Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

The thing is, all my evidencee, ie., my memory, says that yours is the much lower chance.

Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

Back to the general topic of violence, well I don't think it's much more, if at all, more prevalent today than it was 200 or 1000 years ago. After all, back a century ago, people lived in much smaller population centers, and mass media wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is today. So you might not have even heard of a school shooting a couple thousand miles away, or a murder on the other side of the country. With the media as it is today, and the population of the world as large as it is, it's inevitable that you'll hear about more crime than your grandfather did. However, it doesn't mean crime is more prevalent, per capita.

Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

Bad Narf, going off-topic.

Someone has to have done research into crime statistics.

Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

Well, if you're willing to take my word for it... I read an article a while back about the 'Myth of the Greatest Generation', which basically compared the 1940s generation to the current (2000ish) generation. The result? Murduer, suicide, teenage pregnancy, spousal abuse and all these modern 'epidemics' were higher in the 40s than they are now.

So nyah.

Edit: The article was in one of a wonderful series of books entitled You Are Being Lied To, Everything You Know Is Wrong, and Abuse Your Illusions. I'm pretty sure it was in Everything You Know Is Wrong, but then, I could be wrong.

Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

Percentage wise, we probably haven't caught up to it yet! Given enough time and lack of interest on everyones part, we could catch up with the old numbers quickly. We must remain vigilant!

Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

Violence against women, and more importantly violence against women being commercially exploited...

(shrug)

We live in a society in decline, and these are typical symptoms of decadence. I'd say our present situation is analogous to early-Imperial Roman empire, say late in the reign of Tiberius.

If you think things are bad now, check back in 20 years. I expect they'll get a lot worse before they get any better.

Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

Every generation has said that the golden days were behind them, that we are in decline... There is always pining for the gold old days; claims that society of today is at an all time low; morality is waning; etc.

Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

People always tend to see the past through eyes that aren't quite objective. We tend to gloss over the bad and focus on the good. The result? Doom and gloom predictions, "oh man, society's going down the crapper, things are just gonna get worse, what are we gonna do?".

Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

That would be subscribing to the Chaos Theory then, eh? All things naturally tend towards disorder? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I would agree with them actually.

Re: OT: Insightful (re: Amish shooting)
 

Nothing to do with chaos.

Just overinterpretation of what people overhear about entropy.