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There are 10 times more murders per capita in the US than my home country.

An entire order of magnitude makes one stop and think.

If I offered you a drive in two different cars, and one was an order of magnitude more likely to burst into flames - which one would you choose?




There are 10 times more murders per capita in the US than my home country.

I live in Oakland, CA. A very dangerous place according to statistics. In reality, much of the crime here is in the "bad" parts of town, which I rarely travel to/through. I said "much". There are occasional murders outside the bad parts. They're rare, though.

Even people that live outside of Oakland but fairly close (Concord, 40 minutes by car) have this idea that gunslingers run amok in Oakland and it's incredibly unsafe. That is, until they actually come here a lot (for work, say).

I walk about 1 hour per day in Oakland (that's my commute from home to work). I've been doing this for 13 years. I've never seen one act of violence.

So, statistics can be misleading.


Well, what's the actual rate for the worse one?

"Safe enough vs incredibly safe" isn't as interesting a comparison as we tend to make it out to be.

(But still, there are lots of U.S. areas where I would prefer not to live...)


If your odds of winning the lottery increased by 10x, would that make you much more likely to buy a ticket?


Maybe as a whole, but its not like America is universally unsafe. Not many tourists are visiting the unsavory parts of Detroit, Baltimore or Oakland.




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