5 ms·

Nope. Video games IMO. Cheap awesome entertainment for basically everyone. Everyone can afford consoles and escape reality. Why act out aggression in real life

by dr01d 7y ago

Nope. Video games IMO. Cheap awesome entertainment for basically everyone. Everyone can afford consoles and escape reality. Why act out aggression in real life and risk prison when video games let you do all that and more?

codesushi42 7y ago
Or free and easy access to porn. Really.
- artificial 7y ago
  90s dialup Internet was not in every house yet. Microsoft succeeded in getting PCs in homes but free was not the name of the game with pay per minute online access. Things didn’t really take off until the 00s with broadband access.
  - codesushi42 7y ago
    Not true. Pay per minute Internet access did not last that long, by the mid 90s it wasn't even a thing. Image porn on the Internet was a big deal in the 90s, especially in the second half of the decade. Plenty of people had dial up, hence the massive popularity of ICQ and later AIM. And of course email, online gaming, and the dotcom bubble... And I never said Internet porn. While not free, porn was still cheap and easy to get on cable or satellite, or at video rental stores.
  - wisty 7y ago
    VCR was out in the late 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocassette_recorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocassette_recorder I doubt it was just porn though. I believe that simply getting teenagers / young adults inside for long periods of time (and not just for the purpose of abusing drugs / alcohol) is a big victory (for crime stats, not society in general).
- contrary 7y ago
  I think you'd be shocked to consider the possibility that porn fosters a seething tendency for unthinkable violence in quite a number of individuals.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  lack of porn causes crimes ? frustration based ?
toephu2 7y ago
I don't think homeless can afford consoles and escape reality.. however they can afford drugs to escape reality. Also note: Prison provides free housing, free meals, free gym, and free healthcare.
- danieltillett 7y ago
  Haven't the cost of illegal drugs been falling in real terms since the 1970s. Would be interesting to look into what the cost of drugs does to crime rates.
  - croCaine 7y ago
    Cocaine was much cheaper back in the 80s at least than now. And much purer too.
sien 7y ago
There is surely something in this. Crime is primarily carried out by young men 16-25. They now have a very interesting activity that many of them engage in. There is far less 'hanging around' with dodgy mates on streets with little to do. The crime decline also didn't occur just in the US but all across the developed world which suggests that Roe vs Wade had less impact than Levitt and other suggest. By the 1990s consoles had become cheap enough that many more people could afford them. That and as someone else has said, cheap and available porn. Cheap porn was available by the 1990s in magazines and videos. Online it's now much cheaper and prevalent, but it's been there for quite a while.
- wisty 7y ago
  VCR was big in the 90s (VHS was released in the US in 77, with Betamax a year before, hitting close to saturation in about 1990).
tapland 7y ago
IIRC teenage drinking and violent crime plummeted among high school boys after original World of Warcraft release. I think there were articles in the year following, at least in scandinavia, about it.

by dr01d 7y ago

codesushi42 7y ago

Or free and easy access to porn. Really.

artificial 7y ago
90s dialup Internet was not in every house yet. Microsoft succeeded in getting PCs in homes but free was not the name of the game with pay per minute online access. Things didn’t really take off until the 00s with broadband access.
- codesushi42 7y ago
  Not true. Pay per minute Internet access did not last that long, by the mid 90s it wasn't even a thing. Image porn on the Internet was a big deal in the 90s, especially in the second half of the decade. Plenty of people had dial up, hence the massive popularity of ICQ and later AIM. And of course email, online gaming, and the dotcom bubble... And I never said Internet porn. While not free, porn was still cheap and easy to get on cable or satellite, or at video rental stores.
- wisty 7y ago
  VCR was out in the late 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocassette_recorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocassette_recorder I doubt it was just porn though. I believe that simply getting teenagers / young adults inside for long periods of time (and not just for the purpose of abusing drugs / alcohol) is a big victory (for crime stats, not society in general).
contrary 7y ago
I think you'd be shocked to consider the possibility that porn fosters a seething tendency for unthinkable violence in quite a number of individuals.
agumonkey 7y ago
lack of porn causes crimes ? frustration based ?

toephu2 7y ago

I don't think homeless can afford consoles and escape reality.. however they can afford drugs to escape reality. Also note: Prison provides free housing, free meals, free gym, and free healthcare.

danieltillett 7y ago
Haven't the cost of illegal drugs been falling in real terms since the 1970s. Would be interesting to look into what the cost of drugs does to crime rates.
- croCaine 7y ago
  Cocaine was much cheaper back in the 80s at least than now. And much purer too.

sien 7y ago

There is surely something in this. Crime is primarily carried out by young men 16-25. They now have a very interesting activity that many of them engage in. There is far less 'hanging around' with dodgy mates on streets with little to do. The crime decline also didn't occur just in the US but all across the developed world which suggests that Roe vs Wade had less impact than Levitt and other suggest. By the 1990s consoles had become cheap enough that many more people could afford them. That and as someone else has said, cheap and available porn. Cheap porn was available by the 1990s in magazines and videos. Online it's now much cheaper and prevalent, but it's been there for quite a while.

wisty 7y ago
VCR was big in the 90s (VHS was released in the US in 77, with Betamax a year before, hitting close to saturation in about 1990).

tapland 7y ago

IIRC teenage drinking and violent crime plummeted among high school boys after original World of Warcraft release. I think there were articles in the year following, at least in scandinavia, about it.