So i have been really thinking about this lately, on both a macro and micro level. I live in Philly, i think one of the top city for murders per year if not the top. I see shit on the news like school shootings, genocide, rapes, and just far out crimes that dont even have a name. People say the worlds going grazy toungue in cheek...but is it really? Why does it seem like all these things are happening now, in our time in history? Dont we have the greatest technology to date, the greatest understanding of our being?

The simple answer is Socializing.

Take me for example, im fairly young. Im in my mid 20's but i remember a time when you had to go out and interact with people face to face. I remember all the kids in the neighborhood comming outside at night to play and the parents sitting outside together keeping an eye on us. (i grew up in the city, not the burbs). I recall a time when you had to goto a store to buy things, when you knew your neighbors, and when people would interact with random people in stores and in parks.

I drive through the same nieghborhood i grew up in, at any time, and there is almost not a soul out. No kids playing, no sound of the ice cream truck driving through and kids rushing over to it....not even the sound of an agry parent scoulding thier kid for going too far from the house.

Take into consideration even a "social" crowd at a bar or club. 90% of the time its a group of friends that dont try and interact with other people they dont know. You can see it looking around, clusters of people pretending huddles together, guys pretending to watch the game on TV when you know they cant hear it over the music and probably dont give a crap about the badmitten finals. The majority of people there are wonder what they are doing they and its obvious they are only there because thier friends went.

The sad reality of it is that we as a civilization, as a world, are devolving socially. Video games, the internet, online dateing, in home entertainment systems, etc are slowly killing our social skills, and with that the ability to have an outlet for a ton of emotions.

Cultures clash and countries fail to interact because the people running them dont understand social interaction. Social interaction has been branded as an uncomfortable and avoidable scenario. However its social interaction that got us where we are today...without it our ability to learn and grow would never have expanded such.

As a community, we PUA's are a rising tide of individual people who realize the importance of keeping social interaction alive. We aspire to motivate and stimulate others to do the same. We realize that one of the keys to happiness, not just being happy (being happy is a state of mind, it can come and go fairly quickly, obtaining happiness is perpetual, long lasting, and effects you at the core level), is to be social and revel in that interaction.

So honestly i hope the world embraces PUA, studies it and gets back on track. Without social interaction humanity will tear itself apart.

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-Ka-
"Be the same, only better."

Although I agree wholeheartedly with your assertion that PUA concepts lead to more fulfilling and healthier social interactions and that this is good for society, I disagree with your original premise that the world (or at least the United States) is getting generally crazier and/or worse.

If you look at the data compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the crime rate (especially serious violent crime) has DRASTICALLY dropped over the last 15 years or so. Crime began to rise somewhere around the mid to late 60's, hit a peak in the late 80's, and began to fall off somewhere around 1993. Statistically you are just as safe now as you were back in the "good old days" when your grandparents were young in the 50's.

IMO, it's not that we are really in a more dangerous and crazy time... it's just that we THINK we are. With the advent of cable and 24 hour news channels, there's simply nothing better to talk about than all the negative shit that has always gone on but nobody knew about. People got raped, robbed, and murdered all the time throughout the 20th century... shit, throughout all of history... but they didn't have CNN blabbing about it all day long so if it didn't happen in your town then you didn't hear about it.

Oddly enough, what the Bureau of Justice doesnt include in its statistics is this...

At the bottom they report that , "The percentage of crimes reported to the police has been increasing."

Yet all thier facts and figures show that crime is on the decline...you do see how thats not possible right?

Maybe its that less people get caught commiting the crimes? Maybe the figures arent acurate...

Actually with further digging you find that..."Estimates for 1993 and beyond are based on collection year while earlier estimates are based on data year. " which means they are not really comparable, sure they say past values were adjusted to make them comparable, but is it possible something might fall through the cracks?

Some of thier sources are not from court or police records, but from interview..."Sources: Rape (excluding sexual assault), robbery, and assault data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Ongoing since 1972, this survey of households interviews about 134,000 persons age 12 and older in 77,200 households each year about their victimizations from crime."

Now isnt it possible they elected to do thier survey in a relatively nicer area...or maybe in a city with better records? or possibly in a bad enough area people would just not admit it happened to them? If you compare philadelphia murders by gun per capita and New York, we blow them away (no pun intedned)...so if they did thier survey in a city with less crime the statistics wouldnt really be honest.

I dont wana get in a debate about safer or not safe...thats a never ending battle. I love the cable/fios commercial here where the guy says to make a figure up for how many HD channels they have, and some one goes you cant make up statistics, he replies, "90% of all statistics can be made to say whatever you want."

One other person at the board meeting goes, "Really?" and he responds..."well 50% of the time". And they agree to make numbers up.

Im not going on numbers and such, but you have to admit that 10 third graders planning to kill thier teacher, clean up after they stab her to death, and then getting rid of the body and evidence is not something that has ever happened before...school shootings did NOT happen when my parents where in school.

My point really was this...technologies that are supposed to entertain and make our lives easier have created a void between us and our social nessecities. More and more people avoid social interaction which is why things seem to be, or are...such a mess.

_________________
-Ka-
"Be the same, only better."

Yes, that percentages are a comparitive means...by you own logic you just showed that crimes doubled. Or that if you compare static numbers that the basis isnt level.

How can you determine a percentage of crimes reported? if they werent reported you wouldnt know about them...so how can you take crimes reported over crimes not reported? How can you then comapre that number to a per capita static value?

Regardless this is what im trying to avoid...my post rarely mentioned crime, just some of the events in this time peroid...it is far out and that the cause is our seperation from socialization.

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-Ka-
"Be the same, only better."

I apologize for continuing on the same thread and appreciate that you do not want to get into a debate about statistical analysis, so I will refrain from rebutting you directly and simply allow some people who do this for a living reply for me:

"Despite our perceptions, based on television or chats around the water-cooler, it is clear crime is on the decline in a significant way and has been for some years now," -Ralph Myers (criminologist at Stanford University)



"Crime fell sharply and unexpectedly in the 1990s. Four factors appear to
explain the drop in crime: increased incarceration, more police, the decline of crack and legalized abortion." -Steven D. Levitt (prominent American Economist)



"In a further confirmation that the nation's crime problem has begun to recede, the Department of Justice reported yesterday that violent crime fell more than 9 percent last year, a very large drop that criminologists consider statistically important.

''The striking thing is not just that there has been a decline but the magnitude of the decline,'' said Alfred Blumstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and one of the nation's most respected experts on violent crime." -New York Times 9/18/1996



"Despite the general public's perception, owing, in part, to recent highly publicized school shootings, crime in America has actually been dropping since 1992. The media have been dramatizing and sensationalizing high-profile crimes, failing to inform the public that these homicides make up less than one percent of the violent deaths of school-age children. Edited by Blumstein (Carnegie Mellon Univ.) and Wallman (Guggenheim Foundation), two of America's top experts on crime, this book provides a comprehensive review of crime in the United States. Designed primarily for criminologists, it covers the latest statistical and demographic data in an attempt to explain why the crime rate has dropped for eight consecutive years, reaching levels as low as those of the mid-1960s. The decrease is caused by a combination of variables: better policing, community policing, the decline of crack cocaine use, the increase in legitimate sources of income, changing demographics, the dramatic increase in the incarceration rate, and the aging of baby boomers, who are now out of the high-crime age." -Editorial review for the book "The Crime Drop in America"



I believe that the dramatic decrease in crime is pertinent to your argument because you mention specific examples of crime and then attempt to tie them to decreased social skills of the masses. If both crime and social skills have declined in recent years then your argument is either false or the argument form is invalid.

I'm not trying to be difficult or argumentative, but I think this is something that is important to point out. I definitely agree with you that PUA concepts could lead to a better overall human condition and I want the supporting argument for this claim to be as strong as possible.

can we have a mod lock and or delete this thread plz...not at all the direction i wanted this to go in, on another forum people recalled better times when they as kids went out and socialized, and realized the change had nothing to do with crime and everything to do with a lack of social skills in society...

_________________
-Ka-
"Be the same, only better."

Sorry dude.

Ah yes, the good 'ol days when my cousins and I used to set up a sno-cone stand at the end of their driveway, and put signs out on the main road. People would come, by car or bike, and help us earn enough money to walk to the store and by all the candy we would ever want. After, we would continue building our fort in the trees behind their house, then walk over to the town hall and play wall-ball with all the nieghbors until it was time for me to leave.

Ah... those we the days.

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The hottest ginger you'll ever meet.

I don't have an ego, I just love how awesome I am.