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PROFILE_OF_STUPIDITY

                                             July 5-15, 2007

  "The Benard E. Harcourt book 'Against Prediction',
  makes the odd argument that while using 'profiling'
  techiniques to scruitinize a minority population
  might put some pressure on the minority to follow
  the rules, you'd then expect to see an increase
  in crime among the majority population -- who would
  then feel safer to break the rules since they know
  they don't fit the profile."

  "The argument, as I understand it, is that even if your
  profiling of the criminal population is accurate,
  it only reflects the past -- there's no reason to
  assume it will work in the future.  Trying to use
  those profiles will inevitably create shifts in
  behavior that make the profile obsolete."

       Cosma Shalizi's review of
       "Against Prediction":

       [ref]



This is an interesting line of argument, but
it's focus on the majority population gives
it the abstract feel of an economist's fantasy.

It's always seemed peculiar
to me that all these
security schemes seem to
assume very stupidly rigid      I'm tempted to
behavior on the part of the     adopt a euphemism
(forgive the cliche)            for "terrorist"
"terrorists".                   such as the         But that might
                                "t-group" (which    put us back
   It would seem that the       you could think     in strategic
   "terrorist population"       of as "target       game-theory
   would have a strong          group").            land.
   incentive to track
   what's going on with                                         And the usual
   the use of "profiles",                                       problems with
   and they also have some                                      the term
   excellent ways of                                            "terrorist"
   getting direct                                               don't so
   information about how                                        obviously
   they're being used:                                          apply here.

     "Hey Achmed! Did they                                      TERRORISM
     hassle you when you
     flew down?  I knew it.
     If you shave and put
     on a suit, they just
     think you look Puerto
     Rican or something."

  The thing is that
  individuals have pretty
  simple methods of changing
  their "profile", and even      And now we're using
  if you try to use aspects      "profile" as a
  of the "profile" that are      euphemism for "race",
  harder to change --            aren't we?  That's
                                 obvious, right?
  ... the group, acting as
  a group can select
  operatives from their
  team that don't fit
  your racial profile.

  Because you see:
  groups are not
  restricted to single
  "races" in their              And variations of appearence
  recruitment drives.           among people with the
                                same "racial background"
  There's no reason             can be huge.
  to assume that all
  members of a political              ("race" itself is a fairly
  or criminal group                   wonky idea, and the
  come from a single                  wide-spread notion that
  ethnic population.                  it's primarily a biological
                                      distinction is pretty crazy).

                                         A guy who looks "arabic"
                                         to one person may look
                                         "indian", or "latin" to
                                         another.



             If you're willing to buy that
             there's a certain overlap
             between "terrorists" (et al) and
             the set of "people with brains",
             you would expect them to be
             quite capable of buying a copy
             of "Dress for Success".


             If you adopt a policy of scrutinizing
             everyone except people who look like
             corporate marketing clones, then the
             real bad guys will start looking
             like corporate marketing clones --

                 (Arguably this has already
                 happened some time ago.)


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