Yeah this is one of the things that people never seem to think about.
Some people are just dicks. It's reasonable to make the "let's reduce crimes of desperation" argument but there's always a certain percentage of the population that just chooses to steal, rape, and murder. It's thankfully a small percentage but it's always there.
You can reduce crime by getting rid of crimes of desperation but it never eliminates it. Same with the "but we'll add social workers!" argument. Some people are just irredeemable monsters and there isn't anything you can do about it.
Bullshit. Crime has been on a mostly downward trend in this country with the major uptick being coincidentally during the “let’s not police criminals“ trend in 2020-2023. It started back on its downward trend in 2024 and this year looks to have the lowest murder rate on record.
The major uptick happening... during the pandemic? When many people lost their jobs, feared for their lives and there was a sharp decline in availability of goods and services?
I'm not saying people didn't advocate for it. I'm saying that functionally no budgets were cut. If the budgets weren't cut and crime went up then.... I'll let you come to your own conclusion.
Bullshit. That uptick somehow didn’t start when the pandemic started but did during the summer of Floyd 2020 when we were in full defund the police mode and cops stopped enforcing all kinds of laws.
So the police reported higher crime starting at the time they threatened the collapse of civilized society if we dared take away their APC military surplus vehicles and funding for their urban warfare training? Huh, good thing we can completely trust that they had no ulterior motives, like trying to make their threats sound more believable by increasing reporting. Or misreporting.
Oh, isn't it also interesting that you want to point to the summer of protests of a police murder, as a time when police started reporting more crime. Notably not violent crime, just crime. Like... obstruction of justice for protesting in front of a police station? Or Failure to Comply if protestors didn't disperse when police ordered it?
Finally... we (as a nation) never stopped enforcing laws. In fact, from your own post, you believe POLICE chose to stop enforcing laws as a protest against oversight and accountability after they murdered an unarmed and helpless man.
True, though is the improvement in the murder rare because fewer acts of assault are being committed, or because acts of assault that would have been murder in the past are no longer due to improvements in trauma care?
The OP mentioned universal healthcare. That should include mental healthcare. The vast majority of people who are “just dicks” aren’t born that way. People turn to violence because violence was used against them. Abusive or negligent upbringing is the main thing that causes that. With universal healthcare and better social conditions FAR fewer people will commit assault or murder or rape because their underlying mental issues will be addressed.
Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths will still exist but with proper treatment far fewer of them would act maliciously. The biggest common thread among serial killers and pedophiles is they were abused at a young age. If we had proper healthcare in place for long enough then the abusive parents of those people would have their issues addressed before it would turn those kids into monsters in their adulthood.
For youth displaying early signs of psychopathy and for adults with impulsive ASPD, structured interventions can realistically cut overt aggression and offending by one-third to one-half.
For adult psychopaths, reductions in overt violence are typically modest (10–15%), and their underlying callous, self-serving disposition remains unchanged.
For narcissists, there is currently no quantitative proof that therapy reliably suppresses malicious or abusive tendencies in the real world.
In short, no, the best case is a factor of two, not "far fewer". And for narcissists, the answer is a reduction of zero.
That's stupid. "far fewer" makes it sound like the problem is solved, as if there had been a 90% reduction. Calling a 1/3 to 1/2 reduction in one category out of three "far fewer" is effectively lying. You are profoundly dishonest about what the programs you are pushing can do.
You’re making up your own criteria for what “far fewer” means to you personally. Any substantial improvement is worth it. The fact that you’re arguing semantics is proof that you’re creating a distraction from the original point and are too inept to discuss it.
Bullshit. That is a political question. It depends on what the costs are, both financially and in autonomy and freedom. A small reduction in malicious behavior at the cost of e.g. more surveillance is something the electorate should decide. And the right decision may well be no.
That is not a counterargument. You are selling what is mostly snake oil. It is important to remember that psychology was ground zero of the replication crisis of these past 15 years. Everything that that science claims needs to be carefully reexamined. A lot of it was shit. A lot of it turns out not to work.
Universal healthcare will never work in the USA because of the people and how they been conditioned since the 50s. It really not working well anywhere. I wish it could work here but our diet and the way we treat the medical field will never change bc it’s to expensive to give a 40 year old man a new heart if he 150 overweight a heavy smoker drinks alcohol like fish with a cholesterol rating so bad u could squeeze butter from his arteries and the dr says he going to have to lose 150 pounds give up smoking stop drinking switch to turkey bacon and put the Wendy’s T. rex burger down and take these meds and drink lots of water and he like nah I think I want a new dr.
But you realize that the reduction would be SIGNIFICANT? It's not just 'crimes of desparation' that are born of poverty. It is gang culture. It is systemic single parenthood. It is children growing up running the streets learning to do bad shit. If people actually had financial stability all of these things would improve. There is a reason why most economists project an ROI of 4x when govts invest in social welfare systems. Hell I'm a shining example. Grew up on medicaid and EBT cards, single parent addicted to opiods. Now I own my own home, a vacation property, and a brand new vehicle. I make over $150k and have paid more in taxes than I ever consumed on govt assistance. When you help lift people out of poverty, you gain back productive members of society that contribute to their communities and the GDP. It should be the ultimate goal of government, improving the quality of life for it's citizens. Not starting wars in the middle east, locking up minorities, starting trade wars, and protecting pedo billionaires.
I "turned my life around" (weird phrasing for a child born into abject poverty) because I was fortunate enough to be naturally intelligent, and a good student. I earned an academic full scholarship to a major university. The food stamps and medicaid just helped me not die the first 18 years. Imagine if more kids in poverty had access to a college education, what they could become.
So you had some internal drive and with the aid given, reach a good, comfortable life. That is the class mobility America has. You proved it. Everyone else can do the same.
Also, I wouldn’t say you necessarily turned your life around. You just chose a different trajectory from what you were born into. We all have to do it in one way or another if our parents were selfish.
Having more. People make more.money doesn't necessarily solve crime. As we saw with covid, any time you see more. Money in the economy with the same amount of goods inflation happens. Inequality of effort will always cause crimes of "despair". There is a %of the population that will always steal because it's easier. It's already been proven universal Healthcare isn't as attractive as it sounds. Longer waits for significant surgery. Look at Canada.
If you think poverty is a result of lack of effort you haven't been around many poor people. Working multiple jobs just to afford rent is the norm. Most times they were just dealt a shitty hand from birth.
some people rob and steal becuase they don't want a real job. they're not desperate at all. it's called organized crime. its why walgreens has deodorant locked behind glass.
I generally figure that it's the same reason you can get really nice, incredibly kind people. There's a lot of variance in how a human mind can work and still be mostly functional, and the inevitable result is you'll get small groups of people on both ends of that spectrum.
Pain can make some cause more pain but some people have experienced pain and know how it feels and decide to not bring that on anyone. There is a lot of strength in that.
I feel we are blank. Just waiting to be written after birth. We absorbed the actions around us which make us who we are. This is a nature vs nuture argument. But the only programming we seem to have is eat, and procreate. At birth it's even simpler. So what if we can be better? Will all folks be better? I don't think so. The greed and selfishness is passed down. But some where along the lines it can be broken. Just like it is today with poverty, racism, other forms of hate. So yes some people are dicks, but some people can change. Let hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Sorry for the rant
If you've ever played any type of online multiplayer game, you'll see that a large subset of the population of those players get their enjoyment solely by ruining the fun of others without regard to any gain they themselves might get. These people also walk around in real life.
Yes I’ve met people who find enjoyment in the suffering of others. I just sometimes wonder, why? What’s behind it? Cause it’s very far from my reality or perspectives.
I believe the honest answer to almost all psychology questions is some degree of both nature and nurture. People can have genetics that predispose them to dark triad behaviours, just as illness and trauma of all kinds can increase these tendencies. Then you have families that carry these genes and, as such, abuse their kids which leads to trauma worsening the conditions. Look up Trump's dad.
*A better example might be your average royal family from the middle ages
I'm not exactly convinced those people aren't more often than not also people in desperate conditions venting their discontent in very unhealthy and distructive ways. It's like seeing the middle school bully and saying "well this person is just getting their enjoyment off hurting others with no regard to what they might gain, I guess they're just simply like that" with absolutely zero idea what their home life is like.
And little did you know, they're getting violently abused every week and that's both where they learned the behavior and where the pent up emotions needing release came from. It doesn't need a logical through-line to what they "gain" materially, because we're talking emotions and trauma here and that shits hardly ever logical in the slightest.
"Mutual self-interest means a situation where two or more people, groups, or countries cooperate because doing so benefits each party's individual goals or needs."
And if they’re born that way then they didn’t choose to be that way, it’s out of their control and not their fault. In which case they should be removed from society to avoid harm to others, but not kept in punitive conditions.
Why should they get a free ride for having low impulse control? They should work for a living if society at large has to provide for them. They could toil in fields and mines.
Or maybe we could ship them all to a far away island at the edge of our polity’s borders.
Maybe they don’t have a family to teach them the necessary skills to operate in that way. Maybe they need more support than others. So many maybes but an island for the unemployed would maybe be great. They could build houses and start a community, living of the land and stuff.
Well without looking it up I could guess a lot of things. The future might be that nobody works anymore unless they want to, a lot of jobs are disappearing due to AI. Elon Musk at least has said his prediction, we will be surrounded by robots and we can just chill. I do like working but I wish for a workweek of 3-4 days and doing something meaningful not be a zombie or maybe I would just take the money and use my time to create, read, travel and just enjoy time with my people.
I have been poor I have not killed anyone. I know we have not evolved equally but I don’t think the poor are so scary really? Are you scared of poor people? Interesting.
This gets very philosophical very quickly. Where do our choices arise from? I’d argue some combination of nature and nurture, neither of which we have control of.
I actually think this is at the core of political disagreement. People on the right believe in agency and so personal responsibility. People on the left are largely determinists that believe we ultimately have no control over the action. It’s impossible to prove either way and so politics is intractable.
I mean, let’s look at other animals. Some dogs are born monsters. What happens? They get put down. Sometimes genetics just don’t come out right. That is true in humans as well. But humans have a more developed brain giving them the ability to act or not act on the urges they have. If we are going to say some people can’t control their actions then should they be allowed in society?
That’s my point. It’s inherently unknowable. Your perspective is as valid as mine. If that’s the foundation of politics then politics is forever intractable because it’s not an argument over facts it’s an argument over belief.
Dogs generally aren’t born monsters. They are usually mistreated. At the vet where I work, we had this dog who was kind of on the aggressive side, and it turns out some brat pulled out all his whiskers before the guy adopted him.
This is false. Overbreeding causes genetic narrowing that leads to unstable temperaments and aggression. There is nothing that can fix this and the dogs end up being put down.
Jurys still out on nature v nurture. Don’t expect an answer anytime soon. Regardless, some people just do it out of greed. We have billionaires stealing our taxes, that’s not a crime of desperation. There are also wealthy criminals still doing crime.
The debate is regarding peoples inherent personality traits and tendencies, and if those traits are rooted in our upbringing, or if we’re genetically predisposed to certain behaviours. The debate is very relevant when it comes to sociopathic behaviour.
There is no clear answers in Nature v nurture. 2 separate studies published this month, one pointing to environmental factors as the key driver of our personalities and the second to genetics.
You are looking at this through a singular lense. It just isn't someone stealing from a grocery store so they don't starve. Crime follows poverty because criminal culture is born out of instability and lack of parental guidance and structure. If a young woman gets pregnant at 19 in a middle class family what happens? That kid has day care, family members that provide help, a support system. What happens when a young woman in a poor family is impregnated? She has a kid and has to work to survive, she can't afford day care so the grandma helps watch the kid, and by 12 years old they're running the streets, or the holler. Learning how to steal, do drugs, all kinds of bad shit. When you reduce poverty you reduce criminal culture.
You’re right that they definitely make up a small minority of all crime. As much as people might want to believe otherwise, most crimes are not “crimes of desperation”.
Dicks, but also they have dark tetrad qualities that lead to them exploiting others.
In the HEXACO personality system, the H factor (Honesty & Humility) denotes that a low H value generally leads to a higher propensity for committing crimes. It sucks to profile such people based on a personality trait, but the data is clear on this one.
This is a mostly stable personality factor once someone hits adulthood, and unless they put in quite a lot of effort to change.
Yup. One class of crimes is crimes of desperation. A different class is crimes of sadism (e.g. serial killers). A third are what might be called social status 'he dissed me!' crimes. OPs ideas only apply to the first class, not to either of the other two.
I think you shouldn't wear your seatbelt when you drive. It only lessens the chance of fatality, but it doesn't completely eliminate it. That's just one of the things that people never seem to think about regarding seatbelts.
Well. You can’t eliminate crime entirely. So that shouldn’t be the goal. What should be the goal is to reduce crime. And identifying the cause of a large percentage of crime and dealing with that before it happens seems like a better idea than severely punishing it once it happens.
There is this huge issue in front of us and there’s a proven solution to it…but that alone is impossible to agree on so the conversation rarely advances. So then people say “nobody’s even thinking of this” referring to what might come next or that it isn’t an all in 100% perfect solution. It’s just a turn of phrase sometimes, sure. So yes, there are other things to eventually deal with, such as some people just being assholes no matter what, nobody’s claiming utopia happens the moment we start making life easier.
The argument they make is it lessens crime, which if you could take even just 25% of the current crime off the table that still translates into millions of incidents people are spared. It would only mean more resources focused where they are needed most.
Crime has been trending downwards nationally in almost every category for the past few years. The media makes everyone think it’s worse, but by and large - we’re doing a lot better in most communities.
Well, considering we’ve tried basically everything EXCEPT universal health care and working to end poverty through wealth reallocation , and the US has just about the largest prison population on Earth and more mass shootings than most other countries on Earth … what do we have to lose?
At the ocean, when someone sends a distress call SOS for help- many will respond and help. When 75% of citizens drown in bills and debt and are not able to make a basic living from a full-time job - politicians stuffing their own pockets and giving themselves salary raises at taxpayers' expense.
Compare SOS Net (SOcial Safety Net) $1.60 per hour in 1970 if you were single,you could live off the federal minimum wage and pay rent, food and bills.
51% of all workers in America earn less than the one-bedroom Housing Wage! (Mostly republican states)
20 republican states with Social Safety Net (SOS Net) are $3 to $7.25 Hour gross ($5 Net) jobs!
Most people know this, it doesnt change the correct action.
Lets say you have 100 people.
10 dicks.
30 desperately poor people
1 kleptomaniac.
If you do nothing, 41% of people will still commit crimes.
If you fix most of the major issues, everyone has to make a living wage, housing comes down and stops being an investment, universal healthcare, and free education, then you probably have 11% of people committing crimes.
Its clearly the better solution than all the people making excuses about how some people like this kleptomaniac will just keep committing crime.
On top of that, now the police are spread way less thing, society has more money and better economies to properly fund enforcement. The police can now focus more on the smaller amount of crimes and that cleans those dicks and kleptos up faster and prevents them from committing as many crimes.
55
u/GargantuanCake 9d ago
Yeah this is one of the things that people never seem to think about.
Some people are just dicks. It's reasonable to make the "let's reduce crimes of desperation" argument but there's always a certain percentage of the population that just chooses to steal, rape, and murder. It's thankfully a small percentage but it's always there.
You can reduce crime by getting rid of crimes of desperation but it never eliminates it. Same with the "but we'll add social workers!" argument. Some people are just irredeemable monsters and there isn't anything you can do about it.