Are Things "Getting Worse"?

[chefTENGU]

I don't think you realize how jaded this upcoming generation can be.
Haven't people been saying this very thing since forever?

You see, the thing is people tend to go through this process called "growing up." College students since the Vietnam era have been primarily occupied with getting laid and getting drunk (Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds if you don't believe me). Most people (usually by the time they're 30) realize how stupid your average 20-something is.

Of course, some of us realize this much much sooner, so we get a head-start on looking down on our peers and muttering about the upcoming generation.

[Seegtease]

People wisen up some when they get older, but every generation, the standard lowers, which is why people will continue to look at the upcoming generations and think they are ignorant and don't care, and they're right. I just think it's continually getting worse, which is why we keep saying that.

[chefTENGU]

It's always been as worse as it's ever been. There's just more technology now, so it manifests in different ways with each succeeding generation. That way it always feels new!

[Seegtease]

It's definitely worse now. Have you looked at high school kids today? I don't see how you can even dispute that it's worse now, it's so flagrantly obvious.

[Bloodcinder]

Yes, Zeit, and the Rapture has been successively more constantly impending for two thousand years, rabble rabble.

[Seegtease]

Technically, any upcoming event is more impending as you approach it.

[Bloodcinder]

Technically, you know I'm talking about peoples' perceptions, buttfaze.

[Seegtease]

And they're right. Things are progressively getting closer in Biblical terms. I'm not saying any dates, because I don't know how much more can happen that I can't imagine.

Same applies to the attitude of upcoming generations. You can looks back at history and prove that it's progressively worse concerning these issues.

[Bloodcinder]

No, they're not technically right about the Rapture: they perceive it as being ready to occur within their generation every time, but their sense of ordering is skewed by their own temporal importance.

Likewise, you can't prove that "things" are worse now than ever before. You can only demonstrate that as we get older we think everything used to be better. You can't even directly utilized most kinds of statistics; much like with inflated prices conveying little information without adjustment, murder rates and other data require significant analysis to be able to determine any information from them. It's even more compounded by the fact that we're talking about an infinite limit here: if it's always possible to get "worse," where is "worst" and how will we know it when we diverge to it? Whoever is worst will probably just say that whatever comes after them is worse.

You're also ignoring that the past is hecka shitty in its own ways.

[Seegtease]

You cannot ever know when you reach worst, and you can't reach it, really. You can, however, continue to get worse. The past may have had enough bad things going on, but there are some things you can tell. You CAN utilize statistics. You tell me why comparing a murder rate from 100 years ago to now is irrelevant (obviously, once population is factored in).

Do you honestly think things are getting better?

[Arainach]

Zeitgeist: Comparing the murder rate from 100 years ago to now is largely confunded because of a variety of factors: The urbanization of America (this cannot be overstressed as a factor), the rise of forensic science, a variety of things.

Not to mention that there are many better ways to measure society than by murder rate alone.

[Seegtease]

Obviously I'm not going to cite every single example that is a factor in societal downfall.

Either way... no matter what the causes of increased murder, they have still increased and it's still a BAD thing. The reasons don't change the fact that the rates have increased. You can't really skew that.

[Arainach]

Yes. You CAN. Murder rates are reasonably low in the country. Even back 100 years ago, murder rates were substantially higher and were growing in cities. Our war on drugs and the ensuing rise in violent crime it created hasn't helped statistics either. But when murder rates are DRAMATICALLY higher in urban than rural areas and when a substantial chunk of our population switched from living in rural areas to urban areas in the last century, yes, that's VERY significant when trying to say 'ZOMG THE WORLD IS GOING TO HELL THERE IS MORE MURDER'.

[Seegtease]

It doesn't matter where the murder is. If there are 1000 people living in a country, and two are murdered every year... then 100 years later, 100,000 people live in said country and 5,000 are murdered, the rate is up. It doesn't matter where in the country the murders are occurring.

More murders per capita does quite literally = bad. You don't need any other factors to see that, and you'd have to be pretty sick to disagree with a simple statement as that. I know moralities are all over the place or out the window these days, but most normal people can agree that an increased murder rate is bad.

[Bloodcinder]

Do you honestly think things are getting better?
I think trying to pigeonhole the world's state into the artificial concepts of "better" and "worse" is in vain. Not everything falls on an axis like that. Rather, are you honestly incapable of just conceding that "things" are simply different?

[Arainach]

More murders per capita does quite literally = bad. You don't need any other factors to see that, and you'd have to be pretty sick to disagree with a simple statement as that. I know moralities are all over the place or out the window these days, but most normal people can agree that an increased murder rate is bad.I don't have to be a sick person to claim that murders per capita is not a valid assessment from a sociological perspective. If we have more murders per capita in areas of similar population density across the centuries, then yes I'd agree that that's bad.

[MacheteJones]

With so many external variables I don't think it's really feasible to take any number of single statistics and try to say "X has gotten worse because of Y." You sort of just look at the big picture and suck it all in at once, except you can't see it all until you turn your head, at which point you're still not seeing the rest. Some things have gotten worse, others better, and it's all a matter of opinion based on what your views are. Some people want abortion, some don't. If it's legal, some people see it as an improvement while others think it's a tragedy. I think one of the biggest problems is that there are so many disagreements and arguments over how things should be done that nothing really gets done, or at least not as effectively as it could if we were more united.

[Arainach]

pleaseohpleaseohPLEASE do not bring abortion into this thread. It's about the only highly controversial topic we haven't spread into yet.

[chefTENGU]

It's the unwillingness to compromise that keeps things from getting done.

But anyway, I still hold that when all is said and done, life is the same as it ever was, all things considered.

[Bloodcinder]

Coathangers, coathangers-- get your coathangers, ten cents each.

(Just helping everybody get ready to bring abortion into this.)

[MacheteJones]

It's the unwillingness to compromise that keeps things from getting done.

That's what I was getting at. Or even the stance that "Since I don't agree with you on this one issue, you are my mortal enemy and therefore I will never work with you ever again on anything."

[Seegtease]

Compromise is a wonderful solution if you don't believe in a universal right and wrong.

[Bloodcinder]

Except that I'm pretty sure Kevin and Jimmy both believe in a universal right and wrong.

You can't hold out to win every single battle if for every one you expend time winning you lose two more.

[Arainach]

More murders per capita does quite literally = bad. You don't need any other factors to see that, and you'd have to be pretty sick to disagree with a simple statement as that. I know moralities are all over the place or out the window these days, but most normal people can agree that an increased murder rate is bad.The reply I should have given is this:

Your refusal to consider sociological factors makes your opinion flat-out wrong. If, over 100 years, a population went from 20% urban to 80% urban and in that same timespan, its murders per capita went up 10%, that would be a SMASHING success and an unfathomably positive thing. That would mean that, all around, murder rates in comparable areas went down dramatically, and I would say that although the murder rate per capita increased, the net for society was overwhelmingly positive. Thus, murders per capita is a nearly worthless statistic.

[Seegtease]

And your idea that an increase at all could possibly be considered a success makes you flat-out wrong. The goal should be to drop rates overall, not just to tone down the rate within cities.

It does not matter where the murders are occurring. If more people are killing others, it's a bad thing, period.

[Arainach]

The point is that rates ARE dropping overall. Per Capita is not a valid benchmark. Murder rates have a LOT to do with things like population density, economic conditions and geographic segregation. To say that all of those things can change and expect the murder rate to stay the same is insanity.

Put another way: Why do you consider it acceptable to control for population? And why do you then consider it NOT acceptable to control for population density?

[Bloodcinder]

Split from "Is White House Blocking Search for Bin Laden?" so this new topic can keep going on its present trajectory.

[Seegtease]

Why? Because it's very clear and simple - and states the facts without clouding the truth. What percentage of Americans are killing each other? If it goes up, it's bad, if it goes down, it's good.

And don't think I don't understand what you're saying - I do. More murders occur in cities. If cities are larger and more common, you'd expect more overall murders. It's good if the rate in cities drops, yes.

However, rates increasing overall is still a bad thing, so even if they're dropping in cities but rising overall, it's not much of a victory, if you ask me.

[Arainach]

But that makes no sense. If murder is universally bad and an increasing murder rate is bad, than any increase in murder, irregardless of population, is a bad thing. If you're willing to admit that the number of murders is dependent on the size of the population, you should ALSO be willing to admit that the number of murders is dependent on socioeconomic variables such as population density.

[Seegtease]

I never admitted that it wasn't. I just said I hardly consider that to be a victory so long as the national rate increases (or is significantly higher than it used to be).

[Bloodcinder]

But consider the details you're not even accounting for when you just analyze murder rate. For example, compare life expectancy now to life expectancy a century ago. In part, there are more murders possible now because fewer people die anyway.

[Seegtease]

I'll accept that point. However, the concept that people weren't killing as often before just because people died before they had the chance is rather disturbing in its own right.

[chefTENGU]

Speaking of a century ago, I heard on Public Access a long time ago that back then, people drank on average 6 times the amount of alcohol people consume today. That's gotta be a good thing, right?

[Killer_Man_]

Well when all you have left to do is work, pay taxes, work some more, pay even more taxes, die and perhaps 'choke a bitch.'

All you have left is to drink your sorrows away about being on the peon level of life.

[Seegtease]

Speaking of a century ago, I heard on Public Access a long time ago that back then, people drank on average 6 times the amount of alcohol people consume today. That's gotta be a good thing, right?
I guess they knew how to party back then. Shows what we know!

Actually I think a lot of that comes because they didn't have other fun things to do, like sit around and watch TV, so they just got drunk.

Cutting back on alcohol I'd suspect is a good thing. But a lot of the modern danger in drunkenness comes from automobiles, which wasn't much of a factor 100 years ago.

[chefTENGU]

ot of that comes because they didn't have other fun things to do, like sit around and watch TV, so they just got drunk.
They liked to have sex, too. People still like to lapse into that one when the power goes out, rendering TV inoperative (though it depends on if you have a willing participant. Otherwise, you'll probably just be getting drunk in the dark).

Cutting back on alcohol I'd suspect is a good thing. But a lot of the modern danger in drunkenness comes from automobiles, which wasn't much of a factor 100 years ago.
True dat. But spousal and child abuse are quite timeless, not to mention the terrible repercussions from a lifetime of heavy alcohol use.

[Seegtease]

True enough.

Gosh, I almost want to make a thread: "Automobiles - incredible increase in deaths worth the amazing convenience? Value of human life Vs. Convenience of human life?"

But I don't think I will. Too theoretical.

[Bloodcinder]

Your entire last post sounds like a Dinosaur Comics alt-text line.

[chefTENGU]

Well, I think it's a viable topic. Even if it's "theoretical," that doesn't stop ethicists from debating over such things.

We had to read an article about that sort of thing once in Ethics class in high school ("Why Doesn't GM Sell Crack?" by Michael Moore).

[Seegtease]

Your entire last post sounds like a Dinosaur Comics alt-text line.
I'll take that as a compliment. Often times, that line is the best part of the whole comic.

[chefTENGU]

It doesn't matter where the murder is. If there are 1000 people living in a country, and two are murdered every year... then 100 years later, 100,000 people live in said country and 5,000 are murdered, the rate is up. It doesn't matter where in the country the murders are occurring.

More murders per capita does quite literally = bad. You don't need any other factors to see that, and you'd have to be pretty sick to disagree with a simple statement as that. I know moralities are all over the place or out the window these days, but most normal people can agree that an increased murder rate is bad.
With this in mind, I'm going to necro this debate by injecting some raw data into it.

Since the incidence of murder (with the exception of wars) is both reliably recorded and considered indicative of the incidence of crimes overall, the criminologist Manuel Eisner did some digging in the records of several European countries to compile the following:

Number of Homicides per 100,000 People
England
• 13th-14th century — 23.0
• 15th century — n/a
• 16th century — 7.0
• 17th century — 5.0
• 18th century — 1.5
• 19th century — 1.7
• 1900-1949 — 0.8
• 1950-1994 — 0.9

Netherlands & Belgium
• 13th-14th century — 47.0
• 15th century — 45.0
• 16th century — 25.0
• 17th century — 7.5
• 18th century — 5.5
• 19th century — 1.6
• 1900-1949 — 1.5
• 1950-1994 — 0.9

Scandanavia
• 13th-14th century — n/a
• 15th century — 46.0
• 16th century — 21.0
• 17th century — 18.0
• 18th century — 1.9
• 19th century — 1.1
• 1900-1949 — 0.7
• 1950-1994 — 0.9

Germany & Switzerland
• 13th-14th century — 37.0
• 15th century — 16.0
• 16th century — 11.0
• 17th century — 7.0
• 18th century — 7.5
• 19th century — 2.8
• 1900-1949 — 1.7
• 1950-1994 — 1.0

Italy
• 13th-14th century — 56.0
• 15th century — 73.0
• 16th century — 47.0
• 17th century — 32.0
• 18th century — 10.5
• 19th century — 12.6
• 1900-1949 — 3.2
• 1950-1994 — 1.5

[source: Manuel Eisner, see either "Secular Trends of Violence, Evidence, and Theoretical Interpretations," in Crime and Justice: A Review of Research 3 (2003), or "Violence and the Rise of Modern Society," in Criminology in Cambridge October 2003 p. 3-7]

Far from getting worse, these numbers suggest that things are getting much, much, much better.

[deathofcheese]

I'd hate to live in Italy...

Considering the argument "are things getting worse?", I actually just saw today a really good tech quote by Douglas Adams that observes a similar trend:Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

[Seegtease]

I'm sure a lot of that coincides with police activity, which is pretty much higher now. Not to mention police and detective capabilities. Most people aren't willing to commit crimes knowing the great risk they have of being caught these days, via forensics.

They really should have included America, even though it's not as old.

[Bloodcinder]

So... because we have more deterrents in place we can't say it's getting better.

Then would it would be getting better if we removed deterrents like the police?

I think that's circular reasoning.

[chefTENGU]

I'm sure a lot of that coincides with police activity, which is pretty much higher now. Not to mention police and detective capabilities. Most people aren't willing to commit crimes knowing the great risk they have of being caught these days, via forensics.
I don't think is is a valid argument, since organized police forces did not exist until the nineteenth century, and the numbers clearly show that murder had been decreasing for centuries before that.

[Seegtease]

Well, why do YOU say that is, then?

Perhaps it's easier to make a real living, so things like banditry and piracy get ditched to the wayside?

So... because we have more deterrents in place we can't say it's getting better.

I didn't say that. I was more along the lines of saying that there may be another reason for the decrease in murder other than saying people just have stronger morals against murder or an share an increase in value for human life. I wasn't very clear about that, I know, but I'm just not so sure the changes in the murder rate are directly tied to changes in moral depravity.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure how I got on that topic...

[chefTENGU]

I'm not a criminologist, so I can't really explain why it would be. However, the conclusion the numbers present is hard to refute.

There hasn't been any sort of revolutionary breakthrough in why people consider murder to be bad in Western societies since the continent converted to Christianity. As I already stated, modern police forces didn't show up until much later, and useful forensics methods didn't come around until the second half of the 20th century, so it's not like there was any special new deterrent against crime.

For whatever reason, people (regardless of nationality and culture) just got tired of killing each other (unlawfully), which by extension suggests they weren't committing as many other crimes, either, and the trend has continued straight to this day.

Hard not to take this as good news.

[deathofcheese]

For whatever reason, people (regardless of nationality and culture) just got tired of killing each other (unlawfully), which by extension suggests they weren't committing as many other crimes, either, and the trend has continued straight to this day.Could much much larger modern populations account for a lower per capita murder rate? That is to say, people are being killed in as many numbers or even in more numbers than before, but due to the sheer amount of "replacement" (so to speak) people, the overall rate appears much lower.

[chefTENGU]

That would only work if the number of murders per century remained constant though, right?

One thought that occurred to me was that the Black Death might account for the large dropoff we see almost across the board when you compare the figures for the 14th century to those of the 15th. With the sudden decrease in population, you also have a sudden decrease in criminals.

Another thing is that with suddenly 1/3 less people walking around, there's less competition for the survivors, which means that desperate people are more likely to find other means than crime to get what they want.

[Bloodcinder]

Another thing is that with suddenly 1/3 less people walking around, there's less competition for the survivors, which means that desperate people are more likely to find other means than crime to GET WHAT THEY WANT.
Fixed.

[deathofcheese]

Another thing is that with suddenly 1/3 less people walking around, there's less competition for the survivors, which means that desperate people are more likely to find other means than crime to get what they want.True, but that could also extend to producers and distributors as well. Although I would think they tended less to live in the city, where much of the disease was spread, it would still get passed on.

[chefTENGU]

Depends. Some cities were barely touched by the disease (Milan, for instance, sealed all its gates and quarantined all plague victims immediately; in the end, only about 5 people died from the disease during the first outbreak).

In case you're all wondering, I got this information out of Freakonomics, and it was presented in the introduction. It looks like it's going to be covered more in the next chapter, so I'll probably be able to get a better idea about some of the thinking and conclusions behind the data.