dude. Rationality for the win there.
Having complained about Tyson’s complaint about Titanic, I’ve just remembered Tyson talking about how he was “cool” with the idea of warp drives, which are absolutely the least possible things ever conceived. But he’s super-angry about stars being in the wrong place. Fuck’s sake, I’ve also just remembered quite a lot of other nonsensical things about physics (and pretend physics) he’s said. He was on about cloaking devices and a woman on the panel said that an invisible space ship would get kind of hot, wouldn’t it? Tyson went off on a completely irrelevant tirade. But she was totally right.
I’m going to be angry about that all day now.
And about the way that in every single frame of video that exists of him, he’s talking over someone else, quite often incorrectly. He does not have the ability to listen. And there’s the whole sexual harassment/assault business which is not implausible.
Oh, here’s what I was vaguely remembering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wO8yvV2UX0
Look how bored Tyson looks when anyone else is talking. Fuck’s sake, he doesn’t even get the name of Wil Wheaton’s character right, even though “Welsley” isn’t even a name.
He talks over everyone. He makes everything about himself. He does not show a great deal of understanding about physics and does divert physics-related conversation into places that are not relevant but do require a lot of big words.
Speaking of facts… the vast majority of rape accusations are accurate. Therefore, statistically speaking, Tyson is a rapist.
I’m just being rational.
I don’t really doubt that he is. He’s aggressive, entirely self-centred and dismissive of everyone who is not him.
To expand on Screechy Monkey and latsot, there is also the question of what deaths we are willing to accept as a price for something. Accepting hundreds of deaths from medical errors as the price of saving tens of thousands of lives that would otherwise be lost is rational. Now to try the same for guns: Accepting forty homicides by handgun as the price for … is rational. What exactly goes into that ellipsis to make that a true statement? Weapon sales? The view that political freedom is best defined as being allowed to own as many automatic guns as one wishes?
So yes, even on purely rational grounds this is nonsense.
The (valid and well-put) criticisms of Tyson notwithstanding, I find that his tweet brings to mind (mine, at least) some important issues.
It bothers me to see, for instance, some popular and well-publicized cause get tons of money and resources, far beyond need, while important causes that affect more people go wanting. People donate from emotions, not a consideration of need. Sometimes that doesn’t work well.
When there are mass shootings, many people take an opportunity to press for gun control measures, which I wholeheartedly support. Gun advocates correctly point out that many of the proposed measures will do little or nothing to stem mass shootings, although they may have effects on suicides or domestic violence or accidents or other forms of gun-related injuries and deaths. To me, the measures are all related and important, but I have to agree that the rhetoric in support refers mostly to mass shootings, and that makes little sense. It’s worth bringing up suicides and domestic violence statistics when proposing measures aimed at curbing those things. I wish the epidemic of domestic violence were sufficiently attention-getting to spur action.
None of these are things Tyson said directly. What he said was highly insensitive under the circumstances, and confused issues, and was inaccurate, and all that. But I do see something of a point.
@15. While its true that more people are killed by guns in incidents that don’t qualify as “mass shootings”, the truth is that mass shootings have prompted immediate political action in other countries that are very similar to the US culturally and politically.
For example, the Port Arthur attack in Australia in 1996, the Dunblane school massacre in the UK, and most recently after the Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand. In the US, nothing changes. People are allowed to be perplexed by this.
And it’s not as if gun control advocates have been silent about domestic violence, street crime, accidental shootings or suicide either.
My original interpretation of the tweet wasn’t that it had to do with policy, but that it was addressing fear. When we read about people getting slaughtered while doing ordinary things in ordinary spaces, we tend to have a strong inclination to avoid doing ordinary things in ordinary spaces because it’s just too dangerous. Our brains adapted in a smaller environment.
If this was Tyson’s intention, then it’s analogous to reassuring travelers after an airplane crashes. You don’t point out all the planes which don’t crash to deter improvements in airline safety or minimize the suffering of the loved ones, but to prevent people from panicking and needlessly canceling plans. In this case, it would be encouraging people to get out of the house. Walmarts and dance halls are not safe, but neither are they now become places to avoid.
Rational or not, the observation is just trivial. A piece of ‘whatabouttery.’
Which brings to mind the tweet he made about evolution, which evolutionary biologists pointed out was wrong. He answered by accusing them of not understanding evolutionary biology.
If that’s the case, then he is a bad communicator. When airplane crashes happen, the usual response is to point out the actual statistical realities of airplane travel against other types, and show that it is still one of the safest ways to travel, not to just say, okay, lots of other unrelated things cause more deaths than airline travel. This tweet read more like my economics professor trying to explain why we shouldn’t put regulations on the market because…list of facts (many made up).
If Tyson wants to treat gun safety as a public health problem — and I agree that’s a good idea — then perhaps he should start advocating for the repeal of the law the NRA secured that prevents the Center for Disease Control from touching the issue.
Nah, too controversial for him. Better to stick to glib posturing.
I’m glad to see that Tyson is getting roasted for this in a fairly high-profile way. It’s one of the top ten stories on CNN.com right now.
No, I was mistaken. It wasn’t a reassuring “ Keep Calm and Carry On.” Tyson issued an apology with explanation:
My intent was to offer objectively true information that might help shape conversations and reactions to preventable ways we die. Where I miscalculated was that I genuinely believed the Tweet would be helpful to anyone trying to save lives in America. What I learned from the range of reactions is that for many people, some information –-my Tweet in particular — can be true but unhelpful, especially at a time when many people are either still in shock, or trying to heal – or both.
I’m willing to accept that he was looking at the big picture and not trying to minimize any particular problem, but under the circumstances it’s like replying to “ black lives matter” with “ALL lives matter.”
I’m glad to see him acknowledge the concept of “true but unhelpful.” Too many people, including especially the skeptic-hyper-rationalists dudebros who look up to Tyson, seem to think that it can never be inappropriate to say something that is true. And when anyone points out how messed up that is, then we get the “well gosh, he probably just has Asperger’s” defense.
I can just imagine Tyson at a funeral: “The universe existed for billions of years before your grandma was born, and will go on for billions of years afterward. So from a cosmic perspective, her entire life is just a tiny blip.”
Golly. That’s what he thought he was doing? In a stand-alone tweet? smh
latsot @ 11 – actually “Welsley” is a name of sorts, in the sense that there’s a well-known women’s college named Wellesley. That could be why he scrambled the name. I don’t know why I feel the need to clarify that except it seemed vaguely interesting when I started…
@AlexSL – “To expand on Screechy Monkey and latsot, there is also the question of what deaths we are willing to accept as a price for something. Accepting hundreds of deaths from medical errors as the price of saving tens of thousands of lives that would otherwise be lost is rational.”
Yes, and this changes. Big construction projects in the past had large amounts of casualties which wouldn’t be accepted these days in the western world. We accept the number of deaths by car as a price for convenience. Future generations may see this as barbarous.
You always get someone piping up after a terrorist attack “more people were killed by x or y”. It’s the malevolent intent behind mass murder that shocks and disturbs us.
I suppose when Jack the Ripper was roaming about murdering and mutilating women, some Victorian sages were opining “1000s of women die in agony in childbirth every year. Why get upset about a few unfortunates?”
We can always hope.
I was eager for self-driving cars, until I found out you still have to be on the alert the entire time. I think that would be even more difficult when you aren’t actually driving. I wanted a self-driving car so I didn’t have to drive, think about driving, or do anything resembling driving.
Maybe off topic but entertaining — Leonard Bernstein was from Brookline, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston), and in his one-act opera “Trouble in Tahiti” about American suburbia (1952), Scene 1 sets the tone with lyrics that include a “little white house in Wellesley Hills” (another suburb, about 35 minutes by train from Boston South Station).
I saw this animated version when it aired on US public television (1977), and Wellesley Hills is the second town mentioned (0:42). The BBC made a movie (2001), and their lyrics made it the first town (0:25).
I lived in Brookline very briefly once upon a time.
‘My intent was to offer objectively true information that might help shape conversations and reactions to preventable ways we die. Where I miscalculated was that I genuinely believed the Tweet would be helpful to anyone trying to save lives in America. What I learned from the range of reactions is that for many people, some information –-my Tweet in particular — can be true but unhelpful, especially at a time when many people are either still in shock, or trying to heal – or both.’
This is pitiful, disingenuous, sub-Pinkerish stuff.
The information does not begin to be ‘objectively true’, since it studiedly ignores any number of important factors – and in particular political and social factors, such as what such mass shootings do (and are intended to do) to a society when people are allowed to buy dangerous weaponry which they then use to commit mass murder. They are designed to terrorise, to destroy trust, and eventually to further some very unpleasant political ends. And then he writes ‘that what he says can be ‘true but unhelpful, especially at a time when many people are still either in shock, or trying to heal – or both.’ What sentimental, dishonestly self-exculpating guff. Guff that depends of course on the ridiculous, reductive and self-aggrandising distinction between ‘intellect’ and ’emotion’ (intellect good, emotions bad, physical scientists wise and good, everyone else over-emotional fools) on which his original little lesson on being objective depended. He has withdrawn nothing. Those people who are ‘still in shock’ or trying ‘to heal’ – how can any responsible person use these contemptible cliches, which have the implication that once people have got over their shock and have ‘healed’ and stopped being over-emotional, they will come to adopt the properly scientific and objective attitude that Tyson so proudly lays claim to.
I find his dishonesty and refusal to think beyond the bounds of self-aggrandising dogma wholly contemptible.
@Tim:
So do I.
This is what I understand was Tyson’s full ‘apology’. Clearly it was reported by a third party, I had no appetite to hunt it down:
Yeah, fuck off.
Well, I stand corrected on that point, but this was a person he was interviewing in a capacity that would clearly centre on Wheaton’s role in Star Trek. He obviously didn’t do a single second’s research on the show or on the character. It’s not as though it would be difficult to type “will wheaton” or “wesley crusher” or “star trek” into the non-invasive search engine of your choice like 10 minutes before interviewing that person about that character and that thing.
But he didn’t and he talked over everyone including the comedians who were making better points about physics than Tyson and called him out on his crappy answers.
That’s what pisses me off.
Seriously. I didn’t pay full attention to his “apology” yesterday, and when I did just now I found it so mind-bogglingly insulting and wrong-headed I had to do a whole new post on the subject. Jeez, I used to admire Neil Tyson.