What traits are humans selecting for?

[Aramas]

The links I provided had a link to the pew report, among the highest regarded of pollsters.

Crime isn't really the issue for creating a safe society. Take North Korea, with crime rates among the lowest in the world, yet people are living in fear.

I've read the general academic / professional response, which is that people are just imagining the area is less safe. It's not the case: people no longer feel safe because they do not know those living around them - distrust.

Also, older people are now unhappier than young people, for reasons which are many which I won't go into.

The reality is that the actual world, not the statistical world, is getting worse.

It's not just that people don't know those living around them. It's that traditionally homogenous societies are becoming more heterogenous, aka more diverse. Trusting behaviors tend to decrease in more diverse/heterogenous societies. This is one of the cons of diversity and globalization. It is also perhaps why more and more people are starting to support an authoritarian government, to deal with the fear they have as a result of not being able to trust their neighbors.

As far as supposedly less crime than previous years goes, I'm not sure this is true. Statistics are easily doctored, conjured, misreported, etc., to support a narrative. There have been a lot of things that have happened to me personally and in my own life that indicate to me that the world is less safe, not more.

[Mudlark]

I already explained to you how crime rate only started to fall when law enforcement increased - the major initiative being Bill Clinton's 30b project, because despite reducing poverty rates, people had just become more lawless, which not coincidentally I think began to happen when the Bible was banned in schools. Have a good night.

I addressed that in my post, noting that that wasn't the only factor at play and that welfare policy also changed at the same time, requiring recipients to find employment, clarifying my initial point in that people need both resources and something to do. The reason I didn't address your point about law enforcement is because I don't disagree that it played a part, I'm not trying to distill the entire issue into one underlying principle.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Why Is There Peace?

Happiness and Life Satisfaction

[Not A Communist Shill]

You're assuming that a drop in crime is because people are more considerate of others, which is a silly assumption.

In 1821 Richard Martin, an Irish gentleman-landowner and a member of Parliament for Galway, proposed a law to prevent the ill-treatment of horses. The following account conveys the tone of the ensuring debate:

When Alderman C. Smith suggested that protection be given to asses, there were such howls of laughter that The Times reporter could hear little of what was said. When the Chairman repeated this proposal, the laughter was intensified. Another member said Martin would be legislating for dogs next, which caused a further roar of mirth, and a cry "And cats!" sent the House into convulsions.

This bill failed too, but in the following year Martin succeeded with a bill that made it an offense "wantonly" to mistreat certain domestic animals, "the property of any other person or persons." For the first time, cruelty to animals was a punishable offense. Despite the mirth of the previous year, asses were included; dogs and cats, however, were still beyond the pale. More significantly, Martin had had to frame his bill so that it resembled a measure to protect items of private property, for the benefit of the owner, rather than for the sake of the animals themselves.

(From Animal Liberation by Peter Singer)

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