161–170 of 534 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it's weird as hell to be the only person walking on an empty street.
I actually got stopped by the local police a year or two ago for going on a walk during a holiday, as they received reports of some strange guy walking alone.
Cop said, "are you English?"
"Yep"
"Though so"
The "Stranger Danger?" subsection in particular seems insane. 3% of children under 5 being murdered by strangers absolutely does not mean your child is safer with strangers.
The biggest issue is the courts. I have a two year old, and her grandma lives one mile away. I fully intend to let her walk there by herself when she is 6 or 7. Crime rate data supports me in that this is perfectly safe. But I'll always have this nagging feeling in my mind of some local busybody parent (and there are a lot) reporting me to CPS and then having to defend my decision and hope that I get a data driven ju…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Media is part of it, but the other part is this, taken from the first comment on the linked article: "I can’t help but notice how many freeways and roads are between Sheffield and Rother Valley. We can’t blame parents alone for the loss of childhood freedom. Since 1919 We have purposely designed our cities to maximize vehicle throughput and require car ownership and the result is an environment that is lethal for 8 y…
This isnt it. The town I grew up in had precisely the same number of interstates and major roads as it did 30 years ago (flat population) and children today have nowhere near the freedom that I did as a child.
I was thinking about this the other day. Ironically this is the safest time in all of history to let kids do this. Crime is historically very low and our kids want to carry around magical devices that lets us know where they are at all times and contact them instantly. This should be a golden age, yet we've turned it into jail. What gives everyone? Edit: And by "what gives" I mean literally, I live in the US and have…
Well what's the cause and effect here? Maybe it happens less often today just because there are less kids outside.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, in a recent brief visit to Switzerland I stayed with some friends in a small village near Zug and saw examples of this sort of attitude throughout more aspects of life than just child-raising. For example, many farmers were leaving produce out with price tags on and relying on an honour system for payment. Some did a 'pay what you want' system for their produce and just relied on people to do the right th…
"For example, many farmers were leaving produce out with price tags on and relying on an honour system for payment" FWIW this fairly common in rural Ontario and probably other parts of Canada too. I imagine it happens in parts of the US too.
Sometimes you will run into one of them at the produce stand in front of their house, but usually when I've been there it's unattended. The baskets of fruit have prices on them and there's a slot in the counter to put your money in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was 12, I rode my bike three miles to the bus stop where I hitched it to the bus and rode from a small town in San Diego down to the El Cortez Hotel where Comic Con was being held. I paid my own way, stayed for about 7 hours, then rode back home. I can't imagine being allowed to do that today...
I also just remembered another anectdote. One morning (age 13) I set out to go birdwatching. I had to get up around 5am, in order to get to the estuary before sunrise. I had a small backpack with all my gear, and about a mile from my home, a sheriff's deputy stopped me in his squad car. He quizzed me on what I was doing, asked to look in my backpack, and after 15 minutes, I was on my way. He was obviously surprised t…
I don't know what the laws are where you live but I would guess he had no right to search your backpack without your consent. To me, what you're describing is police aggression and you must always push back against any such aggression. You should not have submitted to the search. The legal system is adversarial and you must protect yourself from the very first moment you are in any way involved with it.
To quote James Duane from his book You Have the Right to Remain Innocent: "Nobody of sound mind can dispute that there is something fundamentally wrong, and intrinsically corrupt, about a legal system that encourages police officers and prosecutors to do everything in their power to persuade you and your children (no matter how young or old) to 'do the right thing' and talk - when they tell their own children the exact opposite."
The book: https://www.amazon.com/You-Have-Right-Remain-Innocent/dp/150...
Crime in many parts of America is higher than it was in medieval and middle ages in Europe, judged by intentional homicide rates. Also, crime approximated by intentional murder rate, outside of periods of war, is historically higher now than in history. source: https://ourworldindata.org/homicides/#germany
I've heard that there was a sharp increase from the early 20th century to the 70s-80s, then a small decline since then (maybe due to deleading gasoline among other things), and it seems to have happened in other countries too http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olym... . It's a bit hard to judge since there are only a few crimes where measurement has been consistent and good, e.g., homicide and vi…
That's true. However there are estimates that historically, during periods in peace and without severe economic hardship, the murder rates had settled at very low numbers in America (lower than today). In the data I linked it is 1/100,000 in 1800 which is lower than around 4 today, and around 50 in several cities. However, there are problems with the datasets as you mentioned, but some of those problems would make the historical homicide rate even lower than higher (i.e. better survival rate from medical care).
I have a 4 year old, in my mid 40s, and think about this a lot for some reason. In the 70s during the summer, when I was around 7, we would wake up, eat breakfast, go out and about wherever we wanted, come back for lunch, out again, come back for dinner, and then out again past dark to play flashlight tag. I think I would be charged with child endangerment these days if my kid (3 years in the future) was doing stuff…
Has anyone considered that, like many things, maybe childraising knowledge has improved over time, and maybe it is true that it's dangerous and a bad idea to let them roam around far away unsupervised? It always seemed reasonable to me, even when I was that age myself. An anecdote is that the only bone injury I had as a kid resulted from riding bikes with some other kids who had a "fun idea" of biking down this steep…
And I bet you wear a seat belt every day in your car as an adult.
Invincibility is one of those myths you want to dispel when kids are young and the stakes aren't as high.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? Go click on the links to the datasets I provided you. Look at the datasets. Notice that you see historical murder rate in the USA around 1 - 5 in the USA, and that it is now over 50 in some parts. >nor the crime rate in the USA historically compared to now My thesis was that some parts of the USA have higher crime rates than historical (they do). That was my thesis. An additional thesis is also true: At some po…
Ok, I get where we are crossing wires now. Your "ourworldindata" citations show a decreasing crime rate through basically every period of data except the 1960s and 70s. The period between 1940-1950 show a lower period than now in that it is around 4 p100k then and around 6 p100k now. You are then comparing that to certain city numbers in the USA that are ~50 p100k now. That makes more sense as a thesis and I think I…
It is true though that during many years of comparable peace and without economic hardship the rate in the USA had gone down to below what it is today. For example, estimated at 1/100,000 in year 1800.