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[GavJ]

Oi, anyone know of a big net neutrality effort or anything? I am not enamored by fast-lane bullshit.

IIRC the deadline for FCC comments is, like, tonight, at midnight in some timezone in the US or other? Double check, but if you haven't already, please write out a personalized argument to them about why you are not enamored.

Ah, I think I already submitted one. I see it's up to ~500k signatures, so that's cool.

But was kinda hoping there were more, as they don't seem phased by that one in particular.

If all you did was sign a petition, go back and write your own comment. The FCC has said several times that they are not planning to treat petitions as worth much more than if a single person had written that, because what they are looking for is unique perspectives and thoughts, not popularity contests.

I.e., you need to write your own message from scratch and you score points on how logical and thoughtful it is. They don't care if you jump on bandwagons, for better or worse.

[scriver]

Oh boy, here we go.

You mean here we went. A month ago.

[SalmonGod]

Oh boy, here we go.

You mean here we went. A month ago.

You mean here we went like 10 years ago.  Internet freedom's been consistently under attack for a long time.

[SalmonGod]

Oh boy, here we go.

You mean here we went. A month ago.

You mean here we went like 10 years ago.  Internet freedom's been consistently under attack for a long time.

He's on about police racism.

Oh, I missed that

[Glowcat]

You could've probably gotten away with pretending that's what you meant anyway, though possibly missing a zero.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

If all you did was sign a petition, go back and write your own comment. The FCC has said several times that they are not planning to treat petitions as worth much more than if a single person had written that, because what they are looking for is unique perspectives and thoughts, not popularity contests.

I.e., you need to write your own message from scratch and you score points on how logical and thoughtful it is. They don't care if you jump on bandwagons, for better or worse.

Uh huh. So, are they only discarding boilerplates (40-50%) or are they proofreading them and discarding everything that brings up the same 4-5 points as everything else (90%)?

[GavJ]

Dunno. Neither makes much sense to me logically, so I don't have a guess as to which weird thing they're doing.

[Reelya]

Rather than highschool dropout rates, which are a very roundabout way of measuring  discrimination, it is possible to look at conviction rates and sentences for people caught for the same crime: and on that basis there is a huge bias against black people. And surprise surprise, it's more prevalent in the ex slave-states. Which is pure coincidence, I'm sure.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/30/770501/study-black-defendants-are-at-least-30-more-likely-to-be-imprisoned-than-white-defendants-for-the-same-crime/

Study: Black Defendants Are At Least 30% More Likely To Be Imprisoned Than White Defendants For The Same Crime

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2293245/Black-people-times-likely-face-death-sentence-Houston-whites-study-finds.html

In his report he writes: 'The probability that the district attorney will advance a case to a [death] penalty trial is more than three times as high when the defendant is African American than for white defendants.'

of the original group of 21 cases, the black defendants were more than twice as likely to be sentenced to death than their white counterparts, he said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1352947/Black-drug-offenders-times-likely-jailed-whites.html

Black drug offenders are 'eight times more likely to be jailed than whites'

Yeah, so rather than indirect measures, there are clear direct measures: people who did the same crime, and were caught, and how they're treated.

[Vector]

As the former adjudicator of this thread I would like to remind everyone that the DailyMail is a tabloid, so please use alternate sources for your (actually true this time) statistical trends.

[Staklininkas]

Rather than highschool dropout rates, which are a very roundabout way of measuring  discrimination, it is possible to look at conviction rates and sentences for people caught for the same crime: and on that basis there is a huge bias against black people. And surprise surprise, it's more prevalent in the ex slave-states. Which is pure coincidence, I'm sure.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/30/770501/study-black-defendants-are-at-least-30-more-likely-to-be-imprisoned-than-white-defendants-for-the-same-crime/

Study: Black Defendants Are At Least 30% More Likely To Be Imprisoned Than White Defendants For The Same Crime

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2293245/Black-people-times-likely-face-death-sentence-Houston-whites-study-finds.html

In his report he writes: 'The probability that the district attorney will advance a case to a [death] penalty trial is more than three times as high when the defendant is African American than for white defendants.'

of the original group of 21 cases, the black defendants were more than twice as likely to be sentenced to death than their white counterparts, he said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1352947/Black-drug-offenders-times-likely-jailed-whites.html

Black drug offenders are 'eight times more likely to be jailed than whites'

Yeah, so rather than indirect measures, there are clear direct measures: people who did the same crime, and were caught, and how they're treated.

Just because more blacks get convicted doesn't necessarily mean anything racist is happening, you know the whole "correlation does not mean causation" dealio. Kinda like how crop circles don't prove aliens exist

[Angle]

So many things wrong with that, where do I even start...

Well, to start with, correlation =/= causation is completely unrelated to how crop circles don't prove that aleins don't exist. In that case, the fact that we have far better explanations for the existence of crop circles is the reason that crop circles don't prove aliens exist. When it comes to racism, do you have a better explanation for why these facts exist?

For that matter, how does correlation =/= causation enter into the picture at all? There's no correlation in either situation, just facts and a proposed explanation.

[Reelya]

@Staklininkas, that's a really ridiculous analogy.

At every step of the process blacks are much more likely to have bad shit thrown at them:

Black people more likely to be arrested than white people who are caught for the same crime: e.g. white kids are much more likely to get a "warning" for drug possession than black kids. We're comparing people who actually got caught red handed here. You're white you walk, you're black you get locked up. This isn't "black are eight times as likely to get caught with drugs" it's "blacks who are caught with drugs are eight times as likely to go to jail than whites who were caught with drugs".

Once arrested, blacks are more likely to go to trial.

Once in trial, they're much more likely to be convicted.

Once convicted they get longer sentences than whites who got convicted.

If the death penalty applies to a case: they 3 times as likely to promote that case to a capital offense if the suspect is black.

Oh, but it's no more likely that it's systematic than crop circles are related to aliens.

BTW: how about that "the sun causes it to get hot" theory? Clear bullshit because correlation doesn't prove causation after all.

[Staklininkas]

Neither of you proved that it was because of racism. You're just asserting it is. Just because blacks are being convicted more than other people that doesn't prove that it's racism, that's just your explanation. I posit that they got justly convicted of their crimes whether or not I actually believe that is the case is irrelevant.

I'm just asking you to prove your position.

[Sheb]

How could you prove that? What other possible explanation could there be? You're just acting in bad faith here.

[Graknorke]

Neither of you proved that it was because of racism. You're just asserting it is. Just because blacks are being convicted more than other people that doesn't prove that it's racism, that's just your explanation. I posit that they got justly convicted of their crimes whether or not I actually believe that is the case is irrelevant.

I'm just asking you to prove your position.

Well it could only be for two reasons: Either black people are discriminated against in criminal matters, or white people consistently get "caught" with insubstantial evidence.