- Sexual Violence: According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), the majority of sexual abuse cases reported to law enforcement show that 93% of juvenile victims knew the perpetrator: 59% were acquaintances, 34% were family members, and only 7% were strangers¹.
- General Violence: Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) indicates that less than half of all violent crimes were committed by total strangers. A significant portion of violent crimes were committed by acquaintances, friends, and relatives⁵.
- Homicide: In 2004, only 23% of murders were committed by strangers, highlighting that a larger percentage of homicides occur between individuals who know each other⁴.
These statistics demonstrate that violence is more likely to occur within known social circles rather than between strangers. It's important to note that these findings are based on reported cases and surveys, which can have limitations, but they provide a general understanding of the patterns of violence.
Source: Conversation with Copilot, 6/3/2024 (1) Perpetrators of Sexual Violence: Statistics | RAINN. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/perpetrators-sexual-violenc.... (2) Violent Crime by Strangers and Nonstrangers - Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vcsn.pdf. (3) VIOLENCE BETWEEN LOVERS, STRANGERS, AND FRIENDS. https://journals.library.wustl.edu/lawreview/article/6708/ga.... (4) Statistics In-Depth - National Sexual Violence Resource Center. https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics/statistics-depth. (5) STRANGER AND ACQUAINTANCE RAPE: Are There ... - University of Arizona. https://experts.arizona.edu/en/publications/stranger-and-acq....
Indeed those citations exclude war.
There's little, if any, reason for humans today to commit most of the violence they do, but they do it anyway. People don't usually commit violence for some understandable reason; they do it because they have psychological deficiencies. It's little different than a pitbull that randomly snaps and attacks a child in the family it's living with.
Clearly, based on Tolkein's depiction of them, hobbits are simply far superior to humans in this regard. And to be fair, the humans in Middle Earth don't seem to have so much of this problem as real-world humans either. Instead, I'd say the orcs sound pretty close to how many real-world humans today behave.
The conclusion I come to is that Hobbits magic up manufactured goods from the idealized English countryside of Tolkien’s imagination. If you have some English ancestors who lost a pot, it time-slipped into Middle Earth. Presumably they are where the socks go. Ever notice an excess of old keys around the house? Hobbits need boxes!
But, yeah, the time travelling pots and socks must be how it worked :) Kind of like Skynet in the future compiling our C++ code :)
>homogeneous people
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/06/in-ethno-nationa...
> In numerous cases of apparently ethno-nationalist conflict, the deepest hatreds are manifested between people who—to most outward appearances—exhibit very few significant distinctions. It is one of the great contradictions of civilization and one of the great sources of its discontents, and Sigmund Freud even found a term for it: “the narcissism of the small difference.” As he wrote, “It is precisely the minor differences in people who are otherwise alike that form the basis of feelings of hostility between them.”
It's just a part of the human condition, sadly, to hate others based on the smallest of differences. And you will always find a difference, even among the most homogeneous of societies - be it the color of your hair, the pigment of your skin, your accent...
Part of me wants to agree with you, but you're using a very broad definition of hate for this to be true. This isn't the visceral hatred of the kid who bullied you all through school stealing your girlfriend in college, getting you framed and expelled from university, and then ending up your boss at the one place you could get a job. Such hatreds have been known to result in murder, after all. They're intense, they burn hot, and if the feeling manifests, a person seems unable to resist acting.
It's the "hate" of making the occasional (once every few years) joke about the village 10 miles down the road, and playing (good natured) pranks on them if/when they show up in your village. Someone else might insist that it's not hatred at all, but something more like "mistrust of strangers" or "self-sequestration". The choice of "hatred" isn't so much linguistically sensible, as it is about staking out a political position. And you just can't do that unless you've characterized this intrinsic human hesitation when dealing with strangers as "hatred". Can't really stand up on the podium and rant about how those other guys are stand-offish and don't make friends quickly.
The late 20th century Swedes weren't raping each other to any great degree. Homogeneity served them well. There wasn't any large degree of arson and assault in Japan in that same period. And while I might agree with you that homogeneity isn't a solution for any of their current problems, zealous heterogeneity of the sorts being pursued today might well be an anti-solution to be avoided.
> rather, fostering awareness and understanding around discrimination is the way forward.
The way forward to what, exactly? When you say things like this, it indicates that you have some vision of the future. I am not party to that vision, I do not know what it is, and no one else has bothered to describe it to me very much. Then, even if I do know this vision (and agree with it, I might not), I have to determine for myself whether or not your methods align with your aims. It might very much not ne the "way forward", you might be going backwards and believing you're going forward.
Characterizing these as "good natured pranks" seems to deliberately miss the point in favor of reinforcing your priors.