Video of thwarted ATM mugging -- your tactical thoughts?

[briandg]

So it seems to be that there was a bit of hair splitting in the discussion here. I put out information based on memory and I guess that I was foolish to not spend a lot of time actually looking up the statistics and absolute facts. War in Mexico? The Mexican army is in charge of some places, in the recent past they were given orders to shoot to kill and not bring any prisoners in. War in the United States? Okay, we have the national guard out at times, cops are being assassinated, groups are killing each other, terrorism against civilians is common, it's at least a bit similar.

John pointed out that my very general speaking at least inspired him to search out accurate facts, and if it results in that, I'm glad.

 

[briandg]

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/ve.html

https://www.osac.gov/Pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=17137

Of the fifty most violent cities in the world five appear to be in Venezuela. They appear to all be in the top 20. Caracas is reported to be number one.

Venezuela remained one of the deadliest countries in the world for 2014.

yes, the report is two years old, written in fifteen. It appears that they are all in the top twenty.

Venezuela is a rough place. I couldn't put my hands on information regarding some issues, so I'm not going to discuss them. These links are from the US cia and state department.

 

[BOOGIE the oily]

However, I'm a little skeptical about the idea that Caracas is the sole reason for Venezuela's high overall murder rate given that it's not just Caracas that has a high murder rate. In fact, 4 out of the top 10 most violent cities in the world and 7 out of the top 50, are in Venezuela.

It makes perfect sense that the urban areas have more violent crime, but the idea that there's just one urban area in Venezuela that's giving the wrong picture overall doesn't seem to match with the facts.

Oops. Went gung-ho on Caracas, and didn't even look at the rest of the top 50. Sorry.

However, that actually proves my point.
Let me see if I can explain myself better with numbers, being that my performance with words is being kinda poor...

Venezuela has a population of 31,586,179, and a murder rate of 57.15 out of 100,000. That means 18,052 people get murdered every year.

Now:
Caracas has 3,305,204 @ 130.35 murder rate, or 4309 murdered per year.
Maturin (#6) has 592,574 @ 82.84, or 491 murdered per year.
Ciudad Guayana (#8) has 877,547 @ 82.84, or 727 murdered per year.
Valencia (#9) has 1,560,586 @ 72.02, or 1124 murdered per year.
Barquisimeto (#16) has 1,322,068 @ 59.38, or 785 murdered per year.
Cumana (#17) has 488,507 @ 59.31, or 290 murdered per year.
Barcelona (#29) has 846,353 @46.86, or 397 murdered per year.

That means, for those 7 cities, a total of 8,992,839 people, out of which 8123 people get murdered yearly.
That, in turn, means the rest of the country has 22,593,340 people, out of which 9929 people get murdered a year, which gives a murder rate (outside those 7 cities) of 43.94, which would put the "rest of Venezuela", between the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Jamaica.Now, you can argue that's still very high, and it is, but there's a big difference between 57 and 44.

Either way, I said before that murder rate is not the right criteria to use for judging how dangerous a country is. One of the reasons is because you gotta look at the nature of those killings.
Sure, a stray bullet will kill you just as dead in Caracas as in Bern. However, it's stilll gonna be a lot more dangerous for you to go visit Yemen (in the middle of a civil war) than Norway.
Now, in the case of Venezuela, most of the murders are politics or drugs (as in drug trafficking) related . Of course, that doesn't mean you'll be "safe", but I'd argue you'd be much safer there than in Buenos Aires, the city where I live, which doesn't show in the "Top 50", yet it's overrun by criminals, while the police and justice departments do nothing.
I can actually guarantee you, without a shadow of a doubt, that if you flash a $100 bill in public, almost anywhere in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, you will get mugged, and probably killed in the process. Yet Buenos Aires is not in the "Top 50", and Argentina is #83 and has a 6.53 murder rate.

My point in all this (before somebody asks ) is that you can't know if a country is "dangerous" just looking at some numbers.

Back in 2000, when I was getting ready to emigrate to the US, lots of people (and I mean LOTS of people) gave me plenty of reasons why I should NOT go there. From "they will make you feel unwelcome", to "the cops will use you as a scapegoat, when they can't solve a crime", or "it's a country full of junkies, dealing dope and killing each other in every corner", I heard it all. So, when I landed in Miami, I was beyond terrified.
Took me a couple of days to realize maybe the US wasn't as they said. Today, the 13 years I lived there count as the happiest years of my life, and I wouldn't hesitate for a second, if I had the slightest chance to go back.

So, you shouldn't judge a country for a number, or an opinion. Sometimes, the only way to know something is, well... knowing it.

 

[briandg]

So, you shouldn't judge a country for a number, or an opinion. Sometimes, the only way to know something is, well... knowing it.

I understand now.

 

[JohnKSa]

That, in turn, means the rest of the country has 22,593,340 people, out of which 9929 people get murdered a year, which gives a murder rate (outside those 7 cities) of 43.94, which would put the "rest of Venezuela", between the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Jamaica. Now, you can argue that's still very high, and it is, but there's a big difference between 57 and 44.

That is off-the-charts high considering that it is a statistic that omits the large population centers of the country.

In other words, even AFTER removing all the highest murder centers of the country, it is still #5 #4 in the world for murder rate when comparing against the statistics of countries which still have their high-rate murder centers included.

The bottom line is that to do a realistic/accurate comparison, the comparison needs to be of similar statistics.

At first, you started by trying to compare the murder rate in the single city in the U.S. with the highest murder rate against the murder rate of the entire country of Venezuela. That is not a reasonable comparison for the reasons pointed out above.

Then you tried to compare the murder rate of the part of the country of Venezuela that does NOT include the high murder rate urban areas against the murder rate of entire countries where their high murder rate urban areas are included in the statistic. That is also not a reasonable comparison.

The bottom line is that any reasonable comparison of similar statistics will show that Venezuela has one of the top 2 or 3 murder rates in the world and that nearly half of the top 9 murder capitals of the world are cities in Venezuela.

I'm sure that there are many other creative ways to come up with comparisons which make the violent crime levels in Venezuela seem less shocking than they actually are, but so far all of the ones you have come up with require comparing a statistic of one type for Venezuela with a statistic of a different type for the other countries in the comparison. Not because those comparisons make a lot of sense from a logical standpoint but apparently because simple comparisons of like statistics with like statistics doesn't support your argument.

I can actually guarantee you, without a shadow of a doubt, that if you flash a $100 bill in public, almost anywhere in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, you will get mugged, and probably killed in the process. Yet Buenos Aires is not in the "Top 50", and Argentina is #83 and has a 6.53 murder rate.

That sounds like a dangerous place.

And yet you're arguing that Venezuela, where even the parts of the country that aren't on the top 50 list of the most dangerous cities in the world have a murder rate around 5 times higher than Buenos Aires is not a dangerous place? I don't follow that logic.

Took me a couple of days to realize maybe the US wasn't as they said.

You should have looked at the statistics and you would have seen that the violent crime rate is actually quite low overall--below that of even Argentina which has one of the lowest violent crime rates in Latin America.

The statistic would have shown that even though the U.S. makes up about 4% of the world, only 8% of the 50 most violent cities in the world are in the U.S. Compared, for example to Venezuela which makes up 0.4% of the world and yet has 14% of the 50 most violent cities in the world. Or compared to Brazil which makes up only about 3% of the world population but has 38% of the world's 50 most violent cities.

So, you shouldn't judge a country for a number, or an opinion. Sometimes, the only way to know something is, well... knowing it.

"Knowing something" without facts to back it up is not actually knowing something. It is merely holding an opinion. It is only when opinion is backed by facts, that it can graduate from being simply an opinion to being knowledge.

 

[BOOGIE the oily]

Oh, boy...
Well, at least briandg did understand.

That is off-the-charts high

No, unfortunately, as the charts themselves show, it's not.

The bottom line is that to do a realistic/accurate comparison, the comparison needs to be of similar statistics.

No, the bottom line is that there is no realistic/accurate comparison, because circumstances are not similar.
It's simple: you can't compare them because, while the US cities in the Top50 make up less than 5% of the US population, those 7 cities in Venezuela are almost 28.5% of the country.

I can actually guarantee you, without a shadow of a doubt, that if you flash a $100 bill in public, almost anywhere in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, you will get mugged, and probably killed in the process. Yet Buenos Aires is not in the "Top 50", and Argentina is #83 and has a 6.53 murder rate.

That sounds like a dangerous place.

And yet you're arguing that Venezuela, where even the parts of the country that aren't on the top 50 list of the most dangerous cities in the world have a murder rate around 5 times higher than Buenos Aires is not a dangerous place? I don't follow that logic.

No, you don't, because you're too busy fighting it.
I'm arguing that Venezuela is not a monolithic entity, that can be judged by a single number.
I'm arguing that if you judged Buenos Aires by the same statistics you're using on Venezuela, you'd come to the conclusion that it's a really safe place, and you'd be just as wrong.

Took me a couple of days to realize maybe the US wasn't as they said.

You should have looked at the statistics and you would have seen that the violent crime rate is actually quite low overall--below that of even Argentina which has one of the lowest violent crime rates in Latin America.

Yep. And when I was born, my parents should've made a video of my birth with their smartphones, and put it on youtube. Unfortunately, smartphones didn't exist 52 years ago, and neither did youtube.
And that was about the same with internet in my country, in 2000.

The statistic would have shown that even though the U.S. makes up about 4% of the world, only 8% of the 50 most violent cities in the world are in the U.S. Compared, for example to Venezuela which makes up 0.4% of the world and yet has 14% of the 50 most violent cities in the world. Or compared to Brazil which makes up only about 3% of the world population but has 38% of the world's 50 most violent cities.

Funny you should mention Brazil.
A country that's NOT among the 20 most dangerous countries, and which, despite having 19 CITIES in the "Top 50", still has a much lower (actually about half) murder rate than Venezuela.
What does that tell you about the validity of those statistics?

BTW: thank you briandg for understanding. Really, it does mean a lot to me.

 

[JohnKSa]

Well, at least briandg did understand.

Sometimes sarcasm doesn't come across clearly in print.

Funny you should mention Brazil.
A country that's NOT among the 20 most dangerous countries...

Brazil has the 14th highest murder rate in the world.

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

What does that tell you about the validity of those statistics?

Sometimes it's worthwhile to take a step back and look at the big picture. You introduced the idea of using murder rate statistics to compare various areas. It doesn't make sense to now claim that the statistics aren't valid simply because it transpires that those statistics, even after having been manipulated, don't support your argument.

It can't work both ways. If the statistics are NOT representative, then it wouldn't make sense to bring them up and to continue to use and manipulate them as a way to prove a point. And if they ARE representative then it doesn't make sense to object to others using them.

I'm arguing that Venezuela is not a monolithic entity, that can be judged by a single number.

Yet you continue to use single numbers for other countries and continue manipulating the Venezuela data to come up with a single number to represent it. These actions indicate that there isn't a problem with judging countries (including Venezuela) by single numbers. The objection isn't to the single numbers themselves, it's to someone else using those single numbers to demonstrate that your arguments are flawed.

...those 7 cities in Venezuela are almost 28.5% of the country.

Correct. And even after removing them, EVERY country in the world with only three exceptions STILL had a lower murder rate.

No, unfortunately, as the charts themselves show, it's not.

After removing all the high-murder rate urban areas in Venezuela, the rest of the country still ended up having the fourth* highest murder rate in the world--when compared to other countries which did NOT have all their high-murder rate urban areas removed from the statistic.

That would be a high murder rate even if the statistics hadn't been manipulated by removing the 7 areas with the highest murder rates. The fact that it ranks that high even after removing over a quarter of the population of the country with all the highest murder-rate areas is actually quite alarming.

Furthermore, it's important to note that the manipulation performed to prove how skewed the overall murder rate statistic for Venezuela is, only moved it a SINGLE position in the world rankings. From third most dangerous in the world to fourth most dangerous in the world.

If your own manipulation of the statistics only moves Venezuela's ranking by a single position, how can it reasonably be argued that the original number significantly misrepresents reality?

If the manipulation had dropped Venezuela down a significant number of places--especially when compared to similarly manipulated statistics for other countries--then there might be a valid point. As it is, it hardly changes the rankings at all--in spite of the fact that it's comparing a manipulated statistic to unmanipulated statistics for the rest of the world's countries.


*When I said it was the fifth highest initially, I forgot that one of those above it was Venezuela itself. The manipulated statistic removing the seven highest murder-rate areas in the country places it fourth highest when compared against overall murder rate statistics for other countries.

 

[briandg]

I think that it was the cia report that listed danger from crime as "critical".

My brother in law lives in saint Louis, and he has told me numerous times that crime isn't really a problem there, he never sees anything. I think that he never sees a gang murder because he lives in saint Charles county, not actually in saint Louis proper. He never sees st Louis except from an interstate.

This part of the thread has seriously jumped the shark flying like a concord and outlived its usefulness.

One of my Spanish teachers immigrated from Venezuela and told us several times that it was a nice, very pretty country, yet she still left her homeland.

I actually considered retiring to south America when I was as younger,to the mountains. Thank God for the internet.

 

[BOOGIE the oily]

"None more blind than that who refuses to see"...

Ok John, I realize that I could keep trying to explain myself to you, only to have you cherry pick and twist my words to suit your agenda, whatever that may be. So I'm done.
I've made my point abundantly clear, for anybody who may be interested in making an informed decision, to do so.
So you've won a forum discussion! Congratulations!

Well, at least briandg did understand.

Sometimes sarcasm doesn't come across clearly in print.

Yet sometimes it does.

One of my Spanish teachers immigrated from Venezuela and told us several times that it was a nice, very pretty country, yet she still left her homeland.

I actually considered retiring to south America when I was as younger,to the mountains. Thank God for the internet.

So you decided, instead of taking your teacher's advise, to follow the internet. And if that's good enough for you, then, great!
Of course, you could've also taken a few days vacation to Venezuela (or any other place, FWIW) and seen the place for yourself, to then make an informed decision based on your own experience.
Would you have been happier somewhere else? Who knows? Then again, you seem satisfied with your decision, and that's all that matters, everyone has a right to choose their own path.

 

[JohnKSa]

...only to have you cherry pick...

The irony here is pretty thick.

Although I used only the basic statistics (of the type that you initially introduced to the thread) without trying to alter or manipulate them in any way you accuse me of cherry-picking.

On the other hand, your initial use of the statistics compared the statistic for the single highest murder rate city in one country against the overall statistic for murder rate of another country and then the second comparison removed the statistics for the high murder rate areas in one country and compared that statistic against the overall unaltered statistics for other countries. Both of those are, in fact, the precise definition of cherry-picking and yet you do not see either one of them for what they are.

So you've won a forum discussion!

This clarifies the issue and presents the crux of the matter explicitly. The idea that this discussion was a contest to be won or lost misses the point entirely. Your goal should not have been to win, it should have been the same as mine--to find the truth.