Decline?

Originally posted by sumydid
I got to thinking out loud and typing while I thought, and came out with sort of a mess, didn't I.

I propose that Christianity is on the decline and I cited an article.
I propose that heinous killings are on the rise but I may be wrong.

All the rest is me wasting your time, it looks like.


SORRY! 😀

Ok, saw this too late but I won't edit my post again.

SORRY! 😛

Originally posted by tomtom232
Name them.

I named about 6 of 'em off the top of my head. I would round up a couple more dozen heinous killers that are still alive if I had to but are you really going to insist?


Wrong, rat lips.
Ok. snake eyes.

Show me on a graph how this type of event is happening at an exponentially increasing rate

Since Columbine was the first of its kind. So from the first high school in 1505, until roughly 500 years later, no Columbine event or equivalent. Since Columbine there have been many successful and/or thwarted Columbine events. I just Googled "Columbine Copycats" and got 3,630 results. Still want a graph? If so, I direct you to my statemtent where I said it "seems" like it's on the rise, i.e. I was submitting an opinion.

The reason I included 9/11 in the mix is because though it can be seen as an act of war, it was perpetrated by just 19 evil men, and innocent civilians were targeted.

tomtom we are running into an issue where our messages are coming out at too late (at least mine are because I'm distracted) so, by the time something gets resolved, boom here comes another message to crank it back up.

sorry again, but it's an interesting subject to discuss, I submitted some quick opinion with some loose facts sprinkled in. I think most people would agree that it SEEMS like the heinous crime and presence of evil is ramping up and spreading more wide -- but since I'm multitasking I can't say for sure that the facts back it all up. I know that information travels faster and news is now global, and all that has to be taken into account -- it would surely contribute to a SEEMING increase in all the bad news... but I suspect there is more to it. I've seen society just around me personally change quite a bit in my 45 years. That part I can at least attest to.

When I was a kid, we didn't have all the children running around screaming about bitches and hoes and wantin' to put a cap in yo ass. Street culture prevails these days. It wasn't even a figment of our imagination 30 years go, that so many kids would aspire to be street thugs.

Originally posted by sumydid
Originally posted by tomtom232
[b]Name them.

I named about 6 of 'em off the top of my head[/b]. I would round up a couple more dozen heinous killers that are still alive if I had to but are you really going to insist?


Wrong, rat lips.
Ok. snake eyes.

Show me on a graph how this type of event is happening at an exponentially in act of war, it was perpetrated by just 19 evil men, and innocent civilians were targeted.

Since Columbine was the first of its kind.

But Columbine wasn't the first of it's kind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting

Originally posted by sumydid
Originally posted by tomtom232
[b]Name them.

I named about 6 of 'em off the top of my head. I would round up a couple more dozen heinous killers that are still alive if I had to but are you really going to insist?


Wrong, rat lips.
Ok. snake eyes.

Show me on a graph how this type of event is happening at an exponentially in act of war, it was perpetrated by just 19 evil men, and innocent civilians were targeted.[/b]

We have a problem here of dealing with increasing reporting worldwide of such incidents as
mass school shootings and terrorist attacks making them seem much more common or
threatening than they really are combined with a massive increase in total population size.

Now it really doesn't mater for the perspective of society as a whole whether murders are
committed in bunches (ie mass murder) or individually, what matters is the total mortality rate
per-unit population.

If you look at overall mortality rates from unnatural causes in the modern developed world vs
pretty much any point in the past, or with current day third world, you find that our chances of
being killed in such events are vastly lower in today's world than they were in the past.

The total rate might be higher but is offset by a massive increase in total population.

This isn't to say that the world isn't without serious problems or that "The end of civilisation
as we know it" might not be one of the available options in the next century....

But it wouldn't be the fist time, and who says that the change will be for the worse....

However people have been lamenting the 'decline' of mankind and those rowdy students 'we were
never that drunk and misbehaved in our day' for centuries if not millennia.

Which is why anecdote is a really lousy way of building an accurate picture of the rises and falls of
civilisation or anything else.

The only way to go is statistics, properly done, and analysed.

If you have a position you want to assert, (increase in crime, decline of theism, whatever) go find
accurate statistics. The truth is always more interesting and useful than making stuff up because of
anecdote.

Originally posted by sumydid
Originally posted by tomtom232
[b]Name them.

I named about 6 of 'em off the top of my head. I would round up a couple more dozen heinous killers that are still alive if I had to but are you really going to insist?


Wrong, rat lips.
Ok. snake eyes.

Show me on a graph how this type of event is happening at an exponentially in act of war, it was perpetrated by just 19 evil men, and innocent civilians were targeted.[/b]

I didn't see you name anybody that is "equivalent" to Jack the Ripper.

1999 would then be the origin and every copycat plotted afterwards... I see no exponential increase of these events. In otherwords, it doesn't seem anything except to happen.

Highschool massacres were bound to happen with an increase in population anyway... just because it happened at a school doesn't make it special. I am sure many massacres happen before 1505.

Originally posted by sumydid
tomtom we are running into an issue where our messages are coming out at too late (at least mine are because I'm distracted) so, by the time something gets resolved, boom here comes another message to crank it back up.

sorry again, but it's an interesting subject to discuss, I submitted some quick opinion with some loose facts sprinkled in. I think most ...[text shortened]... gment of our imagination 30 years go, that so many kids would aspire to be street thugs.

I'll iterate, and re-iterate, that it depends upon your base and your concept. Children are unseen or heard of in the streets of Thailand, and there is no thug culture. I ask you think again as to whom and what you are insinuating.

-m.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
[b]Since Columbine was the first of its kind.

But Columbine wasn't the first of it's kind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting[/b]

Also even if it was, there will be a first school shooting... because go back enough and you
either have no schools, no guns or both.

The fact that changes in society and technology have made changes to the kinds of crime
committed doesn't mean that overall crime has increased.

People killed each other perfectly well with rocks and stones let alone swords and spears,
what matters is the likelihood of you getting killed while going about your daily life, not what
means the attacker uses to kill you.

And in the western world today we are vastly safer (on the whole) than at any point in our past
or in comparison with many third world countries today.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
[b]Since Columbine was the first of its kind.

But Columbine wasn't the first of it's kind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting[/b]

I hate to get technical but since everyone else is.

I specifically mentioned a high school shooting and specifically said "of its kind."

Kindly review your list and find an equivalent. Curiously, the word "massacre" is reserved for only 2 schools other than College Universities. That would be the Columbine massacre, perpetrated by students, and, the Cleveland Elementary School massacre which was perpetrated by an adult with a long criminal history--and, obviously not nearly the same.

Also worthy of note, the first 33 years before Columbine, roughly 40 incidents and in the last 12 years since, we've had roughly 60 incidents according to your chart. That would represent a pretty noticeable escalation, wouldn't you agree?

Let's round it off at a mere 500% escalation in school shootings. According to your chart.

Originally posted by sumydid
I hate to get technical but since everyone else is.

I specifically mentioned a high school shooting and specifically said "of its kind."

Kindly review your list and find an equivalent. Curiously, the word "massacre" is reserved for only 2 schools other than College Universities. That would be the Columbine massacre, perpetrated by students, and, the ...[text shortened]... g to your chart. That would represent a pretty noticeable escalation, wouldn't you agree?

Those numbers would correlate to the "escalation" of the population.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Those numbers would correlate to the "escalation" of the population.

I edited my msg too late, to add the percentage of escalation. 500% or there'bouts.

Originally posted by sumydid
I edited my msg too late, to add the percentage of escalation. 500% or there'bouts.

Actually it is only 50% which, again, correlates with the population increase.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Actually it is only 50% which, again, correlates with the population increase.

Let us see.

40/33 = a frequency of 1.2 per year (which I had rounded to 1 in my head)

60/12 = a frequency of 5 per year

So the actual increase is 416.7%

My bad. Sorry for the rounding of 1.2 to 1.0

Originally posted by sumydid
Let us see.

40/33 = a frequency of 1.2 per year (which I had rounded to 1 in my head)

60/12 = a frequency of 5 per year

So the actual increase is 416.7%

My bad. Sorry for the rounding of 1.2 to 1.0

Oh, so you are stating the increase per year.

What is the average increase(% ) per year?

The growth rate is about 2% and I bet you would find that the school shooting rate is probably near the same.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Oh, so you are stating the increase per year.

What is the average increase(% ) per year?

The growth rate is about 2% and I bet you would find that the school shooting rate is probably near the same.

whoa, I would really doubt that.

High school massacres represent a tiny tiny proportion of murders, and have very low total numbers
(I am talking statistically here, of course 1 high school massacre is 1 too many)

So they are likely to fluctuate wildly based on a large number of factors, and it may well be that they have
increased in recent times (lots of evidence has shown that the lurid reporting the gain increases the likelihood
of copycats which have copycats of their own and so on).

However as I keep saying, what matters for your overall safety levels and societal health is the overall murder rate.
Which probably does scale more closely with population, once the other major factors have been accounted for.