> The more telling number about gun violence might be “shots fired.” And now, thanks to broader adoption of new technologies, it is getting easier to show just how common gun violence is in America.
I happened to be working with a dispatcher in a 9-11 call center on the night the bin Laden raid was announced. Over the course of a couple hours, we fielded hundreds of "shots fired" calls, which mostly turned out to be people lighting off fireworks (sure, there were probably a few drunks firing into the air, but that's more reckless than violent).
If "gun violence" had been measured by these reports, the raw stats would suggest that the entire city had spontaneously erupted into a warzone, and then spontaneously returned to normal, all for no reason and without a single injury or death.
My point is that the author is advocating collecting statistics in a way that equates gang shootouts and backfiring cars as equal incidents of gun violence. The system is guaranteed to generate lots false positives, which will be used to bolster support for more surveillance and gun control. Not only is it _not_ a better way to measure gun violence, it's a proposition so fundamentally flawed that it borders on insanity.
It's a whole lot more tenable than appointing a referee, which is what Google is trying to become here. An organization with the power to "settle" contentious debates becomes a target for corruption, a single point of failure for the integrity of the entire system.
For example, maybe the Waltons decide they don't like the national conversation on minimum wage laws; could they lobby/bribe/extort/whatever their way into having their "facts" be treated favorably in search results?
Or could the Democratic party decide that Republican candidate so-and-so is a pedophile/spouse-beater/alien, and make that a settled "fact" by promising Google employees favorable tax breaks in exchange for aid in "narrative building?"
Under the current system, "facts" are democratized. Sure, sometimes bullshit makes its way into the popular consciousness, but it's more random than not. When I see some tripe about "OBAMA TO INJECT TRACKING CHIPS INTO AMERICANS USING THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK," I'm relieved to know that there is no amount of money or power in this world to make that an established "fact."
That article was terribly written, and snarky lines about libertarians and "It's too bad Bitcoin doesn't have a central bank to help stabilize its value" don't add humor or insight. He brushed over the importance of the underlying technology so he could assault it for being a representative currency.
I get the sense the author doesn't know any more about economics than he does about bitcoin. He basically just stated the differences between bitcoin and fiat currencies with a smug undertone of blind faith in Keynesianism, then concluded only a government is fit to regulate transactions between private parties.