tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post6633677520184586875..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Did lead poisoning cause crime boom?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-11452142260752884132014-04-28T22:19:49.993-07:002014-04-28T22:19:49.993-07:00@ Dane Jamall
Missouri's not that simple. It...@ Dane Jamall<br /><br />Missouri's not that simple. It's "rural", but it's a southern kind of rural: Lots of smallish towns of a few hundred or thousand people in very close proximity. It's not just St. Louis and Kansas City that had large numbers of blacks: Any town large enough to have a population in the tens of thousands had/has a substantial black population. Most towns had or have some form of industry beyond agriculture, many of which got shut down or automated in the time period you describe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69146399850100243082014-04-27T14:34:37.350-07:002014-04-27T14:34:37.350-07:00It is more logical that lead levels increase stupi...It is more logical that lead levels increase stupidity more than crime. However smart criminals tend to smart enough to avoid violence. And are less likely to get caught.<br /><br />I wonder if reductions in lead levels have something to do with the Flynn Effect. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83864031238424016582014-04-27T06:53:36.190-07:002014-04-27T06:53:36.190-07:00If you look at the state of Missouri crime rates o...If you look at the state of Missouri crime rates over time, I think there is evidence to support the crime/lead correlation.<br /><br />Production was basically around Joplin (SE Mo) and south if St. Louis. <br /><br />There are waves of more more violent crime around 1970, 1980 and 1990. The trend of the waves of violence peaking seems to break in 2000 and 2010. <br /><br />They just shut the big Doe Run Co. Smelter a year or so ago. <br /><br />Missouri has always had a lot if violent crime and negative behavior for a state that is so rural, religious and well armed. <br /><br />KC and St. Louis of course have large populations of blacks, as do many of the mid sized cities. Cities like Joplin and Columbia (a college town) historically had unusual amounts of violent crime.<br /><br />I would assume you could control somehow for the crime rate that occurs from having large populations of blacks. But I don't think that completely accounts for it.<br /><br />There was a lot of lead production in missouri. Dane Jamaalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77045861335277692802014-02-08T21:42:47.914-08:002014-02-08T21:42:47.914-08:00It could be both of course.
+10% global increase ...It could be both of course.<br /><br />+10% global increase due to lead modified by -5% drop in the young male exporting regions and a +10% increase in the receiving regions so +5% vs +20%.<br /><br />Also a +10% increase in Japan would probably look a lot different than +10% in New York.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77380320791039314932014-02-06T16:17:04.748-08:002014-02-06T16:17:04.748-08:00"Violent crime is extremely low in China.&quo..."Violent crime is extremely low in China."<br /><br />But is it higher.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13918331720396987242014-02-06T09:53:26.175-08:002014-02-06T09:53:26.175-08:00"Largescale bluecollar immigration - whether ...<i>"Largescale bluecollar immigration - whether international or *internal* always has the same effect because when you have a very large-scale bluecollar migration of any kind the leading edge is always disproportionately young men.<br /><br />The same process happens everywhere, every time it happens, from South Africa to Berlin to Paris to the West Side of New York.<br /><br />**Every single time.**</i><br /><br />Not true. In the last few decades hundreds of millions of rural Chinese moved to cities, mostly coastal ones, to work in factories and construction. Violent crime is extremely low in China. <br />Glossyhttp://lazyglossophiliac.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42340344253193955852014-02-05T17:29:58.595-08:002014-02-05T17:29:58.595-08:00It seems possible that different racial communitie...It seems possible that different racial communities could be affected by lead in different ways (or to different degrees), both because of genetic and cultural differences. So it may be that lead was a large cause of the increase in black crime in the U.S. but that it doesn't have much of an effect on Japanese people.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43581602510230118522014-02-05T16:41:45.174-08:002014-02-05T16:41:45.174-08:00If the internal immigration argument is correct th...If the internal immigration argument is correct then while crime spiked in the receiving areas it should have dropped in the exporting areas which i imagine would be the southern rural black areas?<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7793095721511468422014-02-05T12:50:33.820-08:002014-02-05T12:50:33.820-08:00"Giving Africanus Bellcurvius civil rights ca..."Giving Africanus Bellcurvius civil rights caused the crime boom."<br /><br />Largescale bluecollar immigration - whether international or *internal* always has the same effect because when you have a very large-scale bluecollar migration of any kind the leading edge is always disproportionately young men.<br /><br />So what happens?<br /><br />1) As a lot of crime is generated by young men that will increase crime in the receiving areas more or less in proportion (which crimes varies a bit by culture but not the amount).<br /><br />2) Massively increasing the numbers of young men in a district shifts the ratio of young males to young females from 1:1 to 2:1 or more which creates massive competition for the available females. This leads to a massive increase in violence, gangs, sexual violence, forced prostitution etc mostly among the 11-24 age group.<br /><br />The same process happens everywhere, every time it happens, from South Africa to Berlin to Paris to the West Side of New York.<br /><br />**Every single time.**<br /><br />.<br /><br />Miners are tough. Mining communities generally have extremely strong communal bonds. Breaking miners' strikes always involves more violence than any other.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81463952327171885002014-02-05T12:43:34.954-08:002014-02-05T12:43:34.954-08:00"...the single most insanely violent novel I&..."...the single most insanely violent novel I've ever read ..."<br /><br />Haven't read Red Harvest so I cant say for sure but if you're looking for a challenger to your statement above try "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy. Yikes.Coppernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17782241895735604802014-02-05T12:34:07.484-08:002014-02-05T12:34:07.484-08:00from what i've read and seen, slow lead poison...from what i've read and seen, slow lead poisoning tends to drive people crazy, not violent. although they may get randomly violent as the poisoning enters the terminal stretch. by the way, the last lead smelter in the entire US, some place in missouri which has been there for over 100 years, was just shut down by the EPA.<br /><br />the US will now only produce recycled lead. i'm not clear on how much of a long term issue this will be. most lead in use is recycled, so it won't have much of an effect at first. but long term, i wonder.<br /><br />the US moved away from leaded gasoline so long ago that now most pumps seem to not even specify 'unleaded' anymore. which was universal when i grew up. back in 2000 when i started buying and wrenching on 1970s corvettes, i would bump into old guys who owned even older classic cars which still had their original engine that ran on leaded gasoline. depending on the state, i think most of these were exempt from emissions laws if they were more than, oh, 30 years old or something.<br /><br />which is funny, because if that was the rule now, cars from 1984 would be exempt. i call this the 'back to the future' rule. in the movie, marty goes back 30 years all the way to 1955. which was a huge departure from 1985. but if he took the same trip today he'd go all the way back to the antiquated time period of IBM PC computers, nintendo entertainment systems, and brick size cell phones. not exactly a step into ancient times.jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12681528239224756842014-02-05T11:57:00.565-08:002014-02-05T11:57:00.565-08:00> The 60s instability in Japan was quite narrow...> The 60s instability in Japan was quite narrow, confined to a few universities. Factory workers or office workers generally lived the same peaceful, orderly lives they lived in the 50s, 70s, and 80s. <br /><br />And most people in other countries like the USA did not live peaceful orderly lives during that period...?<br /><br />> And while the rioting in Japan in the late 60s is a contrast with the generally orderly nature of Japanese society, there is an undercurrent of mass disorder that periodically pops up in Japan - the rice riots in 1918, the riots after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, and the terrorist campaigns in the 20s and 30s, none of which had any link to lead and all were far more wide spread than the disorder in the 60s. There were a number of other odd breakdowns in order before and during the opening of Japan to the West in the 1860s. <br /><br />Goalpost moving. One can point to plenty of serious non-1960s disturbances in the USA as well - for example, how about the Bonus Army?gwernhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18349479103216755952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67645172798256636952014-02-05T10:16:12.913-08:002014-02-05T10:16:12.913-08:00What happened to the abortion + AIDS theory of the...<i>What happened to the abortion + AIDS theory of the drop in crime?</i><br /><br />IIRC, The timing of the crime drop was off by about five years and the theory supposed that the effects would be manifest in a particular set of birth cohorts (1973-79) when the behavior changes were concentrated in earlier and later cohorts. <br /><br />Art Decohttp://wwrtc.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8007864227290408442014-02-05T08:48:44.339-08:002014-02-05T08:48:44.339-08:00What happened to the abortion + AIDS theory of the...What happened to the abortion + AIDS theory of the drop in crime?<br /><br />2/5/14, 4:57 AM<br /><br /><br />A little thing called Steve sailer and his trusty hobby horse.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30542265591189820192014-02-05T08:34:43.015-08:002014-02-05T08:34:43.015-08:00Don't go local. Go international.
There ar...Don't go local. Go international. <br /><br />There are many places abroad to look for high levels of lead poisoning other than Japan. <br /><br />Try Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc., and my bet is that you'll find relatively high levels of lead poisoning in hard-charging developing countries with populations that were crime-free compared to what we would find in the West at the same time.Pincher Martinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66939246810754565492014-02-05T07:19:58.571-08:002014-02-05T07:19:58.571-08:00Inbreeding is probably a much bigger factor than l...Inbreeding is probably a much bigger factor than lead paint. But then we'd bave to notice serial sperm-donor fathers, slutty mothers, tribal customs and religious decrees.thirdtwinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-49869103001611426472014-02-05T07:01:20.625-08:002014-02-05T07:01:20.625-08:00An interesting way to validate the theory would be...An interesting way to validate the theory would be to look at industrial sites from the East Bloc and China. <br /><br />Unlike in the US, where lead smelters are in small towns and so create statistical problems due to small population size and people moving in and out, the Soviet industrial model often stuck them in large cities with a captive workforce that stayed there for several decades, making any impacts much easier to track. <br /><br />You'd also get controls for better testing because the dynamics of Soviet and Chinese society were different enough that you wouldn't see the same broader social trends affecting violence.el supremonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-29371116666005936272014-02-05T06:44:37.596-08:002014-02-05T06:44:37.596-08:00@gwern re Japan instability in the 60s
Japan isn&...@gwern re Japan instability in the 60s<br /><br />Japan isn't really an example of loosened social order - The 60s instability in Japan was quite narrow, confined to a few universities. Factory workers or office workers generally lived the same peaceful, orderly lives they lived in the 50s, 70s, and 80s. <br /><br />And while the rioting in Japan in the late 60s is a contrast with the generally orderly nature of Japanese society, there is an undercurrent of mass disorder that periodically pops up in Japan - the rice riots in 1918, the riots after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, and the terrorist campaigns in the 20s and 30s, none of which had any link to lead and all were far more wide spread than the disorder in the 60s. There were a number of other odd breakdowns in order before and during the opening of Japan to the West in the 1860s. el supremonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53262653554862455362014-02-05T04:57:20.963-08:002014-02-05T04:57:20.963-08:00What happened to the abortion + AIDS theory of the...What happened to the abortion + AIDS theory of the drop in crime?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20894127625062377442014-02-04T21:50:19.935-08:002014-02-04T21:50:19.935-08:00If lead poisoning did cause it then there won'...If lead poisoning did cause it then there won't be a huge spike coming up now the prison building program has peaked.<br /><br />.<br /><br />This happens in every US city and has done since West Side Story.<br /><br />No lead.<br /><br />http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/26/gangs-sexual-violence-warzones<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38056455041460218942014-02-04T21:25:15.534-08:002014-02-04T21:25:15.534-08:00So how many millions of people were in the Weather...<i>So how many millions of people were in the Weather Underground? </i><br /><br />A two digit number, and they counted for little.<br /><br />--<br /><br />The Japanese Red Army was nominally in existence for thirty years, or fifteen years either side of 1985. Japan's population in 1985 was...121 million.Art Decohttp://wwrtc.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42210881130264596052014-02-04T21:19:40.366-08:002014-02-04T21:19:40.366-08:00Ive been skimming through the (annoying) comments ...Ive been skimming through the (annoying) comments at Mother Jones. It would be delicious to catch some of those commenters claiming lead-caused-crime there and elsewhere claiming abortion-cut-crime.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69796923927316350512014-02-04T21:08:17.169-08:002014-02-04T21:08:17.169-08:00In 1957, I tried a wrongful death case arising fro...In 1957, I tried a wrongful death case arising from a faulty scaffolding in a mine maintained by the Phelps Dodge corporation near Winnemucca Nevada. The deceased, my client's husband, was a 24-year old father of three young children. Liability was admitted, and the case went to the jury on the issue of damages. The award? $4,000. Cheap SOB's. Last case I ever accepted in Nevada.<br />mel bellinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-23657295184842088332014-02-04T21:03:55.353-08:002014-02-04T21:03:55.353-08:00Blame watermelons and fried chickens.Blame watermelons and fried chickens.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-62988038933986574672014-02-04T20:45:54.702-08:002014-02-04T20:45:54.702-08:00Hammett was a real-life tough guy and detective; a...Hammett was a real-life tough guy and detective; and its clear the motivation of the nameless Continental Op was that the corruption offended him. Not just a murder attempt, but senseless killing of a decent guy (the billionaire's son) and a social order rotten in every respect. Even if the Op is not honest with himself that motivation comes through quite clear to the reader.<br /><br />What is equally ironic is how Hammett's adopted hometown of San Francisco, in the 1920's short stories featuring the Op, is a tough working man's town. When today it is SWPL central.Whiskeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01854764809682029464noreply@blogger.com