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I don't think that either the US or Germany is actually representative of those two alternatives I mentioned. A "law and order society" that uses the police fo

I don't think that either the US or Germany is actually representative of those two alternatives I mentioned. A "law and order society" that uses the police for law enforcement is a descriptor of both the US and Germany. It's a cool statistic, but it only says that whatever the US is doing must be worse than whatever Germany is doing. You would also have to say that the two countries are sufficiently representative of law and order vs. extrajudicial, which I don't think is true.

btilly 6y ago
The fact that both countries have police and courts does not mean that their attitudes about the use of violence in self-defense is at all comparable. As an example, over 40% of Americans have a gun in the house, and the most common reason given is self-defense. We literally have more civilian owned guns than civilians. Meanwhile in Germany it is estimated there are 5x as many people as civilian owned guns, and over 60% of the population wishes to increase restrictions on gun ownership. The idea that you should want to own a gun to defend your home or person is nowhere in the national discourse. When it comes to rape and violent crimes, Germany is more of the rule than the exception. Europe is generally at similar rates to Germany. The USA is an outlier. Within the USA, areas with more of a historical honor culture (for example the South), have higher murder rates than areas without (like New England). Internationally, all countries with murder rates above the USA's also have a belief that it is your individual responsibility to defend yourself. For a source of all of this, and more, read Enlightenment Now. Seriously. There is a very strong correlation, which is likely causative, behind violent crime rates and a belief that you are responsible for protecting yourself and your loved ones from a violent world.
- generalizations 6y ago
  The stats are nice, but as I said before, you have to tie them much more closely to the actual theories being discussed. You're trying to equate 'extrajudicial death penalties' (and in context, they were revenge-based, not defensive) with gun ownership and self-defense. You're then equating 'Germans don't really think about using guns for self-defense' with 'a law and order society'. And then you're trying to say that we can make informed comments about "extrajudicial death penalty vs. law and order society" by looking at "more gun ownership in the US vs. less gun ownership in Germany". It just doesn't compute. The comparison isn't there. The stats don't fit the argument.
  - btilly 6y ago
    Why don't you read the book-length version? You're right that I'm stating things that are correlated without showing a good argument for causation. But the book that I keep recommending, which (incidentally) is on record as Bill Gates' favorite book, shows multiple lines of evidence including lines that indicate causation. But if you don't want to be convinced, I won't bother trying to convince you. Because any one line of evidence is easily dismissed and life is too short for me to pursue this topic in full depth.
    - generalizations 6y ago
      Life is too short to read every book someone recommends to me. If you want to prove your point, go ahead and prove it. But shunting the work of making your point off to me, by telling me to go read an entire book just to be convinced by you, isn't super persuasive. I already know what I think - you want to change my mind, then change my mind. I'm listening, but I'm not credulous. So far, my original interest in the book from your earlier mention has been reduced by your less-than-stellar use of statistics in making your point. If that's all the book offers, my time is better spent elsewhere.
      - btilly 6y ago
        If that was all that the book offered, then it wouldn't be Bill Gates' favorite book. You can read https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/enlightenment-now https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/enlightenment-now for his description of what is good about the book. As for this topic, let me add some more. In interviews with convicted murderers, the most common reason for murder is that they felt wronged and that there was no other form of justice available to them. This is direct evidence that a desire for extrajudicial justice is the top cause of murder. Murder is not evenly distributed. It is concentrated in places and communities where people feel that they do not have access to the justice system. In the USA that means concentrated in minorities, inner cities, and rural areas. Unsurprisingly, murders are concentrated in the same groups. This suggests that improving trust in the police should reduce crime. In fact that is the idea behind community policing, and there is evidence suggesting that it really works. Let's focus on minorities for a second. From https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-we-know-about-race-and-policing-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-w... you can verify that over 80% of blacks believe that the police system is unfair to them. Over 60% of whites agree with that assessment. We had a bunch of protests last year over this issue. Independent research has verified that the blacks are basically correct. This has lead to consequences including many successful lawsuits that put various police departments under outside control for particularly egregious behavior. We should therefore predict that blacks should commit murder much more often than whites. And indeed, US blacks commit murder at about 6x the rate that US whites do. Let's contrast to Germany. Germany does not have a large disenfranchised minority equivalent to US blacks. In fact you can see in https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/findings/ESS5_toplines_issue_1_trust_in_justice.pdf https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/findings/ESS5_topl... that an absolute majority of every socioeconomic group in Germany believe that poor people there are treated fairly by the justice system. Which means that the top reason given by murderers for murder is much less likely to happen in Germany. So you see, it isn't as simple as saying that both the USA and Germany are law and order systems. A significant minority of Americans believe that they don't have access to law and order. And that portion commits most of our murders. Therefore while we have a justice system and it works pretty well for you and me, inequitable access to justice is still a problem in the USA.

btilly 6y ago

The fact that both countries have police and courts does not mean that their attitudes about the use of violence in self-defense is at all comparable. As an example, over 40% of Americans have a gun in the house, and the most common reason given is self-defense. We literally have more civilian owned guns than civilians. Meanwhile in Germany it is estimated there are 5x as many people as civilian owned guns, and over 60% of the population wishes to increase restrictions on gun ownership. The idea that you should want to own a gun to defend your home or person is nowhere in the national discourse. When it comes to rape and violent crimes, Germany is more of the rule than the exception. Europe is generally at similar rates to Germany. The USA is an outlier. Within the USA, areas with more of a historical honor culture (for example the South), have higher murder rates than areas without (like New England). Internationally, all countries with murder rates above the USA's also have a belief that it is your individual responsibility to defend yourself. For a source of all of this, and more, read Enlightenment Now. Seriously. There is a very strong correlation, which is likely causative, behind violent crime rates and a belief that you are responsible for protecting yourself and your loved ones from a violent world.

generalizations 6y ago
The stats are nice, but as I said before, you have to tie them much more closely to the actual theories being discussed. You're trying to equate 'extrajudicial death penalties' (and in context, they were revenge-based, not defensive) with gun ownership and self-defense. You're then equating 'Germans don't really think about using guns for self-defense' with 'a law and order society'. And then you're trying to say that we can make informed comments about "extrajudicial death penalty vs. law and order society" by looking at "more gun ownership in the US vs. less gun ownership in Germany". It just doesn't compute. The comparison isn't there. The stats don't fit the argument.
- btilly 6y ago
  Why don't you read the book-length version? You're right that I'm stating things that are correlated without showing a good argument for causation. But the book that I keep recommending, which (incidentally) is on record as Bill Gates' favorite book, shows multiple lines of evidence including lines that indicate causation. But if you don't want to be convinced, I won't bother trying to convince you. Because any one line of evidence is easily dismissed and life is too short for me to pursue this topic in full depth.
  - generalizations 6y ago
    Life is too short to read every book someone recommends to me. If you want to prove your point, go ahead and prove it. But shunting the work of making your point off to me, by telling me to go read an entire book just to be convinced by you, isn't super persuasive. I already know what I think - you want to change my mind, then change my mind. I'm listening, but I'm not credulous. So far, my original interest in the book from your earlier mention has been reduced by your less-than-stellar use of statistics in making your point. If that's all the book offers, my time is better spent elsewhere.
    - btilly 6y ago
      If that was all that the book offered, then it wouldn't be Bill Gates' favorite book. You can read https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/enlightenment-now https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/enlightenment-now for his description of what is good about the book. As for this topic, let me add some more. In interviews with convicted murderers, the most common reason for murder is that they felt wronged and that there was no other form of justice available to them. This is direct evidence that a desire for extrajudicial justice is the top cause of murder. Murder is not evenly distributed. It is concentrated in places and communities where people feel that they do not have access to the justice system. In the USA that means concentrated in minorities, inner cities, and rural areas. Unsurprisingly, murders are concentrated in the same groups. This suggests that improving trust in the police should reduce crime. In fact that is the idea behind community policing, and there is evidence suggesting that it really works. Let's focus on minorities for a second. From https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-we-know-about-race-and-policing-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-w... you can verify that over 80% of blacks believe that the police system is unfair to them. Over 60% of whites agree with that assessment. We had a bunch of protests last year over this issue. Independent research has verified that the blacks are basically correct. This has lead to consequences including many successful lawsuits that put various police departments under outside control for particularly egregious behavior. We should therefore predict that blacks should commit murder much more often than whites. And indeed, US blacks commit murder at about 6x the rate that US whites do. Let's contrast to Germany. Germany does not have a large disenfranchised minority equivalent to US blacks. In fact you can see in https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/findings/ESS5_toplines_issue_1_trust_in_justice.pdf https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/findings/ESS5_topl... that an absolute majority of every socioeconomic group in Germany believe that poor people there are treated fairly by the justice system. Which means that the top reason given by murderers for murder is much less likely to happen in Germany. So you see, it isn't as simple as saying that both the USA and Germany are law and order systems. A significant minority of Americans believe that they don't have access to law and order. And that portion commits most of our murders. Therefore while we have a justice system and it works pretty well for you and me, inequitable access to justice is still a problem in the USA.