I’m curious why this is of such concern to you. — Ennui Elucidator

Well, the rate of "cleared cases" is an important number for public safety. If few murder/manslaughter cases are cleared, it means that individuals who are ready, willing, and able to kill are still in the community. A certain percentage of murders are one-off. Another percentage are repeaters. The percentage of repeat killers is not huge, and it doesn't have to be for great harm.

"cleared cases" are solved cases.

In 1960, the murder rate was 5.1. Today it is 5.0. There was a peak in 1980 of around 10. — Ennui Elucidator

Like 5 per 100,000? Maybe nationally, but not by state, and not by city.

Here: The murder rate varies from 1 or 2 per 100,000 on up.

So, the legal system inclusive of the guardians of the law (the police) are not there to actually prevent crimes but only to ensure that the perps are caught after the crime. Geez! What a mind job! — TheMadFool

Most crimes are prevented by people feeling the need to be law-abiding. That's true for every community. Most people are law-abiding. If someone isn't law abiding, they will choose a time and place to commit a crime where the police will not be present -- OBVIOUSLY. Police reduce crime by arresting repeat offenders, and by maintaining a certain level of intimidation (make that necessary intimidation).

To paraphrase Mao, law enforcement is not a tea party.

However, ask why the situation is like it is for blacks?, — TheMadFool

Slavery may be an ultimate--but distant--cause of blacks circumstances. The efforts of (mostly southerners) to suppress the black population, especially through the 'Jim Crow' laws of the 1890s, and the terrorism of the KKK in the1920s and 1930s is an early proximal cause. The Great Migration northward in the 20th century led to intense racial discrimination in northern industrial cities -- another proximal cause.

A third proximal cause is the mid-century flight of capitalists from unionized to un-unionized states. Off-shoring of industry in the latter third of the 20th century (to Japan, China...) is a third proximal cause. Steady attacks on the organized labor movement broke many unions, and helped wages fall during decades of inflation--a fourth proximal cause.

These and other several other proximal causes (re-segregation of schools, for instance) have resulted in significant economic disability for black communities.

However, de-unionizing, falling wages, inflation, and industrial flight have hurt the entire working class (75% of the population at least). Conditions ARE worse for blacks than for most whites because of their longer period of economic suppression. It's hard to argue, though, that unskilled white workers are better off. "Nobody knows you when you are down and out", regardless of your skin color.

We can natter away about racism until hell freezes over and it won't change much.

This is painful, BC. — Ennui Elucidator

What is painful is that black communities are over-policed and under-policed at the same time.

A lot of police effort is directed at relatively minor stuff. Collecting people for warrants for unpaid fines, for instance. Or heavily policing traffic offenses--both of which are revenue producers (not for the police, necessarily, but for the municipality). The upshot of these sorts of police activities are disruption when fines turn into jail terms.

The police activity that is missing in many communities is detective-led investigations leading to the arrest of people committing murder and manslaughter.

The "chattering classes" and their social media followers have been absolutely obsessed with race, gender, identity, et al. A lot of the talk, regardless of the source, is a deflection from the material facts of life.

FOR EXAMPLE, the police have been identified as public enemy #1 by people not in immediate need of police service. One of the reasons the rate of black-on-black murders is so disproportionately high is, among other things, a relative lack of police services in black communities. Blacks are not randomly murdering each other. (Well, bullets flying during gun flights may well cause random deaths.). A lot of the black-on-black murders occur in the conduct of criminal activity. If the criminal activities are not investigated and prosecuted, then the disproportionate rate deaths will continue. The rate of black-on-black murder case clearance is unacceptably low. (It's much better for white-on-white murder cases.). In other words, too many black-on-black murders remain unsolved, unprotected.

Lack of effective policing is one problem. A second very big problem is the well-documented economic isolation of the black population. It is, in very practical terms, more difficult for young black people to launch themselves into good employment. People trapped in economic isolation (like unskilled white men in the rust belt) also resort to socially destructive behavior at a disproportionate rate. If crime is the most open avenue, that's the route some people will take

Poverty begets more poverty, because children raised in chronic poverty accumulate less cultural capital from day one.

People perform much better (regardless of race) when avenues to economic opportunity are open. In the United States (among other places) social mobility is quite high among the beneficiaries of previous social mobility -- specifically, the relatively small prosperous middle class. I hate to break the bad news to you, but most Americans are not middle class. Social mobility lags among the working class, who have experienced less previous upward mobility.

What's my point? Follow the money. It accounts for what happens to people much more reliably than critical race theory, intersectionality, queer theory, et al.

My 1940 Family Law book holding family responsible for family, no longer applies. Have we made this social change with much thought? — Athena

Economics, I think.

For a number of economically motivated reasons, women began to move into the work force in the 1960s (well before then, like during WWII, then back out). As women began working outside the home more, the need for childcare services increased. Eventually, women were far more IN the workforce than not, and the availability of childcare became a national issue.

Over time, families found they needed more than one income to support their desired lifestyle. (Essentially they needed 2 incomes to pay for what most working class people wanted.). They could have done without stuff they wanted, been poorer, and women could have remained home and in charge of child care. That's the sort of home I grew up in. Most people wanted the stuff.

Further... wages have lagged behind inflation for decades, reinforcing the need for two (or more) incomes to maintain a certain lifestyle. Then, there are women who have decided to have children without partners who have set themselves up for a much higher likelihood of poverty.

So, the changes in child care needs are a side effect of a decision to run the economy for the benefit of the rich and to screw everybody else.

There's also the glorification of sin, which indices some Christians into doing horrible acts. — Wheatley

Come again?

I see religion as cover for a lot of human nastiness — Wheatley

Religion may well be a cover, but before and underneath the cover, the nastiness was there all along. People (all of us) are universally capable of really extensive nastiness.

Who needs ethics when you can just follow the bible? — Wheatley

Without ethics and morals, the Bible is no help.

There's still animosity between the Christian west and Islam — Wheatley

And between Islam and Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism, others. Christianity and Islam are alike in being received religions with a strong missionary component. Their nature pretty much guarantees conflict. Most religions are not received (were not founded by an individual).

indoctrinating kids with the bible promotes irrational thinking (I'm thinking about conservative Christians) such as gullible anti intellectualism. — Wheatley

Yes.

The Church, Religion, Faith, Miracles, all that, claim to have been given a free pass, but it's certainly not accepted everywhere. There are plenty of people, including not a few believers, whose scathing criticisms of their own religion are scorching.

Jews, Christians, and Moslems are all monotheists but they are not monolithic. They come in all sorts of variations, better and/or worse. You seem to think of religion as an irresistible steam roller. True, there are some folk who would like to run the steam roller over their enemies. They tend to be fundamentalists (in whatever faith tradition they are in). Think conservative Baptists or the Taliban.

The majority are not ideological steam rollers.

If you do not agree with my generous assessment, you will be burnt at the stake.

I bet there are christians now plotting to keep Christianity as the dominant belief. — Wheatley

Absolutely. And many others are also plotting to promote their various views. Good on some, a plague on others.

bronze age myths — Wheatley

Bronze and Iron Age myths. Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam arose during the Roman era, even if they were built on older mythologies. This is an old issue, but mythologies serve many functions, some o them quite useful. We 21st centurions also have mythologies. Some of our myths are invisible to us because we think they are true.

No matter what people believe, or do not believe, people tend to conform, and promote conformity to whatever is the dominant scheme of belief.

How do you know that "soul is subsumed under identity and individuality?" I don't know that. — Wheatley

There was a Gallop poll 6 years ago that proves it. Just joking.

Baker or some bitter crank are commenting on language use, and the observation is based on the experience of observing how people talk. There are more scientific approaches one can use--Word Frequency studies is one. Here is the Google Ngram for "soul" - the ngram is a count of words appearing in print.



Peak "soul was in the 1800s, probably as a result of the first and second Great Awakenings (Christian renewal and outreach). Then it dropped to a modern low in the latter part of the 20th century; now it is considerably more common. But the Ngram doesn't tell us what people mean/meant when they used the word "soul". For that, one has to read and talk.

Back to the twenty first century, we are seeing more people break away from religion, and from my point of view, there is less religious talk. And instead of talking about souls, many of us are talking about our lives (at school or at work, for example). — Wheatley

The break-away from religion (here I mean denomination, parish, formal worship) has been going on for the last 70 years. The 1960s were watershed years for Christian religious organizations in the US (and elsewhere, earlier). "Spiritual" -- whatever the hell that means -- seems to be the term du jour for millions of people.

My guess is that, 200 years ago, 400, 800 ... people were mostly talking about various aspects of their lives. Take a look at Samuel Pepys diary (17th century). As a man on the make, man about town, busy busy busy, he included religious activity, but most of the time it was secular talk. The peasants were not discussing theology much -- just a guess. The crops, the children, the neighbors, their landlord, the thatching which needed to be replaced, aches, pains, etc.

Interesting fact, it isn't the soul that is resurrected (should there be such a thing) but the physical body. As it says in the Creed: "I believe in the resurrection of the body".

I think your observation is correct, more or less. The term "spirit" and "spiritual" are sufficiently vague that they could just as well be replaced by identity, individuality, or personhood. Still, a residual belief in an afterlife is pretty common, and "something" is thought by many to continue on indefinitely. At least that's how I read the 21st century.

But I'm not sure if we should really believe it. When we believe so strongly in the better circumstance of the 'less fortunate' we turn it into expectation and eventual reality. — kudos

I'm not sure whether you said what you meant to say. Clarify, please.

Though some may disagree, as far as I'm concerned there is clear Judeo-Christian ideological baggage in this idea of being endowed by a Creator with unalienable rights and liberties. — kudos

Thomas Jefferson was not a theist; at best he was a deist. And of course there is Judeo-Christian baggage attached to the idea of "creator". Western civilization (and American culture) are loaded with Judeo-Christian baggage--much of it well-worth preserving. (You capitalized 'Creator'; are you carrying Judeo-Christian baggage?)

Jefferson could have referenced 'nature' as the source of our equality; or some philosopher, or something else--executive fiat, maybe. Rhetorically, 'creator' is still the best choice, given past and current contexts.

Just because Jefferson used a term associated with religion is no reason to quibble. The man who talked about god-endowed equality also was a slave owner who, in the end, did not free his slaves. But contradictions don't invalidate the ideas of the man. Nobody is free of hypocrisy or contradictions.

The FACTS OF LIFE:

Individuals may be considered "equal" as a political stance, but in practical terms, they are not. Each person lands somewhere on continua of mental, emotional, physical, and social features (like wealth, or location). Different features lead to varying results. Some people will have much better experiences in life than others. Different political and social systems allow for more, or less, flexibility in individuals' pursuit of goals.

Progressive, liberal thinking disapproves of larger differences in outcomes, especially when associated with ethnicity, gender, or race. Thinking that is less progressive or liberal tends to be more tolerant of differing outcomes.

One may want an egalitarian society where there is equality of opportunity and outcomes for everyone, but how the hell do we socially engineer this desired good? I used to think that such an achievement was possible in American society, but I've abandoned that idea.

For one thing, the roots of inequality (across the board) are quite deep and have enduring consequences. To quote Jesus out of context, "I tell you, that to every one who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. — Luke 19:26".

Industrial, capitalist societies are highly productive machines, and one of their products is inequality -- by design. The economic system is designed to concentrate wealth, and when wealth is piled up in one place, poverty (absolute or relative) will be piled up in other places.

Hence, enduring inequality.

Work sucks! That's why they have to pay people to do it.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Henry David Thoreau

Why is that?

Most men are wage slaves. Karl Marx

We are entirely dependent on working for a wage to gain the ability to live. The terms of labor are often highly unsatisfactory.

So... not only are we born without consent, but we are born into a world where we will be forced to work if we want to live.

Workers of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to gain.

I heard this in a radio discussion this morning. A neurologist or psychologist said that the primary purpose of the brain is running the body--everything from heart rate and temperature regulation to vomiting bad food to not falling off a bike. It does manage our philosophical discussions, but that's a bonus. The main thing is keeping us alive. We don't measure that extremely important function in IQ tests (we measure it by longevity).

resources in the brain that turn mental tasks to automatisms — Vince

Like habits and "muscle learning'. I haven't thought about how to keep my bike upright for a long time; I just do. Muscles, of course, don't learn but the brain controlling the muscles does. When I type I don't have to look at the screen to know I hit the wrong key. I feel it in my fingers. You probably experience something similar when you perform music -- you can feel the wrong note, even if you can hear it too.

Your experience with music, birdsong, and pitch is typical of so much of the brain -- HOW the brain does this stuff is hidden from view. We don't know exactly how the brain does most of the stuff it does. If one knows a piece of music very well (from listening or performing), one can often recognize it within the first 2 or 3 measures or even 1 or 2 seconds of sound. HOW the brain tracks down a song based on a sliver sized sample is just not subject to observation.

There are blind people who can--to a limited extent--echo-navigate. Some have gotten quite good at this. Animal studies have shown that--laying dignity aside--people can put their face to the dirt and sniff out a trail on the ground -- not nearly as well as a dog, but we can follow an odor trail (not a rabbit, but maybe drops of chocolate or vanilla).

Such abilities as identifying where a wine originated, what varieties of this season's tea harvest adds up to the standard Lipton's Tea flavor, or something as homely as knowing when the bread dough has been kneaded long enough just don't show up on IQ tests, or the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) for that matter.

I personally believe that the modern nervous system is so attuned to Internet technologies/services, that any prolonged disruption would result in withdrawal and (ultimately) utter, utter chaos. IMO at least. — Bret Bernhoft

More like the Internet is attuned to the old nervous system, as was the telephone, telegraph, photograph, music, or--go back a few thousand years--writing, even language.

Disruptions to community can be difficult. The internet is now part of our community's communication system, as is television, telephones, radios, film, et al. I'd hate to lose them.

As one ages, usually past the 20s, there is cognitive decline — Vince

Granted: there certainly are people who peak early (or not) and whose decline -- at middle age -- is clearly visible. And I'm not thinking of people with TBI or early-onset Alzheimers. Just ordinary people whose intellectual skills don't hold up over time. But there are also those people whose varied cognitive skills don't decline.

As one grows up to become an adult so does their brain and their intelligence, but not their IQ. — Vince

Aren't these statements ignoring 'plasticity' - the ability of the brain to become more complex (more connections among neurons) over time? And if the brain is fully developed by the mid 20s, that surely doesn't necessitate immediate decline thereafter. No plateau?

While some do, others do not think of intelligence as a "fixed quantity". One might think of it as more a dynamic quantity, determined by current environment, interest, motivation, previously acquired skills, practice, and so on. Just guessing, someone going through a bad divorce, terrible job, major illness or injury, and so forth would probably test out with a lower IQ than they would before or after these distressing circumstances. Conversely, someone whose life is full, happy, stimulating, and so on would measure out better than they otherwise would.

There are individual scores, and then there are millions of scores. Maybe we focus too much on 1 score out of a million (which if it is ours, is VERY important).

Using your formulation, I would become less intelligent as I got older, even if my mental acuity stayed the same. — T Clark

Some people do manage to become stupider as they age, but many people seem to get brighter. My guess is that the people who get brighter with age were smart to begin with, but were submerged in work (childrearing, factory, office, barns and fields). After they get rid of the children (who grow up and leave home, one hopes), maybe get rid of the boring / nagging / needy spouse (through natural causes, of course), and retire, they can finally blossom intellectually.

Given a few hours, a psychologist can measure several axes of intelligence and come up with a pretty good summary of intellectual capacity. Similarly, several axes of personality can be measured. That's not what's done, though, in most cases--people get paper-and-pencil tests which are a very rough measure.

A psych prof once said "Want to" is more important than "IQ". That seems to be generally true. Highly motivated people accomplish more than lazy slobs, no matter what their intelligence is.

a concrete measure of intelligence cannot be achieved given the abstract nature of the concept of "intelligence" — Vince

Exactly. But I can't clarify what intelligence is, either.

Some people are clearly not intelligent, whatever that is, and other people are. It seems to be somewhat flexible. People who claim to never having read a book after they graduated from college (or high school) have almost certainly become significantly more stupid. On the other hand, high school / college drop outs who have been reading non-fiction voraciously are likely becoming more intelligent. I've known some formidable uneducated minds.

Some people are socially intelligent (they are born knowing how to work a crowd). I'm a social moron. Other people are gifted in spacial and mechanical matters. They may be inarticulate, but they understand a lot of stuff that is beyond many a college professor. There are teenagers who know how to make big money legally in business, or can write advanced programming. Not me.

If I'm good at anything, it's the big picture--and a few fiddly skills that aren't worth much.

Go read books Bitter Crank old chap! — TheMadFool

In the last 10 years I've read more and better books than I had previously read in 20 years. Time, at last. And Amazon + the iPad.

I like books that clearly explain how things came to be. So, How The Mountains Grew: A New Geological History of North America by John Dvorak is an excellent history of the planet from dust ball to what you walk around on now. A different area of explanation came from Barons of the Sea: and their race to build the world's fastest clipper ships by Steven Ujifusa. This was about the British/American/China trade in tea -- and illegal opium. Great fortunes were made in this trade, among them Warren Delano's--grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Speed in shipping mattered then, as now. One wanted to be the first into port with the narcotic (China) or tea (New York and London).

This is all much more meaningful now than when I was in college. Geology 101 was a great course, but I hadn't seen much geology myself--beyond a low hills and river valleys. The most significant geological feature where I grew up was loess, dirt blown off the receding glaciers. I hadn't seen a Great Lake, an ocean, a mountains, or a canyon yet. Continental drift was a fairly new concept in 1965.

The next book is Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Fischer. The 'four seeds' were Puritans (East Anglia), Quakers (North midlands), Cavaliers (southern England) and the Scotch-Irish (borderlands and Ulster). From a Puritan POV, the Cavaliers and Scotch Irish were a liability, creating the slave-holding South and the troublesome Appalachians. The feeling about liabilities was and remains mostly mutual.

The New England Puritans (liberal Yankees) and the Cavalier/Scotch Irish (southerners and Reagan Republicans) are still with us. I come from the upper-midwestern Yankee Land.

The level of stupidity I inhabited when I started college was very deep. I think, believe, hope, and claim I've come a long way since then.

The fastest growing websites are all porn-related. — TheMadFool

After driving internet innovation for 20 to 30 years, being ubiquitous from the get go, and making money all these years, how are they still the fastest growing thing on line? I would think they might have plateaued somewhere along the line. Are they growing faster than YouTube? FaceBook? Amazon? Google?

I'm too cheap to buy memberships to [gay] hard core sites, but paywall sites are the wellspring. I stick to the stuff that has been circulating for years on sites like BlogSpot or Tumblr; some of the photos were first published in the early 70s, on paper!

My understanding is that it isn't expensive to produce porn. Actors and crew get paid, but not a lot, and they probably don't get much in residuals. So, are the profits in sales of content? Subscriptions to sites? Pay-per-view? Exports? Advertising on the sites for motor oil and lawn-care equipment? Viagra (fake or real)? Nitrate inhalants?

I would suffer traumatic brain injury if the internet crashed. Really. One of the reasons my mind appears to still be functioning is that Google search, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube, and a few thousand web pages provide me with mental content. It's always there 24/7. When I'm talking to relatives and others on the phone I can fact check; look up diseases and drug side effects; find recipes they (or I) forgot parts of; check etymology; get words and phrases translated; read scattered articles from NYT, Guardian, Boston Globe, LA Times, WSJ, and the Washington Post--and porn, of course: Architecture porn, dog porn, science porn, rock and roll porn, slum porn, porn porn... And I can shop for stuff--80% of which I could probably live without.

I would be a vastly better student today than I was in the 1960s. Well, maybe. I wasted a lot of time back then and there is nothing better than the Internet for massive time wastage. But still, there is such a wealth of good information (music, history, science, philosophy fora, etc.).

but what if the entire internet shut down — Benj96

in third-rate sci-fi novels, when something happens to disrupt society, people promptly turn to looting, riot, vigilante reprisals for current, recent, or long-past slights; murder, and cannibalism.

Probably something like that. If you are plump and tender, you'd just better hope the Internet keeps functioning.

I have always been astonished by old men who tell me they still feel 25. — Tom Storm

They probably don't feel physically like age 25. When I say I feel young, I mean mentally, but what do I mean by that?

Active curiosity
good memory
ability to concentrate
better intellectual skills - less overall stupidity
much more perspective

Sex drive at 75? Mercifully lessened. It's something of a relief to have that persistent urge quiet (most of the time anyway).

if you were born 2000 onwards then you're more than likely going to reach 100. — I like sushi

Global warming might start trimming the population at all ages. Not just the heat, but social disruption.

what percent — Bitter Crank

No idea. — I like sushi

It's a very small number--well below 1%. "according to the U.S. Census Special Report on Centenarians, in 2010, there were 53,364 centenarians in the United States. 80% of centenarians are female.

"A gentleman is simply a patient wolf." — Tom Storm

Excellence in good quote finding.

Do Gentlemen quote themselves?

Like @T Clark, I am not a gentleman. I try not to be simply awful and often succeed, but with less success than the putative Gentlemen achieves. Should a man aim to be a gentleman? They were "the lowest rank of the landed gentry", a step above the peasants. Aim higher, perhaps, for class supremacy?

Most of us came from peasant stock--go back a little ways--and most of us also came from the later working class, and/or are still. Not that peasants and workers are by nature slobs. I think of deep slovenliness as a feature of the better-off and way too-well-off classes. They can afford retainers to literally and figuratively clean things up for them.

This ad from the plastics industry was in today's Washington Post

The link is full of good advice. Thanks.

Bottled water was uncommon 40 years ago. Bottling companies created a new product market. Where once there were a few Perrier bottles on the shelf, there are now long shelves of bottle water. Fairly often the water in the bottles is simply tap water.

Stop drinking bottled water!

One of the reasons for the high level of obesity in the US is the amount of soft drinks people consume, most of it in 1-use bottles. There is nothing one needs in a Coke or Pepsi. Drink it as an occasional treat once in a while -- not as a staple in your diet.

My use of plastic film bothers me, but I haven't made much progress in switching to something more eco friendly. Wax paper works for some things, but tears very easily.

Hormone disruption is a problem of not-entirely-understood dimensions. Some plastics disrupt hormones, as do other types of chemicals such as some herbicides, pesticides, and other chemical types. Then there are the hormones deposited in rivers from excretions of birth control and therapeutic hormone Rx.

I doubt if one can avoid ingesting micro plastics which seem to be ubiquitous. We can, though, help reduce the amount of micro/nano plastics being produced

1) Buy cotton clothing. Synthetic fabrics (like polyester) shed particles from their point of production onward. Tiny bits of cotton fiber (as well as linen, silk and wool fibers) rot, so they do not have long lifespans.

2) Use metal, ceramic, or glass containers for cooking and food storage (especially microwave heating).

3) Wear leather shoes. Synthetic soles and uppers shed a variety of microfiber and nanoparticles.

4) Use cloth or paper shopping bags.

duplicate deleted

I might have misunderstood. Perhaps the spatulas were used to scoop baby poop off the diaper and into a lab vessel.

Well, one still should use a quality spatula for such important research.

From the linked article...

When it comes to babies, a considerable amount of plastic appears to be both going in one end and out the other, according to new research that involved spatulas, diapers, and poop. In particular, the average concentration of one pervasive type of microplastic in baby stool was a whopping ten times higher than that in adult stool in a small pilot study published this week. — Justine Calma

See, that's the problem: cheap goods. Spatula City™ carries nothing but the finest rubber goods, totally free of poisonous synthetic hydrocarbons. Low-IQ parents buy spatulas from just any place--a Dollar Store, for god's sake--and let their vulnerable infants gum them to discourage annoying crying. A quality spatula from Spatula City™ is safe for Baby to gum, chew on, eat with, or use as a sex toy when they are a bit older.

Spatula City™ carries a complete line of glass bottles, rubber nipples, wooden rattles and teething rings. And of course, a spatula for every purpose.

You're joking. a little. yes, there are bacteria which can be induced to eat plastic, but
a. are they salt-water bacteria?
b. can they start on solid plastic items (bottles, plastic parts, etc)?
c. how long does it take the bacteria to eat 1 kilogram of plastic?
d. any plastic? There are dozen of varieties.
e. what are the breakdown products?