The feeling you guy might get in “hoods” is the same feeling I, as a European get all over the US. I mean completely unrelated to race, just because many of you have guns and there’s much more violence and insanity in general.
That being said. Nobody tried to rob me and most people were very friendly. There where a few scammers though, I witnessed some disturbing stuff on the metro and I also witnessed a woman attacking a guy in a car which resulted in having her arm being stuck in the window and being dragged a few meters by the car.
I think this is just normal. I felt the same way traveling in Europe. I think it’s just the combination of being in an unfamiliar place and standing out as a traveler. A lot of scammers target travelers intentionally.
Yeah, scammers always go for the easy targets. Locals will know the scams, are more likely to call the cops on them or have friends to back them up. Foreigners in “holiday mode” are much easier. Same as online scammers who are targetting idiots who still believe in Nigerian princes, smart people with their guard up are not worth the time.
many of you have guns and there’s much more violence and insanity in general
Every third article in the UK is about “Knife Crime!!!” The French and German news networks make it sound like Paris and Berlin are active war zones. FFS, even the Swedes are insisting half the country is living out the plot of Taken.
Like, I’m sure the US is marginally less safe than Europe. But I suspect that has more to do with Europe just being on-average five years older than the US. By and large, both continents are extremely safe. Violence - particularly street violence - is extraordinarily rare. And the areas where it does crop up tend to be between people who know each other and having some kind of deep interpersonal dysfunction (abusive spouses / parents, school kids fighting one another over some accumulated grudge, sports hooligans brawling with their rivals).
What we have, in practice, is a handful of highly glamorized violent events (school shootings, most notably) that get international news coverage. FFS, we spend more time covering shootings in the US than we do covering our active military campaigns abroad.
The US has five(!) times the murders per capita than France, Germany or the UK.
Sure, a lot of that is probably gang violence, or isolated big events like school shootings.
But just let that fact sink in. Per capita, there are five times as many murders in the US than those “rough” countries the MAGA crows warns of. It’s not marginally less safe, it is a whole different league. The US is in between South American or African borderline third-world countries [1] in terms of murders per citizen.
[1]: Granted, murders are probably more often reported and counted in the US than in Angola or Kenia. But still, that we even have to have this argument…
France is at around 1.3, Germany at around 0.9, UK somewhere in between, if a quick search is to be trusted.
And I think change in incidence is a weird way to express this. Yes, the average person is not likely to die of homicide, even in “unsafe” countries. But at the same time, the chance of a man to get testicular cancer is around 0.01%; if I would be 5 times as likely to get testicular cancer than the people from other places, I would very much want to look into that.
I experienced the opposite feeling, spent my high school summers in London and always felt like laughing when people would warn us off rough neighborhoods that were safer than the safe neighborhoods where I was from.
It has gotten much less violent here since then.
1980s to 2000
Believe it or not this still left us rougher than the US in general or even Florida in general. But look, since 2000
The feeling you guy might get in “hoods” is the same feeling I, as a European get all over the US. I mean completely unrelated to race, just because many of you have guns and there’s much more violence and insanity in general.
That being said. Nobody tried to rob me and most people were very friendly. There where a few scammers though, I witnessed some disturbing stuff on the metro and I also witnessed a woman attacking a guy in a car which resulted in having her arm being stuck in the window and being dragged a few meters by the car.
You had more action on your vacation than I have living here. Granted, I don’t know where you went.
you always experience more when you’re traveling than when you’re standing still
Dixon, MO is a wild place.
I think this is just normal. I felt the same way traveling in Europe. I think it’s just the combination of being in an unfamiliar place and standing out as a traveler. A lot of scammers target travelers intentionally.
Yeah, scammers always go for the easy targets. Locals will know the scams, are more likely to call the cops on them or have friends to back them up. Foreigners in “holiday mode” are much easier. Same as online scammers who are targetting idiots who still believe in Nigerian princes, smart people with their guard up are not worth the time.
Every third article in the UK is about “Knife Crime!!!” The French and German news networks make it sound like Paris and Berlin are active war zones. FFS, even the Swedes are insisting half the country is living out the plot of Taken.
Like, I’m sure the US is marginally less safe than Europe. But I suspect that has more to do with Europe just being on-average five years older than the US. By and large, both continents are extremely safe. Violence - particularly street violence - is extraordinarily rare. And the areas where it does crop up tend to be between people who know each other and having some kind of deep interpersonal dysfunction (abusive spouses / parents, school kids fighting one another over some accumulated grudge, sports hooligans brawling with their rivals).
What we have, in practice, is a handful of highly glamorized violent events (school shootings, most notably) that get international news coverage. FFS, we spend more time covering shootings in the US than we do covering our active military campaigns abroad.
The US has five(!) times the murders per capita than France, Germany or the UK.
Sure, a lot of that is probably gang violence, or isolated big events like school shootings.
But just let that fact sink in. Per capita, there are five times as many murders in the US than those “rough” countries the MAGA crows warns of. It’s not marginally less safe, it is a whole different league. The US is in between South American or African borderline third-world countries [1] in terms of murders per citizen.
[1]: Granted, murders are probably more often reported and counted in the US than in Angola or Kenia. But still, that we even have to have this argument…
Roughly 5.75 per 100,000 people/year, versus 1.33 per 100,000. So closer to 4x. But even then, we’re talking about a 0.04% change in incidence.
A bit like saying you’re 5x as likely to win the lottery.
France is at around 1.3, Germany at around 0.9, UK somewhere in between, if a quick search is to be trusted.
And I think change in incidence is a weird way to express this. Yes, the average person is not likely to die of homicide, even in “unsafe” countries. But at the same time, the chance of a man to get testicular cancer is around 0.01%; if I would be 5 times as likely to get testicular cancer than the people from other places, I would very much want to look into that.
Okay, but that’s it. Full stop. Minor variations don’t say much about these countries.
Then the risk is still microscopic, especially with the variance by neighborhood and income and circumstance.
I experienced the opposite feeling, spent my high school summers in London and always felt like laughing when people would warn us off rough neighborhoods that were safer than the safe neighborhoods where I was from.
It has gotten much less violent here since then.
1980s to 2000
Believe it or not this still left us rougher than the US in general or even Florida in general. But look, since 2000
Oh shut the fuck up and go bitch about some roma