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Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

desfontain.es

291–300 of 662 posts

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#291
post #59
post #13

The replies here arguing we should publish it all are wild in the worst kind of first-order thinking way. It’s a census: it just asks questions. If you start publishing and weaponizing the data against people with various attributes, they’ll just lie or not answer. And then you are left with worse than nothing: bad data people try to act on.

The US Government is the entity that weaponizes the data. The most obvious example is the Census Bureau compiling lists of people of Japanese descent to imprison during WWII. That's just the most obvious one that I know of without looking up more. The real push for this now is to form lists of people to disenfranchise.

There is a significant movement in conservative circles that "the census should literally only be a count". this could be a wedge to prevent detailed demographic data collection by the government

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#292
post #274

Coming from a certain european country, you never know what answer on the census might get you into trouble. "What is your religious affiliation". Seems perfectly innocuous, but turned out to be retroactively fatal if your answer could be attributed to you by a certain foreign occupier in the 1940s .

They don't ask about religious affiliation on the census. 1. How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2020? 2. Were there any additional people staying here on April 1, 2020 that you did not include in Question 1? 3. Is this house, apartment, or mobile home? 4. What is your telephone number? 5. What is Person 1’s name? 6. What is Person 1’s sex? 7. What is Person 1’s…

Right, but the entire damn point is privacy protections enable people to be more honest. The entire point is supposed to be good data so we can make informed population wide decisions.

And race is a pretty big one under the current administration which has had hundreds of legal immigrants arrested for weeks to months off of "suspicion" that for lack of concrete evidence could only amount to racial profiling.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#293
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also need the option to vote for "less-bad" people. Where I am now, my vote doesn't matter, even if it means the "less-bad" people win with no competition (as opposed to where I moved from where things were skewed the opposite way).

Vote strategically. Candidates notice btw. So if you're in a heavily red state but you're blue, then vote in the primaries for the more centered Republican. If you're in a heavily blue state but red, do the opposite. Either way this actually helps because more people are centered and we're getting wilder and wilder candidates because there's increased tribalism. They go to the extremes because they get more voters th…

Totally agree. I did exactly this in the recent primaries, and then got to vote again in a runoff.

I think of it this way: in a state where one party is clearly dominant, most offices will end up being held by members of that party. That means that the primaries for that party actually matter more than the general election.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#295
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What is your religious affiliation" makes absolutely no sense in a census exercise. IMO.

It actually does. Religious affinity can absolutely be useful for longer trend studies, and census data is usually of much, much higher quality than other random sample studies.

With that perspective, how do you prevent scope creep when preparing a census exercise? You would collect everything and the shape of each house's kitchen sink, because "it can be useful".

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember “leftist “ and transgender activists are terrorists now. First they came for…

What's the actual antidote to this? 5calls.org?

[flagged]

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#297
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Government is the entity that weaponizes the data. The most obvious example is the Census Bureau compiling lists of people of Japanese descent to imprison during WWII. That's just the most obvious one that I know of without looking up more. The real push for this now is to form lists of people to disenfranchise.

There is a significant movement in conservative circles that "the census should literally only be a count". this could be a wedge to prevent detailed demographic data collection by the government

But a count of what?

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#298
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't ask about religious affiliation on the census. 1. How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2020? 2. Were there any additional people staying here on April 1, 2020 that you did not include in Question 1? 3. Is this house, apartment, or mobile home? 4. What is your telephone number? 5. What is Person 1’s name? 6. What is Person 1’s sex? 7. What is Person 1’s…

Right, but the entire damn point is privacy protections enable people to be more honest. The entire point is supposed to be good data so we can make informed population wide decisions. And race is a pretty big one under the current administration which has had hundreds of legal immigrants arrested for weeks to months off of "suspicion" that for lack of concrete evidence could only amount to racial profiling.

Administration doesn't care about race, but conservative in groups and liberal out groups. Race is a sort of proxy drumbbeat to appease the most stupid of their base. This is why people like Marco Rubio or Scott Turner are part of the in group despite the seeming cognitive dissonance there. There are a shocking number of black and latino people in this country who do in fact support this regime. There are gay republicans. Muslim republicans. All of this is tolerated by the in group if they are ideologically conservative.

You know how you target best based on ideology? Not the damn census. Social media. What you post, who you follow, all of that stuff we forgot that ICE was getting from travelers at the border imaging their cellphone. That stuff is far more accurate to what you are today, right now, at this minute, and where you fall in light of this regime, and what risk you present to the state and its power structures.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit of a broad brush to be painting with.

[flagged]

Good thing that’s been the only act of political violence in America since 2024, otherwise there might be alternative viewpoints.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Immigrants don’t get a vote in many countries For example Europeans were excluded from the Brexit vote

Voting in these countries takes place largely along ethnic lines.

Go look at maps of "if only X demographic voted", there is a clear incentive for certain parties to import people just because changing the ethnic makeup of the country will give them political power (immigrants have kids who are citizens and will vote along their ethnic lines).

Additionally there are efforts to naturalize refugees and illegals:

Chuck Schumer:

"We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants – the Dreamers and all of them, because our ultimate goal is to help the Dreamers but [also] to get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented there are here"

"Path to citizenship" here implies that he wants them to be able to vote.

https://cis.org/Arthur/Schumer-Calls-DREAM-Amnesty

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