41–50 of 173 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would that lead to more killings? It is not like activists come with an innate probability to be killed because of their work.
I believe they're arguing there's an "innate probability" for _humans_ to be murdered.
How does this compare to the growth in the number of environmental activists overall? Edit: it was pointed out below that it's probably more influenced by an increase in environmentally damaging activities such as logging. Edit 2: Yes, I think that murdering peaceful, innocent protestors is a disgusting act. I'm just questioning the article's use of statistics
That's most probably the case, yes. I live in a country (Romania) where a lot of illegal (or borderline-illegal) logging activities happen and a few environmental activists have been physically harmed while one or two foresters have actually been killed.
The issue is that many mountain communities (where the logging happens) are dependent on that activity for their actual survival, because honestly there's not that much one can do in a mountain village to gain your daily bread, and of course when outside forces (like the central administration that employs said foresters, or the environmental activists whose income does not depend on those trees being cut down) come in and threaten that survival the inevitable happens, i.e. physical violence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would that lead to more killings? It is not like activists come with an innate probability to be killed because of their work.
To be fair, they definitely do. Any kind of activism that campaigns against mountains of money comes with an innate probability to be killed. I suppose you could argue that it's not innate because someone else is instigating it, but if the conflict that gives rise to the murder is in itself a property of the activism...
How does this compare to the growth in the number of environmental activists overall? Edit: it was pointed out below that it's probably more influenced by an increase in environmentally damaging activities such as logging. Edit 2: Yes, I think that murdering peaceful, innocent protestors is a disgusting act. I'm just questioning the article's use of statistics
This is murder, not people falling off the cliff because of some accidents. There is probably nothing logically wrong with that question, and you are probably right that there is a correlation. But... seriously?
Worse, it's corporate murder. Not some "crime passionel" or a marginalized mental patient going bezerk.
This is big corps silencing dissent, premeditated and usually paid for.
It's hard to get justice in these cases, like in this case:
The police are in on it, the government is in on it, the corporation is responsible. Clear as day.
> The police are in on it, the government is in on it, the corporation is responsible. Then why does it not stop? If you look at the countries where this problem is occuring, they don't really have highly effective governments, they have lots of corruption, and generally high crime rates. If the governments do not prosecute those responsible and hold corporations to account, this won't stop, and if the people in thos…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, seriously. Number one failure in sensationalized reporting is base rate fallacy: they point out a high absolute number, implying something strange is going on, whereas usually the denominator - which they neglect to mention - has rose proportionally, meaning there's nothing newsworthy there. I don't mean this is the case here (I'm yet to read the article itself) - but this failure mode in reporting is so common…
>whereas usually the denominator - which they neglect to mention - has rose proportionally, meaning there's nothing newsworthy there. there is not necessarily a reason to assume that the percentage of murder of activists is going to stay the same if you increase the number of activists, although it may be the case.
Perhaps you're right that in this case, the rate isn't going to stay constant. But in general, with news reporting, I found it safe to assume that if the rate was rising, they would've reported on the denominator too - the reason to omit it is usually because it would kill the story.
EDIT:
To expand on this further - and again, I'm defending the original question as a perfectly legit one, not trying to diminish the fact that we're talking about murders here - you always want to see the whole fraction spelled out, numerator and denominator, because the other common trick to deceive with numbers is by providing only the ratio itself. E.g. "over past year, incidents of $crime rose by 80%", or "$substance increases your cancer risk by 300%", where the unmentioned denominator is "3" and "0.00001", respectively.
The way I see it: even if we're talking about clear tragedies or acts of evil, it's always better to have an accurate picture of what is being talked about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, seriously. Number one failure in sensationalized reporting is base rate fallacy: they point out a high absolute number, implying something strange is going on, whereas usually the denominator - which they neglect to mention - has rose proportionally, meaning there's nothing newsworthy there. I don't mean this is the case here (I'm yet to read the article itself) - but this failure mode in reporting is so common…
>whereas usually the denominator - which they neglect to mention - has rose proportionally, meaning there's nothing newsworthy there. there is not necessarily a reason to assume that the percentage of murder of activists is going to stay the same if you increase the number of activists, although it may be the case.
If activists are being murdered for activism, the rate among activists will go up. If a greater share of the population is becoming activist, and are being randomly murdered for non-activist reasons, that’s a different story.
How does this compare to the growth in the number of environmental activists overall? Edit: it was pointed out below that it's probably more influenced by an increase in environmentally damaging activities such as logging. Edit 2: Yes, I think that murdering peaceful, innocent protestors is a disgusting act. I'm just questioning the article's use of statistics
> in environmentally damaging activities such as logging. That's most probably the case, yes. I live in a country (Romania) where a lot of illegal (or borderline-illegal) logging activities happen and a few environmental activists have been physically harmed while one or two foresters have actually been killed. The issue is that many mountain communities (where the logging happens) are dependent on that activity for…
The ones targeted by the law and activists for illegal logging are usually companies connected to politicians. They are indeed violent, but they don't get to benefit from any excuses like the one you presented.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, seriously. Number one failure in sensationalized reporting is base rate fallacy: they point out a high absolute number, implying something strange is going on, whereas usually the denominator - which they neglect to mention - has rose proportionally, meaning there's nothing newsworthy there. I don't mean this is the case here (I'm yet to read the article itself) - but this failure mode in reporting is so common…
I get that at some point murder becomes statistics, but I still feel the need to re-emphasize that this is murder . Not more folks getting the flu because there are more folks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, seriously. The real question is : "Is environmental activism today more dangerous than it was yesterday". The typical way of computing "dangerosity" is through a ratio. Eg: number of death / kilometer for transportation systems, number of injury / game for sports, ... Why should the dangerosity of the "environmental activism" activity be computed differently, by only taking into consideration a numerator, and di…
Despite this weird sub-thread, the article isn’t talking about “dangerosity”. They’re reporting on the increase in evil activities by anti-environmental mega corps, who are also murdering opposing activists.
I cannot imagine that being their best PR strategy, not to mention the fact that murdering your opposition attracts a lot of scrutiny, investigation, and which corp exec would want to risk going to jail for ordering a hit on an activist. Far more practical to lobby or spread counter marketing spin.