Post AxrNRTDuzP0BKpkLdw by DrorBedrack@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by DrorBedrack@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AxrHruqQJmRUnvz4cq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T09:36:35Z
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Sometimes I wish I could start a wildcat opinion polling operation because existing (public) polling tends to avoid open-ended polls, it rarely asks interesting questions. Polls based on thousands of interviews are rare.
(DIR) Post #AxrJrkRPCKZ0RlKVbU by lightbocks@union.place
2025-09-04T09:58:56Z
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@futurebird Did you say wild field #Sociology? #feralsocialscience #feralacademian #socialpsychiology
(DIR) Post #AxrJz9uKubR3SPOavI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:00:18Z
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Political commentators often talk confidently about what "the American public" thinks about one thing or another sprinkling their theories with occasional polls (in the better cases) or just making stuff up based on vibes just as often. This is because opinion articles on what people think, can shape what people think and can shape the "messaging" if not the policy of politicians. Those sincerely curious about what the public think are rare.
(DIR) Post #AxrKkERBt5XZ7JD2Fk by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:08:49Z
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This is coming up because I'm trying to understand the American obsession with "crime" Crime, all across the country was worse in the 70s and 80s in nearly any way you might want to quantify it. Number of murders, number of reported crimes, public disorder etc. It's a very broad and obvious trend. A large portion of the US population nonetheless think that crime has gotten WORSE not better in this period. How large of a portion? Why?This is harder to find out.
(DIR) Post #AxrL3MLWhvi59BgG5A by khleedril@cyberplace.social
2025-09-04T10:12:12Z
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@futurebird Polls with thousands of interviews are rarely accurate also: people have a tendency to mis-direct when they are polled, and the sample is hardly ever fair to begin with.Of course, I just made this up without conducting any actual research.Yeh, I'm a reply guy.
(DIR) Post #AxrL4MgavhOyUU0xWq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:12:28Z
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Some of the few numbers I can find point to something even stranger. A group of people who simultaneously think that "crime is worse than ever" now but also that "crime was worse in the 80s"HOW. These polls are having a big impact on public policy and MY life. Specifically, for example that there were 12 NYPD at my subway station yesterday. When I asked them why they were there (which I always do, very politely) they said "for visibility"
(DIR) Post #AxrLRalKlAocoBJ4q0 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:16:39Z
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"visibly" is a major "crime prevention" tactic of the NYPD. It's not even totally disconnected from evidence... but there are a lot of unsolved cases in NYC. Should they be investigating those cases? Responding to the people who have experienced an accrual crime and trying to solve it?There is a beauty supply shop where the owner is annoyed by petty theft. He has video of the theft but the NYPD has not watched it.More pressing there are unsolved violent crimes
(DIR) Post #AxrLl7wXcQKrDcrcw4 by rayhindle@mastodon.social
2025-09-04T10:20:09Z
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@futurebird You probably already know about this, but I think this is the sort of thing you mean?
(DIR) Post #AxrMA7r94z0CBkGCie by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:24:42Z
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But really I'm curious about what is going on in people's head and how that intersects with how limited resources are distributed. After 9/11 NYPD adopted a "data driven" system to decide how their "visibility" would be deployed. Relative fluctuations in reported crimes result in officer being sent to the area to stand around. This would make sense if crime were a miasma like a viscus gas... but ... why not investigate the reports?
(DIR) Post #AxrMQMmhLOmp7YvN5s by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:27:39Z
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The previously mentioned beauty supply shop owner makes a ton of calls and reports about the ongoing petty theft problem. Another beauty shop half a block away has a similar issue. Could there be 12 NYPD standing in the subway because of their calls?I can't prove it but from what I understand that's how the system works. It's very... depersonalized.
(DIR) Post #AxrMdKnY2ZBmj1VP2e by mensrea@freeradical.zone
2025-09-04T10:29:56Z
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@futurebird there are 2 types of crime: 1. things that happen that contravene some law or laws, 2. an undefined political talking point that has little to nothing to do with point 1. people are concerned about 1, but politicians and the media only ever talk about 2
(DIR) Post #AxrMniK3QsFaa2ewTo by JohnLAlford@mstdn.social
2025-09-04T10:31:49Z
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@futurebird My hypothesis is that Boomers have aged into the "afraid of everything" phase
(DIR) Post #AxrMpxq6iBTtHhj0Eq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:32:17Z
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What is really going on? My guess is it's summer and teens are stealing $8 hair bleach because dying your friends hair is something to do. These are small items and the stores are very large with only one person on staff. In my ideal world someone would show the video to their parents. It would be a lot of work to do that but also very effective. Instead the shopkeeper is thinking about banning teens from the store. And there are a dozen cops in the subway.
(DIR) Post #AxrN9a6oePN9TetW6a by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:35:49Z
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I can parse out what's happening in my own neighborhood. But I have no idea what's going on across the country. "What have you seen or experienced that has lead you to think crime is rising?"Media play a huge role in driving these ideas. But it can't all be media.What are the little wrinkles in day to day experience that shape this worldview.
(DIR) Post #AxrNRTDuzP0BKpkLdw by DrorBedrack@mastodon.social
2025-09-04T10:39:01Z
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@futurebird we see less people day to day. Everything is handled by (bad) automatic systems. It makes people afraid.When you are alone everything is smooth. The world is your own to manipulate. The biggest fear you can have is pushback.
(DIR) Post #AxrNXaV2qitfdhfsSO by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:40:08Z
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@wakame "broken windows" Is a broken name for this kind of policing because they never really looked into how the windows were getting broken. The only reason why broken windows aren't a problem in the Bronx now is because there are almost no abandoned buildings anywhere and it was nearly always abandoned buildings being vandalized in that way. This whole approach to crime prevention came out of a time of under-staffing which also isn't a problem now.
(DIR) Post #AxrNpA9RYDHD8Lx17I by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T10:43:17Z
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@wakame There are SO MANY cops and most of them are doing nothing. But to the beauty shop owner and everyone he complains to (I asked him how much total was stolen and it's about $300 over the past few years) crimes are happening all the time and the police are swamped with "more serious" crimes and no one else is helping him.It's kind of easy to be annoyed at the guy but at the same time I get why he's exasperated.
(DIR) Post #AxrPVoQSIlwO9voDOS by JohnLAlford@mstdn.social
2025-09-04T11:02:10Z
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@futurebird You now have me wondering if there are phases of a person's life when they are more sensitive to crime around them.Childhood -> low crimeTeens -> low crime ("We're just having fun!)Young families -> high crime ("Our children!")Middle-age -> lower crimeSenior years -> high crime
(DIR) Post #AxrPXMJhmTaBYnOBCS by bmoe@advent.social
2025-09-04T11:02:13Z
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@futurebird The CVS on my block keeps locking up more and more shelves making it feel like crime must be going up. If you ask the people working there, it's because the same two guys keep sweeping the shelves. It's on camera. They know who they are and where they live, but the cops "can't" do anything about it.
(DIR) Post #AxrQA3oUVgeVSzF8ka by dawngreeter@dice.camp
2025-09-04T11:09:28Z
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@futurebird If it is any consolation, I don't think this is a US-only thing.For example, in my suburban corner of the Greater Toronto Area, many people are concerned with how the crime is rising. These are all by and large conservative voters who think a fascist prime minister would have saved them from crime.And when they talk about crime, they mean that there is an increasing number of less deserving people (poor and/or immigrant) who they need to be protected from.
(DIR) Post #AxrRNBJM2pRqRIV2uW by JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchange
2025-09-04T11:23:03Z
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My opinion is that the perception of crime is a multi layer thing, but amplified specifically by social media. Before social media, say a business is targeted by shoplifting and has shrink of 1%/month. Unless you talked with the owner or manager of the shop, at best it'd be a couple inches in a very local paper once every month or two on slow news days.Now, every business in town can chime in on how "awful" it is for their store, amplify one another's fears and reinforce their worries. Profit margins are thinner than ever due to megacorp pressure and landlord pressure so that 1% might be the difference between their store breaking even or losing money any given month. And perception bias means when you believe crime is bad, you worry more about crime which means you notice the crimes more which ... And now you're not only hearing from the businesses you've got a personal connection to, but businesses all over the country. @futurebird
(DIR) Post #AxrRY4pGUt2xVjcYrY by ghost_shit@aus.social
2025-09-04T11:24:57Z
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@futurebird More cops, more visible ain't gonna stop hijacked planes flying into skyscrapers. Seems like a cynical, opportunistic power grab, if you ask me.
(DIR) Post #AxrSnKpDOX8nQgR9ns by paulc@mstdn.social
2025-09-04T11:38:57Z
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@futurebird I think all of the police and detective shows on TV have something to do with it.But why has crime gone down. The best explanation seems to be unleaded gas and removal of lead from the environment, especially peoples’ homes. But the average person doesn't like this explanation. It takes 18-20 years to see the results of less lead in crime statistics, and it doesn't involve punishing "bad" people.
(DIR) Post #AxrSqFniWyUQiS8168 by AnnyJoe@mastodon.world
2025-09-04T11:35:34Z
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@bmoe @futurebird They can, they are refusing to do their jobs. 🪻
(DIR) Post #AxrSqH3LsKaebES16e by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T11:39:31Z
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@AnnyJoe @bmoe To be fair they seem to have only two modes:1. Do nothing2. Beast modeEven the beauty shop owner I've been talking about, who is very annoying and conservative lamented that he hates the thought of calling cops on local teens because the police over-react. But, he's also getting fed up, and plenty of people some strangely excited to see a child beaten into the ground for ... for example horsing around on a bicycle. https://sauropods.win/@streetsblognyc@bird.makeup/115117701156013156
(DIR) Post #AxrT0ZfhVUM1EvIeSO by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T11:41:25Z
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@AnnyJoe @bmoe I think the beauty shop owner would be happy if he had some help tracking down the parents of the the teens who keep stealing bleach to do bathroom sick highlight jobs. And in nearly every case this would be sufficient to solve the problem.
(DIR) Post #AxrTExCSpEyiGYTtj6 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T11:44:01Z
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@paulc "The best explanation seems to be unleaded gas and removal of lead from the environment, especially peoples’ homes."I don't know if this is the "best explication" At least where I live I think it has more to do with increased population density and our neighborhood having a substantial number of poor but stable families so the social fabric is functional again.In the 80s there were a lot of abandoned buildings and lots and just fewer people around who would respond ... normally.
(DIR) Post #AxrTUHYzOhTBlWKIjI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T11:46:46Z
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@violetmadder I'm not convinced that LLMs are a reliable statistical tool.For example. If I did my fantasy intensive polling and interviewing project and had little text paragraphs from thousands of carefully sampled people would an LLM be a good way to summarize all of those responses?How would it compare to human sorting and reading and statistics about word frequency?I want to see some side by side comparisons.
(DIR) Post #AxrTfweexcbEOTXXRg by semitones@tiny.tilde.website
2025-09-04T11:48:51Z
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@futurebird @AnnyJoe @bmoe another case where facial recognition and vigilante justice would solve problems but also be problems themselves. Although maybe extra-juditial justice would be a better fit than vigilante for the shopkeeper finding the parents and showing them the video.
(DIR) Post #AxrTgjLtu9i1QU8kVc by paulc@mstdn.social
2025-09-04T11:48:51Z
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@futurebird I'd have to look for it and I doubt we have it online but we (Washingtonian Media) did publish an article some time ago looking at the relationship between lead in the environment and crime. It was not definitive but the author, who wasn't inclined to come to that conclusion, found the correlation strong.You social fabric example probably makes sense too. But note that both explanations aren't based on police beating up suspects.
(DIR) Post #AxrTi6nqCXZ2RkrlMO by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T11:49:17Z
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@violetmadder In my experience polling firms skimp on leg work. They hate paying people to go and find and interview their sample because it's expensive. There are a lot of data out there, but it's very biased in unpredictable ways. Pulling text from facebook twitter or X has nothing on doing interviews on a sample you have randomized well. And it's critical to try to find the entire sample to the best of your ability.
(DIR) Post #AxrUACIBNxJ3a1S4rg by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T11:54:21Z
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@violetmadder The kind of polling work I see tells me they aren't really interested in finding out what people really think or what people REALLY care about. There are topics they don't even ask about that are massive. The questions are leading and full of assumptions.
(DIR) Post #AxrUE8uvsLHcGrST8i by audunmb@todon.nl
2025-09-04T11:55:01Z
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@futurebird I think it's mostly media. And the police. The police will always tell you that crime is rising, because that means more funding for them. Mostly, they won't outright lie about, but they'll tweak statistics to show rising crime (=up from last year, but actually lower than any year before that).There's also the ting about the "good old days" (when you we're a kid and was shielded from the reality around you) when there was "less crime".
(DIR) Post #AxrUOWKLh0fnltILWi by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T11:56:56Z
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@semitones @AnnyJoe @bmoe A good faith operation wouldn't need to do that. "call your parents they need to come pick you up" is enough of a punishment. (and pay for the item)But this is very boring and difficult work that requires police who work in the same neighborhood for years (their "visibility" statistical system means I never recognize any of the officers since they are sent all around the city by the computer)It's a whole different way of looking at the role of police.
(DIR) Post #AxrUcOfgxAk657tXBw by thedansimonson@lingo.lol
2025-09-04T11:59:21Z
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@futurebird @violetmadder as someone who has worked in NLP for over a decade, word counts would be a much better way to go. You could probably also cluster them in some way which might help distill the data down. In fact, this would be a terrible application of an LLM. Anything involving counting or understanding of anything countable, and LLMs fall flat on their face. They generate random words, in essence. Not good when you’re trying to observe something.
(DIR) Post #AxrV28v88bPIlBOOps by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-09-04T12:04:04Z
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@Wyatt_H_Knott I'm interested in WHY people are so receptive to "crime is out of control" political messaging.The causes of the crime itself isn't a matter for polling and also is very interesting.
(DIR) Post #AxrVESb0oJGnG1r7Y0 by jhavok@mstdn.party
2025-09-04T12:06:18Z
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@futurebird @AnnyJoe @bmoe I see parents overreacting violently to their children's behavior all the time. Approving of police violence seems to be an extension of that tendency.
(DIR) Post #AxrVV2QFNPTj0Kj2US by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
2025-09-04T12:09:15Z
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@futurebird Do I really need to go through an explanation? I'm sure you've heard all this before.But, OK: the cops are not there to solve crimes. The cops are there to protect the state, wealthy people, and their property. So for instance they aren't going to do anything about petty theft from a beauty supply shop but they will evict people for non-payment of rent.
(DIR) Post #AxrVZjX32OpFrh94zY by thedansimonson@lingo.lol
2025-09-04T12:10:09Z
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@futurebird @violetmadderOne of my favorite books is “Seeing Like A State” by James C Scott. It’s about how states try to make the world “legible” by creating simplified understandings of the world, and then actually imposing those understandings on to the world. This often works in the short term, but destroys the contextual knowledge and capacities of the people imposed upon in the long run.This style of polling might better reflect that contextual knowledge
(DIR) Post #AxrViyRWy5sYiVyGRc by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2025-09-04T12:11:48Z
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@futurebird Because that would require work ?
(DIR) Post #AxrVt3coYZGjgV3bIu by smithb@aus.social
2025-09-04T12:13:37Z
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@futurebird I don't think the fringe obsession is uniquely American. I think it's more that criminals are a useful scapegoat / boogeyman that's always there and easy for politicians or commentators to point to to distract from other issues. People don't talk about politics when things are going well; I think the same is true for crime. I remember when I first moved to Australia, the Liberal (=conservative) Party was making a huge hullabaloo over these supposed 'roving Sudanese gangs' that were terrorising neighbourhoods. Following a similar strategy you note, they beefed up police presence in neighbourhoods where Sudanese immigrants lived and ... surprise, surprise - because they were there to see it, they found a bunch of petty crime to point to statistics about. The Liberals lost the next election, Labor normalised back police presence, and - it was truly magical - all those roving Sudanese gangs suddenly vanished without a trace! That's the same thing Trump is doing now. Things aren't going well for much of the US populace, but criminals are a great boogeyman. Send in the National Guard! Wow, with all these extra people who can see petty crime happening, suddenly crime rates in DC are shooting up! 🤦
(DIR) Post #AxrVyD7KgyE0ZWmyf2 by MisuseCase@twit.social
2025-09-04T12:14:33Z
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@futurebird @violetmadder Like when they ask people about “the economy” when anyone with two brain cells to rub together can figure out that “the economy” is a very broad topic and everyone means something different when they talk about it.This doesn’t even get into Marxist analysis of individual perceptions of “the economy.”
(DIR) Post #AxrWKTwmndM38jTYS8 by madengineering@mastodon.cloud
2025-09-04T12:18:36Z
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@futurebird @violetmadder Famously, random phone dialing in 1936 led to the pollsters predicting that Alf Landon would be elected over the then incumbent FDR.Alf managed to get only two states. In hindsight, a fatal flaw with the poll was that home phones were super rare in 1936, and disproportionately owned by richer people who disproportionately voted republican. So those random phone numbers? Not actually so random after all.
(DIR) Post #AxrWZ0gds4ncjZqssa by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2025-09-04T12:21:10Z
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@futurebird Maybe because math teachers failed at their task ?
(DIR) Post #AxrbcZ5GwHPQ3St3Dc by jakemiller@federate.social
2025-09-04T13:17:52Z
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@futurebird Sort of tangential… our rural/suburban PD requires the officers to do paperwork in their cars, throughout their service area. This increases visibility (and response time) without paying them to loiter. At a minimum, it slows down speeders, but also functions as PR for their tax money at work. (We have a weird setup where municipalities could contract with competing regional agencies.)
(DIR) Post #AxrdlzgVbkGx4NvahU by Brendan@zenarca.de
2025-09-04T13:41:52Z
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@futurebird When I visit my mom in the nursing home, she often has CNN on. I really think 24 hour news feeds this perception. They pick up on a local story (like some drunken racists getting a much-deserved beatdown on the streets of Cincinnati late one night) and have panels and interview politicians and it gives the people watching the feeling that we're just in the middle of a nonstop crimewave.
(DIR) Post #AxreEG3SKzdTwu8ehs by andrew773@mastodon.online
2025-09-04T13:47:05Z
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@futurebird As people living in walk-able dense urban areas we are not seeing what the typical American does. During the cold war Americans were duped that the enemy was communism not authoritarianism. Americans are increasingly isolated into Suburban communities. They have almost no public life and almost everything they experience is filtered by corporate interests. Corporate interests want them to believe crime is rising because fearful people spend more and question authority less.
(DIR) Post #AxrgEWD4TOuPxft7HE by twipped@twipped.social
2025-09-04T14:09:32Z
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@futurebird simple, “crime” became a dogwhistle for people of color.Also because crime stats are made up by police forces that get paid more when the number is higher
(DIR) Post #AxrrpgrquSwJE5tHCy by log@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-09-04T16:19:28Z
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@futurebird @wakame $300 over *years*? Boo hoo. Also, we're going to need to see that retailer's payroll records to make sure all employees have been paid everything they are owed.