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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

Isn't this Steven Pinker's core thesis? He got howled down for the soft-pop-sci take on the stats, but although I find him a reprehensible egotist, I had some sympathy for the underlying factoids: It felt like although NEWS of crimes of violence continues to be high, actual RATES of crimes of violence set against population overall, aren't rising.

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No, this is a (relatively) small decline after a massive increase:

2018 - 17k

2022 - 21k

If Steven Pinker is reprehensible, what kind of adjectives do you bust out for actual villains?

Villainous?

Adjectives are bad. I wish I'd stuck to egotist and left reprehensability in the scrabble drawer.

The basic thesis of the book seems pretty convincing, criticism seemed to be as you mention "howled down for the soft-pop-sci" and "reprehensible egotist" rather than the thesis being actually like wrong.

Pinker was pals with Jeffrey Epstein, which is getting into legit villain territory

"Pinker was included in the flight log for Epstein’s plane, which was dubbed the “Lolita Express,” for example, in 2002. He was photographed with him at a gathering in 2014. And he shared an affidavit from the case via Twitter in 2015."

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/17/steven-pinker...

Yes, but 2021 was an outlier on many dimensions and now the public needs an update.

Reprehensible egotist? I haven't read/watched that much about him, but man, that's cynical.

Cynical? It wasn't kind, I grant you that. I wish I hadn't said it, but editing it now seems to me to be unhelpful to following the threads.

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