3 ms·

I think, it's an interesting model, and would probably work all else being equal. But in that case, I believe he misses one critical variable. We are much less

I think, it's an interesting model, and would probably work all else being equal. But in that case, I believe he misses one critical variable. We are much less violent than 50 years ago because kid beating largely went out of fashion.

inglor_cz 6y ago
"We are much less violent than 50 years ago" I would say that the population is, on average, much older and has more to lose. Fortysomethings do not regularly engage in street chaos. This is even more visible in Europe, even in formerly violent places like the Balkans or Northern Ireland. Once the share of the young hotheads in the population drops, you have much smaller probability of really serious riots.
- watwut 6y ago
  Young people are less violent then they used to be. It is not just about their share in population, they behave less violently then young people 50 years ago.
  - flybrand 6y ago
    People who are less violent can easily become violent because they don’t understand the cost and destruction of force escalation.
    - watwut 6y ago
      Afaik, generations that grew up in violent times are more violent then those who grew up in peaceful times. Being used to violence, seeing it and/or being traumatized by it offsets whatever lack seeing the cost does.
    - vladTheInhaler 6y ago
      Really the violent people are the actual pacifists, and the peaceful ones are secretly capable of great violence? [CITATION NEEDED]
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
  The drop in violence is enormous and visible in crime rates across basically any age demographic you look at. It’s not just a function of an aging society. It also doesn’t seem obviously correlated with policing, since it exists across cities with radically different policing regimes. A lot of people think it has to do with environmental factors, and specifically lead.
  - yourapostasy 6y ago
    > A lot of people think it has to do with environmental factors, and specifically lead. Ironically, we are studying whether lead caused cohesion problems for the Roman Empire [1] [2], so it isn't as if we didn't suspect lead before to cause civilization-scale problems. And while the modern drop in blood lead levels is big in the developed world [3], it is still orders of magnitude greater than pre-industrial levels. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2019/11/29/archaeological-skeletons-from-london-prove-some-romans-were-lead-poisoned/?sh=7d09a64c48cc https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2019/11/29/ar... [2] https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wi... [3] https://www.who.int/docstore/bulletin/pdf/2000/issue9/bu0686.pdf https://www.who.int/docstore/bulletin/pdf/2000/issue9/bu0686...
LatteLazy 6y ago
Also because of the banning of lead in many products...

inglor_cz 6y ago

"We are much less violent than 50 years ago" I would say that the population is, on average, much older and has more to lose. Fortysomethings do not regularly engage in street chaos. This is even more visible in Europe, even in formerly violent places like the Balkans or Northern Ireland. Once the share of the young hotheads in the population drops, you have much smaller probability of really serious riots.

watwut 6y ago
Young people are less violent then they used to be. It is not just about their share in population, they behave less violently then young people 50 years ago.
- flybrand 6y ago
  People who are less violent can easily become violent because they don’t understand the cost and destruction of force escalation.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Afaik, generations that grew up in violent times are more violent then those who grew up in peaceful times. Being used to violence, seeing it and/or being traumatized by it offsets whatever lack seeing the cost does.
  - vladTheInhaler 6y ago
    Really the violent people are the actual pacifists, and the peaceful ones are secretly capable of great violence? [CITATION NEEDED]
matthewdgreen 6y ago
The drop in violence is enormous and visible in crime rates across basically any age demographic you look at. It’s not just a function of an aging society. It also doesn’t seem obviously correlated with policing, since it exists across cities with radically different policing regimes. A lot of people think it has to do with environmental factors, and specifically lead.
- yourapostasy 6y ago
  > A lot of people think it has to do with environmental factors, and specifically lead. Ironically, we are studying whether lead caused cohesion problems for the Roman Empire [1] [2], so it isn't as if we didn't suspect lead before to cause civilization-scale problems. And while the modern drop in blood lead levels is big in the developed world [3], it is still orders of magnitude greater than pre-industrial levels. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2019/11/29/archaeological-skeletons-from-london-prove-some-romans-were-lead-poisoned/?sh=7d09a64c48cc https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2019/11/29/ar... [2] https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wi... [3] https://www.who.int/docstore/bulletin/pdf/2000/issue9/bu0686.pdf https://www.who.int/docstore/bulletin/pdf/2000/issue9/bu0686...

LatteLazy 6y ago

Also because of the banning of lead in many products...