At least one was at my apartment. Macbook Pro =(
:( Hopefully you had everything backed up somewhere.
Not everything, but most of the important stuff was backed up I think. Probably lost a bunch of pictures though.
Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
171–180 of 190 posts
Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know if we have to go reaching for lead as the reason. Reaching??? There was strong evidence that lead caused widespread and permanent damage to children's brains. Therefore the USA spent billions to remove it from our environment. After it is removed, asking whether this made a difference IS NOT a reach. PARTICULARLY NOT when compared to a hypothesis of differences in drug use over time that you've provided…
Is there some evidence somewhere that brain damage causes robbery? It's entirely reasonable to say that the lead explanation is "reaching," although it may turn out to be true. >asking whether this made a difference You're equivocating here, intentionally. The question is whether it made a difference in crime, not whether it "made a difference."
It's entirely reasonable to say that the lead explanation is "reaching," although it may turn out to be true.
My standard is that I don't use phrases like "reaching" unless I either am quite positive of what I will say, or am somewhat certain then did a Google search to verify.
You're equivocating here, intentionally. The question is whether it made a difference in crime, not whether it "made a difference."
I assure you that any equivocation was absolutely unintentional. I have been aware for years from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07... and other articles that the correlation between lead exposure and criminal statistics has been examined and proved very strong. And, of course, we have the known causal links between lead exposure and behavioral problems that could potentially lead to criminal acts.
Thus we have strong evidence of both correlation and causation between lead poisoning in childhood and criminal behavior decades later.
Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are high school students who drop thousands of $$$ into their hobbies. My hobby (computers and video games) was cheap in comparison to those getting tuned-up small cars as made famous in movies and racing games. $68/hr is a fairly inexpensive hobby indeed.
$68 an hour is not an inexpensive hobby by any objective measurement. I also have to wonder where high-school students who drop thousands of dollars into their hobbies are getting their money from. Parents?
> I also have to wonder where high-school students who drop thousands of dollars into their hobbies are getting their money from. Parents?
I often wondered the same thing, given that neither I nor my parents had anywhere near that much money to fritter away.
I think it comes down to parents directly or indirectly though. You can make a fair amount of money with a summer job and part-time job the rest of the year, when you don't have to pay for rent, food, etc.
It becomes harder to maintain a hobby once you have to move out and live on your own.
Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Small planes still run leaded fuels so the (rich) owners can save money not changing their engines. This is 50% of our current exposure, needlessly! http://www.treehugger.com/aviation/leaded-gas-banned-around-...
I fly planes, and I haven't met a rich owner yet. The typical cessna 150/172 costs less than a new SUV. The rich owners tend to fly kerosene burners. Also, most small-engine planes can already burn regular unleaded autogas. It's just the high-compression engines that require the lead. The FAA, AOPA and others are working on developing alternatives, but it takes time. Perhaps they should have done this sooner.
> most small-engine planes can already burn regular unleaded autogas. It's just the high-compression engines that require the lead
So they could change engines, but would rather continue to poison us to save the cost/loss of performance. AOPA is fighting against it in the bureaucratic way, via numerous stalling tactics, for 40 years now:
http://www.aopa.org/Media-Relations/Position-Papers/Issues-r...
If your toys cost as much as new cars, you are rich and can afford to stop poisoning us.
Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
$68 an hour is not an inexpensive hobby by any objective measurement. I also have to wonder where high-school students who drop thousands of dollars into their hobbies are getting their money from. Parents?
> I also have to wonder where high-school students who drop thousands of dollars into their hobbies are getting their money from. Parents? I often wondered the same thing, given that neither I nor my parents had anywhere near that much money to fritter away. I think it comes down to parents directly or indirectly though. You can make a fair amount of money with a summer job and part-time job the rest of the year, whe…
Depends on the age. I know when I was a teenager, I worked since I was allowed to (16). So, part time jobs, summer jobs and saving --that's where teenagers get the extra money. It's relatively easy to save money when you don't have to pay for room and board, as it were.
Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
#176I think the reasons for this are: (1) People buy fewer used items in physical stores, i.e. fewer people buy stuff at pawn shops etc and a typical thief will never go through the effort of building up a decent eBay seller reputation. This makes it harder to monetize stolen property. (2) It's a self-perpetuating statistic, in that less crime means more resources/attention is given to the remaining crime (by the police…
Criminals moved to doing fraud. How many us have been a victim of credit card fraud? There's over $190 billion of it a year in the US alone. That is over $600 per person. Imagine someone broke into you house every year and stole your TV or you are mugged 6 times a year with $100 in your wallet. Crime is still there, its adapted to the times.
Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're underestimating the scope. It's not just video games, but access to an unimaginably large quantity of free video and music...someone's watching all those kitten videos. And time spent consuming entertainment of any kind is time spent being docile. It's been postulated that the Arab Spring protests were heavily spurred by regular people who, having their Internet cut, had little else to do but express t…
"someone's watching all those kitten videos." I don't have data, but I doubt it's the boys who otherwise would have become criminals who watch kitten videos. Where you, by chance, looking for a synonym for 'kitten'?
What about the ubiquitous (and growing) availability of pornography (I mean, there are mobile porn sites now. Clearly demand is huge)? That could be a real factor.
Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
#178Virtue to them is that which makes modest and tame: with that they have turned the wolf into a dog and man himself into man's best domestic animal. - Nietzsche
Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm talking across the industrialized world. The availability of the internet and other 'pacification networks' may be a contributing factor but it's clearly not the driving force.
It could still be the main driving force, and it just so happened that an associated force or two started a little earlier.
But violence has been declining steadily for the past 400 years. Something other than the internet must be behind that.
Re: Falling Crime: Where have all the burglars gone?
#180This article mentions, but undersells, the lead factor. Lead exposure causes cognitive problems in children, especially related to impulse control. The drop in crime correlates very well with lead cleanup. Kevin Drum (a left-leaning US journalist) has been making this argument: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/01/lead-and-crime...
>This article mentions, but undersells, the lead factor. Lead exposure causes cognitive problems in children, especially related to impulse control. The drop in crime correlates very well with lead cleanup.
Sounds like a totally unrelated issue.
In my country we had a 400% raise in burglaries etc in the course of 15 years, and it was all due to poverty (including an iflux of poor unskilled illegal immigration).
Oh, and that was AFTER the "lead cleanup".
Crime can go up and down with no relation to lead whatsoever, as it has in tons of places.