Thread by @jsm2334

Is watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie killing people?

Recent data show death rate of 10-59yr olds who have watched the 1984 Ghostbuster Movie is 2x higher than those who have watched the 2021 Ghostbuster movie

I don't know how to explain this other than movie-caused mortality

I was told by everyone that the 1984 Ghostbusters movie was safe and amusing, and never anticipated it could be so dangerous to young people!

It appears the 2021 film is MUCH safer, and strongly preferred, but this fact has been hidden by conspiracy

Digging further, I noticed the probability of seeing 1984 film is higher for those older in the spectrum, while demographic of those watching the 2021 film is much younger.

I guess that makes sense, since for GenX'ers the 1984 movie came out in their childhood and teen years.

Digging some more, I found UK data showing age-specific mortality rates from 2019.

Even though the overall 10-59yr mortality rate is 149.5 per 100k

It varies from 8.8 per 100k (10-14yr) to 478.2 per 100k (55-59yr)

Thus, the older have a death risk >50x higher than the younger

This got me thinking, "I wonder if the different age distributions have something to do with this."

So I computed the expected mortality rate for the cohorts watching the 1984 and 2021 movies based on a weighted average using their age distribution.

Looking at those numbers, I see that a group of 10-59yr old people with the age distribution of those watching the 1984 movie would have an expected mortality rate of 192.3 per 100k

While a group with age distribution of those watching the 2021 would be 79.7 per 100k.

Thus, based on the disparate age distributions, we would expect people watching the 1984 Ghostbusters movie to have a death rate of 192.3/79.7=2.4x as high as the death rate of people watching the 2021 Ghostbusters:Afterlife Movie.

Thus, maybe the 2x higher rate of death among 1984 Ghostbuster movie watchers has another explanation other than movie-caused mortality.

Maybe it is the dramatic difference in age distribution in watchers of a GenX film vs. a Post-Millenial film that explains the death disparity

Maybe someone should explain this to Alex Berenson before he writes another SubStack post, or the thousands of people forwarding this around social media and alternative social media platforms.

Here is a twitter thread on a similar situation involving these SARS-CoV-2 vaccines going around:

https://twitter.com/jsm2334/status/1462573183970824201?s=20

and a detailed blog post:
covid-datascience.com/post/what-do-u…

Here is a blog post presenting this parody with the luxury of escaping the 280 character limit:

covid-datascience.com/post/is-watchi…

Morale of the story:

Be careful not to infer causation from correlation, especially given the complex pandemic data with all kinds of biases, and especially when confirmation bias (jumping to conclusions based on your preconceived notions) is involved.

Data interpretation 101

*Moral lol

And a serious point is that if it is obvious the age differential drives results when put in the absurd (but conceptually realistic) Ghostbusters setting,

Why do so many not recognize it when in the context of covid vaccines, where many immediately jump to inferring causation?