Thread

The great crime decline is happening all across the country

43 points · 64 comments · andsoitis

bm3719 · 1790559215 · focus · HN ↗
I think the effect is polycausal, but I think there's an important primary one that is often ignored: alienation crossing a threshold.
In a tight-knit (below Dunbar's number) society, crime is largely non-existent by our standards, because the tribe and the individual are coextensive. One can't hurt the tribe without also hurting yourself, so while individual interests may not coalign, the overall goals do: the health of the people and therefore the self.
As population increases, that coalignment becomes more nebulous, and the individual can more easily gain while hurting the other. This is partly why crime increased as the species civilized, created cities, and exploded the population. This, as an isolated factor, might've increased forever, and most dystopian fiction from the 20th century assumed it would.
However, alienation then largely became complete, thanks to technology. This had the contrary effect, because the public surface became a smooth wall, removing much of the opportunity for anti-social behavior. The alienated man now lives in his bubble, without connectivity to the outside world of other individuals. Human emotion, as a pre-req for the anti-social behavior we classify most crime as, required an other, someone to direct it against. It's harder (though not impossible) to get angry at abstract social megastructures like corporations and governments, and even when you do, what are you going to do about it? You can't stab Google, you can at best post something unkind about them (on your Android phone) and the algorithm (your actual interface to the entity you may despise) ignores it. Most of us realize this and don't even bother getting angry. Thankfully, these same non-human entities provide the products we need for emotional regulation. Feeling lonely, bored, understimulated, sexually frustrated? There's a product that will safely mediate those desires and get you back into a metastable, yet ever more alienated, state.
So great, we have less crime, sure, but it required the social neutering of the species.
1. JumpCrisscross · 1790561094 · focus · HN ↗
  > In a tight-knit (below Dunbar's number) society, crime is largely non-existent by our standards, because the tribe and the individual are coextensive
  Source? Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature had lots of issues. But its core observation that one’s homicide hazard rate has almost monotonically fallen across human history would imply that small, ancient group were way more violent than our modern societies are.
  1. bm3719 · 1790564311 · focus · HN ↗
    In this context, simply killing other humans, or any violence, is not equivalent to crime. Crime is dependent upon a collective interpretation of any act, not necessarily whether it's objectively destructive. A tribe may decide to wage war upon neighbors, sacrifice virgins, or what have you, but they do so under the impression that it's perceived to be in their coaligned interest.
    This is relevant because the metric we're measuring now is exactly that: crime, not violence. WWIII could break out tomorrow, billions could die, and crime could still go down.
    JumpCrisscross · 1790565880 · focus · HN ↗
    > A tribe may decide to wage war upon neighbors
    Lots of the deaths appear to be separate from war [1]. We have lots of evidence of violent crime in non-state socieities [2].
    Where you might have a point is in the reduction of anonymous property crime. But that's just because small societies don't tend to have privacy. The property crime may still happen, it will just be resolved comunally or bilaterally using violence.
    [1] <a href="https://historyandarchaeologyonline.com/bog-people-criminals-murder-victims-or-sacrifices/" rel="nofollow">https://historyandarchaeologyonline.com/bog-people-criminals...
    [2] <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279610323_Violence_in_Non-State_Societies_A_Review#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20the,462).%20While%20the" rel="nofollow">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279610323_Violence_...
    somenameforme · 1790577634 · focus · HN ↗
    Having had the fortune to travel to many places, one thing I've learned is that crime stats tell you nothing by themselves. For instance there are many countries that have homicide rates comparable to, or even higher than the US, but where you could feel completely safe alone just about anywhere at any time, whereas in many parts of the US, or some other countries lower crime rates - that's certainly not the case.
    So for instance a big one is interpersonal 'justifiable' crime, versus random crime. There are places where if you insult somebody's integrity, they will kill you. Add some alcohol into the mix and these sort of places can have some rather high homicide/assault/etc rates. But on the other hand in these very same places, your chances of falling victim to random crime is basically zero, so they feel extremely safe in spite of having many crime rates comparable to places that feel extremely unsafe.
    And data about the nature of crime in the past is strongly suggestive that it also had a similar character. People would not hesitate to use violence in the case of interpersonal conflicts, but the chances of falling victim to random crime was likely significantly lower than it is today. And I think these are the sort of crimes that people mostly care about, and it being a result of social alienation does seem like a perfectly valid hypothesis, though I'm not sure if in present times South America and others would falsify it. From an outsider's perspective, they seem quite socially cohesive, yet have exceptionally high rates of criminality.
    JumpCrisscross · 1790578210 · focus · HN ↗
    > your chances of falling victim to random crime is basically zero, so they feel extremely safe in spite of having many crime rates comparable to places that feel extremely unsafe
    Where are you thinking of? What I've seen, more commonly, is societies with lots of crime having ways for the wealthy to insulate themselves for it and then, acting against a background that has normalised high crime, feeling very safe. Versus societies where everyone is more mixed together where folks are constantly paranoid about vanishingly-infrequent crimes.
    somenameforme · 1790580760 · focus · HN ↗
    One typical example would be Thailand. Its homicide rate is quite close to the US, yet the nature of crime in the country is very different. Your chances of running into any sort of random violent crime is basically zero. It also even challenges the economic integration argument since it's also atypical there as well - poor households being right next door to a luxury condo is quite common.
    JumpCrisscross · 1790580958 · focus · HN ↗
    That's a fair one. I'll note that there is a fair amount of property crime in Thailand, though those do seem to prey on tourists more than locals.
    watwut · 1790580512 · focus · HN ↗
    WWII involved a lot of crime - straightforwardly illegal acts. And I don't mean just "hiding jews" ethical crime (which was super rare), but crime crime like murder, stealing, frauds, rapes. Both by soldiers and civilians.
  2. watwut · 1790580336 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, but historians took a lot of issue with his claims.
    UncleMeat · 1790618477 · focus · HN ↗
    Historians of violence have a ton of criticisms of that book. But they also agree with the general claim that violence today is much lower than in almost all times throughout the past.
2. watwut · 1790580182 · focus · HN ↗
  > In a tight-knit (below Dunbar's number) society, crime is largely non-existent by our standards,
  Dude, tight-knit societies produce crime, it is just that everyone ends up enabling the biggest abuser, rapist and what not there. So it ends up tolerated. We know, because those things come out after decades when people eventually feel safe to speak.

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