No Wonder So Many People are Depressed

[Pies4shaw]

OK, I think he goes well enough on a half-back flank, provided he isn't playing on a super-quick forward. Schaz playing on quick forwards does depress me, though.

Evil is putting Wayne Johnston in the Hall of Fame. Suffering is Sheedy elevated to legend status.

[K]

Well, strange though it is to say, that is actually a good illustration: Clearly, in former times Scharenberg would not have had the chance he currently has, because even one of his foot or knee problems would have been career-ending; many people, swept up by the cult of personality, as well as their own ideological yearnings, seem to believe it's reasonable to take little facts like that and conclude that humanity as a whole is intrinsically less evil now.

[K]

I attach below Pinker's wars graph (from the link on the previous page). [Note: I wish I could find a way to rescale images included in posts, so you don't have to either scroll the browser window left and right or make it full-screen. Does anyone know if this is possible?]



Modifying previous words on the homicides graph, I'd say:
"These do not support a long-term trend. Presumably you're happy to concede the interstate wars rate is not budging. But the civil wars line is basically a few mountain peaks on a horizontal horizon. Sure, the top of the mountain peak is higher than the end of the mountain range to the right. But that's also true of the end of the mountain range to the left."


Now look at Pinker's homicides graph:



Repeat:
"Presumably you're happy to concede the England and Wales rate is not budging. But the US line is basically a few mountain peaks on a horizontal horizon. Sure, the top of the mountain peak is higher than the end of the mountain range to the right. But it looks like that's also true of the missing end of the mountain range to the left."


Question:

If you were forced to guess what the light blue US line looks like as you extend it backwards from 1967 for a few years,
what line would you draw??

[Pies4shaw]

Pinker has a slight mind. Why engage?

[David]

"Presumably you're happy to concede the England and Wales rate is not budging. But the US line is basically a few mountain peaks on a horizontal horizon. Sure, the top of the mountain peak is higher than the end of the mountain range to the right. But it looks like that's also true of the missing end of the mountain range to the left."


Question:

If you were forced to guess what the light blue US line looks like as you extend it backwards from 1967 for a few years,
what line would you draw??

But are you going too far by presuming that such findings would invalidate his point? Let's say that the homicide rate was lower than it is now at some point before the 1960s, reached a peak in the 1970s and '80s and has sharply decreased again since the mid-1990s. Wouldn't that a) be evidence that, at least in that limited time frame, things have been improving substantially and that b) popular notions of crime getting worse by the year are completely false?

I grant that this may undermine Pinker's claims that society has been improving over the course of centuries as opposed to decades, if he is in fact using this graph to make that point. But as neither of us have read the book, we can only draw our own conclusions from the data in front of us.

[K]

Quick question (response later): You read the first book, though. Isn't a version of that graph in there? Okay, make that two questions: In the second book, it should be Fig 12-2, p.171. Is it basically the same? (I'm guessing it's the same graph in all three instances, just with the end-year advanced to 2015 in the last version.)

[David]

[Mugwump]

In an age when medical technology (esp recovering injury trauma) has advanced dramatically, does the hockey stick at the end of each of these graphs not shock you ? I think about the many deaths that jump represents ina peaceful society, and I am deeply depressed by what it signifies and foretells.

Look at GBH and attempted murder and murder, as these help to net out the effects of medical technology. The better angels of our nature are in rebellion. Whether you ascribe this to consumerism, capitalism, to multiculturalism or to liberalism, as your ideological preference wishes, it is truly shocking.

[K]

[David]

[K]

David, do I really need to say in every post that I'm going to get round to everything eventually? I already signalled it implicitly in the first sentence of my previous post (re-read if you don't believe)... i.e. the fact that I was just going to have to pick one thing to talk about at a time. It's a bit weird if every post I make has to reassure everyone that more are to come.

I was going to discuss the relative vs. absolute numbers issue later. The merit or otherwise of each was not what I was noting here. I just noted, as no more than a footnote at the end of my post, that his sentence is wrong, unless someone can show that "body count" means something I don't think it means. That is not a verbal statement. In talks, interviews, etc., all sorts of wrong words can come out. I get that. This is something in a book. If he cannot be bothered getting simple things right in his book, maybe he or his publisher should hire a sufficient number of sufficiently competent editors to do his dirty work for him. I didn't "sift through" his statements. I just noticed glaring errors in stuff I casually read, just as I see many glaring errors in a majority of the graphs I see. And words like "all" or "every" or "never" are splattered many times throughout the books, articles, interviews, etc. Your implicit claim that I'm searching for these errors, which in reality are just popping up in my field of vision like flies at a BBQ, is also in considerable tension with your other claim that I really have no idea what he's said and so cannot judge anything at all.


[A BB question:
How do you include those plots you attached that you so urgently wish me to address? I didn't see them at all initially and wondered what was going on, but eventually discovered that I was not logged in and needed to be to see them. That is actually a convenient feature. I used the "img" bbcode command. I wasn't sure if the "add attachment" option would actually display pictures in the comment.]

[David]

[pietillidie]

Look at GBH and attempted murder and murder, as these help to net out the effects of medical technology. The better angels of our nature are in rebellion.

On violent crime being more indicative than murder due to medical technology, one group at Cardiff Uni focuses on violent crime using A&E data as a proxy. This perhaps addresses your point directly, while also averting many of the reporting/recording issues which bedevil police data.

I haven't read it further than the highlights and discussion, as I'm snowed under at the moment, but here's a snippet from the discussion:

Now in its 18th year, NVSN [National Violence Surveillance Network] has recruited approximately half of all EDs [Emergency Departments] in England and Wales which are able to share anonymised data on violence-related attendances. This England and Wales study, based on a sample of 94 EDs, MIUs [Minor Injury Units] and Walk-in Centres, showed no significant change in overall violence in the 12 months ending 31st December 2017 compared to the previous year. An estimated 190,747 people attended EDs in 2017, up 1% from 2016. Violence affecting males, females and all age groups showed no significant change. This plateau follows a 10% fall in violence reported for 2016 and annual falls since 2008 (when an increase in violence of 8% was reported). The findings of this study are similar to those derived from national crime survey data. These CSEW [Crime Survey for England and Wales] data show an 11% (non-significant) decrease in rates of violence in the year ending September 2017 compared to the previous 12 months. CSEW measures of "violence with injury" and "violence without injury" also showed no significant change.

Long term NVSN and CSEW violence trends have consistently been similar. According to NVSN, 122,286 fewer people attended EDs in England and Wales in 2017 compared to 2010, a reduction of 39%. Although CSEW includes incidents with and without injury, the cumulative effect of year-on-year decreases in violence has meant that CSEW violence fell by 29% since March 31st 2013. Police-recorded violence offences against the person increased (by 20%) over the 12 months ending September 2017.

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/assets ... t-2017.pdf

[Mugwump]

[K]

Quick comment out of order in my train(s) of thought but following the last couple of posts:

Eisner claims that
"For present-day societies, homicide appears quite adequately to reflect variation in overall violence. In the United States and Great Britain, for example, trends in assault, as measured by the National Crime Victimization Survey, are highly correlated with fluctuations in homicide rates (Langan and Farrington 1998). Moreover, cross-national homicide rates are also significantly correlated with levels of robbery, assault, and sexual violence as measured by the International Crime Victimization Survey (Eisner 2002a)."