5 ms·

I don't really think that their conclusions are very honest. They provide only extraordinary situations, which are not usual by any measure. Masses during (and

by bloomca 10y ago

I don't really think that their conclusions are very honest. They provide only extraordinary situations, which are not usual by any measure. Masses during (and some time after, for like ~1 generation) such events are much less demanding, and they unite to survive (I can think that a lot of damaged countries after WWII built very successful industries, sometimes from scratch). What I think can really affect violence, is a level of income for lower-class people. For example, in a lot of ex-USSR countries it is quite a problem – people are pretty violent just in everyday life, and we don't see positive trend in Russia, for instance. So, while super big difference between income of top and low classes contributes to the violence, the ability to have decent life, I think, will decrease violence drastically. Of course, it is oversimplification, there are tons of other factors, but I feel it this way, because violence is mostly done by people with the lowest income (and I don't think it is mandatory to be low relative to the highest, it is relative to the good level of life).

timthelion 10y ago
I don't know if you are correct about the violence being done mostly by the poorest. The most violent person I have ever met was the "cousin?" of a Kyrgyzstani diplomat. Hardly a poor person. He had a gang of fellow Kyrgystaners who beat a lot of people up at a school I went to, and they never got punished due to his political relations. They even ruptured the testicle of one man, which meant serious time in the hospital and potential infertility! My feeling is that this was not caused by poverty, but rather by a macho culture which saw violence as being something to be proud of. I think that there is a similar thing in the US, with gun toting "pro-rancher" types being very violent people, despite them not being poor. I do however, think that there is a correlation between poverty and risky violence. Poor people are more likely to commit a crime that could get them sent to jail. So the gun toting pro-rancher type might torture an animal, or spray it with bullets from a machine gun, they won't kill humans as often, because they don't want to lose their wealth. A black guy from the hood, however, who is no more violent and probably much less evil than the gun toting rancher, might commit a crime with a gun that could get him sent to prison for life because he has so much less to lose.

by bloomca 10y ago

timthelion 10y ago

I don't know if you are correct about the violence being done mostly by the poorest. The most violent person I have ever met was the "cousin?" of a Kyrgyzstani diplomat. Hardly a poor person. He had a gang of fellow Kyrgystaners who beat a lot of people up at a school I went to, and they never got punished due to his political relations. They even ruptured the testicle of one man, which meant serious time in the hospital and potential infertility! My feeling is that this was not caused by poverty, but rather by a macho culture which saw violence as being something to be proud of. I think that there is a similar thing in the US, with gun toting "pro-rancher" types being very violent people, despite them not being poor. I do however, think that there is a correlation between poverty and risky violence. Poor people are more likely to commit a crime that could get them sent to jail. So the gun toting pro-rancher type might torture an animal, or spray it with bullets from a machine gun, they won't kill humans as often, because they don't want to lose their wealth. A black guy from the hood, however, who is no more violent and probably much less evil than the gun toting rancher, might commit a crime with a gun that could get him sent to prison for life because he has so much less to lose.