Quote:
Originally Posted by aowen
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See, again you can't say anything without throwing in an insult.
A fact may include things outside of stats, such as gun laws in the soviet union. However, it is not logical to conclude that the soviets were against guns while allowing their own party members to have them. I have not read much about gun laws within the soviet union however. I have read Marx, and I do know he advocated violent revolution. Therefore, a communist along marxist lines would use violence and guns. I also made the point that neither Russia or China are actually communists, as is indicated by vast inequality and inconsistent policy relating to their political structuring and social statistics.
Yes, I remember you discussing correlation vs causation. However, most of the stats I was citing had more to do with constitution (not the document). Causal links are hard to verify, and can get caught up in chicken and egg problems such as retrocausality, but correlation while not definitive proof, is about as good as you're going to get when discussing social problems, because usually 1 factor does not cause 1 thing. That is why i focus on the constitution of a problem.
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First, retrocausality is bunk pseudoscience. Don't get distracted by it. If we see what is apparently effects preceding causes, it's really just that we don't understand the causes in the first place.
Correlation is only as good as you'll get when you confine yourself to statistical arguments. Logic and reason can give us a much deeper understanding. Correlation can be a good guidepost, but it becomes worse and worse the more complex the system. Once you are looking at statistics for societies as a whole, they become almost worthless. You repeatedly state statistics related to things like welfare spending vs quality of life, and yet societies are composed of millions of other factors. The notion that these two loosely correlated ideas are causally related is bordering on a kind of faith that even the most devout Muslim couldn't muster. And if you're going to show these two things are related in support of an argument to bolster welfare, then you are most certainly assuming causation. If there is no causation, then there would be no reason to believe action A will have effect B. Causation is most certainly at the heart of every utilitarian argument about how we structure our laws.