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Actually, Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock’s massacre was highly predictable
Quartz Ideas ^ | October 11, 2017 | Rebecca Costa

Posted on 10/15/2017 9:38:29 AM PDT by SunStar

Every time a mass murder or terrorist attack occurs, we begin working backwards. Did the perpetrators offer early telltale signs? Could the tragedy have been stopped beforehand? In the hours and days that follow, we quickly discover it isn’t any single action, but a pattern of many behaviors, transactions and activities that foreshadow carnage. But what if we could get our arms around those patterns and predict an attack was going to occur with 80%, 90%, or even 100% certainty? What if we had the ability to intercept a tragedy such as the shooting that recently occurred in Las Vegas?

That is the power of today’s predictive analytics technology.

Today, big data and predictive analytics are hard at work stringing together billions of data points and pinpointing future outcomes with unprecedented accuracy. And while you might accept the fact this is occurring on Wall Street and in the US Defense Department you may be surprised to learn how accurately we can predict human behavior. For example, we can now say —with 86% accuracy—whether a person is going to trip and fall within the next three weeks. It turns out a 5 centimeter per second decline in their normal walking gait is the precursor to a fall. Who knew?

But that’s just for openers. We can also predict whether an individual is predisposed to become an opioid addict long before a doctor writes that first legal prescription which sets them on a dangerous path. We know that children who torture and kill small animals are likely to become dangerous sociopaths. And we can identify which teenagers are susceptible to binge drinking.

We know where and when hurricanes will make landfall, how much energy will be generated tomorrow by wind farms across the country, and whether a newborn is genetically prone to thousands of cancers, baldness, soft-ear wax, and anti-social behavior. Never mind the collapse of a nation’s currency, or the effect oil shortages will have on banana prices in Tokyo.

Every day, computer algorithms are at work gathering data in real time and spitting out inevitable conclusions about what lies ahead. And as experts comb through Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock’s computer, social media accounts, cell phone records, credit card transactions, medical history, childhood, and other data, we will uncover a pattern of behavior headed for a dangerous criticality.

In truth, we have the scientific ability to forecast when a violent attack is likely. It may not be 100%, but it is accurate enough to identify individuals who are prone to carrying out mass attacks, as well as when they may be preparing to act.

But this ability raises a slew of difficult ethical and legal questions. If a computer model shows you are 90% likely to commit a violent act in the next few days what should and can we do? Even more to the point, what if the information required to make a 100% accurate assessment requires monitoring private information such as medical records? In Paddock’s case, his father was a diagnosed violent psychopath—an heritable trait. Is that information something law enforcement should have access to?


"Even if a computer model achieves 100% certainty, are we prepared to take preventative measures based on intent?"


 Even if a computer model achieves 100% certainty, are we prepared to take preventative measures based on intent? Should law enforcement know that a person predisposed to psychopathology (Paddock) was prescribed and began taking Diazepam in June–a drug known to produce violent behavior among individuals with preexisting aggressive tendencies? Or that he lived in 27 residences in four states and was considered an antisocial loner in each of those communities? Or that Paddock sent his live-in girlfriend away so that she would be out of the country when he planned his attack? Should they have access to the fact that he reserved a room at the Las Vegas Ogden, located across the street from the Life is Beautiful concert as well as the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, overlooking the Lollapalooza music festival? How about his internet searches for Fenway Park and the Boston Center for the Arts, which also recently held open-air events? How about his attempt to purchase tracer ammunition—used to improve the accuracy of nighttime shooting—just a few weeks beforehand?

And if law enforcement did have access to all this data and used predictive models which showed Paddock was poised to act—what then? Do we send in the pre-cog thought police to arrest him, a la the movie Minority Report?

These are frightening questions. They represent lines our society is not prepared to cross.

Computer analytics are one thing, but what about free will? Just because a person makes detailed plans and intends to act on a crime doesn’t mean they won’t come to their senses at the last second. Even if a computer model achieves 100% certainty, are we prepared to take preventative measures based on intent?

On the other hand, we have to admit it is just as dangerous to ignore evidence and deny the fact that analytics has the ability to intercept many attacks. If we have the knowledge there is a very high probability of danger, don’t we have an ethical obligation to act on that knowledge and save lives?

These are the legal and ethical questions we will have to come to terms with in the near future as predictive models race toward 100% certainty. And we must start that conversation today. Because progress will not stop. Technology and science will not be slowed. And at the rate at which technology is accelerating, there should be no doubt as to whether we will soon be able to avert mass tragedy in the same way that we evacuate entire cities in advance of a deadly storm.

The time has come to work forwards, not backwards.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: lastvegas; minorityreport; predictiveanalysis; shooting
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To: SunStar

Quick question, anyone know if any of the victum families are suing the drug manufactures? Surely if a slide / bump fire stock “contributed” to the shooting then so did the drugs he was on.


41 posted on 10/15/2017 10:55:03 AM PDT by taxcontrol (Stupid should hurt)
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To: Kickass Conservative

Harvey is a case of women who went along with it as part of doing business in hollywood and jumping on the bandwagon as the ship is going down.


42 posted on 10/15/2017 10:58:03 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: SunStar

From the article:
“ Even if a computer model achieves 100% certainty, are we prepared to take preventative measures based on intent? Should law enforcement know that a person predisposed to psychopathology (Paddock) was prescribed and began taking Diazepam in June–a drug known to produce violent behavior among individuals with preexisting aggressive tendencies? Or that he lived in 27 residences in four states and was considered an antisocial loner in each of those communities? Or that Paddock sent his live-in girlfriend away so that she would be out of the country when he planned his attack? Should they have access to the fact that he reserved a room at the Las Vegas Ogden, located across the street from the Life is Beautiful concert as well as the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, overlooking the Lollapalooza music festival? How about his internet searches for Fenway Park and the Boston Center for the Arts, which also recently held open-air events? How about his attempt to purchase tracer ammunition—used to improve the accuracy of nighttime shooting—just a few weeks beforehand?”

The only way this happens is if we, willfully or by force, give up our right to be secure from government oversight and our privacy expectations. This will only happen if the Feds get another couple of generations of controlling public education and growing a welfare dependent popular majority across enough of the US to steal elections forever.


43 posted on 10/15/2017 11:00:37 AM PDT by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. Mr Trump, we've got your six.)
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To: SunStar

” It turns out a 5 centimeter per second decline in their normal walking gait is the precursor to a fall.”

My gait has dropped by at least twice that amount in the past decade (I can tell by trying to keep up with my kids); in that period the only time I’ve fallen is when my dang dog dragged me down an incline while I was walking him so he could take a dump.

Just one data point, sure, but it helps convince me at least that most of the supposed predictability described is largely hype.


44 posted on 10/15/2017 11:19:29 AM PDT by Stosh
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To: Steve Van Doorn
Mostly the anecdotal descriptions of his behavior and his chosen field of accounting combined.
45 posted on 10/15/2017 11:20:26 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$
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To: Disestablishmentarian

“..case the “Reality” was not sexual.”

Exactly, which is I think the profilers are mostly silent on this one.


46 posted on 10/15/2017 11:21:57 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$
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To: pepsionice

“Well, you know....in the history of DDR...there never was a mass shooting.”

And that’s largely because people tried to sneak across the border one or two at a time, instead of in a mass rush!


47 posted on 10/15/2017 11:24:38 AM PDT by Stosh
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To: SunStar

I surmise this would work as well as the global warming climate computer models are at predicting what the weather will be in 5 years. Not everything is as predictable as they seem to think they are.


48 posted on 10/15/2017 11:33:57 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: SunStar

The left is practicing stochastice terrorism. Violent anarchy as a result of making violence acceptable knowing that someone will take the first move to be violent.


49 posted on 10/15/2017 11:34:23 AM PDT by buffaloguy (Bond arms Cowbot)
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To: SunStar
unprecedented accuracy

Unprecedented pre-mature release by technocrat press.

I follw predictive analytics for my day job. Currently it is little more accurate than the flip of a coin. Its failure in election predictions is typical of non-election predictions. There are many types of bias. Builders of predictive models seem to be blind to their biases, often more blind than the non-modeler with common sense.

Can the modelers eventually overcome their biases in building their models? I suggest that some can and have. But how do we know which have and which have not?

Most distressing is the lack of honesty, even after their biases are exposed.

50 posted on 10/15/2017 11:53:54 AM PDT by spintreebob
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To: Artemis Webb

Wait, the whole article was here, no clicky-the-linky, and you tell us you didn’t read the article and ask a question that could be answered by reading the article!

1. See my tag line

2. Who does your homework?

3. Sorry to be so snarky


51 posted on 10/15/2017 11:58:38 AM PDT by blu (If you don't read the story at the link, don't comment. (Except for Laz...))
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To: Snickering Hound; null and void

Them sure be some snazzy uniforms. Guess that time it wasn’t Hugo Boss?

Just need Nully’s big eyes and ears....well, not Nully’s but....


52 posted on 10/15/2017 12:02:53 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: Artemis Webb

[I did not read the article but it occurs to me that if smart ass Rebecca Costa can claim after the fact that this was so predictable why they hell didn’t she predict it?]

Because she was suppressed by a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

Otherwise, she would have been breaking down the door on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in full Rambo gear?


53 posted on 10/15/2017 12:07:00 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: july4thfreedomfoundation
[Dumb article written by a left-wing, statist dumb broad.]

I'm sure she thinks she's quite advanced. I believe this is her:


54 posted on 10/15/2017 12:12:20 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: a fool in paradise

I believe paddock was duped into thinking he was making an arms sale but he was really a decoy who was killed before hand to a terrorist event planned away ahead of time


55 posted on 10/15/2017 12:22:00 PM PDT by ronnie raygun (Trump plays chess the rest are still playing checkers)
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To: a fool in paradise

I believe paddock was duped into thinking he was making an arms sale but he was really a decoy who was killed before hand to a terrorist event planned away ahead of time


56 posted on 10/15/2017 12:23:44 PM PDT by ronnie raygun (Trump plays chess the rest are still playing checkers)
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To: EEGator

Seems to me that if you repeatedly allow events in venues such as this one which placed 22,000 people beneath a perfect sniper position and well within effective range of the weapons used that sooner or later somebody will seize the opportunity.

This could have been prevented with better security. Remember, Las Vegas has been specifically targeted by ISIS, and given their record it appears it would have been quite appropriate to devote some serious attention to threats against large gatherings. It is apparent to me that Las Vegas did not do this. One hotelier did take steps, Steve Wynn, and he says the guy could not have pulled it off from his hotel.

The security they had didn’t consider the basic security situation: a gathering of 20+ thousand people below a perfect sniper(s) position. Without guard towers manned with sharpshooters watching the building you have what is basically a huge attraction (much like so called “gun free” zones) for anyone wanting to harm people. LA PD revealed in the last few days that they have been doing this for years at large gatherings such as the Academy Awards.

An even better alternative would have been to have held the concert at a different, less vulnerable location.

Seems to me that the families of the dead and those who were wounded have good cause to sue for negligence on the part of the event operator. (I also believe that is true of every other “gun free” zone where similar murders have occurred).


57 posted on 10/15/2017 12:23:59 PM PDT by Vesparado (The American people know what they want and they deserve to get it good and hard --- HL Mencken)
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To: ronnie raygun

The article recently about an ISIS attack foiled in NYC mentioned an informant who had suggested to them killing a lot of people at a music event, and the ISIS guys figured out he was an informant. Probably was Paddock. Operation was, imho, a sting that went very bad.


58 posted on 10/15/2017 12:24:16 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Half the truth is often a great lie. B. Franklin)
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To: bigbob

The theory of psychohistory developed by Dr Hari Seldon in Asimov’s Foundation novels had applied only to predicting the behaviors of large populations as a whole. The analogy was where each person was like a gas particle and the theory predicted the behavior of the gas on a macroscopic scale. (Think macroeconomics.)

It could not predict behavior on small scales. (The theory’s predictions got trashed anyway when a Napoleon appeared.)


59 posted on 10/15/2017 12:28:23 PM PDT by Gideon7
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To: SaveFerris; COUNTrecount; Nowhere Man; FightThePower!; C. Edmund Wright; jacob allen; ...

At no point in history has any government ever wanted its people to be defenseless for any good reason ~ nully's son

The biggest killer of mankind

Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!

To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...


60 posted on 10/15/2017 12:31:14 PM PDT by null and void (The internet gave everyone a mouth. It gave no one a brain.)
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