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That only means you're more aware of it, not that it's increasing.
How many tornadoes were in Kansas in the 1960s?
You have no idea.
If a tornado touches down and no one sees it, was there actually a tornado?
For centuries, hundreds of tornadoes went undetected every year in the US, because no one saw them and there was no other means of detecting them.
One might touch down in a field in Kansas, and a few days later the farmer is trolling his fields and sees evidence of a tornado, but he doesn't bother to call the local TV station or National Weather Service to report it, because it wasn't even remotely important.
You can see that just by looking at the data.
You only 198 reported tornadoes in 1950, but then remember that airport radars could only "see" 25 miles at that time.
As air travel becomes more popular, airports upgrade to bigger radars that can "see" 80-90 miles out, the number of detected tornadoes increases, because of that, but then flat-lines.
Then in the 1970s, the airports upgrade to radars that can "see" 210-220 miles out, the number of detected tornadoes jumps, but flat-lines, and then in the 1990s when you install Doppler Radar to cover every inch of earth in the US, the number of detected tornadoes jumps again, but flat-lines.
The number of tornadoes was not increasing, but the number of detected tornadoes was increasing.
Big difference.
Same with mass shootings and mass murders.
Only your local TV stations covered those, and if it didn't happen in your town, then you were clueless about it. The only reason your local TV stations might cover it is if a member of your community was involved in some way.
The networks only covered the Manson murders, because film producer Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate were celebrities. If they had been regular Joes and Janes, the networks wouldn't have touched it, and 90% of Americans would be clueless and have no idea who Charles Manson was.
With the introduction of cable TV in the 1980s, and rise of cable news networks like CNN, you see things you wouldn't normally see. CNN needs money, and money comes from advertising, and advertising money only comes with large numbers of viewers, so CNN was covering everything, because as the saying goes: If it bleeds, it leads.
With the rise of social media now, you're seeing things you would normally never see, and you're seeing things that cable news networks won't cover, but they were always happening.
There are definitely more mass murder/shootings these days than years ago. Numbers escalated throughout the last century.
I think its more helpful to get a % of mass shootings compared to the population. Using nominal values is like saying there are more people making 30k now than there were 30 years ago. Doesn't hold much weight when you consider the other things.
I think its more helpful to get a % of mass shootings compared to the population. Using nominal values is like saying there are more people making 30k now than there were 30 years ago. Doesn't hold much weight when you consider the other things.
Good point. More nuts with guns seems to be a given.
Does anyone think or know that there are, or have been more mass murders/shootings in say India or China, where they dwarf our population numbers?
We actually have a greater spread of social classes among the poor than ever before, a "new" type of poverty made up of new classes of the impoverished, the illegal worker, the middle class newly displaced worker, and a growing class of the elderly poor. The fact that many who work hard all day are now among the lowest of the poor, the fact that many among the elderly poor were hardy contributors in their day, and the fact of many highly educated displaced workers being unemployed should be a obvious clue to those who think the poor are in need of their outdated advice. Spending time with the poor is a rare event for those doing well, but if that were to happen, most people, and possibly the worst critics of the poor would most likely see a far different dilemma suffered by the poor than the one they pictured. I'm doing well, but that doesn't mean I can't understand the dynamics of poverty.
I think you made some valid points here, but, as usual, you ignored the elephant in the room--America's 40% out of wedlock birth rate. That's one of the biggest contributors to poverty that (usually liberal) folks want to ignore.
But even liberal leaning think tanks are admitting that we're never going to fix our poverty problem until we significantly reduce our 40% out of wedlock birth rate:
In later research, Ron Haskins and I learned that if individuals do just three things — finish high school, work full time and marry before they have children — their chances of being poor drop from 15 percent to 2 percent.
.....no government program is likely to reduce child poverty as much as bringing back marriage as the preferable way of raising children.
Almost everyone on this board who has cited a struggle mentioned health care. 4 out of 5 people I know who were doing okay then not was because of a health crisis.
If that's not an indictment of our health care system I don't know what is. A better health care system will not resolve poverty but it'll go a long way towards keeping people out of it who otherwise wouldn't fall in.
I'm the first to agree our health care is a disaster. Where I disagree is on the fix. If we think it's going to come from government sponsored health care, I disagree for lots of reasons. The biggest being that neither the government nor the corporations are interested in getting to the root of why so many people are not well in the first place. 70% of our health care costs are going to treat chronic diseases (heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and to a lesser extent-cancer) that are largely preventable. It turns out the world's healthiest populations don't use a lot of health care in the first place.
We need to start copying what was done in places like Albert Lea, MN if we really want to reduce health care costs. It's a much more wholistic approach than letting people get sick and then fighting each other about how much the bill should be and who should pay for it. At what point do we admit this is completely unproductive and unnecessary. We need to bypass the whole health care industry. While bypassing it 100% isn't possible, we can bypass most of it:
I'm the first to agree our health care is a disaster. Where I disagree is on the fix. If we think it's going to come from government sponsored health care, I disagree for lots of reasons. The biggest being that neither the government nor the corporations are interested in getting to the root of why so many people are not well in the first place. 70% of our health care costs are going to treat chronic diseases (heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and to a lesser extent-cancer) that are largely preventable. It turns out the world's healthiest populations don't use a lot of health care in the first place.
We need to start copying what was done in places like Albert Lea, MN if we really want to reduce health care costs. It's a much more wholistic approach than letting people get sick and then fighting each other about how much the bill should be and who should pay for it. At what point do we admit this is completely unproductive and unnecessary. We need to bypass the whole health care industry. While bypassing it 100% isn't possible, we can bypass most of it:
So if that's the opinion that most people have, we won't ever be able to reduce healthcare costs by a better diet and exercise, and even if they 'saw the light' and agreed that kids should eat nutritious foods it would be 40 or 50 years before we saw the results in the general population. So, what happens to people in the meantime, do people who aren't rich just curl up in a ball and die, because if we are stuck with a 100% free market approach that is what will happen to anyone who can't write 500k checks to hospitals.
So if that's the opinion that most people have, we won't ever be able to reduce healthcare costs by a better diet and exercise, and even if they 'saw the light' and agreed that kids should eat nutritious foods it would be 40 or 50 years before we saw the results in the general population. So, what happens to people in the meantime, do people who aren't rich just curl up in a ball and die, because if we are stuck with a 100% free market approach that is what will happen to anyone who can't write 500k checks to hospitals.
I don’t really care what kids eat at school. If parents think it’ll make their children healthier, why not make their lunch and/or have them physically active after school instead of hoping on the internet/phone/gaming system? School lunch is one meal per day...parents control everything else about their child’s life.
We believe in freedom. That includes the freedom to do stupid things, freedom to remain ignorant in spite of 12 years of mandatory education, freedom to function at a low level and not strive to succeed in life, freedom to spent money as fast or faster than they can earn it. When people exercise their freedoms to make poor choices with poor consequences, should we feel sorry for them? Should we give up some of our resources to help them? Or should we take away some of their freedoms?
Ah! Freedom is wonderful but it still doesn't stop bad things from happening. It is so easy to say that people had the freedom to make better choices but having the freedom does not give one the ability to make sound decisions. If someone makes a decision with poor consequences do we feel sorry for them. YES!. Do we give up some of our resources to help. YES! Do we remove some of their freedoms.YES! ( You noted mandatory schooling). Do not underestimate how close we all walk to personal disaster. A fatal car crash, loss of one's business, loss of one's house in a fire, a dementia diagnosis etc
To be fully free is to live in anarchy. We accept a loss of freedom and adopt a society's laws and customs to be able to enjoy the benefits. I fear that with increasing inequality of wealth and opportunity, the spectre iof revolution as per France in 1789, will re-emerge
I think you made some valid points here, but, as usual, you ignored the elephant in the room--America's 40% out of wedlock birth rate. That's one of the biggest contributors to poverty that (usually liberal) folks want to ignore.
Ah, this must be why the most Liberal State in the USA (MA) has a much lower divorce rate than, say, "conservative" states in the South (Divorce obviously creates many single parent households...with more potential problems).
Or why Brookings seems to favor things that "conservatives" dislike...and even call out as being against the Lord and Natural Law.
"Attempts to turn the technological clock backwards by denying women access to abortion and contraception are probably not possible. Even if such attempts were possible, they would now be counterproductive. In addition to reducing the well-being of women who use the technology, such measures would lead to yet greater poverty. With sexual abstinence rare and the stigma of out-of-wedlock motherhood small, denying women access to abortion and contraception would only increase the number of children born out-of-wedlock and reared in impoverished single-parent families"
Therefore, you are 1/2 right. The policies of the Right in this country DO create more out of wedlock children than would be produced if sexual ed was taught better and "choice" and other modern technology was more available to the population.
Seeing the RESULT and not the cause is a big problem. It's easy to look back after you've messed up, but the Right continues to pursue abstinence and lack of access to family planning...both here and around the world.
That's sad...and unrealistic. I'm sure you will agree.
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