America - The Official Thread

[REDACTED]

But, the facts don't care about your feelings; crime has been declining in the US.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/...-in-your-state-reported-crime-data-to-the-fbi

Little fact, the "declining crime" stat that's been celebrated, it's mainly because major US cities haven't been reporting crime to the FBI. There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are statistics.

 

[McLaren]

https://www.themarshallproject.org/...-in-your-state-reported-crime-data-to-the-fbi

Little fact, the "declining crime" stat that's been celebrated, it's mainly because major US cities haven't been reporting crime to the FBI. There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are statistics.

Your own resource also mentions that some states themselves are lagging behind in submitted data.

Not that it changes at all the point of the initial post. Both political parties are not exempt from crime statistics, for better or worse.

Edit* Here's a quote from your website of a Republican still using those statistics for his benefit.

In June, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his presidential campaign, he bragged about Florida’s crime rate hitting a 50-year low in 2021. But his statement relied on incomplete data — more than 40% of the state’s population was missing from Florida’s state-level crime data in 2021, as many police departments were transitioning their record management system to the FBI’s new standards.

 

[REDACTED]

Your own resource also mentions that some states themselves are lagging behind in submitted data.

Not that it changes at all the point of the initial post. Both political parties are not exempt from crime statistics, for better or worse.

Edit* Here's a fun quote from your website of a Republican still using those statistics for his benefit.

Here's a fun link from the FBI's direct crime statistics: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend

They haven't released 2023 or complete (up to Q2) 2024 stats to the public. They also refuse to release what agencies don't cooperate in crime reporting, hence the lag.

And sure, you'll dismiss it as anecdotal, but i live and occasionally work in a handful of major cities. I have never seen more stores boarded up due to broken windows, more accounts from friends, family, coworkers, and work associates who have had some form of crime committed against them, including property theft, vandalism, and assault, and unfortunately a few murders. When you're soft on crime, criminals are emboldened. Whistling past the graveyard by cooking numbers for political benefit doesn't save lives. And given LA and New York don't report their numbers at all, the two most populated cities, that's exactly what they're doing: Cooking statistics for political benefit. Even someone with a modicum of morality and intelligence could understand that. Crime is a huge problem that's gotten considerably worse in recent years and should be dealt with by actually enforcing the laws and protecting the public. Even you should understand that shouldn't be political.

 

[McLaren]

Even you should understand that shouldn't be political.

Uh, yes. Precisely what I mean in the very post you quoted:

Both political parties are not exempt from crime statistics, for better or worse.

Because it's pointless to go, "Republican/Democrat" places have the "worst/best". Some places will differentiate from others because there's way too many towns, cities, & states with varying populations to make such definitive claims.


However, you're clearly indicating liberal cities are the ones guilty of cooking statistics for political benefit & yet, I just cited a Republican Presidential candidate (from your own source) who had no problem using that same incomplete data to bolster how safe his state is. In fact, his very state, a conservative one, is cited from your website with the following:

Participation in national data collection is even lower. Only 49 agencies from Florida, representing less than 8% of police departments, were included in an FBI federal database last year, according to a Marshall Project analysis. This means more than 500 police departments in Florida — including most of the largest agencies, like the Miami Police Department, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, and the St. Petersburg Police Department — are missing from the national context. Florida’s participation rate is the lowest of any state in the country.

So, cool, Florida must also be cooking statistics for DeSantis to claim they're the safest they've ever been. Or, actually, there's other reasons for all this incomplete data.

But, your previous post in the thread doesn't inspire me with confidence that you truly believe "that shouldn't be political".

 

[Imari]

We've got a plague of lawlessness in America right now and its unacceptable. Total lack of respect for rules, authority, or even common decency. Nobody cares if they're causing problems for others, making too much noise, waking people up, any of that. Just sheer lawlessness and total lack of accountability.

But this new breed of hoodlums don't do these acts unless there IS somebody there. They specifically want to do it in public, they want to make a show of it, they want to post it online, they want to be seen. It's completely ridiculous.

Because that's how they were taught the world works growing up. They were taught that being seen online matters, that creating even a negative viral sensation is worthwhile, that who you are is what you appear to be to the rest of the world. They were taught that if you're famous/rich enough, you can do whatever you want and get away with a slap on the wrist.

I don't blame young people much for acting in the ways that adults taught them to act. That's mostly on us, not on them. We ****ed up by creating the environment that glorified that sort of behaviour, instead of teaching sensible privacy and discretion. Or at least, by allowing and encouraging that environment to be created by the likes of Zuckerberg and friends. We didn't see how damaging this was going to be for little social creatures to grow up like that, and now we're seeing the results.

They should be taught that this isn't appropriate, but that needs to be done at the same time as creating an actual culture in which it isn't appropriate. Because right now, it absolutely is. If you are young, or even if you are not, this is what a lot of the world is encouraging you to do. Get yourself out there. Make a name for yourself. Become an influencer. Make your voice heard. Do whatever you need to do to get eyeballs on your platform.

When the incentives for that sort of behaviour go away, I think you'll see a lot of it stop. But until then, this is the world we live in and we did it to ourselves.

In the future, everyone will have 15 minutes of privacy.

I say it's high time for a crackdown. Put the fear of god in these hooligans. I'm talking full-beans SWAT ambushes, I'm talking a little pushing and shoving, some handcuffs and paddywagons, maybe some skull cracking here and there. Lay down the law. Where legitimate crime happens, justice must be served swiftly.

Start at the top. Good behaviour starts by setting an example. If politicians, officials, police and the rich aren't being held to account why should those struggling at the bottom of society make an effort? High levels of social disobedience happen when people either think that the rules are unjust, or when they think that the enforcement is unjust. Most people just go with the flow, and so that lots of them have flowed into anti-social behaviour is a societal problem.

Ideally you want a kind, respectful society where everyone mostly behaves because they think it's the right thing to do and they recognise the advantages for everybody. That requires leadership, accountability, consistent enforcement, fair and just punishments and help for people to reform and/or avoid crime in the first place. It's pointless to arrest people for stealing bread when that's what they need to do to survive.

What you don't want is a police state where the best possible outcome is that people live in fear of the police instead of fear of other citizens. Neither of those things are good, and you're explicitly targeting only people at the bottom of the economic pile. They might be the most visible, but they're not the ones creating the most societal damage here.

It may well be that there's needs to be some vigorous policing in order to get where you want to go, but it shouldn't be for it's own sake. It should be with a mind to avoiding needing to have that sort of police interaction with the public altogether.

 

[Danoff]

I think the point missed here. Is that American cities, especially ones run by a certain political party. That also the same party affiliated DAs,state AG, and police chiefs. Those cities have huge uptick in lawlessness. Good Police officers don't want to be hassled for doing their jobs. Baltimore has went to hell since Freddie Grey. This BPD is down over 700 officers, and cannot recruit.

I agree for the most part. Put a Republican mayor in charge of Baltimore, Chicago, or any other city that Ds have run for decades. Nothing would change. At least for many years. Cancer usually kills the patient. Look into the city coucils though. I'm thinking there's not a R majority in them.

Ah yes, the "democrat-run cities" and their crime waves. Obviously the implication being that you should blame democrats rather than urban areas for being centers of crime.

People in big cities vote democrat because they're big cities with lots of people. Big cities have crime because they're big cities with lots of people. Both of those effects come from the same cause - lots of people. What is "democrat-run" is pretty vague too. Mayor? Governor? Recent mayor or governor? DA? What exactly is democrat-run in your mind? Whatever fox news insinuates? Because fox keeps it vague on purpose so that you can look for a democrat somewhere along the line and blame them wherever you find them and jog on with your confirmation bias.

Colleague Sommer Mathis put up a couple of telling maps last week after the election illustrating the Republican Party’s urban problem. Invariably, America’s metropolitan counties are the blue ones. The whole rest of the country, more or less, leans red. If you’re a liberal, these maps spatially look a bit terrifying, even if their underlying lesson bodes poorly for the GOP.

Where there are lots of people, it turns blue. Where there are lots of people, more crime happens. It's friggin child's play to see through this nonsense. Actually think about what's being said instead of just swallowing it whole.

 

[UKMikey]

.

 

[Joey D]

I agree for the most part. Put a Republican mayor in charge of Baltimore, Chicago, or any other city that Ds have run for decades. Nothing would change. At least for many years. Cancer usually kills the patient. Look into the city coucils though. I'm thinking there's not a R majority in them.

It wouldn't change overnight or ever. Statistically, whenever you have a large group of people in one area, some of them are going to turn to crime. Republicans would arguably make crime worse since they tend to do away with support systems that prevent some people from turning to a life of crime. Granted, why those support systems need to be there in the first place is another story.

There's more to crime and crime rate than what party affiliation cities are, and ignoring all other factors skew the data to fit whatever you want it to say.

Most city councils are nonpartisan, so it's hard to tell. I looked at the only party affiliation I can find for a council member in Miami is Joe Carollo, who's a Republican. Oklahoma City appears to be nonpartisan. Jacksonville is partisan, though, and it's a majority Republican (14-5).

So I go back to crime isn't a partisan issue. It exists everywhere, and while both Democrats and Republicans want to be "tough on crime," they both do a terrible job to actually be "tough on crime".

And I know you keep thinking everyone in this thread is a liberal but that's far from the case. Several of us aren't even remotely liberal.

 

[McLaren]

And I know you keep thinking everyone in this thread is a liberal but that's far from the case. Several of us aren't even remotely liberal.

If you ain’t worshipping Trump, you’re a liberal/RINO.

Sorry, thems da rules with MAGA. I dun make ‘em.

 

[Joey D]

If you ain’t worshipping Trump, you’re a liberal/RINO.

Sorry, thems da rules with MAGA. I dun make ‘em.

I know, it's bizarre. I'm pretty far from a Democrat but get lumped in with them because I think Trump is cancer. It's a shame that Republicans who don't bend their knee to Trump aren't considered Republicans either, despite supporting classically Republican ideals. Mitt Romney is a perfect example of this, as is Liz Cheney. Both are very conservative, yet aren't considered Republicans because they didn't buy into Trump's BS.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Called the cops on a street takeover I drove right through here in Dayton. Dude in a Charger did a donut around me as I drove through the intersection. I wasn't startled or scared at all, I'm a car guy. Hell, I almost stopped in the middle of the road and caused a ruckus. I decided not to because there were about 5 cars and 20 people all hanging out, so as I drove away I called the cops who showed up within about 2 minutes.

We've got a plague of lawlessness in America right now and its unacceptable. Total lack of respect for rules, authority, or even common decency. Nobody cares if they're causing problems for others, making too much noise, waking people up, any of that. Just sheer lawlessness and total lack of accountability.

I made plenty of mistakes when I was younger and I got caught and paid my fines. All the shenanigans I did were in the middle of nowhere (or so I thought). The whole point was that we were far away from prying eyes, nobody around, so we thought it was safe because it was just us. But this new breed of hoodlums don't do these acts unless there IS somebody there. They specifically want to do it in public, they want to make a show of it, they want to post it online, they want to be seen. It's completely ridiculous. I mean, causing a crash in that situation was as simple as me getting sassy and timing my stop or go in a way to cause a crash. I considered it in the split second, but these people are so mindless that they can't be trusted to follow the proper procedures if an accident does happen. They have no moral conscience and they only respond to one-upsmanship.

I say it's high time for a crackdown. Put the fear of god in these hooligans. I'm talking full-beans SWAT ambushes, I'm talking a little pushing and shoving, some handcuffs and paddywagons, maybe some skull cracking here and there. Lay down the law. Where legitimate crime happens, justice must be served swiftly.

I don't know what the hell has happened to this country post-2020 and post-Minneapolis but now that I'm seeing it in person in my relatively quiet small city I'm fully onboard with near-violent crackdowns on crime. Time to clean up. I'll still be voting blue at the national level as long as modern Republicans are a threat but when it comes to local elections I'm not so sure anymore. Fact is, our society is not all roses and rainbows and has been on a steep decline for quite a while. I've never seen stuff like this and I'm the one who used to be getting in trouble at 2am for racing on an empty country road. And we sure as hell weren't doing it in $60,000 cars so you can't tell me that these dirtbags can't afford to go to the numerous track and drift events we have at the local track literally multiple times a week.

In my experience, the people who do this are bored kids with not much to lose in that whatever their status is in society, being punished by the law is not going to change it, so there is no incentive for them not to act out. So they chase social media clout, viral moments, etc. Might be a good start if social media companies did a better job of moderating content so that illegal activities like takeovers/sideshows either get removed, or at least not boosted.

This sorta gets back to my idea of some kind of mandatory civil service for 18-24 year olds who don't have some other kind of trajectory (military, college, trade school, etc). There's too many aimless young men floating around in an economy that really has nothing to offer them. Acting a fool on social media is a tempting outlet.

 

[REDACTED]

Uh, yes. Precisely what I mean in the very post you quoted:

Because it's pointless to go, "Republican/Democrat" places have the "worst/best". Some places will differentiate from others because there's way too many towns, cities, & states with varying populations to make such definitive claims.


However, you're clearly indicating liberal cities are the ones guilty of cooking statistics for political benefit & yet, I just cited a Republican Presidential candidate (from your own source) who had no problem using that same incomplete data to bolster how safe his state is. In fact, his very state, a conservative one, is cited from your website with the following:


So, cool, Florida must also be cooking statistics for DeSantis to claim they're the safest they've ever been. Or, actually, there's other reasons for all this incomplete data.

But, your previous post in the thread doesn't inspire me with confidence that you truly believe "that shouldn't be political".

Oh, oh dear.... I appear to have been mistaken that you were capable of reading or any modicum of intelligent thought. Let me say it to you clearly, I don't care who on the political spectrum isn't reporting crimes or enforcing their laws. I want crimes reported, and i want laws enforced. If you commit a crime, i want the legal system to actually punish you. Real simple. If i need to use smaller words, i will. It still is proving my point that statistics are being cooked for political benefit.

It’s clear you want to politicize it because you refuse to understand i didn’t mention political party, i only mentioned the two biggest cities in the country, thus most likely to have the highest crime occurrences, not reporting their crimes. But again, that does in fact requires literacy and intelligent thought to discern. I can make a little cartoon to explain it to you. It’ll have fun shapes and colors to keep you entertained.

 

[Joey D]

If you commit a crime, i want the legal system to actually punish you.

So you agree with Trump being charged, put on trial, and convicted, right? And you want him to go to prison for his crimes, right?

 

[McLaren]

Oh, oh dear.... I appear to have been mistaken that you were capable of reading or any modicum of intelligent thought. Let me say it to you clearly, I don't care who on the political spectrum isn't reporting crimes or enforcing their laws. I want crimes reported, and i want laws enforced. If you commit a crime, i want the legal system to actually punish you. Real simple. If i need to use smaller words, i will. It still is proving my point that statistics are being cooked for political benefit.

It’s clear you want to politicize it because you refuse to understand i didn’t mention political party, i only mentioned the two biggest cities in the country, thus most likely to have the highest crime occurrences, not reporting their crimes. But again, that does in fact requires literacy and intelligent thought to discern. I can make a little cartoon to explain it to you. It’ll have fun shapes and colors to keep you entertained.

This would be all fine and dandy if you actually believed it. But, your return to the forum gave away your political alignment; you chose 2 liberal cities & then made the claim they are cooking statistics for political benefit b/c that falls very much in line with your earlier post defending Trump. I pointed out that a Republican state also used the same data & was not reporting either, so I guess they were "cooking statistics" as well (although in fact, I actually acknowledged that perhaps there's another reason for all this incomplete data), but you've been unsurprisingly silent on that.

You politicized this the instant you tried to retort to me on a position I already held that crime isn't partisan.

But, do whatever you need to do with cartoons & crayons. It will obviously benefit you (& Racer) more than me.

 

[Tornado]

lol whose alt account is this?

 

[Danoff]

Oh, oh dear.... I appear to have been mistaken that you were capable of reading or any modicum of intelligent thought.

That didn't help anything.

I want crimes reported, and i want laws enforced. If you commit a crime, i want the legal system to actually punish you.

No you don't. I don't believe that, not if you're stumping for Trump. Trump isn't just a convict, he has been outspoken about using the presidency to violate the law (pardoning people for committing crimes directed by the president). Trump has broken so many laws, and the republicans seem absolutely fine with violating the law:

Missouri couple who pointed guns at BLM protesters seek return of firearms

Mark and Patricia McCloskey seek return of AR-15-style rifle and semi-automatic pistol after it emerged authorities had not yet destroyed them

www.theguardian.com

See this couple?? Republicans pardoned them for their gun crimes. Gun crimes that were WAAAAAAAAAAYYY worse than Hunter Biden's. If you support Trump or even the GOP, you CANNOT support the legal system. There is only one party that is remotely supporting the law, and it's not the one you seem to like.

 

[Keef]

That's fair. "Owning idiots" would make for a fun YT watch, but I can see how it wouldn't be exactly... constructive.
The honest mistake bit is precisely why I mentioned incitement/solicitation, there are people who are ignorant but far from malicious, they just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Good on you for recognizing that.
Cops being overwhelmed depends on how many cops are employed as well as (once again) why these events occur. If it's constant then there must be an underlying reason that directly contributes to things like street takeovers and "lack of respect". Speaking of...

I don't know if this is a reason, but maybe post-2020 there isn't so much connection between people (beyond idiots), due to things like Covid and how it in some ways amplified existing problems in society like car-centric infrastructure, inequality, entitlement and polarization, etc. In such case, it's a problem that's has been a long time in making, only Covid supercharged it like a Top Fuel Dragster.

I think the decline in America started way before Covid, literally decades before. It started sometime in my early teens, the late 90s/early 00s, when all the people in my suburb suddenly had to start closing their garage doors anytime we weren't in the front yard due to a rash of brazen daytime thefts from garages. These are typical American attached garages in the front of the house and somebody went around one summer and stole snowblowers in the middle of the day while people were home. This was at least 20 years ago.

Since then, that sort of "petty" yet widespread crime has become much more common. People closed their garages, locked their front doors. It was an entire cultural shift throughout middle America. That was also the same era when parents came up with the idea of "participation awards", basically giving kids awards for being alive so nobody's feelings got hurt. I distinctly remember when that started happening late in my elementary school career in the 90s and the phenomenon spread and became the norm until after I graduated high school. I'm not sure what happened after that.

Another shift was that parents stopped letting their kids go play freely in the neighborhood, ride their bikes for miles, point and laugh when they did something stupid, learn things the hard way, etc. Adults got softer than toilet paper and that's what the youngest kids at the time were learning. Kids that were born throughout the late 90s and 00s...and are in college protesting chunky peanut butter and throwing fits and refusing to hold down a job at grocery stores. They're not protesting like a union picket line, they're protesting like they have no idea what the heck they're talking about and it's cringeworthy. In fact, everything is cringeworthy these days. That's their own word, cringe, that one word can define whatever group of people I'm attempting to define here.

Just shut up and eat the peanut butter, it can't hurt you.

Because that's how they were taught the world works growing up. They were taught that being seen online matters, that creating even a negative viral sensation is worthwhile, that who you are is what you appear to be to the rest of the world. They were taught that if you're famous/rich enough, you can do whatever you want and get away with a slap on the wrist.

I don't blame young people much for acting in the ways that adults taught them to act. That's mostly on us, not on them. We ****ed up by creating the environment that glorified that sort of behaviour, instead of teaching sensible privacy and discretion. Or at least, by allowing and encouraging that environment to be created by the likes of Zuckerberg and friends. We didn't see how damaging this was going to be for little social creatures to grow up like that, and now we're seeing the results.

They should be taught that this isn't appropriate, but that needs to be done at the same time as creating an actual culture in which it isn't appropriate. Because right now, it absolutely is. If you are young, or even if you are not, this is what a lot of the world is encouraging you to do. Get yourself out there. Make a name for yourself. Become an influencer. Make your voice heard. Do whatever you need to do to get eyeballs on your platform.

When the incentives for that sort of behaviour go away, I think you'll see a lot of it stop. But until then, this is the world we live in and we did it to ourselves.

In the future, everyone will have 15 minutes of privacy.

Start at the top. Good behaviour starts by setting an example. If politicians, officials, police and the rich aren't being held to account why should those struggling at the bottom of society make an effort? High levels of social disobedience happen when people either think that the rules are unjust, or when they think that the enforcement is unjust. Most people just go with the flow, and so that lots of them have flowed into anti-social behaviour is a societal problem.

Ideally you want a kind, respectful society where everyone mostly behaves because they think it's the right thing to do and they recognise the advantages for everybody. That requires leadership, accountability, consistent enforcement, fair and just punishments and help for people to reform and/or avoid crime in the first place. It's pointless to arrest people for stealing bread when that's what they need to do to survive.

What you don't want is a police state where the best possible outcome is that people live in fear of the police instead of fear of other citizens. Neither of those things are good, and you're explicitly targeting only people at the bottom of the economic pile. They might be the most visible, but they're not the ones creating the most societal damage here.

It may well be that there's needs to be some vigorous policing in order to get where you want to go, but it shouldn't be for it's own sake. It should be with a mind to avoiding needing to have that sort of police interaction with the public altogether.

I appreciate your team-player use of the word "we" but I sure as hell didn't participate in this. I can prove it by my lack of awards. My friends and I are about 30+ and had middle-of-the-road Midwestern upbringings. Several of them are raising their own babies and kids right now. We're all completely fed up with the behavior that we're seeing these days. Maybe resident old guys can chime in and tell us if they think this is just our natural growth and adult mindsets changing over time, or if things actually are going to hell, or if they've just been getting worse for a very long time.

In my experience, the people who do this are bored kids with not much to lose in that whatever their status is in society, being punished by the law is not going to change it, so there is no incentive for them not to act out. So they chase social media clout, viral moments, etc. Might be a good start if social media companies did a better job of moderating content so that illegal activities like takeovers/sideshows either get removed, or at least not boosted.

This sorta gets back to my idea of some kind of mandatory civil service for 18-24 year olds who don't have some other kind of trajectory (military, college, trade school, etc). There's too many aimless young men floating around in an economy that really has nothing to offer them. Acting a fool on social media is a tempting outlet.

While kids do cause a ruckus and to a point that's to be expected, whoever these kids were - some genuinely looked like high school or college age - they were driving $50,000+ cars. Where on earth did a kid that age with decision making skills that poor get the money for such a thing?

Also I disagree with the economy not offering anything. It's not the economy's job to offer people something, it's the people's job to go seize opportunities. Apologies that not everybody can have a job doing their favorite little thing where every day is a great day and your coworkers bring you cute gifts. Screw that. My whole family grew up in machine shops breathing fumes and going to bed with dirty nails. My dad was right - go do something and quit being lazy, so I did. It worked and I have no other advice to offer these people. This isn't backwoods Appalachia, this is an entire city with diversified industries and multiple opportunities to learn and improve. Not everybody can win the turned-a-new-leaf award at high school graduation, and besides, that kid still makes subs at Penn Station so it didn't get him very far.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Maybe resident old guys can chime in and tell us if they think this is just our natural growth and adult mindsets changing over time

I'd say it's the inability of an adult mindset to adapt once society has moved on sufficiently from the datum set during our formative years. Of course there's issues with the kids of today, every generation kids have issue according to the generations of years before.

 

[Jezza819]

I'd say it's the inability of an adult mindset to adapt once society has moved on sufficiently from the datum set during our formative years. Of course there's issues with the kids of today, every generation kids have issue according to the generations of years before.

Yeah I agree with that. I'm nearly 59 years old and I remember my dad back in the early 70's saying something like "these kids today..." in a frustrated manner. But I'm sure a generation before said the same thing and the one before them and so forth. But I do think the social media aspect does seem to make it little worse in that nearly every kid thinks they need a presence digitally. However a lot of parents are to blame for that since they were posting everything that kid did so naturally when they get old enough they think that's what they have to do.

 

[Danoff]

I think the decline in America started way before Covid, literally decades before. It started sometime in my early teens, the late 90s/early 00s, when all the people in my suburb suddenly had to start closing their garage doors anytime we weren't in the front yard due to a rash of brazen daytime thefts from garages. These are typical American attached garages in the front of the house and somebody went around one summer and stole snowblowers in the middle of the day while people were home. This was at least 20 years ago.

Since then, that sort of "petty" yet widespread crime has become much more common. People closed their garages, locked their front doors. It was an entire cultural shift throughout middle America. That was also the same era when parents came up with the idea of "participation awards", basically giving kids awards for being alive so nobody's feelings got hurt. I distinctly remember when that started happening late in my elementary school career in the 90s and the phenomenon spread and became the norm until after I graduated high school. I'm not sure what happened after that.

There has been a dropoff in neighborhood kid play since my childhood, but in my observation that comes from a lot of contributing sources. One is that people have more time and media outlets to digest smaller stories, and they become concerned about special cases where kids are harmed. Another is that the amount of entertainment offered is just other-wordly compared to when we were kids.

Another shift was that parents stopped letting their kids go play freely in the neighborhood, ride their bikes for miles, point and laugh when they did something stupid, learn things the hard way, etc. Adults got softer than toilet paper and that's what the youngest kids at the time were learning. Kids that were born throughout the late 90s and 00s...and are in college protesting chunky peanut butter and throwing fits and refusing to hold down a job at grocery stores. They're not protesting like a union picket line, they're protesting like they have no idea what the heck they're talking about and it's cringeworthy. In fact, everything is cringeworthy these days. That's their own word, cringe, that one word can define whatever group of people I'm attempting to define here.

Just shut up and eat the peanut butter, it can't hurt you.

I appreciate your team-player use of the word "we" but I sure as hell didn't participate in this. I can prove it by my lack of awards. My friends and I are about 30+ and had middle-of-the-road Midwestern upbringings. Several of them are raising their own babies and kids right now. We're all completely fed up with the behavior that we're seeing these days. Maybe resident old guys can chime in and tell us if they think this is just our natural growth and adult mindsets changing over time, or if things actually are going to hell, or if they've just been getting worse for a very long time.

While kids do cause a ruckus and to a point that's to be expected, whoever these kids were - some genuinely looked like high school or college age - they were driving $50,000+ cars. Where on earth did a kid that age with decision making skills that poor get the money for such a thing?

Also I disagree with the economy not offering anything. It's not the economy's job to offer people something, it's the people's job to go seize opportunities. Apologies that not everybody can have a job doing their favorite little thing where every day is a great day and your coworkers bring you cute gifts. Screw that. My whole family grew up in machine shops breathing fumes and going to bed with dirty nails. My dad was right - go do something and quit being lazy, so I did. It worked and I have no other advice to offer these people. This isn't backwoods Appalachia, this is an entire city with diversified industries and multiple opportunities to learn and improve. Not everybody can win the turned-a-new-leaf award at high school graduation, and besides, that kid still makes subs at Penn Station so it didn't get him very far.

What worked for you won't necessarily work for people today, because they live now and you lived then. Your notion that your character is just as it should be, and that other people should suffer or endure in the same ways you did in order to have your personality is a bit out of touch in multiple ways. We didn't have parenting solved when you were a kid, we know a lot more now than we did then. I'm not saying parents are better or worse today than they were then, but we do know now that your idealized childhood or early adulthood of struggle and fume breathing is not the best approach.

Your get-off-my-lawn speech does feel a bit misplaced. I get that you don't like theft, and you don't like the crime you're seeing in your area (I do not see those things here). But blaming it on not growing up breathing fumes in a machine shop and getting "cute gifts" at work is just yelling at the sky about it. Nobody's doing donuts in an intersection because of a lack of peanut butter.

Yeah I agree with that. I'm nearly 59 years old and I remember my dad back in the early 70's saying something like "these kids today..." in a frustrated manner. But I'm sure a generation before said the same thing and the one before them and so forth. But I do think the social media aspect does seem to make it little worse in that nearly every kid thinks they need a presence digitally. However a lot of parents are to blame for that since they were posting everything that kid did so naturally when they get old enough they think that's what they have to do.

I agree with most of what you said, but people really do need a presence online today. That's not to say that they need to be on facebook or instagram posting about their morning cup of coffee, but they do need to be on linkedin, and they need to know how to communicate digitally, how to compose themselves publicly online, and how to use the tools available to them. To be illiterate about social media is a big handicap today.

 

[Keef]

I'd say it's the inability of an adult mindset to adapt once society has moved on sufficiently from the datum set during our formative years. Of course there's issues with the kids of today, every generation kids have issue according to the generations of years before.

Yeah I agree with that. I'm nearly 59 years old and I remember my dad back in the early 70's saying something like "these kids today..." in a frustrated manner. But I'm sure a generation before said the same thing and the one before them and so forth. But I do think the social media aspect does seem to make it little worse in that nearly every kid thinks they need a presence digitally. However a lot of parents are to blame for that since they were posting everything that kid did so naturally when they get old enough they think that's what they have to do.

There has been a dropoff in neighborhood kid play since my childhood, but in my observation that comes from a lot of contributing sources. One is that people have more time and media outlets to digest smaller stories, and they become concerned about special cases where kids are harmed. Another is that the amount of entertainment offered is just other-wordly compared to when we were kids.

What worked for you won't necessarily work for people today, because they live now and you lived then. Your notion that your character is just as it should be, and that other people should suffer or endure in the same ways you did in order to have your personality is a bit out of touch in multiple ways. We didn't have parenting solved when you were a kid, we know a lot more now than we did then. I'm not saying parents are better or worse today than they were then, but we do know now that your idealized childhood or early adulthood of struggle and fume breathing is not the best approach.

Your get-off-my-lawn speech does feel a bit misplaced. I get that you don't like theft, and you don't like the crime you're seeing in your area (I do not see those things here). But blaming it on not growing up breathing fumes in a machine shop and getting "cute gifts" at work is just yelling at the sky about it. Nobody's doing donuts in an intersection because of a lack of peanut butter.

I agree with most of what you said, but people really do need a presence online today. That's not to say that they need to be on facebook or instagram posting about their morning cup of coffee, but they do need to be on linkedin, and they need to know how to communicate digitally, how to compose themselves publicly online, and how to use the tools available to them. To be illiterate about social media is a big handicap today.

I appreciate the perspectives. I think the concept of growing up and viewing the world differently is probably playing a big role and I'm trying to put the pieces together. For example, I remember over the past few years having a revelation about my parents' methods while raising me. Rest their souls...for several years now I've come to terms with the fact that they did things that I don't agree with. My dad was born in 1949 so you can imagine his upbringing and methods were very old-school. I guess that's what happens when you get smacked by ruler-wielding nuns in school.

I distinctly remember my parents and other old folks going off at similar problems, especially things htey saw in the media. As far as I'm aware they also witnessed the transition of news media into the entertainment business it is today although I'm not sure how aware they were that it was happening. I used to be so frustrated as a kid that they weren't seeing the obvious game they were falling for, but nowadays I'm going through episodes like this where I eschew critical thinking for getting mad and bitching and complaining like dad used to do. Funny tangent, have you ever seen a Nixon boomer get red-faced angry when their libertarian high school idiot told them the EPA should be shuttered because it was a waste of resources? Something about having to take showers in the evening because all the kids came home for dinner covered in soot. Modern Republicans just wouldn't understand.

Anyway, I really do feel the elder mindset creeping in over the past couple years and unfortunately it's not the wise elder version, it's the grumpy version. Trying my best to make sure that doesn't become the new me because I hated the way my old people did things. Society isn't making it much easier.

 

[Meythia]

Might be a good start if social media companies did a better job of moderating content so that illegal activities like takeovers/sideshows either get removed, or at least not boosted.

Companies dont act unless enforced.
Enforcing them to not allow illegal content at all (not remove, but strictly speaking make it so that they desperatly want to have non posted at all no matter how unrealistic this is) would then boil down into something where the company will but penalties on those publishing or sharing any such content with the intention of attention.

Like "if this generates $ by clicks + if this is showing anything breaking laws = this generates fines by clicks against the user who posted it".
Thats dreaming it up, but this is the job of those who get paid for making up regulations...

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Also I disagree with the economy not offering anything. It's not the economy's job to offer people something, it's the people's job to go seize opportunities. Apologies that not everybody can have a job doing their favorite little thing where every day is a great day and your coworkers bring you cute gifts. Screw that. My whole family grew up in machine shops breathing fumes and going to bed with dirty nails. My dad was right - go do something and quit being lazy, so I did. It worked and I have no other advice to offer these people. This isn't backwoods Appalachia, this is an entire city with diversified industries and multiple opportunities to learn and improve. Not everybody can win the turned-a-new-leaf award at high school graduation, and besides, that kid still makes subs at Penn Station so it didn't get him very far.

Some people have no initiative so I don't know what to tell you. It's much easier to be a wannabe influencer. In my original post I wrote "there are too many aimless young men..". By that very characteristic, these are not the people who are going to go after something and create economic opportunities for themselves - at least not legal ones. They're the ones that end up in jail or doing retail raids or donuts in intersections.

 

[sw3g005]

Companies dont act unless enforced.
Enforcing them to not allow illegal content at all (not remove, but strictly speaking make it so that they desperatly want to have non posted at all no matter how unrealistic this is) would then boil down into something where the company will but penalties on those publishing or sharing any such content with the intention of attention.

Like "if this generates $ by clicks + if this is showing anything breaking laws = this generates fines by clicks against the user who posted it".
Thats dreaming it up, but this is the job of those who get paid for making up regulations...

I'm not entirely certain enforcing "illegal" content would help - it's not impossible to assume that it'd only make "illegal" content even more attractive to make, thus making more illegal events for the sake of attention in the process. Besides, what defines "illegal" in this case? Eg. would filming cops abusing their power be deemed "illegal"?

If you're gonna make social media regulate content, at that point I think it's a better idea to regulate the algorithms they use, and potentially even have the media companies move away from algorithms that value your attention over anything else at the expense of political and societal function. Idiots seeking attention will always exist and always have, but if social media becomes less "LOOK LOOK LOOK I BURNT DOWN CAR!!!!" and more "me n' the boys just chillin" then there could potentially be much less incentive for street takeovers and the like to be a thing on a widespread scale, especially if they occur only for attention's sake.

One could also regulate sensational news media in the same vein, and while that's important too, that may have to occur without necessarily targeting algorithms, as while they probably are using some kind of algorithm now, the problem of sensational news media has been a problem long before those came into play. Wasn't there a law that Reagan or Bush Sr enacted/repealed that essentially loosened up rules for news media and journalism and allowed sensationalism to be far more widespread? Perhaps undoing that mistake would be a good place to start.

 

[Joey D]

I'm not entirely certain enforcing "illegal" content would help - it's not impossible to assume that it'd only make "illegal" content even more attractive to make, thus making more illegal events for the sake of attention in the process. Besides, what defines "illegal" in this case? Eg. would filming cops abusing their power be deemed "illegal"?

If you're gonna make social media regulate content, at that point I think it's a better idea to regulate the algorithms they use, and potentially even have the media companies move away from algorithms that value your attention over anything else at the expense of political and societal function. Idiots seeking attention will always exist and always have, but if social media becomes less "LOOK LOOK LOOK I BURNT DOWN CAR!!!!" and more "me n' the boys just chillin" then there could potentially be much less incentive for street takeovers and the like to be a thing on a widespread scale, especially if they occur only for attention's sake.

One could also regulate sensational news media in the same vein, and while that's important too, that may have to occur without necessarily targeting algorithms, as while they probably are using some kind of algorithm now, the problem of sensational news media has been a problem long before those came into play. Wasn't there a law that Reagan or Bush Sr enacted/repealed that essentially loosened up rules for news media and journalism and allowed sensationalism to be far more widespread? Perhaps undoing that mistake would be a good place to start.

You can't really limit media in America without stepping on the 1st Amendment, especially when it comes to news outlets. Newsmax is straight trash that spouts lies, but the 1st Amendment says they can do that. Getting into regulating what the news can and cannot say would be a huge issue and one that would probably be a net negative on the country.

The only media that I can think of that should be banned is TikTok, but not because it pushes lies and garbage, but because it's an instrument of an enemy nation to spy on American citizens. Honestly, we shouldn't allow any media from hostile nations on the grounds of national security. Reddit might be another one that should be banned too but I'm not entirely sure who owns what with that. And while things like Facebook are hot garbage that promotes lies and unfactual information, the data presumably isn't being gifted to the enemy. If American companies want to spy on American citizens, that's a whole other can of worms, but that should be dealt with too, but you wouldn't be able to ban that on the grounds of national security.

I can't have TikTok on any of my devices that I use for work because the Chinese are obsessed with trying to steal medical information from health systems and the last thing we want is another pathway for them to do so. I wouldn't use TikTok anyway, but if our security guys flag it as a threat, I'm inclined to believe them.

 

[Blitz24]

You can't really limit media in America without stepping on the 1st Amendment, especially when it comes to news outlets. Newsmax is straight trash that spouts lies, but the 1st Amendment says they can do that. Getting into regulating what the news can and cannot say would be a huge issue and one that would probably be a net negative on the country.

The only media that I can think of that should be banned is TikTok, but not because it pushes lies and garbage, but because it's an instrument of an enemy nation to spy on American citizens. Honestly, we shouldn't allow any media from hostile nations on the grounds of national security. Reddit might be another one that should be banned too but I'm not entirely sure who owns what with that. And while things like Facebook are hot garbage that promotes lies and unfactual information, the data presumably isn't being gifted to the enemy. If American companies want to spy on American citizens, that's a whole other can of worms, but that should be dealt with too, but you wouldn't be able to ban that on the grounds of national security.

I can't have TikTok on any of my devices that I use for work because the Chinese are obsessed with trying to steal medical information from health systems and the last thing we want is another pathway for them to do so. I wouldn't use TikTok anyway, but if our security guys flag it as a threat, I'm inclined to believe them.

Wasn't Reddit founded by an American? I know one of the founders is now married to Serena Williams.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

RE Supreme Court immunity question

Yikes. Well. I don't know. Seems like a lot of latitude being given, and a corrupt president could do a LOT of damage under the guise of "official acts." What were the purges in 1980s Iran other than official acts? How about Nazi Germany's final solution? Sure seemed like an official act.

 

[Joey D]

Wasn't Reddit founded by an American? I know one of the founders is now married to Serena Williams.

It was, but it's since been pieced out to a few different companies, I just don't know who still owns parts of it. I know at one time Tencent did.

 

[Blitz24]

RE Supreme Court immunity question

Yikes. Well. I don't know. Seems like a lot of latitude being given, and a corrupt president could do a LOT of damage under the guise of "official acts." What were the purges in 1980s Iran other than official acts? How about Nazi Germany's final solution? Sure seemed like an official act.

This was a bad answer by the SC and I can't help but wonder if they did it fearing that if Trump won, he'd go after them.

 

[Tornado]

So according to the majority opinion, if Trump had been upfront with trying to overthrow the US government everything would have been perfectly kosher because it would then be an official act whose records couldn't be subpoenaed; and where he in fact went wrong was him trying to be a wannabe gangster about it through conspiracy. Nixon would be pissed.