Friday, March 14, 2014

1st World Countries

Wikipedia

After World War II, the world split into two large geopolitical blocs, separating into spheres of communism and capitalism. This led to the Cold War, during which the term First World was often used because of its political, social, and economic relevance. The term itself was first introduced in the late 1940s by the United Nations.[1] Today, the First World is slightly outdated and has no official definition, however, it is generally thought of as the capitalist, industrial, wealthy, developed countries that aligned with the United States after World War II. This definition included most of the countries of North AmericaWestern EuropeAustralia and Japan.[2] In contemporary society, the First World is viewed as countries that have the most advanced economies, the greatest influence, the highest standards of living, and the greatest technology.[2] After the Cold War, these countries of the First World included member states of NATO, U.S.- aligned states, neutral countries that were developed and industrialized, and the former British Colonies that were considered developed. It can be defined succinctly as Europe, plus the richer countries of the former British Empire (USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand) and Japan. Countries were also placed into the First World based on how civilized the country was. According to Nations Online, the member countries of NATO after the Cold War included:[2]
The reason we compare US gun violence and US murder rates to other 1st World countries and not others is contained in the Wikipedia description: "In contemporary society, the First World is viewed as countries that have the most advanced economies, the greatest influence, the highest standards of living, and the greatest technology."

Including others is like comparing apples to oranges and is purposely misleading.  It's an obvious attempt at obscuring the inconvenient huge differences.

12 comments:

  1. Mike,

    Your point is well understood, but I would point out that we have various issues at play here that are not at play in most of the other first world countries--slavery, reconstruction, and Jim Crow; the government turning various animals like Custer on the native tribes to give them something to do; the earlier atrocities like Andy Jackson's Trail of Tears; even our mixture of people from various European countries, each group of which was met with hostility as they immigrated; etc.

    These dark marks pull us out of a straight apples to apples comparison to other first world countries while not putting us in a straight apples to apples similarity to various 2nd and 3rd world countries. Still, it does mean that some of those comparisons can be instructive along with the comparisons to other 1st world countries.

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    1. Mainly what I oppose is that list of murder rates by country which includes ALL the countries. The gun-rights fanatics often refer to that one. But, who am I talking to? You said my point was well understood.

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    2. Yes, it is "well understood" that socioeconomics drives violent rates.

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    3. You're talking to the same person you've been talking to. You always assume I'm going to have some knee jerk reaction against what you say, but it's not the case. Yes, a listing of murder rates including all countries is misleading. However, my point is that a listing that shows a bunch of first world countries and then the US can be similarly misleading since many of those countries don't have the same internal issues we have--issues that can increase crime.

      To balance that out, we tend to point to places with similar problems (though sometimes far worse) to try to balance things out--for example, not by saying "Hey! We're better than Venezuela or South Africa!" Instead, to say "Look, these countries have these problems worse than ours and it results in a crime rate x times higher--maybe a similar mechanism explains our difference with Europe rather than gun laws."

      Other arguments can and have been made, but this is enough to show that there's a legitimate use for such comparisons, and that not everyone will agree with the conclusions drawn from them. Everybody has the same facts--it's the interpretations and lessons we draw from the facts where we differ.

      Next time, maybe argue against a comparison's methodology if you disagree with it rather than just deriding the person and saying "You can't bring Venezuela/Mexico/Russia/etc. into this."

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    4. Who am I deriding?

      Your explanation about the difference between the US and other 1st world countries does not explain the HUGE difference in (gun) murder rates. Sorry.

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    5. "Who am I deriding?"

      Who haven't you derided and told they were cheating, lying, spinning, etc. if they tried to bring up countries other than the 1st world ones to explain the difference in our murder rate.

      As for your comment about the "HUGE" difference in murder rates, yes, our's is a couple times larger than some Western European nations' rates, but ours and theirs are relatively low, and when you have small numbers, multiplying them by 2 or 3 still leaves small numbers. Other countries with worse problems than we have had also have multiple times higher murder rates than us.

      I know you're never going to agree that these differences explain our different murder rate, but many others who are more open minded find it convincing.

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    6. Yep, he wants to not count whole countries because these other problems are such a massive contributor to crime, but it's not those problems causing crime here. It's guns.

      And remember it's ok to compare us to third world countries as long as they are the ones doing it:

      http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2013/10/some-us-cities-have-higher-gun-violence.html?m=1

      New Orleans is like Honduras, unless we say it's like Honduras.

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  2. To add to Simon's point, we have unique factors of geography and culture that distinguish us from Europe or Japan. In many ways, South Africa and Mexico are much closer parallels.

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  3. So what you are saying is that socioeconomics is a major, major contributor to violence- so much so that it dwarfs whatever “gun availability” factor there is to the point where it is invisible, so socioeconomics different stats must be removed. Ok. But we can also clearly see that the violence in this country is driven by socioeconomics. State to state, county to county, and even neighborhood to neighborhood, we can see that the violence follows poor socioeconomic conditions- and not “gun availability”. The same problems Mexico has exist in the neighborhoods where a highly disproportionate percentage of the violence occurs- poverty, low education, drugs, gangs. Overall, we have fewer of these areas than third world countries have, and way more desirable socioeconomic areas that are rich in wealth, education, jobs, stable families, etc.

    But you have never been willing to remove data because of different socioeconomic conditions so long as that data supports your view. You are more than happy to directly compare Louisiana to Massachusetts, and blame the difference on guns even though these states have vastly different economies, education, and all those other things that make you throw away Mexico. No, Louisiana is not the same level as Mexico, but their violence is not at the same level either. So to be fair, can we just throw away Louisiana from any state to state comparisons, or the whole south for that matter? If we do that, my no correlation stats are going to have a solid correlation going against you.

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    1. Don't accuse me of manipulating the thing. You guys are the ones who frequently talk about Chicago and almost never mention New Orleans.

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    2. Chicago has strict gun control, while New Orleans doesn't. But gun control doesn't bring down the murder rate. That shows that something else is the cause.

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    3. I don't ignore New Orleans. Don't you know who you're talking to. But under your logic I can ignore it. I can just call it a "shit hole" and say it doesn't count.

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