Why is crime so low in Chinese Cities?

[JManc]

Comparing violence during massive social upheaval or war is not the same as when society is stable and there is a solid rule of law and order...as in what's in China (and the US) right in now. They are not at war internally or externally and are not facing any Cultural Revolutions or any Great Leap Forwards.

[Xing]

Originally Posted by Flyers2001

It all goes back to one parent households.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...qrSEQmobjb3YQA

There is either a logical reason, or the tragically dangerous accusation that one ethnicity is inherently more violent than another. This is a motivation I suspect may be driving some people's arguments.

[Flyers2001]

Originally Posted by Xing

There is either a logical reason, or the tragically dangerous accusation that one ethnicity is inherently more violent than another. This is a motivation I suspect may be driving some people's arguments.

Give us a little more detail on what you are speculating.

[Metro-One]

Seriously the question is not why crime is so low in China but why is it so high in America? And the ethnicity idea is bogus, the safest nations in the world (regarding homicides, rape, etc...) are a healthy mix of east Asian and European / Western. What these nations have in common is that they are wealthy, organized, religion is separated from politics, and have superior social safety nets (which the US severely lacks). The US is arguably the most dangerous developed western nation. It is not ethnicity / race that causes this, but culture. The US is a frontier, shoot first, ask questions later, culture where many believe that socialized programs are the devil (much of this is due to poor education). Then if you start looking at east Asia, while having some of the safest countries (such as Japan) it also has several relatively dangerous countries. Same thing in Europe, some of the safest, but also some that are relatively dangerous. So anyone who believes that any race is naturally less aggressive than any other is complete moron. Culture, in the form of having strong institutions accessible for all, is a big game changer in how dangerous an area is.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Seriously the question is not why crime is so low in China but why is it so high in America? And the ethnicity idea is bogus, the safest nations in the world (regarding homicides, rape, etc...) are a healthy mix of east Asian and European / Western. What these nations have in common is that they are wealthy, organized, religion is separated from politics, and have superior social safety nets (which the US severely lacks). The US is arguably the most dangerous developed western nation. It is not ethnicity / race that causes this, but culture. The US is a frontier, shoot first, ask questions later, culture where many believe that socialized programs are the devil (much of this is due to poor education). Then if you start looking at east Asia, while having some of the safest countries (such as Japan) it also has several relatively dangerous countries. Same thing in Europe, some of the safest, but also some that are relatively dangerous. So anyone who believes that any race is naturally less aggressive than any other is complete moron. Culture, in the form of having strong institutions accessible for all, is a big game changer in how dangerous an area is.

And... As you mention in terms of culture, à culture of "violence" implies promotional values tied to this said culture. The gun ownership debate is less about Freedom than it is about promoting violence as a solution and as a lifestyle choice.

[Flyers2001]

Originally Posted by montréaliste

And... As you mention in terms of culture, à culture of "violence" implies promotional values tied to this said culture. The gun ownership debate is less about Freedom than it is about promoting violence as a solution and as a lifestyle choice.

Majority of gun murders in the US are done by killers who illegally own guns. As with Drugs there is a huge black market. If someone wants a gun they will get one in this country legally or not.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Seriously the question is not why crime is so low in China but why is it so high in America? And the ethnicity idea is bogus, the safest nations in the world (regarding homicides, rape, etc...) are a healthy mix of east Asian and European / Western. What these nations have in common is that they are wealthy, organized, religion is separated from politics, and have superior social safety nets (which the US severely lacks). The US is arguably the most dangerous developed western nation. It is not ethnicity / race that causes this, but culture. The US is a frontier, shoot first, ask questions later, culture where many believe that socialized programs are the devil (much of this is due to poor education). Then if you start looking at east Asia, while having some of the safest countries (such as Japan) it also has several relatively dangerous countries. Same thing in Europe, some of the safest, but also some that are relatively dangerous. So anyone who believes that any race is naturally less aggressive than any other is complete moron. Culture, in the form of having strong institutions accessible for all, is a big game changer in how dangerous an area is.

How do you know culture isn't endogenous of genetics? East Asian immigrants commit virtually no crime in the West either. When you control for culture it seems like the high IQ populations still commit less crime than low IQ ones

[Urban Zombie]

As said above, it's culture. Local culture seems to play a large role in defining human behavior. It's the same reason why honor killings are often deemed acceptable in many middle eastern countries, or why gun nuttery is condoned in the US despite its obvious stupidity.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

Do we have any reason to doubt them though? Everything we know about Chinese culture and genetic makeup would lead us to to expect of them to be a low crime society. Just look at their neighbors.

Huh, what? Unless you don't consider fraud, rampant tax evasion, ignoring copyright, dumping goodies like melamine in food to be crimes.

As to violent crime, I suspect its like China consistently reporting exactly 6% economic growth lately. When your authoritarian government, you can pretty much make up whatever stats suit your agenda.

[tech12]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

East Asian immigrants commit virtually no crime in the West

Here are a few high profile examples that say otherwise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wo_Hop_To
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chung_Ching_Yee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wo_Shing_Wo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yee_On
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wah_Ching
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14K_Triad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Circle_Gang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakehead_(gang)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymon...mp_Boy%22_Chow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland...ms_trafficking

To add to that: a man was shot in SF's chinatown a couple days ago, and it's far from the first time that's happened. Chinatown has long had problems with gangs (which mostly originated in China), but things were at their worst by far in the 1970s, when the neighborhood actually had a reputation for being dangerous. People were dealing drugs, robbing people, shooting each other, corrupt cops were involved, all of that. The SFPD's first gang task force was created in the 1970s to deal with the asian (mostly chinese) gang problem in the city. Things are obviously way quieter now, but stuff still goes down once in awhile.

To say there's "virtually no crime" among east asian immigrants is pretty ignorant, just like it's pretty ignorant (and racist) to claim that Chinese people are genetically predisposed to be law abiding, or that other groups of people are/are not.

Also, anyone who takes mainland China crime statistics at face value should probably stop doing that.

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

How do you know culture isn't endogenous of genetics?

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

When you control for culture it seems like the high IQ populations still commit less crime than low IQ ones

Hmmm yes, and perhaps you can tell us how great phrenology is in your next post.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by tech12

Here are a few high profile examples that say otherwise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wo_Hop_To
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chung_Ching_Yee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wo_Shing_Wo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yee_On
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wah_Ching
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14K_Triad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Circle_Gang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakehead_(gang)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymon...mp_Boy%22_Chow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland...ms_trafficking

To add to that: a man was shot in SF's chinatown a couple days ago, and it's far from the first time that's happened. Chinatown has long had problems with gangs (which mostly originated in China), but things were at their worst by far in the 1970s, when the neighborhood actually had a reputation for being dangerous. People were dealing drugs, robbing people, shooting each other, corrupt cops were involved, all of that. The SFPD's first gang task force was created in the 1970s to deal with the asian (mostly chinese) gang problem in the city. Things are obviously way quieter now, but stuff still goes down once in awhile.

To say there's "virtually no crime" among east asian immigrants is pretty ignorant, just like it's pretty ignorant (and racist) to claim that Chinese people are genetically predisposed to be law abiding, or that other groups of people are/are not.

Instead of quoting a bunch of anecdotes please quote for me the rate of violent crime committed by East Asians in the US.

We know that:
1. East Asians have the 2nd highest mean IQ after Ashkenazi jews
2. Violent crime is far more likely to be committed by low IQ individuals
3. IQ is mostly inherited

If we were to extrapolate upon that we would expect Asians to commit less crime than other ethnic groups, and lo and behold that's exactly what we see in the data!

Does culture matter? Yes, but what % is cultural and what % is biology? And like I said, culture could be endogenous to biology.

Originally Posted by tech12

Hmmm yes, and perhaps you can tell us how great phrenology is in your next post.

You realize that IQ is the best understood measure in all of psychometrics right? You seem to be in over your head here but here's a decent overview:

http://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredso...mainstream.pdf

[ChargerCarl]

In general, most of what people attribute to external factors like culture is basically just biology:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...8tKmHWmUm3nObV

[Ant131531]

All that high IQ and white people still elected someone like Donald Trump to lead one of the greatest countries in the world meanwhile all of those low IQ minorities laugh and lament as they watch Donald Trump slowly destroy the foundations of this country.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

All that high IQ and white people still elected someone like Donald Trump to lead one of the greatest countries in the world meanwhile all of those low IQ minorities laugh and lament as they watch Donald Trump slowly destroy the foundations of this country.

Don't bite the obvious bait. That IQ talk is complete nonsense. It is almost as if nations with more stable / developed educational programs and institutions have higher IQs...

A quick look at any map about world homicide rates paints a pretty clear picture. Save for a couple exceptions, the poorest nations with little infrastructure are the most violent, most of the developing nations are in the middle, and most of the developed nations are the safest.

There are other trends at work as well, such as religion and gun culture, but wealth and opportunity seem to be the biggest factors.

It is not too hard to show how bogus the "genetic" argument is.

Strange how the peaceful East Asian gene seems to have skipped Myanmar, The Philippines, Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, and North Korea (which all have significantly higher homicide rates that the US). Thailand's homicide rate is on par with the US.

The there is the fact that Japan, the world's safest large country today, has an extremely violent history (almost suggesting how a group of people can change when their culture changes / becomes enlightened...)

Same for Germany, a very safe country today, a very violent history.

In fact arguably the most violent conquest in all of human history was done by the Mongols (Asians!)

And if you really think that violent military conquests, occupations, and attempted genocides are "different" from currently having a high homicide rate if your argument is that violence is "genetic," then your argument doesn't have a leg to stand on. If such people were truly non-violent at a genetic level, then they would have never embarked on conquering entire continents through extreme horrid force and trying to eradicate entire groups of people. Same goes for China, it may look peaceful today but building China was done through the murder of millions of people over the last couple centuries.

Again, violence comes down to several factors: general wealth and prosperity, wealth distribution (very important, strong wealth distribution avoids slums / ghettos from becoming prominent), religion (usually nations where religion plays a smaller role are less violent, but this is intertwined with education and other issues), access to education and other institutions, quality of social welfare safety nets, cultural values (currently much of central and South America have become overrun with gang culture, which is poison for society), etc...

And talking about South America, there is a hodgepodge of ethnicity, African, European, Asian, Native, and it is all mixed together, yet most South American countries are among the most dangerous in the world!

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Don't bite the obvious bait. That IQ talk is complete nonsense. It is almost as if nations with more stable / developed educational programs and institutions have higher IQs...

A quick look at any map about world homicide rates paints a pretty clear picture. Save for a couple exceptions, the poorest nations with little infrastructure are the most violent, most of the developing nations are in the middle, and most of the developed nations are the safest.

There are other trends at work as well, such as religion and gun culture, but wealth and opportunity seem to be the biggest factors.

It is not too hard to show how bogus the "genetic" argument is.

Strange how the peaceful East Asian gene seems to have skipped Myanmar, The Philippines, Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, and North Korea (which all have significantly higher homicide rates that the US). Thailand's homicide rate is on par with the US.

The there is the fact that Japan, the world's safest large country today, has an extremely violent history (almost suggesting how a group of people can change when their culture changes / becomes enlightened...)

Same for Germany, a very safe country today, a very violent history.

In fact arguably the most violent conquest in all of human history was done by the Mongols (Asians!)

And if you really think that violent military conquests, occupations, and attempted genocides are "different" from currently having a high homicide rate if your argument is that violence is "genetic," then your argument doesn't have a leg to stand on. If such people were truly non-violent at a genetic level, then they would have never embarked on conquering entire continents through extreme horrid force and trying to eradicate entire groups of people. Same goes for China, it may look peaceful today but building China was done through the murder of millions of people over the last couple centuries.

Again, violence comes down to several factors: general wealth and prosperity, wealth distribution (very important, strong wealth distribution avoids slums / ghettos from becoming prominent), religion (usually nations where religion plays a smaller role are less violent, but this is intertwined with education and other issues), access to education and other institutions, quality of social welfare safety nets, cultural values (currently much of central and South America have become overrun with gang culture, which is poison for society), etc...

And talking about South America, there is a hodgepodge of ethnicity, African, European, Asian, Native, and it is all mixed together, yet most South American countries are among the most dangerous in the world!

Eh, they'd simply argue that countries are poor or undeveloped because the average IQ of the citizens isn't as high as those in white or East Asian countries. Obviously for a developed country to exist in a relatively wealthy and stable state, you'd need a certain percentage of the population to have fairly high IQs or intelligence to develop an intellectual elite class that can govern or develop new technologies. Countries with lower average IQ are likely to lack this elite class or that elite class immigrates to a country like America anyway causing Brain Drain. Sort of why I always laugh when racists use immigrants as arguments against Black Americans as if the U.S. isn't mostly taking the best of migrants from foreign countries hence why they do better on average than the average citizen in the country of origin.

Basically, they would say IQ is the cause of everything in the world or at least when it comes to things like crime rates or HDI of a country or city or even neighborhood.

I think using IQ is mostly too rigid, but there might be a bit of truth to it quite honestly. It's way too coincidental for countries far away from the equator to be successful and ones closer to the equator to generally to be the least.

The problem is though is that no one wants this to be the truth because it's things like this that justified slavery or the Holocaust or Jim Crow. The belief that you're inherently superior to another based on race, religion, or sex and by that virtue, they are less worth of a human being than you are. I would never personally dehumanize another person because I think they're less intelligent than I am and that's the vast majority of this world if I'm right in measuring my own intelligence.

[ChargerCarl]

• Video Link

Metro-one and tech12 are simply oblivious to the current literature and scientific consensus on the topic.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Don't bite the obvious bait. That IQ talk is complete nonsense. It is almost as if nations with more stable / developed educational programs and institutions have higher IQs...

A quick look at any map about world homicide rates paints a pretty clear picture. Save for a couple exceptions, the poorest nations with little infrastructure are the most violent, most of the developing nations are in the middle, and most of the developed nations are the safest.

There are other trends at work as well, such as religion and gun culture, but wealth and opportunity seem to be the biggest factors.

It is not too hard to show how bogus the "genetic" argument is.

Strange how the peaceful East Asian gene seems to have skipped Myanmar, The Philippines, Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, and North Korea (which all have significantly higher homicide rates that the US). Thailand's homicide rate is on par with the US.

The there is the fact that Japan, the world's safest large country today, has an extremely violent history (almost suggesting how a group of people can change when their culture changes / becomes enlightened...)

Same for Germany, a very safe country today, a very violent history.

In fact arguably the most violent conquest in all of human history was done by the Mongols (Asians!)

And if you really think that violent military conquests, occupations, and attempted genocides are "different" from currently having a high homicide rate if your argument is that violence is "genetic," then your argument doesn't have a leg to stand on. If such people were truly non-violent at a genetic level, then they would have never embarked on conquering entire continents through extreme horrid force and trying to eradicate entire groups of people. Same goes for China, it may look peaceful today but building China was done through the murder of millions of people over the last couple centuries.

Again, violence comes down to several factors: general wealth and prosperity, wealth distribution (very important, strong wealth distribution avoids slums / ghettos from becoming prominent), religion (usually nations where religion plays a smaller role are less violent, but this is intertwined with education and other issues), access to education and other institutions, quality of social welfare safety nets, cultural values (currently much of central and South America have become overrun with gang culture, which is poison for society), etc...

And talking about South America, there is a hodgepodge of ethnicity, African, European, Asian, Native, and it is all mixed together, yet most South American countries are among the most dangerous in the world!

This is wrong, crime and war are qualitatively different. Crime is an act which breaks social codes, whereas war requires large group cooperation and consensus.

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

This is wrong, crime and war are qualitatively different. Crime is an act which breaks social codes, whereas war requires large group cooperation and consensus.

Perhaps, but not many would argue that what Nazi Germany did in the 1940s was morally good and that was largely a result of group cooperation and consensus among the citizens of Germany.

I'd argue lower IQ individuals are more dangerous on a micro-scale(individual violent crimes and murder) where as high IQ individuals are more dangerous on a macro scale(mass murder, unneccessary war, etc).

[ChargerCarl]

I'd argue that low IQ populations struggle to organize anyways (as Garret does in in the video I posted) and so we can't really make clean comparisons.

Of course this a thread about crime, and not war.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Seriously the question is not why crime is so low in China but why is it so high in America? And the ethnicity idea is bogus, the safest nations in the world (regarding homicides, rape, etc...) are a healthy mix of east Asian and European / Western. What these nations have in common is that they are wealthy, organized, religion is separated from politics, and have superior social safety nets (which the US severely lacks). The US is arguably the most dangerous developed western nation. It is not ethnicity / race that causes this, but culture. The US is a frontier, shoot first, ask questions later, culture where many believe that socialized programs are the devil (much of this is due to poor education). Then if you start looking at east Asia, while having some of the safest countries (such as Japan) it also has several relatively dangerous countries. Same thing in Europe, some of the safest, but also some that are relatively dangerous. So anyone who believes that any race is naturally less aggressive than any other is complete moron. Culture, in the form of having strong institutions accessible for all, is a big game changer in how dangerous an area is.

What nonsense. The US murder rate is an outlier because young African American males murder each other at rates that are around be 20x higher pe capita than white males of the same age (not to mention Asian males). This murder rate occurs despite African Americans having by most standards a moderately high standard of living. This might be an inconvenient truth for you but it's truth none the less. And yes, the homicide disparity does come down mostly to culture; to a malign gun and gang culture that appears have rooted itself in a.a. Communities within certain cities. By the way, a similar culture exists in native communities in Canada: if these populations represented the same share of the total that African Americans do in the us, Canadian homicide rates would be much much higher.

US education levels, for anyone outside of the underclass and Central American immigrant population, is much higher than in most European countries (see the pisa reports broken out by state and ethnic groups where white and Asian American score very highly).

The us is no more of a frontier nation than Canada (see: sales of SUVs and pickups in both countries compared to Europe). The social safety net is not quite as generous, although comparable to Canada in many states.

Rather than the supposed lack of a social safety net, or cultural factors, most of the reason this malign gun and gang culture (and similarly the opioid epidemic affecting all of North America) has arisen is due to economics and globalization, not least the loss of around 5 million manufacturing jobs which previously provided less educated people with jobs and prosperity. Canada has had oil to employ people,while a place like Japan is heavily protectionist and is also one of the few developed countries able to maintain strong manufacturing capacity in the face of rapacious outsourcing.