From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Tue Dec 25 2001 - 22:37:23 MST
From: "Kai Becker" <kmb@kai-m-becker.de>
> From the data in http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/07/ch6.pdf I would
> say, that the USA are a rather violent country, compared to other western
> countries as well as Japan.
I'd say it really doesn't serve any useful purpose to characterize the US as
"rather violent."
The hundreds of millions of people who live in America probably have much more
diverse concerns than any analysis of violent behavior could ever reveal.
> I can't find any correlation between population, density of population and
> the crime statistics.
Perhaps the following will help you to discover the relationship between
population density (ie, overpopulation) and crime rates.
Population and Social Stresses
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/7/98.07.03.x.html#d
"The Tragedy of the Commons," written by Garrett Hardin 20 years ago serves as
a simple, yet excellent illustration which explains some of the social
stresses due to competition evident today. Competition due to overcrowding
exacerbates conflict, in a neighborhood, state country or region. One person's
gain is another's loss. Given one pie--be it finite natural resources or
available full-time jobs--adding additional consumers must be at the expense
of others.
> The law systems are almost similar, except the gun
> laws. But since cities like Washington, DC and Chicago are comparable to
> London, Frankfurt and Sydney, it's unclear to me why Washington has a
> homicide rate 29 times higher than London and Chicago 8.5 time higher than
> Berlin.
Yes, it's probably unclear to the mayors of Washington, DC, and Chicago why
their cities have high homicide rates. So, it's no surprise that this should
be unclear to the rest of us as well. If there were a proven method of
eliminating crime and violence without infringing civil liberties, we wouldn't
need to discuss this.
--- --- --- --- ---
Useless hypotheses, etc.:
consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, cryonics, individual
uniqueness, ego, human values, scientific relinquishment, malevolent AI,
non-sensory experience, SETI
We move into a better future in proportion as science displaces superstition.
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