6 ms·

> I am terrified to live in the US. The acceptance of illegitimate aggression is absurd. That's a bit extreme. First, because illegitimate aggression isn't j

> I am terrified to live in the US. The acceptance of illegitimate aggression is absurd. That's a bit extreme. First, because illegitimate aggression isn't just accepted by quite a lot of people, there is vocal debate and public outcry over it. Which is good. Second, confirmation bias may be amplifying your fears here. According to the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/...), there were about 1100 people killed by police in 2016, and almost 1200 in 2015. And some portion of those were likely justifiable (and maybe even saved lives). To get killed by police is not quite as unlucky as getting struck by lightning, but the odds are about 1/295,000 for the former.

Defenestresque 9y ago
You're both right. While it's extremely unlikely that OP would have any kind of injury at the hands of police in the U.S. (just like in any other country), it is not a secret that the U.S. suffers from an exceedingly disproportionate likelihood of dying at the hands of both fellow citizens and police. It's hard to overstate how completely alone the United States stands when the stats are compacted: [0] Australia had 94 fatal police shootings between 1992 and 2011. The U.S. had 97 in March of 2015. England and Wales had 55 fatal police shootings in the last 24 years. The U.S. had 59 in the first 24 days of 2015. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-...
- wallace_f 9y ago
  >While it's extremely unlikely that OP would have any kind of injury at the hands of police in the U.S. Illegitimate violence from the state (the police) is actually common enough that I have seen it many times in my life; and I am a White, law-abiding person who makes a point to stay out of trouble. I feel extremely safe and have always had friendly encounters with police in both Europe and East Asia. Note the official stats don't include scenarios such as the ones around Gary Webb or Ian Murdock. We won't ever know what really happened, but they're extremely suspicious.
- mcguire 9y ago
  (Note: Australia has 1/13 the population of the US; England and Wales, 1/6.)
Miner49er 9y ago
This doesn't take into account beatings, getting shot and not killed, the police stealing from you (civil forfeiture), etc. Plus, police almost always get away with it. Terrorism is a smaller threat, yet we spend billions on preventing it and it's a major political issue.
- SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
  Great point. I think we ought to raise hell about all of these issues, and spend as many resources as we have to, to change things for the better. How we calibrate our personal fears and existential anxieties in light of all these bad things, is a different matter.
kayoone 9y ago
In Germany, a country with more than 80M people and over a dozen cities with a population of more than half a million, that number has been around 7-10 per year in the last few years. The US number seems insane in comparison. Extrapolating by the population of the US (of course thats a simplification), the US number is still a factor of over 200 higher.
- mobilefriendly 9y ago
  Draw the timeline out to 80 years, when the German government murdered millions of unarmed civilians.
  - chongli 9y ago
    This is why statistics is so damn hard! http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/31/terrorists-vs-chairs-an-outlier-story/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/31/terrorists-vs-chairs-an...
  - klibertp 9y ago
    Sure, but then you also need to count the only use of nuclear weapons against the mostly civilian population by some other government, I forgot which.
    - SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
      I fully support questioning the wisdom of that move, but the fact remains that the government that dropped the bomb(s) was not the aggressor in that conflict... in a world war where the stakes were ridiculously high. I think thats an extremely important bit to contextualize that event, when compared with say... Nazis, Hitler, and Auschwitz.
      - klibertp 9y ago
        > in a world war where the stakes were ridiculously high The context of a World War - even more so than that of any other war - makes it much easier for any government to do what it likes. Which most often means to kill lots and lots of people. What I argue is that such context is very different from a time of peace. It's not really fair to include WW2 atrocities when talking about the number of deaths caused by guns in a peace-time. The GP tried to do exactly that, which I disagree with in itself, and moreover forgot to include any other "government [that] murdered millions of unarmed civilians" in their argument. I don't have a strong opinion on whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a good or bad idea, I just pointed out that, in that single operation, the US government effectively "murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians". Again, that's nothing surprising, nuclear weapons are designed to do just that. So, again, it was war. People die in wars. That's what the wars are for, basically. Now, since then, we're at peace (here in Europe, at least). The number (and rate) of deaths caused by guns during this peaceful time is overwhelmingly higher in the US than in Germany. That's it, I don't mean anything else, just that this is a fact and that mentioning Auschwitz is not a valid counter-argument for this.

Defenestresque 9y ago

You're both right. While it's extremely unlikely that OP would have any kind of injury at the hands of police in the U.S. (just like in any other country), it is not a secret that the U.S. suffers from an exceedingly disproportionate likelihood of dying at the hands of both fellow citizens and police. It's hard to overstate how completely alone the United States stands when the stats are compacted: [0] Australia had 94 fatal police shootings between 1992 and 2011. The U.S. had 97 in March of 2015. England and Wales had 55 fatal police shootings in the last 24 years. The U.S. had 59 in the first 24 days of 2015. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-...

wallace_f 9y ago
>While it's extremely unlikely that OP would have any kind of injury at the hands of police in the U.S. Illegitimate violence from the state (the police) is actually common enough that I have seen it many times in my life; and I am a White, law-abiding person who makes a point to stay out of trouble. I feel extremely safe and have always had friendly encounters with police in both Europe and East Asia. Note the official stats don't include scenarios such as the ones around Gary Webb or Ian Murdock. We won't ever know what really happened, but they're extremely suspicious.
mcguire 9y ago
(Note: Australia has 1/13 the population of the US; England and Wales, 1/6.)

Miner49er 9y ago

This doesn't take into account beatings, getting shot and not killed, the police stealing from you (civil forfeiture), etc. Plus, police almost always get away with it. Terrorism is a smaller threat, yet we spend billions on preventing it and it's a major political issue.

SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
Great point. I think we ought to raise hell about all of these issues, and spend as many resources as we have to, to change things for the better. How we calibrate our personal fears and existential anxieties in light of all these bad things, is a different matter.

kayoone 9y ago

In Germany, a country with more than 80M people and over a dozen cities with a population of more than half a million, that number has been around 7-10 per year in the last few years. The US number seems insane in comparison. Extrapolating by the population of the US (of course thats a simplification), the US number is still a factor of over 200 higher.

mobilefriendly 9y ago
Draw the timeline out to 80 years, when the German government murdered millions of unarmed civilians.
- chongli 9y ago
  This is why statistics is so damn hard! http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/31/terrorists-vs-chairs-an-outlier-story/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/31/terrorists-vs-chairs-an...
- klibertp 9y ago
  Sure, but then you also need to count the only use of nuclear weapons against the mostly civilian population by some other government, I forgot which.
  - SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
    I fully support questioning the wisdom of that move, but the fact remains that the government that dropped the bomb(s) was not the aggressor in that conflict... in a world war where the stakes were ridiculously high. I think thats an extremely important bit to contextualize that event, when compared with say... Nazis, Hitler, and Auschwitz.
    - klibertp 9y ago
      > in a world war where the stakes were ridiculously high The context of a World War - even more so than that of any other war - makes it much easier for any government to do what it likes. Which most often means to kill lots and lots of people. What I argue is that such context is very different from a time of peace. It's not really fair to include WW2 atrocities when talking about the number of deaths caused by guns in a peace-time. The GP tried to do exactly that, which I disagree with in itself, and moreover forgot to include any other "government [that] murdered millions of unarmed civilians" in their argument. I don't have a strong opinion on whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a good or bad idea, I just pointed out that, in that single operation, the US government effectively "murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians". Again, that's nothing surprising, nuclear weapons are designed to do just that. So, again, it was war. People die in wars. That's what the wars are for, basically. Now, since then, we're at peace (here in Europe, at least). The number (and rate) of deaths caused by guns during this peaceful time is overwhelmingly higher in the US than in Germany. That's it, I don't mean anything else, just that this is a fact and that mentioning Auschwitz is not a valid counter-argument for this.