ShouldaPaidBG wrote:It's impossible to have less of a social safety net than America has.
Not sure how many countries you have been to, but I assure you that is most definitely not true.
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ShouldaPaidBG wrote:It's impossible to have less of a social safety net than America has.
League Circles wrote:jnrjr79 wrote:League Circles wrote:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country
Finland is sorta close to the bottom but not nearly at it. I don't have time to dig to the bottom of these metrics, but I was going on the info at the link.
We have many reasons for crime. Don't discount our lax social culture, our celebration of vice, our near world leading substance abuse problems, and our lack of value of human lives and family structure. I know it's popular in some circles to ignore all countries that aren't tiny European countries, but most of the people in the world that live in societies with lower crime than us live in societies with smaller social safety nets and harsher punishment of crimes. Imagine that.
Your link does not support your assertion.
Ummm, here was the bottom of the list:
111 Brunei 29 445,431
112 Cuba 28.33 11,305,652
113 Romania 28.3 19,031,335
114 Singapore 27.96 5,943,546
115 Finland 27.59 5,554,960
116 Netherlands 27.16 17,211,447
117 South Korea 26.68 51,329,899
118 Denmark 26.22 5,834,950
119 Bahrain 25.64 1,783,983
120 Austria 25.54 9,066,710
121 Czech Republic 25.52 10,736,784
122 Saudi Arabia 25.23 35,844,909
123 Rwanda 24.89 13,600,464
124 Croatia 24.59 4,059,286
125 Iceland 23.75 345,393
126 Estonia 23.71 1,321,910
127 Georgia 23.38 3,968,738
128 Armenia 22.79 2,971,966
129 Slovenia 22.28 2,078,034
130 Japan 22.19 125,584,838
131 Hong Kong 22 7,604,299
132 Switzerland 21.62 8,773,637
133 Oman 20.34 5,323,993
134 Isle of Man 19.25 85,732
135 Taiwan 15.46 23,888,595
136 United Arab Emirates 15.23 10,081,785
137 Qatar 12.13 2,979,915
ShouldaPaidBG wrote:League Circles wrote:ShouldaPaidBG wrote:
Right because that's who you think is doing violence in the city
Good talk.
You only wish your ideological thirst was quenched by such a thoughtless, prejudiced characterization.
What I was getting at is that our closest relatives the chimpanzees exhibit much of the same brutal social violence that we do despite not having the material trappings.
And again, there are countries far poorer than the US with notably lower crime rates. So it can't all be secondary to economics. These are our basic emotions of conflict and aggression and our inability to control them.
It's a dumb argument and a Freudian slip at best.
Far poorer than the US? By what measure? GDP? Lol. Most people in "poorer countries" have more purchasing power than people in America. GDP is inflated by counting rent and interest payments as "production", it has no impact on the quality of non- rich people's lives. Cost of basic needs strips most Americans of their wages.
https://www.worlddata.info/cost-of-living.php
ShouldaPaidBG wrote:It's impossible to have less of a social safety net than America has.
dougthonus wrote:DuckIII wrote:Dominater wrote:Bingo. No amount or lack of amount of police means anything at all if parents aren't raising better kids. If they were we wouldn't need police in the 1st place.
People from awesome families become criminals as well. We’ll always need police. We’re humans.
I mean sure, but I would guess there's a pretty strong correlation between quality of family and crime rates. However, just telling people to be awesome parents doesn't solve the problem. Most people fundamentally want to be awesome parents and struggle to be awesome parents due to other constraints that they can't solve, not due to total apathy.
jnrjr79 wrote:League Circles wrote:dougthonus wrote:
Clearly without subsidy, those single parent households would stop existing and become two parent households. The reason why the couples don't stay together is because of the subsidy.
You make a good point with your sarcasm, but I think there is some underlying truth to the idea that public policy incentivizes (or at least doesn't adequately disincentivize) single parenthood and that there are serious and predictable social consequences to that.
I suppose it's true that if you leave people in an economically insecure place, they'll be less likely to leave relationships upon which they are financially dependent. One of the serious and predictable social consequences to that is an increase in domestic abuse.
DuckIII wrote:dougthonus wrote:DuckIII wrote:
People from awesome families become criminals as well. We’ll always need police. We’re humans.
I mean sure, but I would guess there's a pretty strong correlation between quality of family and crime rates. However, just telling people to be awesome parents doesn't solve the problem. Most people fundamentally want to be awesome parents and struggle to be awesome parents due to other constraints that they can't solve, not due to total apathy.
I’m not the one who said if parents were better no one would need police. Just pointing out the absurdity of such an extreme statement, not because I think good parenting doesn’t matter to crime rates.
Dominater wrote:DuckIII wrote:dougthonus wrote:
I mean sure, but I would guess there's a pretty strong correlation between quality of family and crime rates. However, just telling people to be awesome parents doesn't solve the problem. Most people fundamentally want to be awesome parents and struggle to be awesome parents due to other constraints that they can't solve, not due to total apathy.
I’m not the one who said if parents were better no one would need police. Just pointing out the absurdity of such an extreme statement, not because I think good parenting doesn’t matter to crime rates.
Ok maybe not none! But a hell of a lot less
DuckIII wrote:Dominater wrote:DuckIII wrote:
I’m not the one who said if parents were better no one would need police. Just pointing out the absurdity of such an extreme statement, not because I think good parenting doesn’t matter to crime rates.
Ok maybe not none! But a hell of a lot less
Look, I absolutely agree there is a strong correlation between environment and criminal behavior and that the quality of parenting is in turn a significant percentage of that environmental influence. But bad parents produce amazing children and amazing parents produce awful children. And those aren’t extremely rare exceptions either.
I mean, I was raised in a stable, middle class, Christian, two parent household. My parents had an exemplary relationship, openly loving towards each other and to their kids. Fair discipline, enthusiastic and active support in my interests, you name it. I spent my entire 30s and early 40s as an alcoholic, and the last few years a shockingly chronic one. I can’t even count how many times I drove over the legal limit and I’m ashamed of it still. Thankfully I never injured or killed anyone. I’m sober now over 4 years. But I did that. I did all that. That behavior wasn’t a product of my environment. It was a product of me.
Point being, in our present manner of debate people tend to take shortcuts to extreme opinions or just jump to assumptions. But all of these issues of culture, crime, parenting and socioeconomics are extremely complicated on both and macro and micro level.
We’ll never really get anywhere without both sides of these issues recognizing that each of those sides has some elements to them that are perfectly valid and warrant attention.
DuckIII wrote:jnrjr79 wrote:League Circles wrote:
You make a good point with your sarcasm, but I think there is some underlying truth to the idea that public policy incentivizes (or at least doesn't adequately disincentivize) single parenthood and that there are serious and predictable social consequences to that.
I suppose it's true that if you leave people in an economically insecure place, they'll be less likely to leave relationships upon which they are financially dependent. One of the serious and predictable social consequences to that is an increase in domestic abuse.
This is where I was going to go when I asked the earlier poster to explain himself. My mind swims with the near limitless horrifying consequences of providing strong incentives for people to stay in bad situations just to qualify for desperately needed public assistance.
DuckIII wrote:Dominater wrote:DuckIII wrote:
I’m not the one who said if parents were better no one would need police. Just pointing out the absurdity of such an extreme statement, not because I think good parenting doesn’t matter to crime rates.
Ok maybe not none! But a hell of a lot less
Look, I absolutely agree there is a strong correlation between environment and criminal behavior and that the quality of parenting is in turn a significant percentage of that environmental influence. But bad parents produce amazing children and amazing parents produce awful children. And those aren’t extremely rare exceptions either.
I mean, I was raised in a stable, middle class, Christian, two parent household. My parents had an exemplary relationship, openly loving towards each other and to their kids. Fair discipline, enthusiastic and active support in my interests, you name it. I spent my entire 30s and early 40s as an alcoholic, and the last few years a shockingly chronic one. I can’t even count how many times I drove over the legal limit and I’m ashamed of it still. Thankfully I never injured or killed anyone. I’m sober now over 4 years. But I did that. I did all that. That behavior wasn’t a product of my environment. It was a product of me.
Point being, in our present manner of debate people tend to take shortcuts to extreme opinions or just jump to assumptions. But all of these issues of culture, crime, parenting and socioeconomics are extremely complicated on both and macro and micro level.
We’ll never really get anywhere without both sides of these issues recognizing that each of those sides has some elements to them that are perfectly valid and warrant attention.
League Circles wrote:DuckIII wrote:Dominater wrote:Ok maybe not none! But a hell of a lot less
Look, I absolutely agree there is a strong correlation between environment and criminal behavior and that the quality of parenting is in turn a significant percentage of that environmental influence. But bad parents produce amazing children and amazing parents produce awful children. And those aren’t extremely rare exceptions either.
I mean, I was raised in a stable, middle class, Christian, two parent household. My parents had an exemplary relationship, openly loving towards each other and to their kids. Fair discipline, enthusiastic and active support in my interests, you name it. I spent my entire 30s and early 40s as an alcoholic, and the last few years a shockingly chronic one. I can’t even count how many times I drove over the legal limit and I’m ashamed of it still. Thankfully I never injured or killed anyone. I’m sober now over 4 years. But I did that. I did all that. That behavior wasn’t a product of my environment. It was a product of me.
Point being, in our present manner of debate people tend to take shortcuts to extreme opinions or just jump to assumptions. But all of these issues of culture, crime, parenting and socioeconomics are extremely complicated on both and macro and micro level.
We’ll never really get anywhere without both sides of these issues recognizing that each of those sides has some elements to them that are perfectly valid and warrant attention.
Your ongoing success in sobriety is awesome. We should all strive for that frankly. But I'm sure your behavior was more of a product of your environment than you'd think. It's commendable to take the full blame yourself, but perhaps not accurate. I know for certain that you were exposed to the encouragement and celebration of alcohol use via our mass marketing brainwashing machine and culutral norms. I'd also guess that perhaps your own (probably excellent overall) parents drank in front of you and probably didn't threaten to stop supporting your life efforts as a young person if they found out that you were experimenting with the highly addictive poison that contributes so heavily to crime.
Again, just to be clear, I'm not judging anyone. I think my parents were pretty great overall also, but they drank in front of me, and then I grew up drinking, and made similarly criminal mistakes that you admit to. All I'm trying to highlight with my points in this thread is that strict punishment is, at least in a vacuum, an effective deterrent of crime, even in poor societies with very high levels of inequality. And that everyone can do better to prevent antisocial/criminal behavior among youth by modying behavior easily within their grasp, certainly including me. Fwiw I'm not necessarily advocating for a drastically more punitive criminal law system, as I am at heart a libertarian. But, I am saying that doing so would likely reduce crime significantly. Especially crimes that are the products of (frankly understandable) risk/reward calculations. I reject the implication offered by some that suggests it's fundamentally a systemic problem that needs to be solved by external forces and elevated "support".
jc23 wrote:Goran + Lonzo + Zach = the Dragon Ball Z line up.
League Circles wrote:jnrjr79 wrote:League Circles wrote:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country
Finland is sorta close to the bottom but not nearly at it. I don't have time to dig to the bottom of these metrics, but I was going on the info at the link.
We have many reasons for crime. Don't discount our lax social culture, our celebration of vice, our near world leading substance abuse problems, and our lack of value of human lives and family structure. I know it's popular in some circles to ignore all countries that aren't tiny European countries, but most of the people in the world that live in societies with lower crime than us live in societies with smaller social safety nets and harsher punishment of crimes. Imagine that.
Your link does not support your assertion.
Ummm, here was the bottom of the list:
111 Brunei 29 445,431
112 Cuba 28.33 11,305,652
113 Romania 28.3 19,031,335
114 Singapore 27.96 5,943,546
115 Finland 27.59 5,554,960
116 Netherlands 27.16 17,211,447
117 South Korea 26.68 51,329,899
118 Denmark 26.22 5,834,950
119 Bahrain 25.64 1,783,983
120 Austria 25.54 9,066,710
121 Czech Republic 25.52 10,736,784
122 Saudi Arabia 25.23 35,844,909
123 Rwanda 24.89 13,600,464
124 Croatia 24.59 4,059,286
125 Iceland 23.75 345,393
126 Estonia 23.71 1,321,910
127 Georgia 23.38 3,968,738
128 Armenia 22.79 2,971,966
129 Slovenia 22.28 2,078,034
130 Japan 22.19 125,584,838
131 Hong Kong 22 7,604,299
132 Switzerland 21.62 8,773,637
133 Oman 20.34 5,323,993
134 Isle of Man 19.25 85,732
135 Taiwan 15.46 23,888,595
136 United Arab Emirates 15.23 10,081,785
137 Qatar 12.13 2,979,915
Singapore offers residents substantial grants and awards—up to S$60,000 for first-time buyers—toward the purchase of an HDB apartment. But the crucial piece of the financing puzzle is a policy introduced in 1968, which allows the use of Central Provident Fund savings (the Singaporean social security program) to make down payments and monthly mortgage installments. Today, 80% of HDB homeowners make no cash outlay on their mortgage payments, but instead have the entire amount drawn from their CPF account.
jnrjr79 wrote:League Circles wrote:jnrjr79 wrote:
Your link does not support your assertion.
Ummm, here was the bottom of the list:
111 Brunei 29 445,431
112 Cuba 28.33 11,305,652
113 Romania 28.3 19,031,335
114 Singapore 27.96 5,943,546
115 Finland 27.59 5,554,960
116 Netherlands 27.16 17,211,447
117 South Korea 26.68 51,329,899
118 Denmark 26.22 5,834,950
119 Bahrain 25.64 1,783,983
120 Austria 25.54 9,066,710
121 Czech Republic 25.52 10,736,784
122 Saudi Arabia 25.23 35,844,909
123 Rwanda 24.89 13,600,464
124 Croatia 24.59 4,059,286
125 Iceland 23.75 345,393
126 Estonia 23.71 1,321,910
127 Georgia 23.38 3,968,738
128 Armenia 22.79 2,971,966
129 Slovenia 22.28 2,078,034
130 Japan 22.19 125,584,838
131 Hong Kong 22 7,604,299
132 Switzerland 21.62 8,773,637
133 Oman 20.34 5,323,993
134 Isle of Man 19.25 85,732
135 Taiwan 15.46 23,888,595
136 United Arab Emirates 15.23 10,081,785
137 Qatar 12.13 2,979,915
EDIT: I see you later addressed the social safety net point I was making. And your list here refutes your point, because it includes scores of countries with a bigger social safety net than the U.S.
This is obviously a multivariate issue. It's not as simple as "social safety net = no crime" or vice versa. But your list here contains places that mostly have more of a social safety net than the U.S. I mean, Jesus, your list here contains Qatar, whose citizens enjoy the greatest wealth of any country in the world and whose government provides waaaaaaaaaay more social benefits than we have in the U.S. (along with doing a lot of abhorrent things to migrant workers).
Your subsequent post cites China - China! - as a counter-example. Hey Siri, what is socialism?
Singapore is also on your list. This one jumped out at me just b/c my brother used to live there and I've spent a little time there, so I know more about it than I otherwise might. Singaporeans enjoy the benefit of an insanely generous housing program where the government constructs giant apartment buildings, people rent them, and then they buy the units subsidized in large part by other payments from the government!Singapore offers residents substantial grants and awards—up to S$60,000 for first-time buyers—toward the purchase of an HDB apartment. But the crucial piece of the financing puzzle is a policy introduced in 1968, which allows the use of Central Provident Fund savings (the Singaporean social security program) to make down payments and monthly mortgage installments. Today, 80% of HDB homeowners make no cash outlay on their mortgage payments, but instead have the entire amount drawn from their CPF account.
https://charterforcompassion.org/shareable-community-ideas/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore
So, sure, Singapore punishes crime very harshly. But they also have virtually no housing insecurity due to a social safety net that is vastly more generous than the U.S. How much to attribute to each of those factors - I guess we don't know.
Say whatever you want about the relationship between punishment and crime, but the idea that providing people with more cash transfers, housing, healthcare, education, etc. leads to more crime seems truly crazy.
League Circles wrote:DuckIII wrote:jnrjr79 wrote:
I suppose it's true that if you leave people in an economically insecure place, they'll be less likely to leave relationships upon which they are financially dependent. One of the serious and predictable social consequences to that is an increase in domestic abuse.
This is where I was going to go when I asked the earlier poster to explain himself. My mind swims with the near limitless horrifying consequences of providing strong incentives for people to stay in bad situations just to qualify for desperately needed public assistance.
Consider, though, that frequently there is no "bad situation" being left, but rather is a situation that was never really given a chance. Also consider that inherently, people need less assistance when they team up.
League Circles wrote:jnrjr79 wrote:League Circles wrote:Ummm, here was the bottom of the list:
111 Brunei 29 445,431
112 Cuba 28.33 11,305,652
113 Romania 28.3 19,031,335
114 Singapore 27.96 5,943,546
115 Finland 27.59 5,554,960
116 Netherlands 27.16 17,211,447
117 South Korea 26.68 51,329,899
118 Denmark 26.22 5,834,950
119 Bahrain 25.64 1,783,983
120 Austria 25.54 9,066,710
121 Czech Republic 25.52 10,736,784
122 Saudi Arabia 25.23 35,844,909
123 Rwanda 24.89 13,600,464
124 Croatia 24.59 4,059,286
125 Iceland 23.75 345,393
126 Estonia 23.71 1,321,910
127 Georgia 23.38 3,968,738
128 Armenia 22.79 2,971,966
129 Slovenia 22.28 2,078,034
130 Japan 22.19 125,584,838
131 Hong Kong 22 7,604,299
132 Switzerland 21.62 8,773,637
133 Oman 20.34 5,323,993
134 Isle of Man 19.25 85,732
135 Taiwan 15.46 23,888,595
136 United Arab Emirates 15.23 10,081,785
137 Qatar 12.13 2,979,915
EDIT: I see you later addressed the social safety net point I was making. And your list here refutes your point, because it includes scores of countries with a bigger social safety net than the U.S.
This is obviously a multivariate issue. It's not as simple as "social safety net = no crime" or vice versa. But your list here contains places that mostly have more of a social safety net than the U.S. I mean, Jesus, your list here contains Qatar, whose citizens enjoy the greatest wealth of any country in the world and whose government provides waaaaaaaaaay more social benefits than we have in the U.S. (along with doing a lot of abhorrent things to migrant workers).
Your subsequent post cites China - China! - as a counter-example. Hey Siri, what is socialism?
Singapore is also on your list. This one jumped out at me just b/c my brother used to live there and I've spent a little time there, so I know more about it than I otherwise might. Singaporeans enjoy the benefit of an insanely generous housing program where the government constructs giant apartment buildings, people rent them, and then they buy the units subsidized in large part by other payments from the government!Singapore offers residents substantial grants and awards—up to S$60,000 for first-time buyers—toward the purchase of an HDB apartment. But the crucial piece of the financing puzzle is a policy introduced in 1968, which allows the use of Central Provident Fund savings (the Singaporean social security program) to make down payments and monthly mortgage installments. Today, 80% of HDB homeowners make no cash outlay on their mortgage payments, but instead have the entire amount drawn from their CPF account.
https://charterforcompassion.org/shareable-community-ideas/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore
So, sure, Singapore punishes crime very harshly. But they also have virtually no housing insecurity due to a social safety net that is vastly more generous than the U.S. How much to attribute to each of those factors - I guess we don't know.
Say whatever you want about the relationship between punishment and crime, but the idea that providing people with more cash transfers, housing, healthcare, education, etc. leads to more crime seems truly crazy.
There are 2 distinct points I was making:
One was that most of the lowest crime rate countries are wealthy AND strict on crime (at least I think). Look at the bottom of that list and let me know if countries like Qatar, UAE, Taiwan, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Japan, Saudi etc are in fact not strict on crime, and, as I mentioned, social strictness, so to speak.
The other, distinct, point, was that most of the people in the world who live in societies with lower crime rates than the US live in countries that are poorer, with a lower social safety net, and are harsher on crime than the US. That was my follow up list of countries including China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia etc. Just because a country is "socialist" or communist doesn't at all prove that they have a higher social safety net than us, though I can somewhat understand if you disagree, which is why I specified it in terms of standard of living. For example, in China perhaps you get "universal health care" or whatever, but your standard of living dictated by public policy overall is wildly lower than in the US.
This second point isn't that "most countries with lower crime index than the US are harsher on crime and have lower safety nets." I would concede that you may be correct that that would be false. I appropriately weighed the claim to factor in population. Tiny countries like Finland, Singapore etc don't belong in the same breath as massive countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Phillipines etc, let alone China and India.
And I never claimed the bolded part.
AshyLarrysDiaper wrote:League Circles wrote:DuckIII wrote:
This is where I was going to go when I asked the earlier poster to explain himself. My mind swims with the near limitless horrifying consequences of providing strong incentives for people to stay in bad situations just to qualify for desperately needed public assistance.
Consider, though, that frequently there is no "bad situation" being left, but rather is a situation that was never really given a chance. Also consider that inherently, people need less assistance when they team up.
Incentivizing people to remain in marriages with the benefits they need to survive would literally get women killed. It’s an awful idea for a host of reasons, but that’s close to the top of the list.
League Circles wrote:AshyLarrysDiaper wrote:League Circles wrote:Consider, though, that frequently there is no "bad situation" being left, but rather is a situation that was never really given a chance. Also consider that inherently, people need less assistance when they team up.
Incentivizing people to remain in marriages with the benefits they need to survive would literally get women killed. It’s an awful idea for a host of reasons, but that’s close to the top of the list.
Again, many or most single parent familes were never 2 parent families to begin with, and didn't fail to become 2 parent families due to violence.
It's the public policy removal of the fundamental need to pool resources and contributions that lets so many people believe that there is no necessity in raising a child together, and therefore choose to do so. Historically and biologically, that's anti-science IMO. Most people throughout history have lived in great fear of the natural world, which can gyide behavior in a virtuous way. We're trying to remove that fear via public policy, but ignoring or denying the consequences IMO.