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I rode my bike all over town as a 8-12 year old in the 80’s and 90’s. My parents would send me to the grocery store and hardware store a mile or two away on my

I rode my bike all over town as a 8-12 year old in the 80’s and 90’s. My parents would send me to the grocery store and hardware store a mile or two away on my bike for random things they forgot during their main shopping trips. But it just goes back to the same question: has the world gotten more dangerous or are we just more aware of dangers that were always there?

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
That's only two options. "Awareness" is important, but so is "assessment". A third option may be that we now regularly over- or under-estimate the risks of things whose actual prevalence hasn't changed much, if at all.
plorkyeran 4y ago
Neither: the world has gotten safer, and for whatever reason that has made us more concerned about the dangers that remain.
- im3w1l 4y ago
  Devils advocate: The reason statistics is down is that people are taking less risk. If you were to live like before the risk would be the same or higher. Don't know if it's actually true, but it's worth examining.
  - causality0 4y ago
    I suspect the reduced number of malicious acts by adults has been more than balanced out by the increased rate of children killing themselves as we cripple their development more and more over time.
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    AFAIK at least the stranger danger phenomenon was always blown up by the media. Sexual abuse of children for example typically happens by people who know the children. It's extremely rare for a stranger to do that.
- hulitu 4y ago
  Safer in which way ? I was playing football on the street as a kid with a lot of kids from my neighborhoud. Now you see rarely kids on the streets because they risk being hit by cars or kidnapped.
  - jhbadger 4y ago
    There is something to said about the risks of being run over especially given the popularity of SUVs which are so high up, but kidnapping is and has always been an incredibly rare crime for at least the past century. People are freaked out these days because of "Amber alerts" but these are nearly always cases of disputed custody between divorced/separated partners taking the kid against the wishes of the other parent, not strangers.
  - ekanes 4y ago
    Safer in a statistical way, not an emotional / subjective / how does the news make us feel kind of way.
    - kbelder 4y ago
      Or in other words, safer in a 'real' way as compared to an 'imaginary' way.
  - gunfighthacksaw 4y ago
    Look at crime rates since the 2000s, or the 90s, or the medieval period. This is the safest period in human history, more so if you live in a high income country.
    - brnaftr361 4y ago
      Well, probably not, no. There's about 286 thousand years of anatomically modern humans running around pre-historically (unless you're meaning very literal history), and numerous illiterate societies which left us mundane archaeological records. Your conclusion is invariably cherry picked. Not to mention the goalposts for the concept of criminal have shifted drastically as has the means to enforce law.
leephillips 4y ago
So did I, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1970s, when the murder rate was 1,000/year. Things have gotten less dangerous but people have gotten more fearful.
- pojzon 4y ago
  Ppl have gotten more fearful because things have gotten MORE dengerous, not less..: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2021/11/3/hld-surge-in-us-homicides-continues-in-2021-why https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2021/11/3/hld-surge-in-us...
  - ZoomerCretin 4y ago
    https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd... The homicide rate in 2021 was almost half of the homicide rate in the early 1990s.
  - leephillips 4y ago
    Even if we stipulate that this article from Quatar state media is accurate, it does not imply that conditions are more dangerous now than in the time frame I was describing. You do understand that, I hope.
emmelaich 4y ago
As the chance of all-cause premature death goes down, (war, famine, vehicle accident, disease), there is more value in reducing the avoidable risks. Like sending your kid to the shop. There's also the fact that we don't need to do that anymore. Very often there's a late (or all) night shop open not too far away. So the urgency is just not there.
Dove 4y ago
The world has gotten physically safer for kids, but socially and politically much more dangerous for adults.
escapedmoose 4y ago
In the summers of my childhood I would leave the house around 10am with a packed lunch and walk alone everywhere until 8pm or so (before cell phone era). As an adult I’ve driven on some of the sidewalkless rural roads I used to walk and thought “it’s an absolute miracle that I didn’t get hit by a car.” I was a dumb kid with no sense of risk, and it’s sheer luck that I got through it unscathed, tbh.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

That's only two options. "Awareness" is important, but so is "assessment". A third option may be that we now regularly over- or under-estimate the risks of things whose actual prevalence hasn't changed much, if at all.

plorkyeran 4y ago

Neither: the world has gotten safer, and for whatever reason that has made us more concerned about the dangers that remain.

im3w1l 4y ago
Devils advocate: The reason statistics is down is that people are taking less risk. If you were to live like before the risk would be the same or higher. Don't know if it's actually true, but it's worth examining.
- causality0 4y ago
  I suspect the reduced number of malicious acts by adults has been more than balanced out by the increased rate of children killing themselves as we cripple their development more and more over time.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  AFAIK at least the stranger danger phenomenon was always blown up by the media. Sexual abuse of children for example typically happens by people who know the children. It's extremely rare for a stranger to do that.
hulitu 4y ago
Safer in which way ? I was playing football on the street as a kid with a lot of kids from my neighborhoud. Now you see rarely kids on the streets because they risk being hit by cars or kidnapped.
- jhbadger 4y ago
  There is something to said about the risks of being run over especially given the popularity of SUVs which are so high up, but kidnapping is and has always been an incredibly rare crime for at least the past century. People are freaked out these days because of "Amber alerts" but these are nearly always cases of disputed custody between divorced/separated partners taking the kid against the wishes of the other parent, not strangers.
- ekanes 4y ago
  Safer in a statistical way, not an emotional / subjective / how does the news make us feel kind of way.
  - kbelder 4y ago
    Or in other words, safer in a 'real' way as compared to an 'imaginary' way.
- gunfighthacksaw 4y ago
  Look at crime rates since the 2000s, or the 90s, or the medieval period. This is the safest period in human history, more so if you live in a high income country.
  - brnaftr361 4y ago
    Well, probably not, no. There's about 286 thousand years of anatomically modern humans running around pre-historically (unless you're meaning very literal history), and numerous illiterate societies which left us mundane archaeological records. Your conclusion is invariably cherry picked. Not to mention the goalposts for the concept of criminal have shifted drastically as has the means to enforce law.

leephillips 4y ago

So did I, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1970s, when the murder rate was 1,000/year. Things have gotten less dangerous but people have gotten more fearful.

pojzon 4y ago
Ppl have gotten more fearful because things have gotten MORE dengerous, not less..: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2021/11/3/hld-surge-in-us-homicides-continues-in-2021-why https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2021/11/3/hld-surge-in-us...
- ZoomerCretin 4y ago
  https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd... The homicide rate in 2021 was almost half of the homicide rate in the early 1990s.
- leephillips 4y ago
  Even if we stipulate that this article from Quatar state media is accurate, it does not imply that conditions are more dangerous now than in the time frame I was describing. You do understand that, I hope.

emmelaich 4y ago

As the chance of all-cause premature death goes down, (war, famine, vehicle accident, disease), there is more value in reducing the avoidable risks. Like sending your kid to the shop. There's also the fact that we don't need to do that anymore. Very often there's a late (or all) night shop open not too far away. So the urgency is just not there.

Dove 4y ago

The world has gotten physically safer for kids, but socially and politically much more dangerous for adults.

escapedmoose 4y ago

In the summers of my childhood I would leave the house around 10am with a packed lunch and walk alone everywhere until 8pm or so (before cell phone era). As an adult I’ve driven on some of the sidewalkless rural roads I used to walk and thought “it’s an absolute miracle that I didn’t get hit by a car.” I was a dumb kid with no sense of risk, and it’s sheer luck that I got through it unscathed, tbh.