London is cracking down on knives

[fskimospy]

Control for societal factors? That sounds prejudice to me. Are you saying that the culture of a group of people has an effect on behavior?

We both know where you’re trying to go with this and it’s going to end up in a stupid place.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

We both know where you’re trying to go with this and it’s going to end up in a stupid place.

OP is pathetically transparent in nearly every post. And the 'who, me?' shtick always follows that up.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Culture sets norms for behavior.

I agree

 

[bshole]

The indigenous peoples of... most everywhere beg to differ. It's also "harming the planet," these last 200 years of progress, attributable to so-called great britain. The inevitability of progress and the expectation of an ever increasing standard of living, until we run out of stuff to dig out of the ground, or die, is the British legacy. That and stabbing people.

Ah, a Luddite. TBH I play in that field from time to time myself. If scientific achievement and knowledge of objective reality are bad things for humans, then of course Britain is the party most guilty for spreading them. I guess it all depends on your goals.

If you haven't been paying attention, most 1st world nations are not replicating themselves and are bringing in citizens from 3rd world nations to fill in gaps (Asian 1st world nations are the notable exception). If the entire world was 1st world, I would expect the global population to be declining.

Don't worry though, all life on earth has always been destined for extinction, the only questions are how and when. After it happens, it is not like the universe is going to give a shit. In the meantime, does technology/manufacturing make life better for humans? It is a damn good question. Today I am going to say yes but tomorrow I could say no.

 

[mdram]

Yes, I say that Japan has other societal factors that influence its suicide rate that would need to be accounted for. ie: other IVs that need to be controlled for in any model before you can isolate the effects of gun ownership.

can we say the same about the gang culture, since they believe in murder, why count those numbers?

 

[pmv]

can we say the same about the gang culture, since they believe in murder, why count those numbers?

No you can't, because 'gangs' are not nations and don't exist independently of the nation (and it's history) that created them and continue to sustain them. I get that some here are desperate to try and disown parts of their own national culture and history, to pretend it's nothing to do with them and their society, but it isn't going to work.

Besides are you discussing suicides or murders? Two different topics.

Edit, that said, in any case nobody is saying that guns are the sole or only cause of murder rates in the US. International comparisons are difficult because there are confounding factors, that's why you need a lot of data and very careful analysis (and why they are probably never going to be uncontestable).

 

[fskimospy]

can we say the same about the gang culture, since they believe in murder, why count those numbers?

That doesn’t make any sense as we are trying to examine the American population, gangs included. I also don’t know how you would operationalize that variable. If you were to do it through some sort of mix of criminal record, income, location, etc, then that’s already being done.

Why do you think you’re trying so, so hard to find ways not to accept the empirical evidence you’ve been shown? Don’t you care about facts over feelings?

 

[bshole]

Well, I was referring more to the long-standing Hindu/Muslim tensions (other Indian religious conflicts are available). And the caste system is indeed rather hard to defend, and the lower castes have their (well-known and long-standing, to be honest) movements against it. Including outbreaks of what you'd have to call terrorism against higher castes. Plus the mass conversion of many of them to Buddhism (though, sadly, some Buddhists at least, seem to adhere to a caste system themselves, even though it's not _supposed_ to be part of the religion...I guess it's also cultural thing).

What is interesting about that is that India is a monolith with regards to race. Even with this shared racial heritage, India suffers religious/sectarian violence. I am not sure how it compares to the West but it is there.

Britain has been white for millenia. Its demographics shifting brown has only occurred in the course of a few decades. This same phenomenon is also occurring over much of western Europe. From what I have read, many European whites are feeling threatened by this. This is my primary explanation for the rise of the alt-right (which you apparently disagree with). In general I don't believe European whites are all that interested in the flourishing of brown people in their country, they are interested in the flourishing of white people (this is something I think you would agree with).



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India

 

[pmv]

What is interesting about that is that India is a monolith with regards to race. Even with this shared racial heritage, India suffers religious/sectarian violence. I am not sure how it compares to the West but it is there.

Britain has been white for millenia. Its demographics shifting brown has only occurred in the course of a few decades. This same phenomenon is also occurring over much of western Europe. From what I have read, many European whites are feeling threatened by this. This is my primary explanation for the rise of the alt-right (which you apparently disagree with). In general I don't believe European whites are all that interested in the flourishing of brown people in their country, they are interested in the flourishing of white people (this is something I think you would agree with).



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India

But 'race' is socially-constructed. Different societies/cultures have different ideas of what it is, so I'm not sure it makes any sense to declare that India has a 'shared racial heritage' or that Europe does not. India has always been fantastically diverse, by religion, culture, language, and skin tone. I did once suggest to an Indian friend that India was like an EU that worked, but they pointed out it didn't actually work _that_ well (just not as catastrophically badly as it might have done).

I'm afraid I don't like the tenor of your comment, even though I haven't hugely disagreed with your past comments on things. Why the emphasis on skin-tone? I don't believe that is the important issue - it's about economics, culture, a sense of control and stability. Even a lot of anxious xenophobes aren't fundamentally concerned with skin colour, that's a marker of the true racist. People don't like feeling they are losing their place in the 'queue' to new arrivals. They don't like churn and transient populations, and if they don't have money they attach all the more importance to stability and community.

When Sam L Jackson moaned about British black actors taking roles from African Americans, it struck me as being slightly similar to working class Brits upset about being undercut in the labour market by Eastern Europeans. You spend all this time at the back of the queue, and just when you are getting to the front a load of people turn up from the back of someone else's queue and appear to cut in front. (And your own queue always seems to move more slowly than all the others!).

I don't disagree that feeling threatened by immigration is a driver of support for the hard-right, but I do disagree that it's the only one, and that it's all about skin colour. A huge amount of the upset about immigration is about immigration by white people. In some small areas it's even about non-white people who've been here for a long time being upset about foreign white people coming in.

 

[mdram]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/29179/londons-mayor-declares-intense-new-knife-control-emily-zanotti

 

[bshole]

But 'race' is socially-constructed. Different societies/cultures have different ideas of what it is, so I'm not sure it makes any sense to declare that India has a 'shared racial heritage' or that Europe does not. India has always been fantastically diverse, by religion, culture, language, and skin tone. I did once suggest to an Indian friend that India was like an EU that worked, but they pointed out it didn't actually work _that_ well (just not as catastrophically badly as it might have done).

I'm afraid I don't like the tenor of your comment, even though I haven't hugely disagreed with your past comments on things. Why the emphasis on skin-tone? I don't believe that is the important issue - it's about economics, culture, a sense of control and stability. Even a lot of anxious xenophobes aren't fundamentally concerned with skin colour, that's a marker of the true racist. People don't like feeling they are losing their place in the 'queue' to new arrivals. They don't like churn and transient populations, and if they don't have money they attach all the more importance to stability and community.

When Sam L Jackson moaned about British black actors taking roles from African Americans, it struck me as being slightly similar to working class Brits upset about being undercut in the labour market by Eastern Europeans. You spend all this time at the back of the queue, and just when you are getting to the front a load of people turn up from the back of someone else's queue and appear to cut in front. (And your own queue always seems to move more slowly than all the others!).

I don't disagree that feeling threatened by immigration is a driver of support for the hard-right, but I do disagree that it's the only one, and that it's all about skin colour. A huge amount of the upset about immigration is about immigration by white people. In some small areas it's even about non-white people who've been here for a long time being upset about foreign white people coming in.

Since you actually live there you would have a much better idea about what's actually going on over there than me. I was basing my comments on the articles I posted earlier.

From the BBC I have the following:

The demonstration was part of the UN's international anti-racism day.

Organisers, Stand Up to Racism Scotland, said that about 1,500 campaigners from a coalition of civic organisations, trade unions, political groups and others took to the streets.

They were protesting against the "rising tide of racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and the scapegoating of refugees and migrants".

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43443017

 

[pmv]

Since you actually live there you would have a much better idea about what's actually going on over there than me. I was basing my comments on the articles I posted earlier which could be absolute shit for all I know. Sorry if I got it all wrong.

Do you feel like England as a place to live has gotten better/worse/stayed the same during your lifetime? What has gotten better? What has gotten worse?

The trouble with that question is it's difficult to separate concern about what's happened to 'England', and what's happened to _me_!

Obviously everything was better when one was young and healthy and hopeful (and knew everything!).

One thing I would maintain is that the past in this country (say, the '70s or earlier) was remarkably _sleazy_. Sexual abuse, child abuse, and police corruption seem to have been rife, in retrospect. We seem less tolerant of that now. The things I remember being present in my own childhood would not be acceptable now. That seems a good thing.

For every thing that gets better, it seems something else gets worse, though.

Economically, while we are better off, things seem to just get more strafified. According to the statistics, social mobility apparently peaked in the UK in 1979. While we might be better off in absolute terms, the direction-of-travel seems less of a cause for joy. Seems like the US is on the same page on that one.

Personally I think the changes in global populations have an underlying effect. Back at the time of WW2 Europe's population was something like three times that of Africa's. Now Africa has one-and-a-half times the population of Europe, and it's the only part of the world where birth rates are still well above replacement rates, and within a generation the majority of the world's under-20s will be Africans. Europe, and the UK in particular, is just not as globally significant as it used to be. That's just reality.

As Europe is right next to Africa that seems likely to have an effect.

Which is another change, come to think of it - As recently as a decade ago the majority of UK black people were Afro-Carribbean. Now most UK black people are (directly) from Africa. That's something I noticed in person before I read the stats (just as the influx of Poles and then Greeks and Italians was audible on the streets before the newspapers noticed it)

As an aside, Africans seem to be very entrepreneurial, at least those from certain African countries. I had to look a business up at companies House recently, and couldn't help but notice it was registered to an African guy on a local council estate, and that furthermore every single address on that estate had a business registered at it, all run by people with African names. Quite a lot of immigrants would be natural Tory voters - small businessmen with fairly socially-conservative views, and often religious - so it says something about how unbelievably bad the Tories are at dealing with race that so few of them actually vote Tory! That's my slight fear, actually, that immigration might actually push the country to the right (not as a reaction, but directly, because so many incomers are pro-business and socially-conservative). But on the whole most migrants would be equivalent to 'One Nation' Tories, rather than the fanatical Thatcherite type.

Anyway, I think the main thing I get from being a lifelong Londoner is don't do a King Canute - the world is going to go its own way and change around you, you aren't that important and are unlikely to have that much effect on it, so you are going to have to adapt.

 

[Greenman]

Again, this is pointless anecdotal evidence. You understand why it’s pointless, right? That you have to control for societal factors?

Can you give me a reason why you keep ignoring actual empirical research into the topic and instead rely on blog posts? Can you give me any reason other than they tell you what you want to believe?

Societal or cultural? Or are they same in the context of your statement?

 

[fskimospy]

Societal or cultural? Or are they same in the context of your statement?

All of the above. Competent analysis attempts to control for anything that has a significant effect on suicide rate. After all, the question we are trying to answer isn't if Japan has a higher suicide rate than the US, it's the effect of guns on suicide rate. ie: whatever Japan's suicide rate is today, what would happen if we gave everyone there a gun while everything else stayed the same? Would it go up? Down? Stay the same? (it would almost certainly go up)

 

[zinfamous]

Is this the thread where the Trumpsters have retreated to after yesterday's events?

 

[bshole]

Anyway, I think the main thing I get from being a lifelong Londoner is don't do a King Canute - the world is going to go its own way and change around you, you aren't that important and are unlikely to have that much effect on it, so you are going to have to adapt.

You know that is so true. When you get old, change is so fucking hard to deal with. I find it is probably more difficult for myself than most people. All the popular media (movie/music) coming out is just alien to me with absolute zero resonance. For example, is there a show around that is comparable to Seinfeld? a movie that is comparable to Memento? an album that is comparable to Dark Side of the Moon or even Meddle? I would say the last thing I have watched from popular media lately that approached greatness was Key & Peele but that is about it. The new music is absolutely dead to me.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Is this the thread where the Trumpsters have retreated to after yesterday's events?

You still can't have my knife

 

[brycejones]

OP is pathetically transparent in nearly every post. And the 'who, me?' shtick always follows that up.

Op is always very concerned.

 

[Greenman]

All of the above. Competent analysis attempts to control for anything that has a significant effect on suicide rate. After all, the question we are trying to answer isn't if Japan has a higher suicide rate than the US, it's the effect of guns on suicide rate. ie: whatever Japan's suicide rate is today, what would happen if we gave everyone there a gun while everything else stayed the same? Would it go up? Down? Stay the same? (it would almost certainly go up)

I'm not sure I see how cultural differences can be removed from the equation without vastly skewing the results. Some cultures are inherently more violent than others. Religious beliefs also enter the equation at some point.
I don't know enough about statistical analyses to have a valid opinion, but it seems like that would be like trying to force an apple to be an orange so you can compare the flavor.

 

[justoh]

You know that is so true. When you get old, change is so fucking hard to deal with. I find it is probably more difficult for myself than most people. All the popular media (movie/music) coming out is just alien to me with absolute zero resonance. For example, is there a show around that is comparable to Seinfeld? a movie that is comparable to Memento? an album that is comparable to Dark Side of the Moon or even Meddle? I would say the last thing I have watched from popular media lately that approached greatness was Key & Peele but that is about it. The new music is absolutely dead to me.

http://www.mandatory.com/culture/1062828-11-reasons-music-sucks-now-more-than-ever

Pink Floyd told the Man to “leave those kids alone.” Beyonce wants to be the Man and ban words. Everything is safe and easily digestible — like baby food. No one expresses what’s in their heart anymore; they only want to make it to the charts, which inevitably leads to stale, superficial tracks that are “in” one week and “out” the next.

It's not just growing old. Stuff does suck now. If only we could go back to a time when things were great...

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I do happen to know that the US isn't necessarily more crime-ridden than other countries. It's just your strange obsession with guns and high levels of gun ownership that has your level of mass murders so high.

It would be preferable to compare gun ownership vs total homicides. More guns resulting in more gun homicides isn't particularly relevant--dead is dead. Below, the US has 5.8x Canada's firearm homicide rate but "only" 2.9x it's total homicide rate; 1.6x the non-firearm homicide rate. 11x / 4.9x / 2.5x for Denmark, 7.2x / 4.2x / 2.6x for Sweden. A big unknown is how many firearm homicides convert to non-firearm homicides after a ban (or had one been in place). This is also incomplete since I didn't bother layering in gun ownership, but even from this comparison, yes, there's still very likely some causal link to examine. However, graphs like the above exaggerate the problem and European style gun controls clearly aren't some silver bullet (ha) to solve homicide.

Homicides per 1 million people (mostly 2015)
9.8 Australia
9.1 New Zealand
8.5 Germany
5.1 Austria
9.9 Denmark
6.1 Netherlands
11.5 Sweden
16 Finland
6.4 Ireland
16.8 Canada
7.2 Luxembourg
19.5 Belgium
6.9 Switzerland
48.8 United States
Bonus:
9.2 UK
15.8 France
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

 

[fskimospy]

I'm not sure I see how cultural differences can be removed from the equation without vastly skewing the results. Some cultures are inherently more violent than others. Religious beliefs also enter the equation at some point.
I don't know enough about statistical analyses to have a valid opinion, but it seems like that would be like trying to force an apple to be an orange so you can compare the flavor.

In a lot of ways you can’t remove cultural differences, which is why you try to look for natural experiments of sorts or look within cultures and populations for these differences.

I can’t say for sure that introducing a lot of guns to Japan would increase its suicide rate but since that relationship is well established in other parts of the world its likely to be the case.

 

[bshole]

http://www.mandatory.com/culture/1062828-11-reasons-music-sucks-now-more-than-ever

It's not just growing old. Stuff does suck now. If only we could go back to a time when things were great...

I agree!

Take 1977 for example, here a few of the albums I own from that year.
Never Mind the Bollocks:Here are the Sex Pistols
Rumors (Fleettwood Mac)
Aja (Steely Dan)
The Idiot (Iggy Pop)
Let There Be Rock (AC/DC)
The Stranger (Billy Joel)
News of the World (Queen)
A Farewell to Kings (Rush)
Bat out of Hell (Meatloaf)
Draw the Line (Aerosmith)
Animals (Pink Floyd)
Cat Scratch Fever (Ted Nugent)
Out of the Blue (ELO)
The Clash
Talking Heads: 77
Terrapin Station (Grateful Dead)
Low (David Bowie)
Foreigner
I Robot (Alan Parsons Project)
Even in the Quietest Moments (Super Tramp)
You Get What You Play For (REO Speedwagon)

There were many years when 20 or more fantastic albums were released a year. To me 1977 had more good albums released than the last decade combined. In fact, the newest album I have is from Breaking Bemamin in 2011 and it is only ok, not great.

 

[fskimospy]

I agree!

Take 1977 for example, here a few of the albums I own from that year.
Never Mind the Bollocks:Here are the Sex Pistols
Rumors (Fleettwood Mac)
Aja (Steely Dan)
The Idiot (Iggy Pop)
Let There Be Rock (AC/DC)
The Stranger (Billy Joel)
News of the World (Queen)
A Farewell to Kings (Rush)
Bat out of Hell (Meatloaf)
Draw the Line (Aerosmith)
Animals (Pink Floyd)
Cat Scratch Fever (Ted Nugent)
Out of the Blue (ELO)
The Clash
Talking Heads: 77
Terrapin Station (Grateful Dead)
Low (David Bowie)
Foreigner
I Robot (Alan Parsons Project)
Even in the Quietest Moments (Super Tramp)
You Get What You Play For (REO Speedwagon)

There were many years when 20 or more fantastic albums were released a year. To me 1977 had more good albums released than the last decade combined. In fact, the newest album I have is from Breaking Bemamin in 2011 and it is only ok, not great.

I think we all know the ironclad rule that the last truly good music was from whenever the person speaking was a teenager through their 20’s or so.

 

[pmv]

I think we all know the ironclad rule that the last truly good music was from whenever the person speaking was a teenager through their 20’s or so.

There's still plenty of good music around. But as you get older it all starts to sound like minor variations on things you've already heard. It's impossible to get _excited_ about any of it once you are past your teens.

Also, Bshole's list confuses me becuase it includes the stuff I liked back then alongside the stuff of the same era that I loathed (and I still feel much the same way about both). That's the other thing about time, people start to lump together everything from the same era, even when people at the time saw them as diametrically opposed. Similar thing seems to happen across borders - Americans seem to have a tendency to put UK artists into common categories, when the British fans of the acts lumped together actually all hate each other. (I presume it works similarly in reverse, or maybe even between the music scenes of different US states?)