Retirement Age in the Honorverse

The murder rate in 16th century London was like that of modern Venezuela or Honduras. It was apparently like that all across Europe, all extremely violent. Early 20th Century London was ridiculously safe, thought London is currently the most crime-plagued city in Europe the murder rate is still pretty low.

tlb wrote:

saber964 wrote:The probable reason why in the RMN Slaving and Piracy are immediate capital offences are because usually the evidence is immediate and overwhelming.

Oh,we've caught Mr. Slaver, he has violated the equipment clause or has a few hundred or thousand really, really pissed off witness for the prosecution.
Pirates are probably the same way.

cthia wrote:And because Slaving and Piracy are the most disgusting and morally bankrupt crimes.

ywing14 wrote:Yeah it really doesn't get any worse than that.

I believe there is a brief court martial and it might not be considered practical to transport pirates to a higher court.

However there probably more disgusting and morally bankrupt crimes: consider the killing fields of various countries beginning in the 20th century.

I wonder how much of it hinges on security which hinges on logistics.

Pirates are professional car thieves, if they remain on your ship too long, you may end up thumbing a ride home if they let you live. Look what Honor and her crew did to Ransom's ship.

cthia wrote:And because Slaving and Piracy are the most disgusting and morally bankrupt crimes.

ywing14 wrote:Yeah it really doesn't get any worse than that.

tlb wrote:However there probably more disgusting and morally bankrupt crimes: consider the killing fields of various countries beginning in the 20th century.

Weird Harold wrote:Why limit atrocities to the 20th? There are plenty of examples of genocides, purges, pogroms, and "kill them all! Let God sort them out" in previous centuries.

tlb wrote:Certainly true, but it took the industrial revolution to bring the machinery of atrocity up to the level of blood-thirst. However there were examples of people who managed to overcome their technological disadvantage.

Kill them all for the Lord knoweth them that are His

I am not counting the spread of disease to the New World, as that was not generally an intended consequence.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Wrong!!!!

I hate to cite Wikipedia but this article is well sourced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

When viewed from the mortality rate perspective, the 20th century has been very peaceful.

I cannot be completely wrong when I was agreeing that there were examples of atrocities prior to the 20th century and people certainly managed to overcome technological limitations when killing others.
Claiming that the machinery of killing was catching up to the desire to kill, does not necessarily mean that the machinery was overused; but the 20th Century was NOT peaceful. Perhaps the death rate was not as high as the tribes mentioned in the book; but the death total was much higher when you compare millions of men under arms to hundreds or thousands. One factor that held down the death rate on the modern battle field is advances in modern medicine; if you count the numbers that would have died, but for medical treatment, to the death total then overall rates might be closer to equal.
In any case, we were talking about atrocity and tribal warfare does not count unless one side is unarmed, as in Rwanda. The killing fields of Cambodia did not occur in war time, neither was the Gulag.

PS. How am I doing at keeping the quotes straight?

kzt wrote:The murder rate in 16th century London was like that of modern Venezuela or Honduras. It was apparently like that all across Europe, all extremely violent. Early 20th Century London was ridiculously safe, thought London is currently the most crime-plagued city in Europe the murder rate is still pretty low.

London is still safer than Baltimore Maryland.

Every Empire is built atop of bones.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:However there probably more disgusting and morally bankrupt crimes: consider the killing fields of various countries beginning in the 20th century.

I am not counting the spread of disease to the New World, as that was not generally an intended consequence.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Wrong!!!!

I hate to cite Wikipedia but this article is well sourced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

When viewed from the mortality rate perspective, the 20th century has been very peaceful.

I cannot be completely wrong when I was agreeing that there were examples of atrocities prior to the 20th century and people certainly managed to overcome technological limitations when killing others.
Claiming that the machinery of killing was catching up to the desire to kill, does not necessarily mean that the machinery was overused; but the 20th Century was NOT peaceful. Perhaps the death rate was not as high as the tribes mentioned in the book; but the death total was much higher when you compare millions of men under arms to hundreds or thousands. One factor that held down the death rate on the modern battle field is advances in modern medicine; if you count the numbers that would have died, but for medical treatment, to the death total then overall rates might be closer to equal.
In any case, we were talking about atrocity and tribal warfare does not count unless one side is unarmed, as in Rwanda. The killing fields of Cambodia did not occur in war time, neither was the Gulag.

PS. How am I doing at keeping the quotes straight?[/quote]

I guess the point that I was making is that even with the two world wars, the violent death rate as a percentage of the population was much, much higher in the distant past. People had no problem killing each other with knives, sticks or stones. The thigh bone of anantelope was probably the weapon of choice.

Of course I have to concede that the decades after WW2 were extraordinarilly peaceful. As horrible as Mao's cultural revolution, Pol Pot's killing fields, Rowanda and Bangledesh were, the violent death rate was far higher in the past.

PS, your quote strucure looks fine. I was not the one who was giving you crap about it. It is too easy to missnip to get anal about it.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

kzt wrote:The murder rate in 16th century London was like that of modern Venezuela or Honduras. It was apparently like that all across Europe, all extremely violent. Early 20th Century London was ridiculously safe, thought London is currently the most crime-plagued city in Europe the murder rate is still pretty low.

London is still safer than Baltimore Maryland.

Well sure. Baltimore is #6 most dangerous city in the US. St Louis is the worst.

The murder rate in the UK is weird, the government counts convictions, not dead bodies. So by the UK standards Chicago only has had 74 murders this year, the other 432 dead bodies don't count. Hence the UK police have every incentive to not solve murders. It's hard to find out how many people end up dead via criminal acts in the UK.

It's almost as bad with other statistics. UK violent crime includes crimes the FBI doesn't include as violent crimes. So the UK 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 isn't directly comparable to the 466 per 100,000 violent crimes in the US. However it's pretty clear the violent crime rate in the UK is higher then the overall US rate, it's just not 4 times higher.

kzt wrote:The murder rate in 16th century London was like that of modern Venezuela or Honduras. It was apparently like that all across Europe, all extremely violent. Early 20th Century London was ridiculously safe, thought London is currently the most crime-plagued city in Europe the murder rate is still pretty low.

We should at least be fair in that assessment. They are guilty as charged, but with explanation.

You have to grade them on a curve. Man was a much more violent creature back in the 16th century. Even the 6th and 7th centuries saw the construction of elaborate torture chambers that were frightening. Torture devices. More torture devices. Consider how long shock treatments in both the medical profession and the legal system were embraced. Consider the appalling medical techniques that existed and the appalling technology used. See what is said about Female hysteria in the 16th century, which led to the invention of the vibrator. They were originally appliances that were so large they required a visit to the doctor's office for a woman to get relief.

The dental profession was enough to turn anyone into a serial killer. The 16th century was also the beginning of the chastity belt.



IOW, their violence may have been commensurate with their lifestyle. They were all simply part of a rich supply of poster children for serial killers and rapists.

cthia wrote:

kzt wrote:The murder rate in 16th century London was like that of modern Venezuela or Honduras. It was apparently like that all across Europe, all extremely violent. Early 20th Century London was ridiculously safe, thought London is currently the most crime-plagued city in Europe the murder rate is still pretty low.

We should at least be fair in that assessment. They are guilty as charged, but with explanation.

You have to grade them on a curve. Man was a much more violent creature back in the 16th century. Even the 6th and 7th centuries saw the construction of elaborate torture chambers that were frightening. Torture devices. More torture devices. Consider how long shock treatments in both the medical profession and the legal system were embraced. Consider the appalling medical techniques that existed and the appalling technology used. See what is said about Female hysteria in the 16th century, which led to the invention of the vibrator. They were originally appliances that were so large they required a visit to the doctor's office for a woman to get relief.

The dental profession was enough to turn anyone into a serial killer. The 16th century was also the beginning of the chastity belt.



IOW, their violence may have been commensurate with their lifestyle. They were all simply part of a rich supply of poster children for serial killers and rapists.

It is wrong to judge some elements of the past based on modern techniques. Remember "Star Trek 4". the movie. "Bones" looks at modern medicine of the late 20th century as medievil. My sister is getting chemo treatments right now and the results are horrific although it is working. In a century, what we call modern medicine can be held up as an example of torture.

People are people. There are killers among us. There are also reasons for crime and lack of police protection. Baltimore not very long ago was a fairly safe city. Some scruffy pols went out of their way to dump on the police and the police backed off a lot of enforcement. That raised the crime rate. Once up, it is not easy to get it back down.

London has a strange crime rate. The Brits have backed off even bothering with things like burglary. Political correctness has pushed back a lot of enforcement. In the city of Rotherham, a group of "south Asian gentlemen" spent years "groominig" young girls...that is, getting them on drugs and then forcing them into prostitution, and nothing much happened. The first person in trouble over the whole thing was a 14 year old girl who escaped and was held for "making up stories." Eventually it was found that more than a thousand girls were victims and that police raids went nowhere because there were a couple of friends of the criminals involved who were in the top ranks of the police and government.

A handful (last I heard nine) of men were arrested and convicted. No one in the top level of the British government ever did more than make a few half-hearted statements.

So crime goes on. Ironically, in gun-crazy Texas, crime is rather low.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:However there probably more disgusting and morally bankrupt crimes: consider the killing fields of various countries beginning in the 20th century.

I am not counting the spread of disease to the New World, as that was not generally an intended consequence.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Wrong!!!!

I hate to cite Wikipedia but this article is well sourced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

When viewed from the mortality rate perspective, the 20th century has been very peaceful.

I cannot be completely wrong when I was agreeing that there were examples of atrocities prior to the 20th century and people certainly managed to overcome technological limitations when killing others.
Claiming that the machinery of killing was catching up to the desire to kill, does not necessarily mean that the machinery was overused; but the 20th Century was NOT peaceful. Perhaps the death rate was not as high as the tribes mentioned in the book; but the death total was much higher when you compare millions of men under arms to hundreds or thousands. One factor that held down the death rate on the modern battle field is advances in modern medicine; if you count the numbers that would have died, but for medical treatment, to the death total then overall rates might be closer to equal.
In any case, we were talking about atrocity and tribal warfare does not count unless one side is unarmed, as in Rwanda. The killing fields of Cambodia did not occur in war time, neither was the Gulag.

PS. How am I doing at keeping the quotes straight?[/quote]

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I guess the point that I was making is that even with the two world wars, the violent death rate as a percentage of the population was much, much higher in the distant past. People had no problem killing each other with knives, sticks or stones. The thigh bone of anantelope was probably the weapon of choice.

Of course I have to concede that the decades after WW2 were extraordinarilly peaceful. As horrible as Mao's cultural revolution, Pol Pot's killing fields, Rowanda and Bangledesh were, the violent death rate was far higher in the past.

PS, your quote strucure looks fine. I was not the one who was giving you crap about it. It is too easy to missnip to get anal about it.

OMG, you messed up the quote structure. Seriously I have not seen anyone complain about that aspect of my posts; perhaps they did not realize that I could have been fixing a mess made by a couple other posters that are serial offenders.