I was looking at this graph of the murder rate in Venezuela:
That is probably a better marker of the shift to K than the Misery Index.
Then I was looking at this graph of the US Murder Rate:
Notice that touch of an uptick.
Then I was thinking, the shift toward K is not a smooth process globally. Normally it begins in the poorer areas, and progresses up the food chain, toward the richer areas. It began early in Venezuela, and moves toward the first world. I wondered what the graphs of those poorer areas in the US might look like, and that brought me to this:
Some of that is the flux of bad leadership. But there is also a little resource limitation, the touch of Apocalypse in the air to stimulate amygdalae, as well as the visible markers of the shift to K, such as President Trump’s popularity. All of that together is riling amygdalae, adapting r/K psychologies, and preparing minds for the rigors to come. It is beginning in the more economically depressed and mismanaged areas, but eventually all of those graphs will look like Venezuela’s, especially as pension funds collapse and the welfare is cut due to painful realities of economics. It is just how the cycles of r/K work.
What is also really interesting is the heights to which the murder rate has climbed in the past. If things get as bad as they appear they are will be, we may make those times in the past seem heavenly by comparison.
[…] Murder Rates Indicate K Is Increasing? […]
Improved medical technology lowers the murder rate because more potential murder victims survive. A return to past rates will actually mean it is worse than it was back then.
Good point.
Most of the murder rate in venezuela is organized gang on gang violence.
The US Murder Rate graph is the US Total Institutionalization Rate (prisons + mental hospitals) graph turned upside-down. The more crazy people are locked up, the less they kill.
I don’t think murder measures r/K well. K’s do have a stronger urge to fight, but they also have more self-restraint, to pause and consider the future consequences of their actions.