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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

The homicide rate is within historical norms, but 50% higher than in 1950. It’s also 20% higher than in 2005.

Cherry picking makes backing up your biased ideas pretty easy, huh

At least s/he has data, where's yours?

edit: I misspoke, there is no data, but at least there is a claim with numbers that can or cannot be refuted for specific things. Your claim is really vague. How do you define "time in history"? How do you define safety?

Really? I haven't seen any citations

I can make up numbers too.

Robbery is down 76% compared with 1928 and assaults are down by 22%! Incredible!

This nonsense is just reactionaries being scared, people love fear

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/excellent-beauty/201...

That article is 7 years old, and doesn't really apply to the rise in crime people are talking about of the early 2020's. Sure, maybe taking a look at large swaths of history you could say crime is down. But no one gives a shit about that. People who are alive today remember crime 5 or 10 or 20+ years ago because that is relevant to their lives. Saying 'crime is down if you take a long look at history' is little consolation to someone who is noticing a rise in crime in their neighborhood over the last few years

Looking at tiny fluctuations is exactly how the cherry picking happens, there will always be fluctuations because life is dynamic. Add that to the fact that human memory is notoriously fallible and I can just call BS on the claim that crime is rising, it definitely isn't.

We are more connected now than ever and fear porn is streamed into homes 24/7. Perception may have changed due to a new influx of biased information and looking at historical trend is the only rational way to measure progress.

7 years is not a long time.

The article was posted as a response to the contention that crime was up in comparison to large swaths of history. Why would it not be germane to show that crime is actually down in comparison to large swaths of history?

Because the original point about crime had nothing to do with large swaths of history, thus the point about large swaths of history is irrelevant. See below:

> You can see this playing out right now in cities like Chicago, Atlanta, New York City, etc., where mayors have been defeated or come into power because people are outraged by the increase in crime.

We are talking about people voting because they are outraged due to recent crime

And my point was that their perception is wrong and manipulated by those who stoke fear, which the article supports

I don't think Chicago is a good example of this, given who the two runoff candidates are: the proto-Republican (there is no serious Republican nominee for Chicago mayor, only the Republicaniest Democrat) and a neo-Defunder who is likely to win.

Chicago has much more to do with outgoing mayor Lightfoot's across-the-board negatives --- with her handling of the school system, with her COVID handling, and with her handling of the police department --- than it is a straightforward reaction to crime.

> We are talking about people voting because they are outraged due to recent crime

They're outraged due to recent outrage about crime, which has absolutely nothing to do with recent crime levels and everything to do with recent outrage levels. It's entirely manufactured.

I'm not denying that the media may be talking about crime more, but, at least in my city, crime rates are actually up. In fact, 2021 and 2022 are higher than they've been in 15 years.

Saying people are not outraged about crime, but are outraged about outrage of crime is a little silly. The other side of that coin would just be that people hear more about it and are more informed. So attributing outrage to a media coverage conspiracy is not really meaningful (not to mention difficult to prove) because people are allowed to be outraged at what they want. One could even say the news covers what people are interested in, which is a classic chicken vs. the egg case in this context.

The actual data is more important, and for many cities, it is trending up recently.

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