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Comment by ClumsyPilot | Hacker News Reader

> So for a whole 3 days, the garage was wide open & anybody could have walked in & grabbed whatever. Nothing was taken. On the contrary there was a nice note from the neighbor about applying grease on the railing so the garage door stays closed.

Everyone seems to be missing a piece of critical non-political information.

One setting is rural, everyone owns the house, lives there long-term, everyone knows neighbours. You don't want to ruin relationship with neighbours for $100.

The other setting is Urban, you don't know neighbours, you don't care what they think. Everyone appears out of nowhere and disappears into obscurity.

The social dynamics is totally different, and the housing crisis has a big role to play in it.

Also you do not Have_To own the house to feel like you live there long term and know neighbours - many European countries have social housing, or massive restrictions on landlords kicking out tenants. So tenants stay in the same place for decades, and there is a real community.

View on HN

You can have Urban setting without the squalor that is currently swallowing the Bay Area. I know it because I have seen it - in the same place. The difference between what I have seen in SF when I came there for the first time, in early 2000s, and what I am seeing now, in 2023, is striking. Everybody has a long list of reasons why, but the basics are clear here I think - it's not that you can't have urban setting with reasonable quality of life. It's that somehow whatever is being done in the Bay Area does not lead to this - very possible otherwise - outcome. It's not some inevitable law of nature - it's what people do, how they organize their society, and it's clear that the way they do it now leads to some consequences and so far they are not intent to change their ways substantially - so the consequences will continue.

I live in an urban setting, Amsterdam, 1M+ inhabitants in the area. I barely know my neighbors. And yet, the description of the parent could apply to life here.

I once forgot a briefcase on the street out of a bar in the center after work. I realized only when I got home. I got back there, sure that I would not find it anymore. I come from Italy and that is just the norm there.

Not only I found it, but someone moved it out of the way of the bike rack where I forgot it. So it was definitely noticed, and yet nobody took it.

Another anecdote. Once at a dancing event, the organizer just left and went to sleep. He told me that if people wanted a drink, they could just grab one from the fridge and put money in the money box. Where I come from, the fridge would have been emptied and the money box would have disappeared.

It's not a matter of urban vs. rural. It's a matter of culture.

"The other setting is Urban, you don't know neighbours, you don't care what they think. Everyone appears out of nowhere and disappears into obscurity."

And yet crime levels in various urban settings are wildly different, from places like Johannesburg on one extreme of the continuum to Reykjavík or Tokio on the other one.

Looking at the worst cities worldwide as far as homicide goes, almost all the top contenders are from Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, the US or Colombia, with Mexico being heavily overrepresented. 17 of the top 50 homicide metropolises are Mexican. Damn.

There isn't a single European or Asian city in that list. Germany has some 60 per cent of the Mexican population, but isn't present in the top 50 at all. Heck, even India and China just aren't there, and they together account for almost half of mankind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_homicide_rat...

The pattern is too non-random to claim that urban life in itself is somehow inherently dangerous. It is only dangerous if your governance sucks.

And yes, SF governance sucks, though not to the degree of Ciudad Juarez - but that is a low, low hurdle to clear.

Seems like all the cities with ethnically uniform population established for hundreds of years are safe, while those much younger cities with historically lots of immigration from various different places are unsafe. Not sure what the US should do with that, it's not like there is (almost) anybody other than immigrants or any truly old cities at all.

What has you rejecting a much simpler hypothesis that strict law enforcement makes cities safe? pursing, arresting, and severe punishment of criminals.

You've just blended all of justice system into a single metric that is too basic.

If you want 'tough on crime' that actually works, but you have to be tough on all crime, including crime in the police. And make sure the entire justice process works.

UK has a 'tough on crime' government, they've increased severity of sentences, but have cut funding to the police. The rate of prosecution, i.e. how likely you are to get caught, fell off a cliff. Also now that police is poorly paid, we have corruption in the police.

Research shows that certainty of punishment is far more important than severity of punishment. Criminals are chancers.

Then we have to make sure that suspects get proper legal council. The current plea bargain system in US is absurd. You can prosecute some poor shmuck for a crime, they can't afford a lawyer, and state lawyer sucks, so they take the plea. Taxpayer pays for their imprisonment, police reports great success. Meanwhile real criminal goes free to commit more crimes with more experience. And they will be harder to catch next time.

Most european countries do not have severe punishment of criminals, yet crime rates aren't crazy.

I havent been to US, so i am not sure about any Bay Area shenanigans

> Research shows that certainty of punishment is far more important than severity of punishment.

So we completely agree because I’m pretty sure that is all that actually matters.

The issue in US currently is a deranged political fade has taken hold that sees criminals as victims of their circumstances and has started not punishing criminals.

It can be simultaneously true that criminal behavior is often a result of bad circumstances AND that it requires consistent punishment, not that the first point negates the 2nd. Instead social programs need to focus on improving circumstances that lead to criminal behavior not removing punishments.

This political fade is a bankrupt flawed ideology that is effectively mass social psychosis or insanity.

> It can be simultaneously true that criminal behavior is often a result of bad circumstances AND that it requires consistent punishment, not that the first point negates the 2nd. Instead social programs need to focus on improving circumstances that lead to criminal behavior not removing punishments.

The problem is there’s another flawed political ideology that tells us that—investing in social programs to improve the circumstances that lead to criminal behavior—is bad because communism.

The fact that many US cities have very strict law enforcement and yet they're on the list. Meanwhile, I really wouldn't say we have as strong law enforcement here in EU as it is in the US.

UK is regarded as extremely highly policed state by other Europeans and yet it's less safe than here in mainland Europe.

> UK is regarded as extremely highly policed state by other Europeans

Which ones? Britain is one of very few countries in Europe where the police don't routinely carry guns, and are perceived as approachable.

I think you should look instead at inequality. Britain has the worst income equality in Europe.

The street police doesn't carry guns, but what about all these cameras? That'd be considered a serious breach of privacy and personal freedom where I live.

My police is approachable and I don't care about the gun on their belt. I saw them use it for protection of the citizens - I appreciate they have it and don't consider it over-policing, it's not moving that scale anywhere.

It's not about the gun, it's about the rights of the police. The police here carries a gun but has zero rights/power against citizens not breaking any laws. They can't even stop you and ask for your ID - that would be considered "communism" here (same with the cameras, that's a "communist practice").

The UK doesn't even have an identity card system.

It's not worth continuing the discussion since you haven't said which country.

The Mexican cities topping the chart have very little immigration, while many safe Asian cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai have huge amounts of immigration from all over the world.

Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai are all places that practice extreme police/state overreach unacceptable by western standards. I don't consider a city that will have a person flogged for littering a safe place.

You will not get flogged for littering in any of those, although Singapore famously does have judicial caning for intentional vandalism. And unlike the US, you are extremely unlikely to get shot by the police.

Edit: It's applied rarely and only for egregious cases, eg breaking into a depot to spray-paint subway cars and getting caught on CCTV doing it. There are plenty of things to criticize about Singapore (for one, there's a lot less oversight on prisoners getting caned as an administrative punishment), but the way they handle vandalism isn't really at the top of my list, not least because it's remarkably effective.

People will get up in arms over caning but throw 20 year olds in jail for 25 years.

Oh it's caning and only sometimes, well then that's absolutely fine.

...

No it isn't. Absolutely not. No way. Never coming there. Damn this place. Doesn't matter what the offense has to be, it's never fine.

Do you think that each and every judgement of judicial caning was correct? That mistakes can't happen?

"a city that will have a person flogged for littering"

Isn't this mostly a myth? You will get fined for littering in Singapore just like elsewhere, though their fines are higher and the police arguably enforces laws against littering more eagerly than in the West. Caning (not flogging) is reserved for more serious offences (IIRC the lightest one is vandalism.)

Dubai employs flogging, but for Shariah offences, not for littering.

Hong Kong doesn't use judicial corporeal punishment at all.

Yes. The normal punishment for littering in Singapore is a fine, while repeat offenders may get Corrective Work Orders, meaning having to pick trash off roads while wearing a yellow flouro vest saying so. Caning is not on the menu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrective_work_order

> Dubai ... practice extreme police/state overreach

Like all 'proper oldschool' conservative societies, in Dubai laws is applied only to the 'right people'.

For example extramarital sex is a crime, but if you open Tinder it's full of hookers.

Too many exceptions from this rule.

Vienna is pretty mixed since the times of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but fairly safe. Glasgow is almost purely Scottish, but dangerous. Naples is probably less ethnically mixed than Rome, but more dangerous. Marseille is a lot worse than Genoa etc.

I don't doubt that particular kinds of immigration can worsen crime situation considerably, but some places can manage that and some fail miserably. You can even see it in the same city if the political representation changes. AFAIK the current mayor of Barcelona is notorious for letting street crime fester.

Have you considered actually checking your numbers on that?

There are tons of immigrants in Germany/Western Europe and east Asia.

There's nowhere near the amount of immigrants you see in the US, where it's practically everyone. The more eastern you go, the less immigration. In Poland, Czechia and Slovakia there are major cities with zero non-white people and single digit percent immigrants from nearby states.

"In Poland, Czechia and Slovakia there are major cities with zero non-white people and single digit percent immigrants from nearby states. reply"

There are Vietnamese communities in CZ/SK everywhere, even in very rural areas, but, you won't see them much in the streets, because they spend their life indoors working, and they usually own their shops, living right behind them, so they aren't even seen commuting to work and back. Quite often the only small grocery in a village or a small town is Vietnamese-owned.

But maybe East Asians are now considered (elevated? condemned?) as basically white by the American racial discourse?

Indeed, is my problem with American racial discourse too - once you dig beyong sufrace level, it's inconsistent and primitive.

Whether left or right, their concept of ethnicity is primitive. white/black/asian.

Are Russians same ethnicity as Germans? Are Germans same ethnicity as Bavarian? Russian government considers Russia to have ~100 ethnic groups native to Russia.

Us discourse is either about skin-colour, or about man-made country borders.

The only scientifically based concept is Haplogroups, bur noone knwos about them.

The rest is man-made concepts and culture.

>Whether left or right, their concept of ethnicity is primitive.

>The rest is man-made concepts and culture.

You got to it at the end. There’s nothing about any of it that is scientific, it’s all just culture.

The reason why it’s “primitive” in America is because that is what is true in the American context. It just doesn’t map to the European context.

>There's nowhere near the amount of immigrants you see in the US, where it's practically everyone

That is an absurdly inaccurate assertion.

As much as I love my country (France), our housing laws are fucked beyond repair.

Someone gets in your house while you are on vacation? Bad luck, you will live on the street before the law sloooo...ooo..wly makes is way and you are almost there but, bad luck this is winter now and you cannot get anyone out and then comes summer and, shit, they now have a baby and they cannot be thrown out.

You will also get a fine if you try to do it your own way, and they will sue you on top of that. And sue you if they get harmed in your house

No surprise that in other to rent a box you need to be royal.

We have a great social system I wholeheartedly support. And then come the leeches we are to week to get rid of and everyone suffers because of that.

Have you considered that maybe this wholhearted support of social system is what allows the leeches to come and causes everyone to suffer?

Have you ever been to Tokyo? One of the largest cities in the world yet has way way lower robberies/homicides than US cities.

I'm all for adopting policies that resemble that of Japan/Tokyo. However, half the country would accuse you of autocratic behavior and infringing on constitutional rights.

I don't believe the low crime levels in Japan/Tokyo are the result of policy decisions. I suspect they are the result of a community-oriented culture enforced by other means.

No, that couldn't be further from the truth. The police have extremely prominent placement in Japanese society. Look up "kōban" ("police boxes")[0]. If you visit Japan, you'll see these things everywhere, on every street corner.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%c5%8dban

I don't see how a cop sitting in a little box on various street corners equals "extremely prominent placement in society". In fact, I rarely see cops on patrol in the city, unless there's something going on.

I am having hard time thinking about any example where San Francisco government did not implement some policy because the other half of the country didn't like it. If anything, that'd be even more reason for them to implement it, just to "own" "those stupid idiots".

The San Francisco government is not the only source of policy in San Francisco. If the San Francisco government wanted to implement strict gun control like they have in Tokyo, for example, they would be blocked by the Supreme Court judges elected by the rest of the country.

> Supreme Court judges elected

Not how that works.

I'm well aware of how it works. The country votes into office the politicians who nominate and vote for the Supreme Court judges.

If I was being more careful I could have written the country "indirectly elects" the Supreme Court judges. My basic point still stands, San Francisco policy is in many ways set by the entire country.

Err, SF had strict gun control for years. Getting carry permit in the whole Bay Area has been mostly a "who do you know" thing. Recent SCOTUS decisions made that approach theoretically illegal, but in practice the city is still requires long procedure to get a permit, and is not very generous with permits:

So far the city is processing 72 applications, and they expect to get nearly 100 to 200 more over the next year. Which is very different from the four we processed in the past 10 or so years

Source: https://californiaglobe.com/articles/san-francisco-begins-is...

Certainly 100 permits a year are not going to change things much and definitely four issued in the last 10 years didn't, and if anything sounds like "strict gun control", then four people allowed to carry in 10 years is it.

Some public policy can't be effectively implemented on the local level. Tokyo's gun control is it's nation's gun control.

Nah, the far right are quite happy to point to Tokyo as an example of the superiority of an ethnically/culturally homogenous society.

Singapore is a better example, but requires a form of authoritarianism to pull off that would be unacceptable to both the right and the left.

What if ethnically/culturally homogenous societies are just superior?

I’d like to think they aren’t, other people are just used as scapegoats to blame bad things on

You don't have the courage to be openly racist?

Exactly which race is his statement advocating as superior? There's a bunch of ethnically homogeneous nations in the world, and their ethnicities are quite different from each other. Japanese are not the same ethnicity as Norwegians.

It would only be unacceptable to the right because that hypothetical authoritarianism would apply equally to themselves

Which policies? Which constitutional rights, and are they unimportant to you?

As someone else mentioned, Japan is one of the most culturally homogenous societies in the world.

Japan takes few immigrants, but those that do immigrate there are expected to be guests and live within the established norms of Japanese culture and society.

That’s the opposite mindset of the US - especially the liberal leaning areas, where the society is expected to accept and respect diversity and differences.

You can immigrate to Japan as a Westerner (or even as a outwardly similar looking East Asian from Korea or China, etc), live there for decades and become fully assimilated into Japanese society, even gain citizenship, but still be treated as an outsider - not necessarily disrespectfully.

You could probably say the same for other East Asian countries such as Korea, China, Taiwan, etc.

Japan is in the middle of demographic collapse, obviously you don't see a lot of murders in retirement communities (though LA and Half Moon Bay shooters gave it a try a few months back).

If you think Tokyo is a "retirement community", you've obviously never been here.

Japan is one of the most racially homogenous countries on earth.

Yes, but Japan isn’t safe and harmonious because of racial makeup, it’s save and harmonious because of cultural inclinations. In Japan, the individual defines themselves with a much greater emphasis on their place in society. Societal good is given far more importance than in other countries. In Western nations, individualism is so strong it borders on narcissism, in my opinion, and a consideration for society always takes back seat to the individual. Countries like the US will never achieve the social cohesion of Japan, not because of racial makeup, but because we are too obsessed with ourselves.

At least, that’s my belief as an American who has spent several years living in Japan.

>Japan isn’t safe and harmonious because of racial makeup, it’s save and harmonious because of cultural inclinations.

Perchance those things are related?

Unless you believe racially japanese people are significantly different to people from other asian countries. No.

What really are the genetic basis to say Japan is a country that's markedly different from other asian populations?

The people living in Japan have not lived there for long enough for their genetic to become too different from those of other asian countries. Culture on the other hand changes much more rapidly. Culture is the "genetics" of society, it is passed down from generation to generation and it mutates and these mutations are also hereditary... it's just much faster than biological processes.

But ultimately, it seems very unlikely (and as far as I know, there's very little evidence that suggests this is the case) that race and genetics will have a huge effect on culture. Specially given that countries with similar genetic populations will have vastly different cultures.

I’m not sure why it’s so hard for people to believe that evolution can indeed affect our brains just like everything else.

Keep in mind the culture of the various regions could easily cause fast natural (?) selection. I’m no expert on Japan’s history, and even less so on China/Korea/etc. I know enough that Japan had periods of pretty constant war, and that the young and the brash would essentially volunteer to be mercenaries. It seems to me that could pretty quickly weed out the most aggressive genes in a population. It would be different, of course, if soldiers were conscripted instead.

That’s just one example and as I said, I’m not a historian. Another example would be America. People always come up with silly reasons why we became the dominant world power. In my opinion the reason is simple: the people that immigrated here were risk takers, hard workers, and dreamers. Their kids would inherit those genes.

So, I’d say culture begets genetics which begets culture…

I would suggest you read up on the history of mercenaries worldwide and the history of youth volunteering for wars worldwide. These are by no means traits particular to Japanese people. I would also suggest you read up on the United States global positioning before and after WW2. It was regionally isolated from the brunt of the war, which allowed it to loan money and sell weapons and resources at very favorable rates for the majority of the war. This can’t be excluded from a simple explanation of its global dominance.

I'm very well aware of what people's argument is for why the US became dominant, and I'm sure it was a factor.

Yet that didn't happen to other regionally isolated countries like Mexico or Brazil - hell, or even Canada.

And yes, youth always volunteer for wars. Like I said, I'm not a historian and my example was just an example of how things could guide selection. That said I don't think many countries had something similar to what ronin, or even samurai, were. It was a fairly unique system.

China's Great Leap Forward would be another example of something that could guide who lived to procreate and who didn't.

"I’m not sure why it’s so hard for people to believe that evolution can indeed affect our brains just like everything else."

because publicly acknowledging this obvious reality comes at a cost: you WILL be attacked. most people do not want to be attacked and would rather take the easier route of pretending to not notice this or anything that's going to cause them a problem.

they have even done studies with 1 day old babies where the scientist holds the baby's nose shut and guess what, babies of different races react in different ways. same as when they take baby boys and girls and put them in a room the boys go for the toy trucks and the girls go for the dolls. i'm sorry but that study doesn't need to happen if you don't live in an ivory tower and have to act like a politician because you have so much money to lose for having the wrong opinion.

> The people living in Japan have not lived there for long enough for their genetic to become too different from those of other asian countries.

The Ainu’s skin tone is more like Caucasians than East Asians and the majority population, (Yamato?) are noticeably shorter than the Koreans to whom they are most closely related. There’s clearly been enough isolation, for long enough, for some differentiation. That’s not to say the distribution of traits doesn’t overlap. We’re not talking Sardinians and Swedes here, never mind Bantu and Basque.

A lot of the pros and cons of Japanese society could apply to Korean society too. There is a lot of overlap.

Seoul, like Tokyo, could also be described as a HNer’s dream city. Ultra safe, ultra clean, amazing transit. And like Tokyo, a city like Seoul could never exist in the US for similar reasons.

(Then again, cars and public transit coexist somewhat harmoniously in Seoul, with cars being an aspirational item for many Koreans, so maybe it’s not a dream city for the banallcars HNer crowd)

You think that cultural values are influenced by race? I certainly don’t. Culture a construct, not genetically determined. Let me put it this way, if you waved a wand to make America as racially homogenous as Japan, it would still have all the same discord because it would still all be Americans, and American culture is narcissistic and sociopathic.

I’d say it’s more influenced by having common ground with your fellow citizens, and race is one potential factor.

It’s why even in America you see racial/ethnic blocs and enclaves form. Hence the mentions of an “Asian voting bloc” or “Hispanic voting bloc”, during elections. Would we be hearing about such things if the US was monoracial? Even among many divisions, it would be one less divisive factor.

(yes, I’m aware in the past things were carved up even among whites - such as Italians vs. Irish etc)

Jamaica is also one of the most racially homogeneous countries on earth. Yet safety there is the opposite from Japan.

That sounds a bit racist, like "certain racial setups can live in prosperity, but as soon as you get certain other races in the mix, you should abandon all hope of having good quality of life". I prefer to think mutable policies have more to do with it than immutable genetic traits.

So you point out that it doesn’t match your priors and double down on not exploring whether your priors are correct. I find it more useful to be curious whether the parent’s stats are correct.

Also worth pointing out that homogeneity isn’t only along an axis of race. Example: There are plenty of Mexican Americans who are extremely racist towards newer Mexican immigrants to their neighborhoods. LATimes has done several pieces about this dynamic. People will always find reasons to put other people in categories.

Also worth pointing out that the society in Japan is more overtly racist towards outsiders of any race. My source is a life-long friend (white American living in Japan for 15+ years) who overheard lots of conversations when the locals think he doesn’t understand their words.

America has been a “melting pot” for a while, so we have moved our racial/homogeneity issues at least one layer below polite discussion. Most Americans will put up a façade about not being racist, but don’t actually put any effort to align their behaviors.

>America has been a “melting pot” for a while, so we have moved our racial/homogeneity issues at least one layer below polite discussion

Sadly, I think identity politics has tossed the melting pot ideals aside. It encourages zero sum thinking where different groups are enemies and relative sucess is what matters. This means pulling others down is just important than lifting people up. Unfortionatly, it is easier to pull people down than lift them up.

Crab bucket mentality in practice.

Racism hasn't damaged melting pot ideals? It's really hard to overlook centuries of it, and the widespread increase in overt racism in the last 7 years - including on Hacker News.

I suppose it has, although I do wonder why now. It seemed like the ideal was strong enough to stand up before and after the civil rights movement.

My theory is racism and identity politics have a positive feedback relationship. That is to say identity politics is counterproductive for bringing about a less biased and hostile society. It divides and pits people against each other as enemies.

There are plenty of people who hate other people for various reasons. We have a hot war with hundreds of thousands of people right in now in Europe, without any racial component involved. I fail to see how this provides any justification for racism though.

Yes, Japan is a very high-conforming and ethnically homogeneous society. It is also a low-crime society. However, to derive just from that that absence of racial homogeneity alone leads to high crime makes no more sense than claiming that not using logographic scripts leads to violence - since Asian society are generally less violent than, for example, the US. You need to do much more work than just picking one difference and attribute everything to it.

Perhaps "Japan is one of the most culturally homogenous countries on earth" would have been more helpful? It wouldn't surprise me if that was the intent of the comment either. The way people discuss and conceptualize "race" and "culture" is quite complicated. They are often muddled together in a way that can be hard to untangle.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/147737081877529...

As far as real world examples, there does seem to be evidence of an unfortunate “safe city” axis requiring either racial/cultural homogeneity or extremely heavy handed authoritarianism.

Ironically, America in the 90s and early 2000s seemed to be approaching a sweet spot where cultural expectations and “mild” authoritarian policing were successful at crushing urban crime rates. This whole thread is full of longtime West Coasters bemoaning how much better city life was in “the good old days” of 10-15 years ago. Odd how there’s zero political will to simply go back to what worked.

Bluebirds tend to prefer the company of other bluebirds

You mean, they don't create fictional 'races' of bluebirds and then spread hate about each other, including by asserting it's somehow inevitable? Oh, to be a bluebird rather than a Hacker News reader today.

This is a myth - Japan does not collect data on ethnicity/background [1], so we just don't know. Japan has a (to foreigners) invisible and extensive caste system [2] and a long history of looking down at Japanese of Korean background (who are quite common, but again, there are no official stats by Japan - South Korea tracks about 800k people in Japan [3]), plus all those Japanese of Brazilian background (Brazil estimates at least 1.4 million of those [4]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34615972

[2] https://qz.com/2029525/the-20-countries-that-dont-collect-ra...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans_in_Japan

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Brazilians

Your sources have little to nothing to do with the racial homogeneity in Japan although your initial point is correct - Japan does not collect data on ethnicity.

A glance at Japan's history and geography will tell you that Japan is an incredibly homogenous country as far as ethnicity goes.

'Racial homogeneity' is not a thing in biology

Furthermore, up until 1869 Hokkaido was a separate kingdom peopled by the Ainu - Japan has a long history of exchanging people with Korea. It's not some fabled walled-off kingdom, it's a regular country full of regular people

And Fremont or Cupertino are murder capitals of the world by that logic? Nah. Even unskilled immigration reduces local crimes rates in US. Kind of obvious, people who made an effort to come to a country tend to try hard to make it work.

No relation to criminality, there are many countries with racially diverse backgrounds and peaceful communities. Sydney is one of them and Sydney has both Whites and Asians. Singapore has a lot of all of them.

It’s not the homogeneity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Cronulla_riots

Exactly as I said, violence is not due to the mix between Asians and Whites, therefore it’s not mixing people that causes violence. It’s inviting the wrong people.

Please read the first line in the main body of your article and you’ll find the answer. It’s so predictable it’s more accurate than science.

Sorry, but it sounds like you’re saying that allowing the “wrong” type of immigrant is what causes violence and using Cronulla as evidence?

Cronulla was a one-off event almost 20 years ago, was extremely shocking and out of the ordinary, and as far as I can remember no-one died. As such, it’s not a great example of anything much, other than the fact that ethnic tensions existed between white and Arab communities in Australia in the mid-2000s (which is not all that surprising given the context of 9/11, the Iraq War, etc)

I do agree with your first point, however, that Sydney is a good example of one of the most multicultural cities in the world being quite safe, without requiring authoritarian policing (lockouts and drug dogs in train stations aside)

Are you trying to hint a racist ideology, that the "wrong people" are some race you don't like. Maybe individuals make their own choices, and the ones who choose to be racists are the wrong people. What a dream if they all left for their own country.

Look, absolutely everyone in this entire page is trying to dodge strictly enforced DDR Germany-style taboo about saying the truth, so I’m not gonna say what is the obvious source of most criminality in the West.

But I’ll stop you right there from swaying the blame onto someone else and reaching entirely false conclusions. What crime is NOT due to:

- Crime is not due to poverty. Plenty of poor cities who aren’t violent.

- Crime is not due to previous crime. Put white felons on an island and you get Australia, as the joke says.

- Crime is not due to high-density area. Tokyo.

- Crime is not due to immigration or displacing population. Ukraine migrant kids who spoke French astonishingly fluently in 6 months, a better score than all kids from “other” French backgrounds.

- Crime is not due to mixing population. Singapore.

Each of them is easily proven by finding great counter-examples of constructive people being moved/concentrated to place X or Z and not having high criminality.

It must be something else, something which can be found in all evoked areas and not found in peaceful areas, but I’m not going to say it.

Is it water?

It.. sounds like you are hinting that you think the violence is caused by a specific ethnicity of people? Because if you're not, it'd be good to make that clear. Maybe you're saying it's a result of imported cultural values that encourages violence?

Also, your list doesn't mean some combination of those things can't result in worsening incidence of violent crime.

My own belief is that its some combination of:

- Extreme wealth inequality

- High cost of living

- High incidence of poverty (relative to the aforementioned cost of living)

- Poor social safety net

- Poor community cohesion and trust

- Individualistic cultural attitudes (as opposed to collectivist cultural attitudes)

- Poor public protection

- Easy access to drugs (including alcohol)

I think the drugs just become a symptom of the problem; people get addicted because they are suffering (see rat park). They develop antisocial behaviours, which reduces community cohesion and trust. The city then becomes less happy overall, and it becomes a cycle

> Also, your list doesn't mean some combination of those things can't result in worsening incidence of violent crime.

When kicked out of the front door, try to come back through the backdoor?

You can create convoluted science that a combination of those factors leads to violence. Since it’s a combination, it’s even less provable, a correlation doesn’t cause causation, and I’ll keep finding counter examples, to which you will find even more convoluted reasons.

But there is a much, much simpler hypothesis, and for my part it explains the world with accuracy and predictability. What defines a science is its ability to predict the future based on some inputs.

So, my stance is to never make a decision based on prejudice, which is satisfying in terms of humanism, but don’t forget that people will reliably get killed, mugged and raped, and in quantity, if you don’t watch out for the thing-I’ll-not-say which was ever predictable. And it’s both our responsibility to put our family out of harm’s way, and an incredible feat of the XXIth century that we’re feeding our own relatives into a crime machine that reliably gets them killed or raped.

Speaking from experience. But everyone who has a grave opinion on this topic has, someday, seen a relative crossing the path of those people.

People say this but are never able to offer any evidence for this claim. The fact is that Japan is much less homogeneous than white westerners tend to believe, and has liberalized immigration substantially in recent years.

You’ll hear stats about the high percentage of Japanese people in Japan, but those statistics invariably refer to Japanese citizens, not ethnic Japanese.

Also many Gulf states and cities (Dubai, Sharjah, etc.).

SF was always unequal. I lived there in 2002-2003 for a year. There was a ton of inequality. The crime is out of control NOW for obvious reasons that conflict with your prior beliefs, so you embrace this silly theory of "if people had more free/cheap stuff they'd be nicer".

Massively reducing prosecutions causes police to stop arresting people since they get released without being charged. This changes the incentive structure for criminals. They get more aggressive, more brazen, and they tell their friends. This isn't complicated.

this "not knowing the neighbors" is a flimsy excuse at best. This is mostly true of any densely populated city around the world, where people move in for jobs.

In the past few years, crime in some US cities are committed by certain groups of the population - who are partly encouraged by the local powers.

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