The world is actually not getting any less safe, but the older we get the more our childhood innocence wears off and the worse the world appears. amirite?

"I'm 65 years old. Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time." Silk Spectre (Watchmen)

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Rosy retrospection.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

London Town (You Haunt Me)

by Anonymous 2 years ago

ooooo.....so well said whoever the quote is from. Everyday there is more reason to never leave the house. and I'm just so fine with that.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

There are a few studies highlighting a correlation between safety and media coverage of crime, basically as occidental cities get safer the more the people are made to feel in danger (Tbh I don't know if there is any causation or if it was just a beginning of 2000 and 2010 phenomenon or if it's been contested by other studies but I am far to lazy to go try to find any of them)

by Anonymous 2 years ago

If you zoom out, the line probably stays pretty flat, but depending on where you zoom in, the story could be very different.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

thank you for this reasonable perspective.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

The best part about being a kid was not being bombarded by politics, doomsday talk and racial injustices. Now its almost impossible, and if you try and avoid it in society, you're made to feel guilty about it. It gets incredibly mentally and emotionally draining.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Good points. Hang in there. You are not alone.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

The world is ending though. We couldn't make our reality work and so we must commenced and end this one a try again next time. I don't know why we can't get it right!

by Anonymous 2 years ago

It's not less safe, we just know more about the awful things happening.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Pretty sure crime has been on a steady decline cut decades now. Things are safer than they've ever been, at least in the states.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I've looked at this through the lens of media being more accessible and instantaneous than ever before. We just didn't have the ability to know about all the horrible things that were happening previously.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I think the older you get you realize how unsafe it really is.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

This is my point, it's not inherently anymore safe or less safe, but our own perspective and realization that danger exists.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

It's not just that danger exists -- it's there's also an uneasiness that comes from danger shifting from things that we're familiar with to things that we're unfamilar with. If you grew up in the 80's, you're almost guaranteed to have a higher degree of understanding how kids can stay safe from drugs or fires than how they can stay safe from predators on TikTok.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

As a child I feared many ridiculous and unlikely things might kill me. Now I just fear different ridiculous and unlikely things, and I KNOW one of them will kill me.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

The word is becoming safer by virtually any metric you want to measure. The problem is that our brains didn't evolve to analyze data and make the best decision. They evolved to see attentional bias in everything and assume a tiger is in the bush whether it is or not.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

This is more or less the whole idea of "No Country for Old Men" by Cormack McCarthy

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I read somewhere that apparently violent crime rates in the USA per capita have actually decreased since the 80s it's just there is more people and we hear about so much more that it's seems so much worse.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I think we've got it pretty good compared to literally any other moment in human history. It's all a bit on fire, and creaking around the edges, but we're doing grand. Humanity thrives on spite. It should have wiped itself out millennia ago, but we're too arrogant to realise the universe is trying to actively kill us. Humanity is hubris, and it's incredible.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

False. Where I live you never see kids out riding their bikes, down at the corner café playing the arcade games, skateboarding randomly, walking to the movies, etc. These are all things I used to do without hesitation, with my parents' knowledge and consent, and in the company of any number of friends and / or siblings, and from a young (single digits) age. Whether it's through fear or real danger, this is reality.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

This sounds pretty reasonable OP. I can buy into it. I do think that at some point as you get older, you realize that you are getting more fragile. You won't bounce back quickly from certain things.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I don't know that I feel less safe, but I definitely feel less secure than ever.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Pretty sure it is, crime rate has been raising for quite some time. In some cities burglars will straight up come up to your car in broad daylight, smash the windows and grab your stuff, while you're sitting there at a red light.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

No. The opposite is true; the crime rate has been decreasing for like 40 years straight

by Anonymous 2 years ago

You would be wrong as most assumptions are.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

The climate is collapsing around us. Species are going extinct in record numbers. Food webs are collapsing. Society is crumbling. Yes, the world is ABSOLUTELY becoming less "safe."

by Anonymous 2 years ago

No it definitely is getting worse you don't need to grow up to notice the effects of climate change

by Anonymous 2 years ago

As a trans person watching the rise of fascism in my country, I definitely feel less safe than I did even 5 years ago. My childhood innocence left years before that. Safety does change over time, depending on who you are and where you are. I think there can be something to be said for this theory for like, ages 18 to 25 as you come into more awareness of the world. But I don't think it's true overall. In a lot of ways for a lot of people, the world IS getting less safe lately.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I disagree. Way more shootings and stabbings per capita in a lot of countries

by Anonymous 2 years ago

And way less in a lot of countries. For instance, in the US compared to my adolescence.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

just a big NOPE. try teaching inner city for the last 25 years. always harsh. but now - just thankful for Grandma's.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Also I get like 5 or 6 missing child alerts on my phone per week here in Texas. So that doesn't really help the perception.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Yeah, Amber Alerts are one of those "enforcement paradox" things. Law enforcement starts taking a neglected area of crime more seriously and you can get the appearance of an increase when it's actually just the at the system is doing a better job of addressing it. Happens sometimes when places get better domestic violence programs. Elder abuse is an area where we'd probably see the same if investigation and enforcement efforts were stepped up.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

The internet is probably to blame too. It was easier to be blissfully ignorant of what's going on in the world before the internet

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Yeah and though we have our problems and conflicts, in the scheme of history, we are actually in a period of basically unprecedented peacetime.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Oh so you don't remember the cold war? we're just returning to the old grandiose and hollow threats of nuclear annihilation after a 20 year break no big deal.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

People are organizing into gangs and ripping off stores in broad daylight, dude. Open a window.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

When you're a kid, fiction aimed at adults seems dark, scary, and disturbing. When you're an adult it's like "eh, that's life."

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I haven't noticed that. Why would the world appear less safe? Maybe I wasn't a particularly innocent child, but this sounds more like someone has developed an anxiety disorder.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

I wouldn't call a world that is facing wide scale climate change and more and more extreme weather events safe. Yes, crime is down but that alone doesn't make the world safer. Plus this only applies to certain countries. A lot of countries were safer in the 80ies.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

The residents of the southern border of the US would disagree tremendously.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

Or the more we pay attention to information sources that profit from attention drawing and violence draws a LOT of attention.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

And the stronger our nostalgia gets and gives us a false picture of how good our past was.

by Anonymous 2 years ago

The world is actually getting a lot safer. It's mostly republicans that think it's getting worse, and it's mainly because they have never come to terms with their emotional issues, so they aggressively fear monger and attack anything different than them that doesn't remind them of their childhood.

by Anonymous 2 years ago