Of course they're a bad thing and if they're up we know why. I'm not arguing that homicide isn't up, I'm arguing about the framing and how the numbers are portrayed in order to stoke suburban fear. A 33% increase means shit all if the increase is from a very low number to another very low number. How many homicides is too many? If 2000 is unacceptable, then what's the solution? Even if you completely satisfied all material conditions, there would still be some murders in a population of hundreds of millions. Should there only be 100 murders per year and that's the criteria for deciding 2000 is too many? 2 is a 100% increase over 1. So if there were 1 murder last year and 2 this year, that's a 100% increase. Is that a crisis? It probably is if all the media runs "100% increase in crime" stats during primetime.
I don't know how to be more materialist or sober than doing the actual math and looking at the numbers relative to the other numbers.
Historical materialism holds that you can't take pieces of information in isolation. Saying 33% is terrible just because it's higher than last year or any year, without regard to what that actually represents in the material world, isn't materialism either. As I just said multiple times, you can have a highest-in-history rate increase without the actual cases being common. It's a pretty simple math problem to figure out.
It's not 33% from a "very low" number though. Homicide rates are lower than they were in the early 90s, but they've been lower for a long time. Currently, the homicide rate is at its highest in close to 25 years, and it happened suddenly. That IS a big change!
Instead of worrying about the optics and immediately acting the way they want you to ("loony lefties deny violence!!!!") There's very real material reasons why violence is increasing, but let's just deny them because we assume people will get the wrong idea.
But nobody is denying that rises in crime come from material reasons. Still not understanding where you're getting that from. You can hold that roving gangs aren't coming to murder suburban and rural America while also knowing that poor covid response and degradation in material conditions = more crime. They're not mutually exclusive.
Of course they're a bad thing and if they're up we know why. I'm not arguing that homicide isn't up, I'm arguing about the framing and how the numbers are portrayed in order to stoke suburban fear. A 33% increase means shit all if the increase is from a very low number to another very low number. How many homicides is too many? If 2000 is unacceptable, then what's the solution? Even if you completely satisfied all material conditions, there would still be some murders in a population of hundreds of millions. Should there only be 100 murders per year and that's the criteria for deciding 2000 is too many? 2 is a 100% increase over 1. So if there were 1 murder last year and 2 this year, that's a 100% increase. Is that a crisis? It probably is if all the media runs "100% increase in crime" stats during primetime.
I don't know how to be more materialist or sober than doing the actual math and looking at the numbers relative to the other numbers.
Historical materialism holds that you can't take pieces of information in isolation. Saying 33% is terrible just because it's higher than last year or any year, without regard to what that actually represents in the material world, isn't materialism either. As I just said multiple times, you can have a highest-in-history rate increase without the actual cases being common. It's a pretty simple math problem to figure out.
It's not 33% from a "very low" number though. Homicide rates are lower than they were in the early 90s, but they've been lower for a long time. Currently, the homicide rate is at its highest in close to 25 years, and it happened suddenly. That IS a big change!
Instead of worrying about the optics and immediately acting the way they want you to ("loony lefties deny violence!!!!") There's very real material reasons why violence is increasing, but let's just deny them because we assume people will get the wrong idea.
But nobody is denying that rises in crime come from material reasons. Still not understanding where you're getting that from. You can hold that roving gangs aren't coming to murder suburban and rural America while also knowing that poor covid response and degradation in material conditions = more crime. They're not mutually exclusive.
Dude, there’s more than 2000 homicide a a year. I think you read a stat wrong
No, you don't understand. Crime doesn't exist, the police just make it all up. Literally no one has ever been murdered before, it's all psyop.