Because the argument is that guns cause violent crime (specifically mass shootings) and the example of Finland shows that not to be the case. Then if guns don’t cause violent crime what is it?

The most likely explanation to me is that there is a confounder: an unknown which causes both the acquisition of (one or more) guns and the commission of crimes. A hidden criminality element which Finland seems to lack.

The alternative explanation is that the U.S. is a broken society (in one or more ways) and that this leads people to feel the desire to lash out in extremely violent ways. The availability of guns in the US offers them an easy option for inflicting mass casualties but the recent example of Michigan shows that even without a gun there is still the opportunity for mayhem.

No, a ton LESS asphalt and cement because it’s got narrow, 1-way streets (think less than half the width of a standard suburb 2-way street), no driveways and narrow sidewalks. It also has mixed housing (some single family, some duplex, some multiplex) and sometimes even has houses placed behind the ones near the street, with a shared walkway allowing access to the back.

The problem of suburbia is that it’s very low density, isolated from the rest of the city (so you have to drive just to get groceries), far from public transit, and unsafe for children to walk to school. Streetcar suburbs have none of these issues. They’re:

• high density because houses sit on narrow lots much closer together and very close to the sidewalk, with only a tiny front yard for gardening or planting trees
• much smaller and embedded within the fabric of the city, with a straight grid of alternating 1 way streets that have cars parked on them, heavily discouraging through traffic while keeping houses very close to small businesses
• close to public transit (just walk a few mins to the end of the street and catch a streetcar or go down the steps to the subway platform)
• have small bars, cafes, restaurants, shops, and grocery stores within a few minutes walk for anyone to get groceries or relax without needing a car
• much safer for children due to the slow, narrow, 1-way streets and the total absence of driveways (which are very dangerous to small children who aren’t cautious enough around cars backing out)
• also much safer due to the closeness of front doors to the sidewalk. Bad actors can’t grab kids without being seen or make a quick getaway due to the slowness of the street

Well yeah that’s sort of the point. The presence of guns alone does not predict gun violence. You need violent people for it to happen.

I got it from Wikipedia. Households and people are different statistics. People includes children who are unlikely to own a gun.

I also prefer households as a statistic over guns per capita because it avoids the issue of gun collectors who may have hundreds of guns in one household…

Finland has almost as many households (as a %) with guns as the U.S. (38% for Finland vs 42% for the U.S.) yet the U.S. has about 19x the per capita gun homicide rate of Finland.

White flight can’t explain why suburbs suck today compared to the ones from 70 years ago (when racism and white flight was arguably much more common). Car-centric planning was driven by auto makers and overzealous urban planners obsessed with the idea of highly specialized single-purpose zoning (think SimCity / Factorio nerd) rather than livable, walkable communities. The most desirable and expensive places to live in Toronto are illegal to build because of these boneheaded zoning laws.

Flint’s water crisis, explained in 3 minutes (2016).

They’re just trying to cash out at this point. Much of the early investment, such as from Microsoft, was not in the form of cash but credits to use Microsoft’s computing resources. Can’t retire on Azure credits!

Using technology as a surrogate for community.

Maybe just having a bad day?

Why are you so angry?

I had a fan that ran for years but when I turned it off it wouldn’t turn back on again.

It’s just nostalgia applied to the internet. Some people call it Eternal September. Everyone prefers what the internet was when they first discovered it and hate what it’s become since then. I remember the internet from 1996 most fondly. Many prefer it from the 80s or earlier 90s. This is no different from other media: music, TV, movies.

Of course this is separate from the real issue which is the consolidation and silo-ification of the modern web.

We’re in the world of “you are who you voted for” but also “you are (the most extreme among) who voted for you” so anyone in any group (among the opposition) is equated with the most extreme of that group and therefore just plain evil so must be opposed with maximum force. Mom and pop pickup truck from (rural red state) are actually just goose-stepping storm troopers poised to strike at any moment.

Seriously! Just buy a used 3DS and hack it to run every game, emulator, etc. You can actually play DOS games and ScummVM games on it!

I don’t have a doorbell of any kind (the button isn’t even hooked up to anything). My neighbours are jerks but they won’t steal packages or anything like that.

We’re living in a low trust society that used to be a high trust society a few decades ago. I believe all of the problems you see in politics ultimately stem from this. Factionalism is tearing western society apart.

Sure, we know loot boxes are bad because they exploit the psychology of gambling. But what about Steam sales? They’re exploiting FOMO, hoarding/collecting psychology. We know that Steam users are buying billions of dollars worth of games they never play.

Mass production and volume discounting. A circuit board can have hundreds of resistors on it. If yours has one resistor go bad you can buy a new one and replace it. But do you think it’s reasonable for you to get that one resistor for the same unit price as the company that orders a hundred million resistors a month?

For one thing, your one resistor takes about the same amount of labour and shipping costs as a tape reel of 10 thousand resistors (about the size of a dinner plate). So you’re already paying 10 thousand times the unit price on shipping and handling for that one resistor! For a manufacturer it’s not even worth their time to sell you 1 resistor. So you end up going through potentially multiple intermediaries before you can buy just 1. Each level of middlemen adds to the cost for you.

Mechanisms of enforcement still need enforcers who respect the rule of law. If the enforcers stop respecting the rule of law and prefer to play power politics then the won’t help you.

Enforcers are part of the honour system. If they aren’t honourable then the system breaks down.

Yeah. I was just thinking about why zombies are so threatening. They represent the total collapse of the social order and a replacement of a large percent of the population of ordinary people with savage predators.