I hear so many people complaining about how violent the world is. How deteriorated the human race has become, and how bad things are. But is this really true?

I’ve looked into crime rates world-wide. I don’t wish to get bogged down in the details, but overall what I’ve found is that the TOTAL crime in most countries is being committed by far less than 10% of the people. In fact, if we only look at VIOLENT crimes the percentage is FAR LESS than 5% of the people who are committing crimes. In fact, for violent crimes the percentage is typically less than 2%.

So let’s think about this.

Let’s take 8% to be the worse case for violent crimes (This is FAR GREATER than most countries report for TOTAL crime which even includes things like petty theft).

How would this look on the NEWS?

Well, 8% of 60 minutes is approximately 5 minutes.

So if the NEWS was to responsibly report the actual behavior of the human race as a whole, a 1-hour news cast would consist of 5 minutes of crime, and 55 minutes of people being nice to each other.

Where’s all the violence?

How many people are watching the NEWS and thinking, “Oh my God! The world is in total CHAOS!”

It just isn’t true!

Moreover, things like deaths and serious injuries due to accident and even wars are basically included in that 8% figure that we over-approximated.

I’m not saying this in an attempt to condone, crime, accidents, or wars.

I’m simply pointing out that overall the world is actually an amazingly peaceful place! Over 90% of world’s population are PEACEFUL PEOPLE!

Or at least not radically violent anyway.

It’s just not nearly as bad as the NEWS makes it out to be.

Now if you happen to live in a war zone, or a really nasty neighborhood of a city, then for you, things may appear to be pretty nasty.

But overall, the human population on the earth as a whole is AMAZINGLY PEACEFUL.

Over 90% of the human beings you'll meet on planet Earth are likely to be pretty nice.

Interesting James..very interesting...media does play a huge part in the view on violence...its kind of like what Glen Fry said "Everyone likes dirty laundry" meaning if we stopped watching the news about violence then they would stop reporting it...until we do this then more "dirty laundry" will be spread...which is why I chose it watch cartoons instead

Myself I prefer to watch 'The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour'than the news.

The mayor of Washington D.C. said 'if you don't count murder, crime is down in D.C.

If we don't count Washington D.C. there probably wouldn't be any crime at all.

Especially if we exclude the White House.

So true James sooo true

So if only 50% of the people in the world were killed in a day, we should only focus 30 minutes of a new hour to cover that? Sorry, but violence is given a prime spot in the news because most people value life. One murder far outweighs all the cookie baking competitions and spelling bees that would otherwise be news.

I see you totally missed the point Spider.

But that's not the least bit surprising.

Here, have a flower anyway.

Good point, James. If all one focuses on is negativity then it sure would be what one sees. Personally, I think the flaws are beautiful, too.

You are quite right Abra. I think we tend to see the "issues" from various 'subjective' points of view and in doing so we forget to view the whole picture.

Ask anyone who works in a grocery store or a Wal-mart, Target, Meijer and the like, how many times in a day they are asked where to find "plumbing", auto parts, paint, etc. And how much money is spent on all the various methods of 'overhead' signage?

We are a preditory animal, we don't look overhead for our prey.
Because we are preditory, we often stop looking beyond the realm in which our prey exists. While we are taught about other countries, it is just an exercise in memorization, just more useless information. This is the why it's so difficult for people, in general, to view the whole picture.

As we are forced to see more and more of a world view, as globalisation continues to involve us in 'other' realms; it's only natural that we see violence we were never aware of before. Thus people believe there is MORE violence, when actually they have not considered their realm of perspective for violence has increaced as well.

Good point Abra, but animals, by nature, will regress to their natural state when the comfort level of newness becomes their current realm of being.

Is suicide, violent?

Is verbally abusing another, violent?

Is beating a child, violent?

Is beating a wife, a husband, violent?

Suppressing another's life from live freely and gently, violent?

Is the growth of population a direct correlation of the statics appearing to be no different?

Reported acts of violence only?

What baseline are we using here?


Hmmmmmm...its a war zone out there....


(and I'm the optimistic one)

it depends on where you live there wouldnt be enough time in 60 minutes to report all the crime i live in a small town where the murder of a coach who just retired was shot in the walmart parking lot while selling fireworks ,where the coach that took over his job killed his soon to be ex wife and where they found a car wreck victim had been shot in the head this is all within the last six months.what was once a nice small town has become over populated ever since BUSH closed army bases and moved them here.we wont even begin to count all the little animals that were killed as their trees were plowed over to make room for new houses,or the gangs that have moved in to recruit.

not to mention the simple numbers of violent crime that are not reported. think about the rape that never gets reported because she doesn't want her parents or her boyfriend to know. the children that no one has reported being abused, because they don't want to be involved, or it's not their place to care.violence against animals, or older relatives that cannot come forward.
yeah, we are a sick, sick nation/world.
and i'm sorry to say, you can't blame this on Bush-although it's a popular thing these days.
the truth is nobody makes people do horrible things but people themselves. if our entire economy failed, there's still no reason to go out and shoot everybody in the grocery store that fired you.
we are violent because we are greedy(we want what we want), and we are lazy(we don't want to work for anything, but we want it right now so we'll take it from someone who has it already), or we are power trippin(we must destroy anyone and everyone who gets in the way of our goal to be in control).
not to mention all of the wonderful disorders and 'medical' conditions that justify our bad behavior.

Now that I think about it, maybe people just like to be negative.

I didn’t mean to burst anyone’s bubble.

Abracadabra,

I was told by my boss that there are no slaves today. This is from a highly educated wealthy woman. She was shocked when I told her how wrong she is. I think if people don't know the truly horrible things that happen in our world, then nothing positive will be done to change the world. That's my point in a nut shell. I work with an Indian guy (from India) and we told her how raiding parties from Pakistan come into India to kidnap young boys to be used as sex slaves by rich Muslim men. She had no idea and most people don't, which I think is the shame. Before I told her, she was deeply concerned about the poor dogs left behind in Katrina. Young boys used as sex slaves should rate higher than lost puppies on anybodys moraality scale. It's because people don't know that the suffering is allowed to continue.

I do see your point, that the news is lopsided, but I believe that is a good thing. I think they do it wrong by focusing on scare tactics (poisoned food, Bird Flu, Global Warming, etc) instead of focusing on the world to see what humans are doing to humans on a global scale.

'spider',

Remarkably well balanced comment.

If we side shift from 'violence' to 'injustices', I agree that news has a responsibility to report on injustices that would otherwise go unnoticed.
By the same token, given the inherent shock value of the news, (a large proportion of injustices come with their lot of violence) most abuse the sensationalistic negative (gore) side (abra's point I think).

What I gathered from your reply 'spider', and which to suggest here, is that much like some well thought out documentary, there eventually is a constructive side to an injustice, which gets no air-time on the 'by the minute' sensationalistic format. Unlike the documentary, they live with the paradigm excuse of "... no time to cover both sides and meet the 6 o'clock deadline..."

Bottom line for me (humbly so), denying the injustice doesn't work any more, than denying the constructive spirit at work to right it.

Can't believe this one!!!

Sorry!
2ND PARAGRAPH, 1ST SENTENCE:
"... What I gathered from your reply 'spider',
and (which) 'WISH' to suggest here, ..."

realistic not negative....


violence is rampant on too many levels...just as Lee clearly described...


I am an optimist and an idealist by nature so i can hear the promise of Abra's post...but i am also witness to violence that would make some of the strongest in here , lose everything in their stomachs....

crunching the numbers , don't fly with me with crimes against humanity on the scale of brutality, sophistication and level , that run the killing fields

world is not violent

the mankind is

Ahhh exactly Robin