Well, it depends on our understanding of the word "rational" in the context of individual decision-making or threat perception. If it's understood to mean "self-interest", then my point stands.
Everyone doing what's in his or her personal best interest will obviously not lead to optimal outcomes on the societal level.


Hmm, interesting. The sources this article cites for the 100-200k excess deaths per year from air pollution (e.g. https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.1803222115 ) actually derive this estimate from global cohort studies. Simply put, variations in air quality and mortality rates in places like India or Nigeria are used to infer how similar variations in air quality in the US will affect mortality in the US. This is obviously an approach which can go wrong in a ton of ways, and to be fair, most potential errors that I can think of would lead to air pollution deaths in the US being over- rather than under-stated.

But those are credible sources, the rough magnitude of their numbers is probably correct and this stuff is too far outside my expertise to reject their findings with confidence (or authority) - I still have my doubts, but I'll concede the point for now.





I never did. My argument is that for women who have a non-abusive spouse, it is rational to feel more threatened by strangers than their own partner, even if the statistical risk on the population level skews the other way.

And assuming you have no children or unmarried friends you value.

Which speaks to the "I got mine fuck you" attitude surf was speaking to

The left is so desperate that they are (still) making shit up to try and be funny.


Classic.

The quick rundown on Fetterman is that he was an unemployed bum well into his 30s, whose main accomplishment was leveraging dad's money into a mayorship of a small dying town that continued to get poorer and more violent on his watch. A man who has now suffered an enormous stroke, refuses to answer basic questions about his health, all raising completely understandable concerns over whether or not he can even perform the very basics of the job.



That's a weird conclusion to draw. They're simply not tangible. When someone tries to break into my house (as they did yesterday), it's hard for me not to notice the door clicking unexpectedly or my dog going berserk. When my great-uncle dies at 80 from lung cancer, it's hard for me to blame my great-aunt for having smoked in his face for ~60 years. 80+ is a good life. If we were strictly utilitarian, banning McDonald's and combating obesity would be our primary focus. It isn't. People regard it either as a choice or a fact of life. Rising violent crime isn't. We already know what the solution is.

As for the cost of crime, it goes well beyond the immediate financial impact or loss of life. I recently came back from Memphis, and it has been gutted by crime. It destroys economic opportunity and social trust. If a government can't maintain order, it's not a government. You only have to look down south to Central America to see the true societal cost of unrestrained criminal activity.

The ultra wealthy and mega corporations (the ones who own most major media outlets in this country) benefit from increased police presence, because police are there to protect property, not life. Ergo, the media is going to push a narrative that promotes increased police presence. Focusing on crime instead of factors that harm far more people serves that purpose.

The thing that causes crime is relative inequality. As said over and over by Jordan Peterson, because I know you guys like him, the relatinoship between inequality and crime is one of the most well substantiated theories in all of psychology.

You know what causes a city to be gutted by crime? The jobs leaving and economic opportunity drying up. The "gutting" happens way before the crime happens. Detroit isn't a shit hole because crime went up. Crime went up because Detroit became a shit hole.

The wealthy have distance and technology to put in between them and crime. The poor suffer from it everyday and have nowhere to run. It makes sense then that the poor, including blacks and Hispanics, poll most strongly on the need for more police. To the contrary of the bold, it is the wealthy liberals, largely insulated from crime, who both staff the major media corporations and simultaneously advocate for a reduced police presence. The Democratic party is both very wealthy and very powerful, and they're so anti-police that they're actively shunned by just about every police union in the country. You won't hear the same rhetoric you heard 6-12 months ago, but only because there's an election in a few weeks and being anti-police is so damn unpopular.



I don't know who Jordan Peterson is aside from a crying guy in memes. Is he someone whose opinion you value?

The two are tied together. McDonald's is currently warning Chicago to get a grip on crime. If Chicago can't, McDonald's may well leave, and to that point, many other cities and states have been lobbying for their business. That in turn would drive higher crime as the economic situation continues to deteriorate. To stop the hemorrhage, you need to stop the crime.

Police unions aren't even unions. They're good ol' boy clubs that protect bad cops. The poor ask for cops because no one is willing to actually address the root issues that cause crime in the first place: wealth and opportunity inequality. You know how you mentioned the ultra wealthy being insulated from crime? They've lobbied for laws that shield themselves and their property from the rest of us for decades. They'll ignore root causes, but they're more than willing to build walls and staff them with armed people to protect their own. That isn't exclusive to any party affiliation (NewsCorp, Apollo Global Management, Sinclair all come to mind as large right-leaning media corps).

They have to keep the masses distracted with news of skyrocketing crime, because if people knew the reality being swept under the rug, they'd be at their doors with torches and pitchforks.

Crime is a concern, but it's not the greatest one. Not even close.