See: title

I wonder for example I read an article say trans people are 1% of the U.S.A and its not uncommon

and Jews are 0.2% of the global population but wouldn't call it uncommon

and read a troubling stat in france how 1 in 10 people are victims of in*cest for example

So how do we call that?

This question has been troubling me for quite a while now as I don’t know if this is even a topic worth talking about. As you all know predator catching is a popular format where sexual deviants are caught in the act of trying to solicit sex or other lude favors from minors and it’s a horrible thing. But in these videos, I see the predator catchers in general try to talk to these people, but ultimately get them arrested or ruin their reputation by filming them. The part where they talk to them and just try to get a general consensus of how and what they’re thinking and really intrigued me and anyway and brought up this question and should a person like that be rehabilitated in away so that they don’t indulging this type of behavior anymore or should they just sent to the gallows we don’t have to waste resources on them keeping them alive.

Personally, I find that many people behave in truly heinous ways, but a part of me really wants them to get the help they need because they are human beings too. They may have fallen into an aspiring lifestyle that led them to need assistance to get out. In my life, I always try to act with forgiveness. Even though I’m not religious, I believe that many people deserve second chances, depending on the severity of their actions. Ultimately, I feel that if they can be helped, they should be. No one should have to suffer endlessly as their lives crumble before them, nor should they be condemned to live in torment for their sins. Like it’s almost gross the way with some of the predator videos, I see where they beat them up just actively not making the situation any better just looking like public menaces, wile when jidion does (aka edp watch) and respectfully reprimand the preditors and get them arrested and or the help they need as even though you even you may see them as monsters there’s no people with lives that might not matter to you, but our lives nonetheless, and I feel like they need help or resources to get them back on the right track instead of just throwing them in the slammer to be harassed ridiculed or just killed gruesomely. but I still think their actions are terrible.

But hey that’s just my two cents let me know what you guys think and please let’s have a respectful discussion about this as this is a sensitive topic in general😁

When authoritarian regimes fail, it's often due to a widening gap between the interests of the governing elite and the governed. Looting of state assets often accompanies this, and usually it spirals a country into inevitable decline. Why does this happen though? And what are the factors that make a country more likely to descend into kleptocracy and others less so? I am thinking about the contrast between a country like Russia vs China, Malaysia vs Singapore.

I know that theories of an hierarchical evolution of human societies have been abandoned by many if not most researchers in the social sciences. Most of you here probably know more than this than me and better than me. That researchers had abandoned these theories was the story when I went to uni. (I finished my degree in archaeology and religious studies roughly in 2009). Many of these theories have a problematic history because of being used to categorise modern societies and ethnicities in hierarchies of value and importance leading to for instance «eugenics» and you probably know of the theoretical complex often categorised as «social darwinism» (see for instance Richard Hofstadter who contributed to the dissemination of the term «social darwinism» in a politically motivated way: https://books.google.no/books?id=Ty8aEmWc_ekC&redir_esc=y.)

I am first asking if the idea of an hierarchical evolution of mankind and culture in your opinion has been falsified for good or if some kind of evolution towards a valued goal for instance truth/scientific knowledge/higher social awareness could be salvaged from the dumps of history?

To build a case for this I might for instance need to look into sources for arguments like these:

There is a higher value in having high levels of useful knowledge in a society or tribe, in being aware and considerate, and this is an asset cross culturally. Being able to prioritise and distinguish between useful and less useful directions in which to attain personally meaningful goals is a great asset for individuals especially when people agree on rules and abide by them so that social reality is somewhat stable. Agreement on rules as tribal law, mores and norms is a widespread trait in societies worldwide. Morality seems to be a universal human propensity or faculty that is necessitated by living in tribal/national realities of interdependence. Levels of awareness may be difficult to gauge, but if we managed to gauge them we might find that some historical societies were more aware than others and that when awareness increases over time and in many societies at the same time this is of benefit to people.

I am not working as an academic so I would like suggestions on where to find similar/adjacent views to these.

Would opening the social sciences for looking into this be to open a can of worms or do you think it might be helpful? I think things are looking pretty bleak out there today anyway so I am not sure that looking squarely at this would in itself cause more havoc than is already there in profusion. Thank you!

I often come across statistics about crimes such as homicide and rapes, and surprisingly, many poor countries fare relatively better than common perception.

For example, my country of India has a homicide rate of 2.1 per 100,000 vs the global average of 6.1 and the US at 6.8.

Rape statistics in India show a reported rate of 2.3 cases per 100,000. The same for the US is 41.8, for the UK 109, and France 59.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where women have very few rights, reported a rate of 0.2 rapes per 100,000 in 2002.

However, no sane person would look at this and conclude that India is safer for women than the US, UK or France. Neither would anyone conclude that it is better to be a woman in Saudi Arabia.

I know that many people say these statistics are unreliable, because they don't account for undereporting, varying definitions of crimes and interpretation of the law.

However, I wonder if they do reflect reality, but in a different way from what we perceive.

For example, in patriarchal societies such as India and Saudi Arabia, public spaces are seen as the domain of men. A woman out alone in public is vulnerable. Therefore, in these societies, women venture out less frequently, do so in family groups and largely stay at home. Mingling of the sexes is looked down upon and there are few opportunities to interact with the opposite gender outside of family.

It's not completely unreasonable then, to think that these countries have lower actual rates of rape and sexual assault. It isn't because there is a high level of safety afforded to women, but because they have actively modified their life and freedoms to adapt to a society that can be violent towards them if they don't.

The hypothetical crime that may occur in Saudi Arabia, for example, if a woman were to flout social norms and go about her life as she does in a western country, is unaccounted for in statistics because in practice, it never happens.

While it is hypothetically unsafe for women to venture out at night in India, the actual number of rapes that occur in this time may be lower than expected because, culturally, women do not go out at night there.

I wonder if this kind of raw data skews social scientists' perception of societies, and what they do to overcome this kind of bias.

Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Saudi_Arabia?utm_source=chatgpt.com

I watched a documentary that explained that de-Ba'athification caused some Sunnis to hate America because it targeted them. Then, some joined ISIS and other insurgent groups.

So, was de-Ba'athification wrong? What should have been during the Iraq War to remove Ba'ath elements?

I used to live in Vancouver (Canada) and Victoria (and now live in Calgary, where this isn’t not a problem), and as many people know, there’s an ongoing issue with unhoused people in places like East Hastings Street and Pandora Avenue who are, to put it succinctly, in urgent need of ongoing help.

I am not one of those people who thinks these people deserve to rot in the street, or need to be rounded up, or believes in drug prohibition, or thinks we need to close the safe consumption sites, or any other version of this classist far-right horseshit that is getting me suuuuuuper pissed off. (In fact I would like to get training soon to volunteer to directly help unhoused people who are in a bad way and have been left behind by the system). But I do think this is a social issue that needs addressing.

I’m aware of things like Finland’s Housing-First program that has seen a lot of success, but I’m more referring to people who are not simply unhoused or suffering from an addiction, but those who are perhaps permanently unable to take care of themselves or have a grip on reality or behave in generally-socially-acceptable ways. Some people think we need to reopen all the asylums, but these obviously have a huge potential to be abusive hellholes.

TL;DR what, according to current social science, is the most humane and compassionate way to address the needs people who are too mentally unwell to function?

Hello, What I'm going to ask here is more in the field of legal anthropology and comparative law. I hope this is the right subheading for my query. I'm interested in comparative law and legal anthropology with the aim of understanding what generally leads societies to judicialize certain areas of public/private life throughout history, in the same way that the environment and economic structures influence the judicialization of behavior. I would particularly like to talk about the judicialization of moral norms (on sexuality, family, etc.).

• First, I know there is surely a general empirical explanation. I would like to understand how progress affects normative inflation throughout history: there are more regulations, but are more freedoms granted? Or, on the contrary, is there greater legislation in the criminal sphere? (This is done by comparing several legal systems).

• In history, what generally leads to the enactment of norms (such as the Napoleonic Civil Code more recently, but also in medieval and ancient history more generally with the Code of Hammurabi, Roman laws, etc.), and in what contexts is this done?

• How do economic structures (linked to the environment) shape the legal system (subsistence economy, capitalism, pastoralism, socialism, etc.)?

I would like more long-term, process-based analyses. If you have any references and resources to share that could help me, I would be grateful.

Hello Reddit,

I’m a 20-year-old straight white guy, and I find myself struggling with some beliefs that I know are strongly affecting my happiness. I genuinely think that every identity group beyond my own is somehow inferior, and I’ve bought into Manosphere values similar to those espoused by Andrew Tate, believing that most women are genetically predisposed to be more submissive than men. I view abortion as murder, hold the belief that trans women aren’t women and shouldn’t be referred to as she/her, and I see immigrants as dangerous, justifying Trump’s border control in my mind. I also think that neoliberalism and capitalism are great systems.

This mindset is making me really miserable. Deep down, I want to have a girlfriend and see her as an equal partner, someone I can love, respect, and appreciate for her intelligence and ambition. I want to treat trans women as women and develop genuine empathy for immigrants. I aspire to lean more left in my views, but I struggle to find the right arguments, and it feels incredibly hard to let go of these ingrained beliefs.

The problem is that all my friends are right-wing, and my family is extremely conservative, which leaves me feeling isolated with no one to turn to except the internet. I often find myself doomscrolling through self-help podcasts aimed at men, and I even identify with characters like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. I realize that I’m wrong in many ways because the world is always more complex than the right-wing populist propaganda makes it seem, but I don't know how to change.

So, I’m reaching out for book recommendations that could help me shift my perspective—anything thorough and complex about immigration, capitalism, feminism, or trans rights that could help me deradicalize. I would really appreciate any help. I thought about reading Judith Butler, but I only understood about half of what they were saying.

I believe that social science, feminism or critical theory is the best way to start. However, I am not sure where to begin, as I wanted to read communist literature, but Marx seems a bit overwhelming. Additionally, I haven't read Hegel, which appears to be a prerequisite. I started reading Hannah Arendt's texts on fascism, and this has really helped me a lot. Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex was also very helpful.
Thank you!

Is it a powerful force and concept or is it sort of subtle? I'm American so I have no idea what the concept is or what it's like in demonstration but I have read about it. Apparently, it controls the entirety of the Scandinavian/Nordic nations too by displaying a certain mindset about society. Do people follow it closely or is it just a concept?

https://www.scandinaviastandard.com/what-is-janteloven-the-law-of-jante/

Hi all. I was wondering this. Family Guy has some transphobic jokes. For example, Stewie refers to Ida (trans) as a monster. Brian is disgusted after he realized he fucked trans Ida. I get these are jokes, but doesn't it push transphobia and right-wing ideas?

I was surprised that Seth MacFarlane, the creator, is actually a Democrat and pro-gay. Is there actually no impact on viewer ideology? They also have episodes criticizing Trump and conservatism.

This is something I have always assumed, but I’m wondering if there’s any way to prove this. I always assumed that a person having a lot of siblings would make them more likely to become a parent later on themselves (by a lot of siblings let’s say 3+.)

Hi guys, I am currently struggling to come up with an interesting and novel idea for research in development economics for a graduate research (master's) project.

I am mainly interested in quasi-experimental ideas such as:

• Creative IVs a la Alesina et al (2013) - he famously studies female labour participation as a function of gender norms on which he uses soil type as an IV - labour intensive soil types => fewer women working in agriculture historically => worse gender norms https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w17098/w17098.pdf
• Interesting quasi-exogenous shocks such as this paper by Michalopoulos & Papaioannou, 2014 who study the differences in economic performance based historical colonial borders in Africa https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v129y2014i1p151-213.html
• Any other interesting research ideas (Dif in Dif, RD designs) using all sorts of interesting variables, I find especially interesting climate change, migration, institutions, politics, political alliances and others

Importance is that there is data out there available to study it and that i doesn't require a full RCT (infeasible as a poor grad student)

Thanks in advance for some inspiration!

I live in a small town where there aren't really many people I've met who I can confide in and call a friend. I've worked different jobs here and gotten involved in different activities and communities, and still haven't really found anyone to click with.

On the other hand, I basically have a limitless supply of potential friends online. Some have helped me more than any in-person friends have and are genuinely great people who I've also ended up meeting in person.

Do social media friends count towards the social tier in the hierarchy of needs?

How many friends are considered adequate anyway?

How & when do diffrent peoples in a state become integrated into the larger nation? How much of a role do factors like communication play? Id also like recommendations for books on this subject

I read this recently, very interested in its claim to discuss how the social world created and propagates itself (very broad description, not really doing it justice I know, but kinda.) Anyway I am now grateful to have learned the word deontology and discovered social ontology is a thing, but still not really satisfied; it felt like generally he just said the social world goes on because we all agree it does.

Any recommendations for other books in this vein?