[ExI] Death follows European contact (Mirco Romanato)

[BillK]

On Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 8:43 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> Another relevant thought of his (?) is that all societies punish, but they
> motivate *why* very differently and can implement the punishments in very
> different ways. Punishment works to some extent for somewhat rational social
> beings that can be operant conditioned (hence the universality), but the
> means and ends can be amazingly odd.
>

The BBC has an article up showing that in recent years removing lead
from petrol leads 20 years later to a big reduction in violent crime.
Prison and social policies make no difference - it's a medical
problem.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27067615>

Quotes:
Then, about 20 years ago, the trend reversed - and all the broad
measures of key crimes have been falling ever since. Offending has
fallen in nations whose governments have implemented completely
different policies to their neighbours. If your nation locks up more
criminals than the average, crime has fallen. If it locks up fewer...
crime has fallen. Nobody seems to know for sure why.
But there are some people that believe the removal of lead from petrol
was a key factor.

Wolpaw-Reyes gathered lead data from each state, including figures for
gasoline sales. She plotted the crime rates in each area and then used
common statistical techniques to exclude other factors that could
cause crime. Her results backed the lead-crime hypothesis.

"There is a substantial causal relationship," she says. "I can see it
in the state-to-state variations. States that experienced particularly
early or particularly sharp declines in lead experienced particularly
early or particularly sharp declines in violent crime 20 years later."

She says her research also established different levels of crime in
states with high and low lead rates.

Lead theorists say that data they've collated and calculated from each
nation shows the same 20-year trend - the sooner lead is removed from
the environment, the sooner crime will begin to fall.

Dr Bernard Gesch says the data now suggests that lead could account
for as much as 90% of the changing crime rate during the 20th Century
across all of the world.
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BillK