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America’s incarceration rate is in decline

theatlantic.com

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Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#261

Post by matwood »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #191
mymythisisthis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also have fewer possessions worth stealing and trying to hock? It's not like TVs and radios cost that much anymore. People wear less jewelry. Though this is not a significant factor, it might be worth putting on the list still.

I was thinking that as I was getting ready to sell my house. I'm not a particularly materialistic person to start with, but there are hardly any physical objects in my home that I value that much besides (a) some photo albums/pictures and yearbooks - and for newer generations these are mostly digital I guess, (b) my violin and (c) my espresso machine and grinder. I guess you could throw my cellphone in there as well…

I feel you. I’m selling my house and I joke that I’ll give someone a better deal if they just take everything in it as part of the sale. A suitcase for my clothes, my computer, and some physical mementos is all I need to keep. Even the clothes are optional, but I don’t feel like buying a new wardrobe.

My coffee grinder may have been on my list, but I moved countries and the power is incompatible hah.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#262

Post by quantified »

b112 wrote: post #236
quantified wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A plane at 75,000 feet can descend for a long time and then level off without crashing. Eventually population will stop declining. Everyone needs to just chill about a declined birthrate.

What is your proof that it will not decline further? If you have no proof, then at the very least the cause must be investigated. After all, the concern is that the current rate of declining birth rate, means extinction in a few centuries. You don't just shrug that off and say "oh well, it'll probably be just fine."

Sure I do. You have zero proof that decline goes below a world population of 1 billion. This belief that it must always grow is based on just a fear. Very similar to the fear that gays marrying will cause everyone else to stop. Hasn't happened.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#263

Post by protocolture »

b112 wrote: post #234
dcow wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We may have swung the pendulum a little too far towards deliberate, though. The birthrate right now is below replacement rate, meaning that if we keep going like this (even if the birthrate doesn't keep trending down and holds steady) that society will die off. We need to figure out how to build an economy and society that can facilitate deliberate responsible parentage younger and more often. Luckily we have generat…

Too far is an understatement. People keep poking at the wrong reasons, but in some societies it is quite dire. South Korea with this year of 1, when 2.1 means 'static', means more than halving the population every 30 years or so. For a reverse comparison, if you take a penny and double it every day, you end up with > $5M in 30 days. And yet this birthrate issue doesn't take into account plague, war, natural disasters…

Population is a london horse manure problem. In both directions.

In 30 years time, people might be uploading their consciousness to computers, or colonising the moon. Making dire warnings about a concept like breeding that we might just get rid of seems foolish at best.

>We're in the middle of an extinction event.

No we are not. Lmao. Same way Horse Manure didnt snuff out life in London.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#264

Post by quantified »

palmotea wrote: post #256
wredcoll wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't just shrug off the fantasy that there will be zero children born in "a couple of centuries"?? What on earth am I reading?

> We don't just shrug off the fantasy that there will be zero children born in "a couple of centuries"?? That's not a fantasy, it's the inevitable outcome of sub-replacement fertility, which is the state we find ourselves in (though my intuition says it will take longer than "a couple of centuries" to get to zero).

It's the inevitable outcome of everybody continuing it for all the generations that remain. As soon as there aren't enough people to manufacture contraceptives, it will of course grow. But after a few generations, there will be more land, water, animal and plant life, copper, cobalt, gold and such per person, and people can easily say "that shrinkage sucked, let's grow". You assume that things will always be the way they are now, which is of course false.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#266

Post by motorest »

b112 wrote: post #243
EGreg wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throughout most of human history we have had less than a billion people. More people are alive today than have ever lived. And you are concerned that the population will drop by a half? Everyone will be richer and better off. The amount of pollution and resource use will be solved too. The underlying input to that is the number of people. One third of arable land is undergoing desertification Insects and other specie…

And you are concerned that the population will drop by a half? If you read more carefully, I am concerned by two things. A reduction to 0, and the lack of control over this. I think you don't get how the rate is continuing to decline, and further, that knowing why is important. And I have not said we need "more humans". Instead, I said we need a base number of humans.

> If you read more carefully, I am concerned by two things. A reduction to 0, and the lack of control over this.

I think you need to drop back to reality to reassess your concerns. Barring a major disaster, there is no risk of extinction. Population decline is a factor only in economic terms, as demographics alone will require a significant chunk of a nation's productivity potential to sustain people who left the workforce. However, countries like the US saw it's population double in only two or three generations, and people in the 50s weren't exactly fending off extinction.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#267

Post by sdenton4 »

palmotea wrote: post #256
wredcoll wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't just shrug off the fantasy that there will be zero children born in "a couple of centuries"?? What on earth am I reading?

> We don't just shrug off the fantasy that there will be zero children born in "a couple of centuries"?? That's not a fantasy, it's the inevitable outcome of sub-replacement fertility, which is the state we find ourselves in (though my intuition says it will take longer than "a couple of centuries" to get to zero).

....assuming the sub-replacement rate continues forever, which is a hefty assumption. It's quite certain that a greater-than-replacement rate can't continue forever (eventually, the mass of the humans would be greater than the mass of the planet), though that has been the world we've lived in up to now.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#268

Post by BLKNSLVR »

deadbabe wrote: post #29

There are many reasons why crime is in decline, but ultimately its economic. Crime used to pay. Your expected return on a crime was pretty good for the risk involved. Nowadays though, because of technology, risk has increased while the returns have also decreased. Barriers to entry for crimes worth committing are now way higher. Robbing a gas station decades ago could yield a nice chunk of cash that could probably pa…

By necessity criminals are having to move up the corporate ladder to have access to that which is worth appropriating.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#269

Post by erikerikson »

wredcoll wrote: post #241
999900000999 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is this can lead people to pushing it till 40+. I was talking to a nice girl up until she mentioned still wanting kids in her late 40s. Maybe I’m old school, but telling someone you froze your eggs the same day you meet them is weird. Society itself is broken. You SHOULD be able to graduate high school and make enough to support yourself and a family with a bit of struggle. This rapidly transformed int…

> Society itself is broken. You SHOULD be able to graduate high school and make enough to support yourself and a family with a bit of struggle This has literally only been true for about 30 years out of the sum total of human history, would you like to guess when those 30 years happened to be? Obviously the answer is "1950s america". For the rest of human history, you needed something beyond the education you receive…

For most of human history, there were no formal schools.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#270

Post by kfajdsl »

solatic wrote: post #258
dcow wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We may have swung the pendulum a little too far towards deliberate, though. The birthrate right now is below replacement rate, meaning that if we keep going like this (even if the birthrate doesn't keep trending down and holds steady) that society will die off. We need to figure out how to build an economy and society that can facilitate deliberate responsible parentage younger and more often. Luckily we have generat…

Or, you continue to grow the population through immigration. The US is unique (or maybe there are a handful of others, I don't know) in its ability to welcome immigrants who, within two generations, largely see themselves as Americans first and not as the identity of their grandparents. American identity politics has eroded this somewhat but it is still largely true, for example, that grandchildren of immigrants will…

This doesn't work forever. The birth rates in developing countries are also falling.
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