Posts with Comments by moldbug
We are all Protestants now….
Haloscan apparently didn't like my link for Puritan Origins of American Patriotism... or the rest of the comment. Ah, Haloscan.
Yup.
(For a good four-century history of American Protestantism, I highly recommend Gordon McKenna's
(For a good four-century history of American Protestantism, I highly recommend Gordon McKenna's
Wars we know
there should be a page-down button on your computer. i use it copiously to deal with this problem ;-)
Yet strangely enough, you're capable of reading 1000-page books. At least if you already agree with them! Ah, the eternal sunshine of the open mind.
Now, if you'd already answered these points, you'd have a case. Emerson has a case - he finds my perspective morally repugnant. He's entitled. He also doesn't call himself "David Hume." Did Hume have a page-down button?
Yet strangely enough, you're capable of reading 1000-page books. At least if you already agree with them! Ah, the eternal sunshine of the open mind.
Now, if you'd already answered these points, you'd have a case. Emerson has a case - he finds my perspective morally repugnant. He's entitled. He also doesn't call himself "David Hume." Did Hume have a page-down button?
razib,
I've actually read the Pringle book. I found it, um, fluffy. Not that I'm a sexist or anything, but writers named "Heather" may just not be a good fit for Hitler Studies.
There's certainly an interesting parallel to be drawn between the Ahnenerbe and the Boasians - say, Margaret Mead. Ie: here we have two schools of what might be called result-oriented anthropology. Both producing a mix of genuine scholarship and absurd balderdash. The progressives go out looking for the noble savage; the Nazis go out looking for the Aryan Inca.
By the standards of the 19th century, both schools seem equally sinister and mendacious. But in the 21st, only one still exists and retains political relevance. It ain't Herman Wirth's. So which should we worry more about?
I've actually read the Pringle book. I found it, um, fluffy. Not that I'm a sexist or anything, but writers named "Heather" may just not be a good fit for Hitler Studies.
There's certainly an interesting parallel to be drawn between the Ahnenerbe and the Boasians - say, Margaret Mead. Ie: here we have two schools of what might be called result-oriented anthropology. Both producing a mix of genuine scholarship and absurd balderdash. The progressives go out looking for the noble savage; the Nazis go out looking for the Aryan Inca.
By the standards of the 19th century, both schools seem equally sinister and mendacious. But in the 21st, only one still exists and retains political relevance. It ain't Herman Wirth's. So which should we worry more about?
Charles Lindbergh II (the aviator) was an important opponent of WWII, but there was little continuity between the two. The aviator, to all evidence, was a sort of elitist mystic and totally hated his father's populist/progressive politics. The Congressman hated bankers, and the aviator married the daughter of a J. P. Morgan partner.
Lindbergh (the aviator), like most WWII opponents, was sui generis - the internationalists came in swarms, the isolationists were one-offs. (As was his wife - your average J.P. Morgan partner was an Anglophile to the marrow.) In other words, Lindbergh and Morrow can be understood only as individuals, not party hacks. They had no party, other than sanity.
It is a little rich to call Lindbergh, an extremely practical man, a "mystic" in the age of Henry Wallace. (Just think - if Harry Truman had turned down the VP slot in '44, America wouldn't have had to wait another 54 years for its first true "progressive" president.)
Lindbergh (the aviator), like most WWII opponents, was sui generis - the internationalists came in swarms, the isolationists were one-offs. (As was his wife - your average J.P. Morgan partner was an Anglophile to the marrow.) In other words, Lindbergh and Morrow can be understood only as individuals, not party hacks. They had no party, other than sanity.
It is a little rich to call Lindbergh, an extremely practical man, a "mystic" in the age of Henry Wallace. (Just think - if Harry Truman had turned down the VP slot in '44, America wouldn't have had to wait another 54 years for its first true "progressive" president.)
I don't think that WWI and WWII should be lumped. They were events of entirely different kinds, with players of entirely different kinds. However, I also think that WWI, though less horrible than WWII, was the real turning point of history, and that WWII was a late effect, or the spasms of a system unhinged by WWI.
This is why I like to read John Emerson - while marred by his weakness for democratic dogma and his refusal to consider other perspectives, his intuitive historical judgment tends to be excellent.
WWI may have been inevitable, and its outcomes unforeseeable, but in retrospect you still have to ask what it was that made such civilized, rational people behave with such useless and barbarous stupidity.
There's an obvious answer: democracy. Hitler and Stalin were unimaginable in the 19th century. What was new in the 20th? Democracy.
If you add a mysterious chemical to a fishtank and the fish start dying, it's possible that it's just a coincidence and the fish are dying of something else. On the other hand, it's possible that the chemical is fish poison. Occam would certainly want you to consider the possibility.
Both Hitler and Stalin are easily seen as epiphenomena of democracy, in that their regimes (unlike that of, say, Frederick the Great) were single-party propaganda states existentially dependent on mass indoctrination. In other words, they were sovereign cults. It is rather difficult to organize a cult around sanity.
The democratic roots of Stalin are easy to see because Stalin was a progressive, just like FDR and Barack Obama. It is much harder to see the democratic roots of Hitler, because progressive democracy has scoured everything anything like Hitler from the earth - the closest thing left is Fox News, which is not a lot like Hitler. (But you'll note that Europe has no Fox News. There is a reason for this.)
The historian, however, will note that quite a lot of proto-Nazi phenomena are visible in Wilhelmine Germany. This is consistent with the standard democratic interpretation of history, but that doesn't make it untrue. The reason: the Kaiser's regime was actually a democracy - not that the Kaiser was elected, but nor is our civil service or Supreme Court. The Reichstag was, and the Reichstag mattered.
As a result, the leaders of the "Second Reich" had to play to the crowd, just as Hitler did. Despite despising the spirit of democracy, they could exist only in the context of the mechanism. As in many other countries, the attempt by anti-democratic forces to play the game of politics resulted in the well-known phenomenon of jingoism. No democracy - no jingoism. Hence: no democracy, no "useless and barbarous stupidity."
Moreover, if we ask where this phenomenon of barbarous nationalism came from in the first place
More....
This is why I like to read John Emerson - while marred by his weakness for democratic dogma and his refusal to consider other perspectives, his intuitive historical judgment tends to be excellent.
WWI may have been inevitable, and its outcomes unforeseeable, but in retrospect you still have to ask what it was that made such civilized, rational people behave with such useless and barbarous stupidity.
There's an obvious answer: democracy. Hitler and Stalin were unimaginable in the 19th century. What was new in the 20th? Democracy.
If you add a mysterious chemical to a fishtank and the fish start dying, it's possible that it's just a coincidence and the fish are dying of something else. On the other hand, it's possible that the chemical is fish poison. Occam would certainly want you to consider the possibility.
Both Hitler and Stalin are easily seen as epiphenomena of democracy, in that their regimes (unlike that of, say, Frederick the Great) were single-party propaganda states existentially dependent on mass indoctrination. In other words, they were sovereign cults. It is rather difficult to organize a cult around sanity.
The democratic roots of Stalin are easy to see because Stalin was a progressive, just like FDR and Barack Obama. It is much harder to see the democratic roots of Hitler, because progressive democracy has scoured everything anything like Hitler from the earth - the closest thing left is Fox News, which is not a lot like Hitler. (But you'll note that Europe has no Fox News. There is a reason for this.)
The historian, however, will note that quite a lot of proto-Nazi phenomena are visible in Wilhelmine Germany. This is consistent with the standard democratic interpretation of history, but that doesn't make it untrue. The reason: the Kaiser's regime was actually a democracy - not that the Kaiser was elected, but nor is our civil service or Supreme Court. The Reichstag was, and the Reichstag mattered.
As a result, the leaders of the "Second Reich" had to play to the crowd, just as Hitler did. Despite despising the spirit of democracy, they could exist only in the context of the mechanism. As in many other countries, the attempt by anti-democratic forces to play the game of politics resulted in the well-known phenomenon of jingoism. No democracy - no jingoism. Hence: no democracy, no "useless and barbarous stupidity."
Moreover, if we ask where this phenomenon of barbarous nationalism came from in the first place
More....
A primary source missing from my above list is Freda Utley's High Cost of Vengeance (1946), which is online.
I consider Utley extremely reliable. She provides a good illustration of the psychotic Morgenthau Plan mentality, which was not quite as crazy as Hitler's plans for the East - but surely in the same general department. (Note that the Morgenthau Plan probably was a product of Morgenthau's chief aide, KGB agent Harry Dexter White - so its ruthlessness is not terribly surprising.)
There is no doubt that artificial famine was an important component of Allied policy after WWII, just as after WWI. Here is an unpublished online memoir, by an American officer, that contains a good description of the "Morgenthau boys" and their activities. It includes a good sample of how the OWI propaganda crowd, of which Shirer was a part, and which is ancestral to our own dear MSM, behaved. The scruples of Allied war journalism left Goebbels little to brag about.
I consider Utley extremely reliable. She provides a good illustration of the psychotic Morgenthau Plan mentality, which was not quite as crazy as Hitler's plans for the East - but surely in the same general department. (Note that the Morgenthau Plan probably was a product of Morgenthau's chief aide, KGB agent Harry Dexter White - so its ruthlessness is not terribly surprising.)
There is no doubt that artificial famine was an important component of Allied policy after WWII, just as after WWI. Here is an unpublished online memoir, by an American officer, that contains a good description of the "Morgenthau boys" and their activities. It includes a good sample of how the OWI propaganda crowd, of which Shirer was a part, and which is ancestral to our own dear MSM, behaved. The scruples of Allied war journalism left Goebbels little to brag about.
If you haven't read William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Thrid Reich, I recommend that, too. He has a chapter called, "The New Order", that not only discusses the Holocaust, but also talks about what the Nazis were planning to do after they won the war. Basically, they planned to enslave and sterilize the rest of humanity. It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how bad one's opinion of the Nazis is, they were actually worse.
Shirer is a better writer than most American/British journalists of the period, but still extremely untrustworthy. I would avoid this sort of material until you have acquired a very strong independent understanding of the period.
Actual evidence of Nazi plans for world domination, as opposed to domination of Central and Eastern Europe, is almost nonexistent. Hitler's geopolitical strategy was to become a European land-power equivalent of the British Empire, which he admired and adored for obvious reasons. As for America, he didn't give a fsck about it. (If you want to meet the real Hitler, read his Table Talk - uncensored and not intended for publication.)
Of course, once the whole world went to war with Nazi Germany, it probably was a question of whether America and Russia or Germany and Japan would rule the world - or, at least, Eurasia and Africa. (Fascination with the Nazi menace to South America is very typical of America propaganda of the period.)
But it was Britain and France who chose war with Germany, not vice versa; and even this is best attributed to Roosevelt's encouragement behind the scenes. As it was the British establishment came very close to accepting Hitler's project, which would have stripped Britain of the Continental supervision it had enjoyed since 1815 - but left it with, um, that Empire thing. Which they considered rather valuable at the time.
I have not read Shirer in ages and I forget what "evidence" he cites, but I imagine it's either a British Security Coordination forgery or some stray remark by a nut like Rosenberg or Streicher. (Who even Hitler considered nuts.)
extermination wasn't the stick, it was the whole point of the game.
No - stealing land was the whole point of the game. What Hitler wanted was a Judenrein Eastern Europe. He wouldn't have minded the Slavs as helots, but he could have done without them as well. His concern was the interests of Germans and Germany, without regard to others - precisely as advertised.
If FDR in 1939 had told Hitler that he would take all the Jews that Germany could cram into boats, there would be a whole lot more Jews in the world today. Instead, FDR did the exact opposite. Whatever the Allied side of WWII was, it was most certainly not a war to save the Jews - either in intent, or in effect.
After America formally entered
More....
Shirer is a better writer than most American/British journalists of the period, but still extremely untrustworthy. I would avoid this sort of material until you have acquired a very strong independent understanding of the period.
Actual evidence of Nazi plans for world domination, as opposed to domination of Central and Eastern Europe, is almost nonexistent. Hitler's geopolitical strategy was to become a European land-power equivalent of the British Empire, which he admired and adored for obvious reasons. As for America, he didn't give a fsck about it. (If you want to meet the real Hitler, read his Table Talk - uncensored and not intended for publication.)
Of course, once the whole world went to war with Nazi Germany, it probably was a question of whether America and Russia or Germany and Japan would rule the world - or, at least, Eurasia and Africa. (Fascination with the Nazi menace to South America is very typical of America propaganda of the period.)
But it was Britain and France who chose war with Germany, not vice versa; and even this is best attributed to Roosevelt's encouragement behind the scenes. As it was the British establishment came very close to accepting Hitler's project, which would have stripped Britain of the Continental supervision it had enjoyed since 1815 - but left it with, um, that Empire thing. Which they considered rather valuable at the time.
I have not read Shirer in ages and I forget what "evidence" he cites, but I imagine it's either a British Security Coordination forgery or some stray remark by a nut like Rosenberg or Streicher. (Who even Hitler considered nuts.)
extermination wasn't the stick, it was the whole point of the game.
No - stealing land was the whole point of the game. What Hitler wanted was a Judenrein Eastern Europe. He wouldn't have minded the Slavs as helots, but he could have done without them as well. His concern was the interests of Germans and Germany, without regard to others - precisely as advertised.
If FDR in 1939 had told Hitler that he would take all the Jews that Germany could cram into boats, there would be a whole lot more Jews in the world today. Instead, FDR did the exact opposite. Whatever the Allied side of WWII was, it was most certainly not a war to save the Jews - either in intent, or in effect.
After America formally entered
More....
The trouble, razib, is that you were born with a hardball bat and you're using it to play softball. Of course, if you read the standard histories of WWII, you're not going to learn anything surprising! Unless you're ignorant or stupid, which you're not.
If you want surprising, you need to go off road. In my experience a good rule of thumb is: the older the work, the more likely it is to surprise you. Old secondary sources are more interesting than current secondary sources. Primary sources are (far) more interesting than either.
Of course, you can't trust any of them. But can you trust your standard histories? Except in a few unusual cases (eg, Pearl Harbor crypto intercepts), all legitimate differences are of interpretation, not fact. As usual in history. If all you've seen is the standard interpretation, it may not be easy to understand how anyone could disagree.
Here are some authors I've found helpful in coming to my own conclusions on the era:
Generals' memoirs: Wedemeyer (US); Slim (Britain); Manstein, Kesselring (Germany).
Diaries: Victor Klemperer (Germany) - see also his Language of the Third Reich; Harold Nicolson (Britain); Francis Neilson (Britain/US - very hard to find).
Nazism: Ernst von Salomon, Ernst Juenger (German nationalists, not Nazis); Otto Skorzeny, Leon Degrelle (good token Nazis).
Stalinism: Vasily Grossman (Life and Fate, semiautobiographical novel).
Democratism: Walter Lippmann (US Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic, 1943; Carlton Hayes (Wartime Mission to Spain, 1945).
Historians (old, revisionist): Charles Tansill, Charles Beard, Frederic Sanborn.
Historians (new, revisionist): Thomas Mahl, Alfred de Zayas, George Victor.
If you want surprising, you need to go off road. In my experience a good rule of thumb is: the older the work, the more likely it is to surprise you. Old secondary sources are more interesting than current secondary sources. Primary sources are (far) more interesting than either.
Of course, you can't trust any of them. But can you trust your standard histories? Except in a few unusual cases (eg, Pearl Harbor crypto intercepts), all legitimate differences are of interpretation, not fact. As usual in history. If all you've seen is the standard interpretation, it may not be easy to understand how anyone could disagree.
Here are some authors I've found helpful in coming to my own conclusions on the era:
Generals' memoirs: Wedemeyer (US); Slim (Britain); Manstein, Kesselring (Germany).
Diaries: Victor Klemperer (Germany) - see also his Language of the Third Reich; Harold Nicolson (Britain); Francis Neilson (Britain/US - very hard to find).
Nazism: Ernst von Salomon, Ernst Juenger (German nationalists, not Nazis); Otto Skorzeny, Leon Degrelle (good token Nazis).
Stalinism: Vasily Grossman (Life and Fate, semiautobiographical novel).
Democratism: Walter Lippmann (US Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic, 1943; Carlton Hayes (Wartime Mission to Spain, 1945).
Historians (old, revisionist): Charles Tansill, Charles Beard, Frederic Sanborn.
Historians (new, revisionist): Thomas Mahl, Alfred de Zayas, George Victor.
Before the apple
Central banking! Now there's a social-science success story for ya. Tell me, Garett, does the phrase Great Moderation mean anything to you? Popper would be so proud.
After central banking, the rest of 20th-century social science smells like a rose. Public housing? "I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived?" Bring it on. The intellectual history of this "breakthrough" indeed remains to be written. Perhaps in the same book with phlogiston, N-rays and "intelligent design."
After central banking, the rest of 20th-century social science smells like a rose. Public housing? "I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived?" Bring it on. The intellectual history of this "breakthrough" indeed remains to be written. Perhaps in the same book with phlogiston, N-rays and "intelligent design."
Um, computation preceded computers, you know. In fact, the word was once a job description:
The computer who aims at rapidity should train himself to do all he safely can mentally. He should early acquire the habit of remembering a number of six or seven figures long enough to transcribe it. He should perform his interpolations mentally. He should add and subtract two numbers from left to right. Other devices will come to him with practice. The most important habit to be acquired is that of being constantly on the watch for errors and of constantly checking results. The computer who makes no mistakes can hardly be said to exist. Such a one would be a marvel.
The main advantage of (silicon) computers is that they permit the construction of models so complex that no one could ever find the fudge. For instance, I'm actually rather surprised that the algebraic macroeconomic models popular in the era of human computers have not been entirely replaced by simulations. Nothing is easier to tweak than a simulation. (Perhaps the problem is that it's easier to write a simulation than a partial differential equation - removing the IQ-test factor.)
High fudgeability is highly useful to the "social scientist," righteous and wrongtious alike. For the righteous, fudge makes all your truths seem even truer - for the same reason that Scarlett Johansson is seldom filmed without makeup. For the wrongtious, of course, it is essential.
People have been lying, often quite convincingly, with statistics since Mark Twain's age. But in the silicon age, their lies are more than just convincing - they are damn near irrefutable. Q: how do you falsify a general circulation model? A: you don't.
Props to Emerson for citing Paul Veyne - though Carlyle, as usual, said it even before Mark Twain. But reality needs no inventor.
"Social science" was invented to apply the authority of science to the problem of public policy. Frankly, in retrospect I think the 20th century might have done better with the Oracle of Delphi, the astrologers of Akbar the Great or the haruspicating augurs of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. It could hardly have done much worse. And at least there would be some ox-livers left over.
The computer who aims at rapidity should train himself to do all he safely can mentally. He should early acquire the habit of remembering a number of six or seven figures long enough to transcribe it. He should perform his interpolations mentally. He should add and subtract two numbers from left to right. Other devices will come to him with practice. The most important habit to be acquired is that of being constantly on the watch for errors and of constantly checking results. The computer who makes no mistakes can hardly be said to exist. Such a one would be a marvel.
The main advantage of (silicon) computers is that they permit the construction of models so complex that no one could ever find the fudge. For instance, I'm actually rather surprised that the algebraic macroeconomic models popular in the era of human computers have not been entirely replaced by simulations. Nothing is easier to tweak than a simulation. (Perhaps the problem is that it's easier to write a simulation than a partial differential equation - removing the IQ-test factor.)
High fudgeability is highly useful to the "social scientist," righteous and wrongtious alike. For the righteous, fudge makes all your truths seem even truer - for the same reason that Scarlett Johansson is seldom filmed without makeup. For the wrongtious, of course, it is essential.
People have been lying, often quite convincingly, with statistics since Mark Twain's age. But in the silicon age, their lies are more than just convincing - they are damn near irrefutable. Q: how do you falsify a general circulation model? A: you don't.
Props to Emerson for citing Paul Veyne - though Carlyle, as usual, said it even before Mark Twain. But reality needs no inventor.
"Social science" was invented to apply the authority of science to the problem of public policy. Frankly, in retrospect I think the 20th century might have done better with the Oracle of Delphi, the astrologers of Akbar the Great or the haruspicating augurs of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. It could hardly have done much worse. And at least there would be some ox-livers left over.
What does the decline in homicide rates look like?
toni,
Au contraire - my (admittedly quite limited) experience is that the bears often seem quite neurologically feminized. Soft voices, good manners, wouldn't hurt a fly, etc. They look like bikers, but I don't get the impression that they act like bikers. Again, though - I am hardly the expert.
eoin, presumably in Ireland you learn not to talk about the troubles, too! It's really much the same thing. I once worked for a company that had acquired a Belfast subsidiary. This apparently was the etiquette. But one of the fellows taught me how to tell a Catholic name from a Protestant name, not that it's that hard...
Au contraire - my (admittedly quite limited) experience is that the bears often seem quite neurologically feminized. Soft voices, good manners, wouldn't hurt a fly, etc. They look like bikers, but I don't get the impression that they act like bikers. Again, though - I am hardly the expert.
eoin, presumably in Ireland you learn not to talk about the troubles, too! It's really much the same thing. I once worked for a company that had acquired a Belfast subsidiary. This apparently was the etiquette. But one of the fellows taught me how to tell a Catholic name from a Protestant name, not that it's that hard...
Cochran's theory is intended to explain why it isn't found in hunter-gatherers. You're familiar with Guns, Germs and Steel: agriculture breeds germs much more than hunting and gathering does.
Yeah, but I'm not sure I find this especially convincing. Germs spread to hunter-gatherers. Does homosexuality? So you're looking at not just an ordinary, smallpox-type germ, but one with a rather peculiar epidemiological profile. Again, maybe... but Darwinian pussification seems a little more parsimonious to me.
Yeah, but I'm not sure I find this especially convincing. Germs spread to hunter-gatherers. Does homosexuality? So you're looking at not just an ordinary, smallpox-type germ, but one with a rather peculiar epidemiological profile. Again, maybe... but Darwinian pussification seems a little more parsimonious to me.
[cont]
So what we see is that crime in the US today is somewhere in the general vicinity of 50 times more common than in Victorian England. Ie, basically the same result produced by Britain's own rearrangers of stars.
In other words: Carlyle, yet again, has made the 20th century his bitch. Didn't get to that lube in time? Ouch, I'm sorry. But it's never too late to read history - even if you have to read it standing up.
So what we see is that crime in the US today is somewhere in the general vicinity of 50 times more common than in Victorian England. Ie, basically the same result produced by Britain's own rearrangers of stars.
In other words: Carlyle, yet again, has made the 20th century his bitch. Didn't get to that lube in time? Ouch, I'm sorry. But it's never too late to read history - even if you have to read it standing up.
[cont]
I'm not sure if everyone can understand intuitively how low these numbers are. So let's compare them to some figures from the modern, advanced, low-crime United States, in which everything is getting better all the time and always has been.
Hoyle's category 1 seems roughly comparable to the FBI's category of violent crime: 1,400,000, or about 470 per 100,000. Hoyle: 2300, or about 12 per 100,000.
The FBI's property crime index blurs the Victorian categories 2 and 3: the FBI has 10 million, or about 3500 per 100,000. Hoyle's category 2: 1846, or about 9 per 100,000. Hoyle's category 3: 12,500, or about 62 per 100,000. Category 3:
3rd - OFFENCES AGAINST PROPERTY WITHOUT VIOLENCE- Comprising cattle, horse, and sheep stealing, the various kinds of larcenies, or in other words thefts not of an aggravated kind, embezzlements, receiving stolen goods, &c.[cont]
I'm not sure if everyone can understand intuitively how low these numbers are. So let's compare them to some figures from the modern, advanced, low-crime United States, in which everything is getting better all the time and always has been.
Hoyle's category 1 seems roughly comparable to the FBI's category of violent crime: 1,400,000, or about 470 per 100,000. Hoyle: 2300, or about 12 per 100,000.
The FBI's property crime index blurs the Victorian categories 2 and 3: the FBI has 10 million, or about 3500 per 100,000. Hoyle's category 2: 1846, or about 9 per 100,000. Hoyle's category 3: 12,500, or about 62 per 100,000. Category 3:
3rd - OFFENCES AGAINST PROPERTY WITHOUT VIOLENCE- Comprising cattle, horse, and sheep stealing, the various kinds of larcenies, or in other words thefts not of an aggravated kind, embezzlements, receiving stolen goods, &c.[cont]
Ladies and ladies, I give you: Crime in England and Wales in the Nineteenth Century (1876). Let's go directly to the latest numbers. From 1860 to 1874, there are an average of about 4165 class 1 and class 2 crimes per year, in a (young, rapidly-growing) population of about 20 million. Ie, 21 per 100,000. These classes include:
1st - OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON - Comprising murder, attempts to murder, stabbing or wounding with intent to maim, manslaughter, rape, assaults with intent to ravish, carnally abusing girls between ten and twelve, assaults, &c.
2nd - OFFENCES AGAINST PROPERTY WITH VIOLENCE - Comprising burglary, house-breaking, breaking into shops, robbery, assaults with intent to rob, misdemeanours with intent to commit the above offences, &c.[cont]
1st - OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON - Comprising murder, attempts to murder, stabbing or wounding with intent to maim, manslaughter, rape, assaults with intent to ravish, carnally abusing girls between ten and twelve, assaults, &c.
2nd - OFFENCES AGAINST PROPERTY WITH VIOLENCE - Comprising burglary, house-breaking, breaking into shops, robbery, assaults with intent to rob, misdemeanours with intent to commit the above offences, &c.[cont]
I got tired of fighting numbers with history, so I thought I'd go find some numbers of my own. This took me approximately 5 minutes. "Not to get knowledge, but to save yourself from having ignorance foisted upon you!"
Dear lovers of statistics and Whig history, do you feel that puckering sensation which precedes any serious anal penetration? If you have some lube handy, now's the time.
[cont]
Dear lovers of statistics and Whig history, do you feel that puckering sensation which precedes any serious anal penetration? If you have some lube handy, now's the time.
[cont]
TGGP, the basic problem is that progressives are America's ruling class, and therefore know all the good things in life and have them. Let me tell you, my neighborhood has them. It is also relatively safe, just by coincidence - San Francisco is actually one of the most segregated cities in the country. By some coincidence almost all the blacks ended up on the other side of the freeway, and of course the Bay. Berkeley, where I used to live, has all these good things as well, but no natural barriers between it and Oaktown.
Levels of "social spending" are a ridiculous statistical indicator that tells you jack about culture. Bismarck's regime had high social spending and Hitler's even higher, but neither was a liberal. Read some Ibsen sometime - you'll see the traditional Scandinavian culture. The basic conflict in Ibsen is between that culture and liberal Anglomania, a disease that infected all of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. For whatever reason, Scandinavia ended up all parasite and no host.
and gangs also existed back in the Victorian era.
Now I'll have to ask you to name a source. No country has ever been entirely free of ruffians and lowlifes, but organized crime is something else.
When I search for "organized crime" "Victorian England" I end up with the likes of Adam Worth, "the Napoleon of Crime" and the inspiration for Moriarty. Who - again - ain't exactly reminding me of D'Angelo from The Wire. And is also (a) a foreigner, and (b) notorious for being an exception, like a dog playing chess.
Perhaps you're referring to juvenile gangs such as these. Again, not organized crime - just tough kids (with jobs) who like to fight (each other). Quite unusual in their time, too, and eradicated by 1900.
Levels of "social spending" are a ridiculous statistical indicator that tells you jack about culture. Bismarck's regime had high social spending and Hitler's even higher, but neither was a liberal. Read some Ibsen sometime - you'll see the traditional Scandinavian culture. The basic conflict in Ibsen is between that culture and liberal Anglomania, a disease that infected all of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. For whatever reason, Scandinavia ended up all parasite and no host.
and gangs also existed back in the Victorian era.
Now I'll have to ask you to name a source. No country has ever been entirely free of ruffians and lowlifes, but organized crime is something else.
When I search for "organized crime" "Victorian England" I end up with the likes of Adam Worth, "the Napoleon of Crime" and the inspiration for Moriarty. Who - again - ain't exactly reminding me of D'Angelo from The Wire. And is also (a) a foreigner, and (b) notorious for being an exception, like a dog playing chess.
Perhaps you're referring to juvenile gangs such as these. Again, not organized crime - just tough kids (with jobs) who like to fight (each other). Quite unusual in their time, too, and eradicated by 1900.
toni,
Well, individuals of course vary. But the classic "bear" body shows not just the effects of weightlifting, which anyone can do, but a huge barrel-shaped ribcage and an enormous quantity of body hair. (No, I don't spend a lot of time in gay bathhouses, I just live about four blocks from 18th & Castro.) This suggests a genuine high-T phenotype, almost as if some T receptor is broken and the system is generating an insane amount of T to compensate.
I think the "bear" is very much a rarity among male homosexuals. But it exists, and my neighborhood certainly concentrates it.
The whole gay hunter-gatherer question is fascinating. If the the hypothesis that Castro-style obligate homosexuality is an evolutionary disorder of civilization is true, I suspect the various instances of tribal pederasty and savage butt-rape are somewhat like prison homosexuality - not necessarily a matter of sexual preference. On the other hand, the hypothesis depends rather heavily on the data point, so the danger of circular reasoning is quite apparent.
Note also, however, that 20th-century anthropologists were quite eager to show that homosexuality is natural and universal. This too is a source of data distortion - a la Margaret Mead. As Dexter Gordon said in Round Midnight: "lot of that goin' around."
Well, individuals of course vary. But the classic "bear" body shows not just the effects of weightlifting, which anyone can do, but a huge barrel-shaped ribcage and an enormous quantity of body hair. (No, I don't spend a lot of time in gay bathhouses, I just live about four blocks from 18th & Castro.) This suggests a genuine high-T phenotype, almost as if some T receptor is broken and the system is generating an insane amount of T to compensate.
I think the "bear" is very much a rarity among male homosexuals. But it exists, and my neighborhood certainly concentrates it.
The whole gay hunter-gatherer question is fascinating. If the the hypothesis that Castro-style obligate homosexuality is an evolutionary disorder of civilization is true, I suspect the various instances of tribal pederasty and savage butt-rape are somewhat like prison homosexuality - not necessarily a matter of sexual preference. On the other hand, the hypothesis depends rather heavily on the data point, so the danger of circular reasoning is quite apparent.
Note also, however, that 20th-century anthropologists were quite eager to show that homosexuality is natural and universal. This too is a source of data distortion - a la Margaret Mead. As Dexter Gordon said in Round Midnight: "lot of that goin' around."
I prefer to see them from the side, actually. You definitely don't want to mad-dog a bear. Let alone Tom of Finland. (I keep thinking the SFPD should have a special Gay Division, inspired by such. But alas - no imagination.)
gcochran's number for twin concordance sounds about right. There has to be some significant environmental input - either bugs (gcochran) or some prenatal thingy, probably. Or just psychology.
The sexual antagonism theory doesn't explain why we see male homosexuality in complex societies but not hunter-gatherers. Neither does the bug theory. Of course, it could just be a coincidence.
But just as a gut feeling, the selective pressure for male docility in governed societies seems relatively similar to the selective pressure that gave us Ashkenazi intelligence. I don't know how anyone would even begin to quantify either, of course.
If you're a major-league pussy, even a straight pussy, your genes are not going to get very far in Yanomamo land. If you act like the average Yanomamo male in Victorian England, ditto. Why shouldn't people adapt to their environments?
gcochran's number for twin concordance sounds about right. There has to be some significant environmental input - either bugs (gcochran) or some prenatal thingy, probably. Or just psychology.
The sexual antagonism theory doesn't explain why we see male homosexuality in complex societies but not hunter-gatherers. Neither does the bug theory. Of course, it could just be a coincidence.
But just as a gut feeling, the selective pressure for male docility in governed societies seems relatively similar to the selective pressure that gave us Ashkenazi intelligence. I don't know how anyone would even begin to quantify either, of course.
If you're a major-league pussy, even a straight pussy, your genes are not going to get very far in Yanomamo land. If you act like the average Yanomamo male in Victorian England, ditto. Why shouldn't people adapt to their environments?
@charles, no connection at all - it's just an analogy.
One of Cochran & Harpending's theories about IQ evolution in Ashkenazis is that many Ashkenazi genetic disorders are the result of alleles harmful in recessive combination, but individually valuable - if you have one copy of the Gaucher disease allele, you're smarter; if you have two, you have Gaucher disease. Just like sickle-cell and malaria resistance.
So I suspect that if you get a little bit of male-feminizing, you're less aggressive, more gentlemanly, and in general fit better in civilized society. But if you get too much, possibly combined with some environmental/prenatal stimulus, you're... etc. Note that the negative Darwinian effects of male homosexual tendencies are less likely to appear in traditional societies in which the "lifestyle" is not an option - men who would identify as gay today might well have gotten married, shut their eyes and thought of England.
For instance, living in San Francisco I see two very distinct gay phenotypes - the effeminate "fairy" and the hypermasculine "bear" or "Tom of Finland." These would seem to have very different biological causes. I suspect that the "fairy" is the result of some disruption of the testosterone system throughout the body, whereas with the "bear" some wire is cut just in the brain. If these are genuinely multiple genetic mechanisms for male feminization, it would indeed parallel the multiple mechanisms for Ashkenazi intelligence which evolved under shared pressure.
Historically, widespread homosexuality seems to appear in societies with a long (centuries) tradition of stable urban civilization. So for instance you see it in Athens, maybe six or seven centuries after the Greeks had descended barbarically from the North and set up their little city-states. Certainly enough time for selection to work. Whereas it is almost unheard of among savages and barbarians, as this hypothesis would predict. Just a thought, my n1ggaz...
One of Cochran & Harpending's theories about IQ evolution in Ashkenazis is that many Ashkenazi genetic disorders are the result of alleles harmful in recessive combination, but individually valuable - if you have one copy of the Gaucher disease allele, you're smarter; if you have two, you have Gaucher disease. Just like sickle-cell and malaria resistance.
So I suspect that if you get a little bit of male-feminizing, you're less aggressive, more gentlemanly, and in general fit better in civilized society. But if you get too much, possibly combined with some environmental/prenatal stimulus, you're... etc. Note that the negative Darwinian effects of male homosexual tendencies are less likely to appear in traditional societies in which the "lifestyle" is not an option - men who would identify as gay today might well have gotten married, shut their eyes and thought of England.
For instance, living in San Francisco I see two very distinct gay phenotypes - the effeminate "fairy" and the hypermasculine "bear" or "Tom of Finland." These would seem to have very different biological causes. I suspect that the "fairy" is the result of some disruption of the testosterone system throughout the body, whereas with the "bear" some wire is cut just in the brain. If these are genuinely multiple genetic mechanisms for male feminization, it would indeed parallel the multiple mechanisms for Ashkenazi intelligence which evolved under shared pressure.
Historically, widespread homosexuality seems to appear in societies with a long (centuries) tradition of stable urban civilization. So for instance you see it in Athens, maybe six or seven centuries after the Greeks had descended barbarically from the North and set up their little city-states. Certainly enough time for selection to work. Whereas it is almost unheard of among savages and barbarians, as this hypothesis would predict. Just a thought, my n1ggaz...
Drug dealers, for instance, are a common target for robbery who are especially unlikely to contact the police. Non-criminals who simply don't view the police as helpful (which would describe much of the populace in high crime neighborhoods) are also less likely to report being victimized.
As I said: Mad Max. Frankly, all these people should be in secure temporary housing. We did it once - we can do it again.
As I said: Mad Max. Frankly, all these people should be in secure temporary housing. We did it once - we can do it again.
The stupid anaesthetized "Eloi" generally live in the least black (i.e safest) neighborhoods and if they have kids send them kids to private school. The pattern of gentrification is usually for gay men (as they have neither children nor girlfriends) to be the initial colonizers, followed by people without dependents, and finally those with children. About what we'd expect if people were rationally acting based on vulnerability. All this suggests that gentrification actually results from (and causes) lower crime rates rather than some false-consciousness explanation.
No, it suggests that while anesthetized, your Eloi is not actually brain-dead. Touchy business, anesthesia.
In particular, the ability to maintain progressive consciousness in general, while avoiding blacks in specific, demonstrates a remarkable level of multiprocessing. But multiprocessing has its limits. The result is always a compromise.
Imagine, for instance, that your Eloi took the same level of care to avoid being stabbed by a NAM that she takes to avoid getting cancer from a stray pesticide molecule on a rutabaga. She'd have to live in a white-supremacist compound in Idaho. Or at least a gated community in Georgia. But does she? Noo....
Trust me - I live in San Francisco. I know these people. In '98 my gay roommate in the bad part of the Mission had a bottle thrown at his head by some Sureño gangsters. Fortunately, it missed. His rutabagas were all organic, so he didn't have that problem. I think he's in Australia now - I hope he's watching out for the Lebanese.
No, it suggests that while anesthetized, your Eloi is not actually brain-dead. Touchy business, anesthesia.
In particular, the ability to maintain progressive consciousness in general, while avoiding blacks in specific, demonstrates a remarkable level of multiprocessing. But multiprocessing has its limits. The result is always a compromise.
Imagine, for instance, that your Eloi took the same level of care to avoid being stabbed by a NAM that she takes to avoid getting cancer from a stray pesticide molecule on a rutabaga. She'd have to live in a white-supremacist compound in Idaho. Or at least a gated community in Georgia. But does she? Noo....
Trust me - I live in San Francisco. I know these people. In '98 my gay roommate in the bad part of the Mission had a bottle thrown at his head by some Sureño gangsters. Fortunately, it missed. His rutabagas were all organic, so he didn't have that problem. I think he's in Australia now - I hope he's watching out for the Lebanese.
On the Continent and (especially) in the Nordic countries, you've got to understand that England was the fashion leader between 1815 and 1914, much as America is now. And for much the same reason. Until after WWII, Sweden (like Britain itself) contained both the Protestant philanthropic ancestors of today's Social Democrats, and a healthy nationalist aristocracy with folks like Sven Hedin, Carin Goering, etc. Ever wonder why the Swedes were neutral in the war?
If the Nazis had won, this aristocratic Sweden would be today's Sweden. They lost, so Sweden is renowned for its socialism. History likes a winner - and so, apparently, do the Swedes.
If the Nazis had won, this aristocratic Sweden would be today's Sweden. They lost, so Sweden is renowned for its socialism. History likes a winner - and so, apparently, do the Swedes.
Hoxton Gang: fine, we'll push it back to the 1930s. And in the 1930s, a gang in England was remarkable and anomalous - a dog playing chess.
Here is a good description of English organized crime in the early 20th century. Highlight:
"Edward Emmanuel had a group of Jewish terrors. There was Jackie Berman. He told a pack of lies against me in the vendetta case - he had me put away? Bobby Levy - he lived down Chingford way - and his brother Moey. Bobby Nark - he was a good fighting chap. In later years all the Jewish terrors worked with the Italian mob on the race course? The Narks were a famous Jewish family from out of Aldgate. Bobby was a fine big fellow though he wasn't very brainy. His team used to hang out in a pub at Aldgate on the corner of Petticoat Lane. I've seen him smash a bloke's hat over his face and knock his beer over."The Wire, it ain't.
Moreover, as you can see from the existence of Wik pages, these people were newsworthy in their era. That's because they were new phenomena. This Hoxton Gang outrage, for instance, would be pretty unlikely to enter history in 2009:
During the 1930s, the gang was among many who struggled for control of racetracks and "protection" rackets and, in June 1936, around 30 gang members attacked a bookmaker and his clerk with hammers and knuckle-dusters at the Lewes racetrack before police arrived, with at least 16 gang members being convicted at Lewes Assizes and sentenced to serve over 43 years.I suspect a lot of Brits would be pretty happy if they could get their hat-smashing, beer-knocking, hammer-wielding Jewish and Italian gangsters back. They also wouldn't mind having their Lewes Assizes. As Dalrymple noted:
Yet the public?s impression is understandable: not long ago I was leafing through a patient?s extensive criminal record when I read of the sentence he received for his 57th conviction for burglary: a £50 fine. No wonder we don?t feel safe.As for the exact timing of Tony Blair's election and yearly crime fluctuations, you've trailed off into the noise. NuLabour is a symptom, not a cause. Britain has been steadily Americanizing - and Europe Anglo-Americanizing - for the past century.
Here is a good description of English organized crime in the early 20th century. Highlight:
"Edward Emmanuel had a group of Jewish terrors. There was Jackie Berman. He told a pack of lies against me in the vendetta case - he had me put away? Bobby Levy - he lived down Chingford way - and his brother Moey. Bobby Nark - he was a good fighting chap. In later years all the Jewish terrors worked with the Italian mob on the race course? The Narks were a famous Jewish family from out of Aldgate. Bobby was a fine big fellow though he wasn't very brainy. His team used to hang out in a pub at Aldgate on the corner of Petticoat Lane. I've seen him smash a bloke's hat over his face and knock his beer over."The Wire, it ain't.
Moreover, as you can see from the existence of Wik pages, these people were newsworthy in their era. That's because they were new phenomena. This Hoxton Gang outrage, for instance, would be pretty unlikely to enter history in 2009:
During the 1930s, the gang was among many who struggled for control of racetracks and "protection" rackets and, in June 1936, around 30 gang members attacked a bookmaker and his clerk with hammers and knuckle-dusters at the Lewes racetrack before police arrived, with at least 16 gang members being convicted at Lewes Assizes and sentenced to serve over 43 years.I suspect a lot of Brits would be pretty happy if they could get their hat-smashing, beer-knocking, hammer-wielding Jewish and Italian gangsters back. They also wouldn't mind having their Lewes Assizes. As Dalrymple noted:
Yet the public?s impression is understandable: not long ago I was leafing through a patient?s extensive criminal record when I read of the sentence he received for his 57th conviction for burglary: a £50 fine. No wonder we don?t feel safe.As for the exact timing of Tony Blair's election and yearly crime fluctuations, you've trailed off into the noise. NuLabour is a symptom, not a cause. Britain has been steadily Americanizing - and Europe Anglo-Americanizing - for the past century.
From observation it seems clear that personality trait distribution varies between populations. To me, it seems African-Americans tend to have personalities that lead to poor outcomes in conditions with anonymous, impersonal relationships and institutions. African-Americans seem to respond much better to charismatic than institutional authority.
Oddly enough, Carlyle said just the same thing 150 years ago. Of course, maybe that's just because he was a racist, like you. "Adieu, Quashee; I will wish you better guidance than you have had of late." Alas, better guidance has not been forthcoming.
Oddly enough, Carlyle said just the same thing 150 years ago. Of course, maybe that's just because he was a racist, like you. "Adieu, Quashee; I will wish you better guidance than you have had of late." Alas, better guidance has not been forthcoming.
And for those who don't click on all these links, I just have to reproduce Love the Homeland, Love Statistics:
Some mock me for doing statistics
Some loathe me and statistics
Some donÂ’t understand what statistics are
Why is it that statistics
Put a calm smile on my face?
Because of statistics
I can solve the deepest mysteries
Because of statistics
I will not be lonely again, playing in the data
Because of statistics
I can rearrange the stars in the skies above
Because of statistics
My life is different, more meaningful
I love my life, my statistics...To be fair, I myself feel pretty much the same way about history.
Some mock me for doing statistics
Some loathe me and statistics
Some donÂ’t understand what statistics are
Why is it that statistics
Put a calm smile on my face?
Because of statistics
I can solve the deepest mysteries
Because of statistics
I will not be lonely again, playing in the data
Because of statistics
I can rearrange the stars in the skies above
Because of statistics
My life is different, more meaningful
I love my life, my statistics...To be fair, I myself feel pretty much the same way about history.
Also, TGGP, note the difference between robbery and burglary. I said robbery, not burglary.
It is not uncommon, in any society, for burglaries to go unreported. What's gone is gone. Whereas a society in which robberies are unreported must already be pretty far into Mad Max territory...
It is not uncommon, in any society, for burglaries to go unreported. What's gone is gone. Whereas a society in which robberies are unreported must already be pretty far into Mad Max territory...
Zimmern,
On the contrary - your anecdote is worth all the Chinese statisticians in the world. At least, when combined with the 50 zillion other old people who say the same thing. Walking primary sources, as it were.
This is why the Americans of that era were so terrified of the crime wave of the '60s and '70s - they were defenseless against it. They had lived in an era where social predation was more or less unheard of. Over time, they learned - fleeing dangerous areas, taking defensive precautions, putting up their guard. Today's American has no idea what it feels like to live in an atmosphere of genuine public safety and order.
Here are two more anecdotes, both from the present day, both involving bicycles. Megan McArdle:
Well, my fourth bike was stolen this morning, out of our backyard, which has a seven foot stockade fence around it. I have never managed to hold onto a bike more than six months in an urban environment--the previous two times, they left the bike lock, as if to taunt me with its inadequacy. I think I'm done with bike commuting. I'd rather just hand out $100 bills to random people on the street; at least I wouldn't be rewarding theft.
It wasn't an expensive bike, either; it was the cheapest hybrid available in my size. But the fact is, if you own a bike in this city, it will be stolen. I'm willing to brave weather and entitled motorists. But I'm sick of funding donations to the bike theft brigade.Takuan Seiyo:
One day, in a busy section of Tokyo, carrying my supermarket grocery bag back to my bicycle propped on its stand on the sidewalk, I perceived a gaijin (foreigner) standing there and looking at me with tearing eyes. He said, "I was looking at your bike. It's a good bike. There are no locks on it. You just left it here, unlocked, went to do your shopping, came back and expected it would be here when you returned. And it was. It's extraordinary." A British tourist, he then told me of the hazards of cycling in Clockwork Orange Londonistan -- from the risk of being knifed by one of the denizens of post-British Britain, to the necessity of carrying 5 kg. of iron implements to chain and lock his bike everywhere.
On the contrary - your anecdote is worth all the Chinese statisticians in the world. At least, when combined with the 50 zillion other old people who say the same thing. Walking primary sources, as it were.
This is why the Americans of that era were so terrified of the crime wave of the '60s and '70s - they were defenseless against it. They had lived in an era where social predation was more or less unheard of. Over time, they learned - fleeing dangerous areas, taking defensive precautions, putting up their guard. Today's American has no idea what it feels like to live in an atmosphere of genuine public safety and order.
Here are two more anecdotes, both from the present day, both involving bicycles. Megan McArdle:
Well, my fourth bike was stolen this morning, out of our backyard, which has a seven foot stockade fence around it. I have never managed to hold onto a bike more than six months in an urban environment--the previous two times, they left the bike lock, as if to taunt me with its inadequacy. I think I'm done with bike commuting. I'd rather just hand out $100 bills to random people on the street; at least I wouldn't be rewarding theft.
It wasn't an expensive bike, either; it was the cheapest hybrid available in my size. But the fact is, if you own a bike in this city, it will be stolen. I'm willing to brave weather and entitled motorists. But I'm sick of funding donations to the bike theft brigade.Takuan Seiyo:
One day, in a busy section of Tokyo, carrying my supermarket grocery bag back to my bicycle propped on its stand on the sidewalk, I perceived a gaijin (foreigner) standing there and looking at me with tearing eyes. He said, "I was looking at your bike. It's a good bike. There are no locks on it. You just left it here, unlocked, went to do your shopping, came back and expected it would be here when you returned. And it was. It's extraordinary." A British tourist, he then told me of the hazards of cycling in Clockwork Orange Londonistan -- from the risk of being knifed by one of the denizens of post-British Britain, to the necessity of carrying 5 kg. of iron implements to chain and lock his bike everywhere.
TGGP,
I would encourage you to try the same experiment I recommended for agnostic - read some old newspapers. You'll quickly realize that the reporter of 1950 is a very different animal from his successor of 2000. There is simply no substitute for primary sources.
There is also no substitute for thought. Moreover, the more the task of thinking has been officially monopolized by those manifestly unfit for it - the greater the opportunity to replace them.
Whereas there is certainly no shortage of Hari Seldon wannabes. (Presumably no one at the Times has ever heard of Robert McNamara. Ah, kids these days.)
I would encourage you to try the same experiment I recommended for agnostic - read some old newspapers. You'll quickly realize that the reporter of 1950 is a very different animal from his successor of 2000. There is simply no substitute for primary sources.
There is also no substitute for thought. Moreover, the more the task of thinking has been officially monopolized by those manifestly unfit for it - the greater the opportunity to replace them.
Whereas there is certainly no shortage of Hari Seldon wannabes. (Presumably no one at the Times has ever heard of Robert McNamara. Ah, kids these days.)
TGGP,
The answer is quite simple: Britain had a long tradition of responsible public service, which could not be corrupted overnight by American political correctness, mendacity and bureaucracy. You're looking at the difference between the old British civil service and something much more like a Communist state. Britain has never really seen anything quite like NuLabor.
For comparison, look at Peel's Principles - the British literally invented modern policing. As you'd expect. Note the 8th principle - "absence of crime and disorder." As in, you know, absence.
For instance, when you read British writing about America in the 1850-1950 era, the Brits are simply amazed that such a thing as organized crime can be allowed to exist. Dr. Moriarty, the spider at the center of the web of crime, was a fantasy. Whereas now, at least according to the Times, there are 2800 gangs in Great Britain. No word on how this statistic was compiled, but I suppose it is probably accurate to within an order of magnitude or two.
Do you think that during the 90s when crime was dropping whites continued to leave cities, or did gentrification occur and property values rise?
The whites who moved into cities in the '90s were SWPL Eloi, very different from the "hyphenated-American" ethnic whites who left. A different ethnicity, essentially. Your Eloi is thoroughly conditioned to think of crime as random and accidental, not worrisome in the slightest. In other words, the anesthesia is working.
There was certainly no trend of Guidos and Micks moving back into Brooklyn. The artificial categories in your spreadsheets betray you once again.
The answer is quite simple: Britain had a long tradition of responsible public service, which could not be corrupted overnight by American political correctness, mendacity and bureaucracy. You're looking at the difference between the old British civil service and something much more like a Communist state. Britain has never really seen anything quite like NuLabor.
For comparison, look at Peel's Principles - the British literally invented modern policing. As you'd expect. Note the 8th principle - "absence of crime and disorder." As in, you know, absence.
For instance, when you read British writing about America in the 1850-1950 era, the Brits are simply amazed that such a thing as organized crime can be allowed to exist. Dr. Moriarty, the spider at the center of the web of crime, was a fantasy. Whereas now, at least according to the Times, there are 2800 gangs in Great Britain. No word on how this statistic was compiled, but I suppose it is probably accurate to within an order of magnitude or two.
Do you think that during the 90s when crime was dropping whites continued to leave cities, or did gentrification occur and property values rise?
The whites who moved into cities in the '90s were SWPL Eloi, very different from the "hyphenated-American" ethnic whites who left. A different ethnicity, essentially. Your Eloi is thoroughly conditioned to think of crime as random and accidental, not worrisome in the slightest. In other words, the anesthesia is working.
There was certainly no trend of Guidos and Micks moving back into Brooklyn. The artificial categories in your spreadsheets betray you once again.
Charles,
If you'll permit a bit of conjecture.... Might I suggest that perhaps a kind of human version of the Tame Silver Fox has been going on.
Indeed. And if you'll permit a bit more conjecture, I wonder if this might have a little something to do with male homosexuality rates. Was there anything else queer about those tame silver foxes, besides their blotchy coats and floppy ears?
Male feminization is a pretty quick-n-dirty way for evolution to select against aggression - but get the wrong mix of alleles, and you're playing for the other team. Maybe niceness, as well as IQ, has gotten a bit of "overclocking." Just a thought...
If you'll permit a bit of conjecture.... Might I suggest that perhaps a kind of human version of the Tame Silver Fox has been going on.
Indeed. And if you'll permit a bit more conjecture, I wonder if this might have a little something to do with male homosexuality rates. Was there anything else queer about those tame silver foxes, besides their blotchy coats and floppy ears?
Male feminization is a pretty quick-n-dirty way for evolution to select against aggression - but get the wrong mix of alleles, and you're playing for the other team. Maybe niceness, as well as IQ, has gotten a bit of "overclocking." Just a thought...
[cont]
Or, alternatively, you could just stick to Chinese statistics poetry. Love the Homeland, Love Statistics! Do click - I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
BTW, since you do love statistics (I am not telling you not to love statistics - I am just saying that you might consider reading some history, too, at least if you're going to entertain such strong opinions about the past), you might enjoy Charles Murray on the difference between crime rates and criminality rates. I'm not sure Dr. Murray loves statistics as much as you, or history as much as me - but he splits the difference well.
Or, alternatively, you could just stick to Chinese statistics poetry. Love the Homeland, Love Statistics! Do click - I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
BTW, since you do love statistics (I am not telling you not to love statistics - I am just saying that you might consider reading some history, too, at least if you're going to entertain such strong opinions about the past), you might enjoy Charles Murray on the difference between crime rates and criminality rates. I'm not sure Dr. Murray loves statistics as much as you, or history as much as me - but he splits the difference well.
[cont]
Your model of politics and bureaucracies also strikes me as a little um, simplistic. Some differential equations there too, perhaps? Do you have any idea how much the government and society of Britain changed between 1960 and 1990?
If not, Peter Hitchens will set you straight. Makes a great one-two with the aforementioned Dalyrmple. Get a day pass to the London Times archive and you're all set.
[cont]
Your model of politics and bureaucracies also strikes me as a little um, simplistic. Some differential equations there too, perhaps? Do you have any idea how much the government and society of Britain changed between 1960 and 1990?
If not, Peter Hitchens will set you straight. Makes a great one-two with the aforementioned Dalyrmple. Get a day pass to the London Times archive and you're all set.
[cont]
agnostic,
Presumably you've never read any Theodore Dalrymple.
Actually, though, I think a better read would be a bound book of newspapers, English or American, from any year before 1960 or so. Have a look at how they report crime. I believe I've suggested this experiment to you before - I hope you'll try it sometime. Any good library will have one.
For example, I was in a used bookstore once looking at copies of the Napa Valley Journal from 1940. On the top of the front page - German armies were pouring through France. On the bottom of the front page - police had arrested a man who was wanted for passing a bad check in Fresno.
To make it as retarded as possible, what I'm saying is that if you applied pre-1960 standards of journalism to post-1960 crime, every newspaper in America, every day, would look like an issue of the Gotham Globe: MURDER SPREE PARALYZES CITY. And, of course, the public would react accordingly. That's public opinion for ya.
Heck, during this period, America's fourth-largest city lost pretty much its entire decent, law-abiding population, who fled due to crime. Said city is now a ruin. This is GNXP we're posting on here, right? I don't think a lot of the readers have a problem with ugly truths.
This isn't hysteria we're looking at here. It's precisely the opposite. It's anesthesia. How do you anesthetize a population? When it reacts normally, convince it that it's being hysterical. I know no one's paying you to be part of this propaganda program, but you're doing a pretty good job anyway.
[cont - Haloscan seems to have turned into Twitter when I wasn't looking]
Presumably you've never read any Theodore Dalrymple.
Actually, though, I think a better read would be a bound book of newspapers, English or American, from any year before 1960 or so. Have a look at how they report crime. I believe I've suggested this experiment to you before - I hope you'll try it sometime. Any good library will have one.
For example, I was in a used bookstore once looking at copies of the Napa Valley Journal from 1940. On the top of the front page - German armies were pouring through France. On the bottom of the front page - police had arrested a man who was wanted for passing a bad check in Fresno.
To make it as retarded as possible, what I'm saying is that if you applied pre-1960 standards of journalism to post-1960 crime, every newspaper in America, every day, would look like an issue of the Gotham Globe: MURDER SPREE PARALYZES CITY. And, of course, the public would react accordingly. That's public opinion for ya.
Heck, during this period, America's fourth-largest city lost pretty much its entire decent, law-abiding population, who fled due to crime. Said city is now a ruin. This is GNXP we're posting on here, right? I don't think a lot of the readers have a problem with ugly truths.
This isn't hysteria we're looking at here. It's precisely the opposite. It's anesthesia. How do you anesthetize a population? When it reacts normally, convince it that it's being hysterical. I know no one's paying you to be part of this propaganda program, but you're doing a pretty good job anyway.
[cont - Haloscan seems to have turned into Twitter when I wasn't looking]
[cont]
I also recommend this description of the character of late-medieval English civilization. I wouldn't trade it for all the numbers between 1 and 2^64. Note in particular the many forms of social control that have disappeared - vagrancy laws, guilds, wonderfully brutal punishments, etc. These existed in a world much more conscious than ours of the ease with which human societies can slip into Hobbesian anarchy, and will if you give them the chance.
And finally, of course, the Congo. Hochschild, being a good little liberal, skips over it in a sentence, but the Belgian Congo after Leopold and before American-ordered decolonialization was generally seen as a model of European civilization in Africa. Perhaps Eisner could spend some time in Goma and bring back more tasty numbers which prove that everything is getting better all the time, bringing a pack of nevirapine in case he gets raped.
I also recommend this description of the character of late-medieval English civilization. I wouldn't trade it for all the numbers between 1 and 2^64. Note in particular the many forms of social control that have disappeared - vagrancy laws, guilds, wonderfully brutal punishments, etc. These existed in a world much more conscious than ours of the ease with which human societies can slip into Hobbesian anarchy, and will if you give them the chance.
And finally, of course, the Congo. Hochschild, being a good little liberal, skips over it in a sentence, but the Belgian Congo after Leopold and before American-ordered decolonialization was generally seen as a model of European civilization in Africa. Perhaps Eisner could spend some time in Goma and bring back more tasty numbers which prove that everything is getting better all the time, bringing a pack of nevirapine in case he gets raped.
[cont]
Homicide is also a lousy way to measure the general nastiness of a society, because it conflates many kinds of conflict which are qualitatively distinct: psychopathic homicide, predatory homicide, crimes of passion, informal warfare, etc. For instance, my guess is that most of your medieval homicides are a consequence of conflict in feudal power structures (the modern American "drive-by" could be seen the same way). Yet there is no clear distinction between informal warfare and formal warfare, and Eisner's statistics certainly do not include the latter.
The question of nastiness is the question of how likely homicide is to happen to you if you choose not to live tha thug life. If you want to live like Benvenuto Cellini or even the Admirable Crichton, of course someone is liable to stick a shank in you. But if you prefer to live peaceably and mind your own business, how likely are you to get away with it? Homicide rates tell us nothing at all about this question.
A better measure is robbery, because robbery is an exclusively predatory crime and reveals the level of uncontrolled predation in a society. For instance, the difference between robbery rates in chaotic countries like the US, and safe countries like Japan or Iceland, is extremely striking - two orders of magnitude. My guess is that robbery rates would show a shallower decline from 1500 to 1950 and a sharper increase from 1950 on. Ie: less noise, more signal.
[cont]
Homicide is also a lousy way to measure the general nastiness of a society, because it conflates many kinds of conflict which are qualitatively distinct: psychopathic homicide, predatory homicide, crimes of passion, informal warfare, etc. For instance, my guess is that most of your medieval homicides are a consequence of conflict in feudal power structures (the modern American "drive-by" could be seen the same way). Yet there is no clear distinction between informal warfare and formal warfare, and Eisner's statistics certainly do not include the latter.
The question of nastiness is the question of how likely homicide is to happen to you if you choose not to live tha thug life. If you want to live like Benvenuto Cellini or even the Admirable Crichton, of course someone is liable to stick a shank in you. But if you prefer to live peaceably and mind your own business, how likely are you to get away with it? Homicide rates tell us nothing at all about this question.
A better measure is robbery, because robbery is an exclusively predatory crime and reveals the level of uncontrolled predation in a society. For instance, the difference between robbery rates in chaotic countries like the US, and safe countries like Japan or Iceland, is extremely striking - two orders of magnitude. My guess is that robbery rates would show a shallower decline from 1500 to 1950 and a sharper increase from 1950 on. Ie: less noise, more signal.
[cont]
What we would do is write down a system of differential equations that claimed how two or more groups of people interacted with each other -- say, "criminals," "law-abiders," and "police" -- and fool around with them until they produced a solution that would show cycles or oscillations around an overall downward trend.
Hari Seldon rides again!
What I would do is to write down a sentence in English. This sentence would say: Europe became generally more orderly from 1500 to 1900, and generally less orderly from 1900 to 2000, especially after 1950.
If you wanted to know why, I would say: because order is a product of coherent state authority, and coherent state authority generally strengthened from 1500 to 1900 and generally weakened after 1900, especially after 1950.
And if you wanted to know why this happened, I would say: read some history. It's a story, not a spreadsheet.
Much of the confusion arises because "modern" to the ordinary intelligent reader means post-1900 (as in "modernism"), whereas as a technical term it is often used to mean post-1500. Thus, in the "modern" era to the ordinary reader crime has been rising vertiginously - eg, 4700% in Britain. The opposite result seems striking and counterintuitive. But the result is not really opposite - it is an observation of the obvious.
(And except in the US, where it was the result of a conservative reaction whose effect can be seen in rising prison populations, I don't trust the post-1990 "plummet" at all. I find it most parsimoniously attributed to official fudging in the face of popular alarm. In Britain, for example, if you want to know where these pretty little numbers come from, read a blog like this. Indeed, the new police commissioner of South Africa has proposed eliminating crime statistics altogether. Which probably won't happen - but which should give some idea of the reliability of these types of authorities.)
[cont]
Hari Seldon rides again!
What I would do is to write down a sentence in English. This sentence would say: Europe became generally more orderly from 1500 to 1900, and generally less orderly from 1900 to 2000, especially after 1950.
If you wanted to know why, I would say: because order is a product of coherent state authority, and coherent state authority generally strengthened from 1500 to 1900 and generally weakened after 1900, especially after 1950.
And if you wanted to know why this happened, I would say: read some history. It's a story, not a spreadsheet.
Much of the confusion arises because "modern" to the ordinary intelligent reader means post-1900 (as in "modernism"), whereas as a technical term it is often used to mean post-1500. Thus, in the "modern" era to the ordinary reader crime has been rising vertiginously - eg, 4700% in Britain. The opposite result seems striking and counterintuitive. But the result is not really opposite - it is an observation of the obvious.
(And except in the US, where it was the result of a conservative reaction whose effect can be seen in rising prison populations, I don't trust the post-1990 "plummet" at all. I find it most parsimoniously attributed to official fudging in the face of popular alarm. In Britain, for example, if you want to know where these pretty little numbers come from, read a blog like this. Indeed, the new police commissioner of South Africa has proposed eliminating crime statistics altogether. Which probably won't happen - but which should give some idea of the reliability of these types of authorities.)
[cont]
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