Real World Philospohy

[Fyron]

Television is the late 20th/ early 21st century opiate of the masses.

[Cyrien]

I keep on hearing about the rising crime rates in the US. I wonder how many are aware that almost all forms of crime in the US have been on the decrease since 1993 after a brief flareup in the early 90's of increased youth violence.

Crime Rates

Note that it isn't crime increasing. It is conviction rates increasing. You could make a healthy case that that is due to the perception of increased crime and a hard on crime attitude.

[ November 27, 2003, 04:25: Message edited by: Cyrien ]

[Fyron]

The reason why people are deluded into thinking that crime rates are increasing is because the news media's coverage of crime has been steadily increasing over the Last decade. Every year, more and more of the news is devoted to reporting on crimes, though there are fewer each year.

[Cyrien]

Do what I do and watch less TV. Even when I do watch it it tends to either by a history or discovery type of channel or the cartoon network.

I'll take my opiate straight up thank you very much.

I get my news Online and from friends and family. Much better than watching an overly biased 1 hour news program covering lots of things that I could care less about.

Besides checking 12 Online biased accounts of something gives you a much better overall view of something than a single biased view.

[ November 27, 2003, 05:59: Message edited by: Cyrien ]

[Atrocities]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
The reason why people are deluded into thinking that crime rates are increasing is because the news media's coverage of crime has been steadily increasing over the Last decade. Every year, more and more of the news is devoted to reporting on crimes, though there are fewer each year.

Are you calling me deluded? Why thank you

Those statisics are inaccurate. They are customized to reflect information that is desired, and not true at all.

Look at the Governments unemployment reports, they list say 1 million poeple out of work because they are collecting unemployment when the number is closer to 11 million because 10 million people have lost, or used up their unemployment benefits.

So simply put, don't believe anything published by the US Government that reflects a positive. After all, these are the same guys who led us to believe that Iraq had huge stock piles of WoMD, and non have been found yet. (Side not, I could care less about the Iraq thing, but still, it just goes to show you, those putting out the info are not always honest about it.)

[Cyrien]

The figures can actually be verified from other areas as well. And several attempts to artifically reduce crime rates have been uncovered in the past. These were pretty much all the work of local areas such as cities trying to get a better reputation and the figures for those years and those cities were adjusted accordingly. By increasing the crime rates.

If an organization is willing to do that rather than look the other way I am willing to give them a benefit of the doubt.

PS: You can take caution to far as well. Just because one thing from someone is bad doesn't make everything from them bad. If we used that reasoning then after the debut of the Virtua Boy by Nintendo nothing else they made would ever be good ever again. And countless other similiar comparisons and analogies.
IE: Until they do something to lose my trust I tend to trust them, but always with an eye watching for them to do something to lose it. I may be trusting, but not naive. Optimistic Realism.

[Cyrien]

I knew it. A double post. Whenever it Posts my Messages that slow it is always a double post. How I hate you double Posts.

[ November 27, 2003, 14:51: Message edited by: Cyrien ]