'you are what you own' - how rap just reinforces the status quo

[Gavin]

If everyone's playing computer games all the time, who's going to get the high-school girls pregnant?
You haven't thought this through, have you?

Are you kidding? White high schoolers get impregnated by listening to 50 Cent records in the U.S. You guys have so much catching up to do.

 

[nomadologist]

If everyone's playing computer games all the time, who's going to get the high-school girls pregnant?
You haven't thought this through, have you?

Hmmm...it will be especially hard to get them to want to bother with disgusting biological women with real flesh and bodily functions (even possibly-- gasp--pubic hair) after all of the net porn intake, as well.

You might be right.

 

[vimothy]

What's interesting (at least moreso than nomad's level of emotional investment in her posts) is that violent crime in the U.S. has actually declined in the past 10-15 years, which almost directly corresponds to a) hysteria over gangsta rap and b) the acceleration of the prison-industrial complex through increasingly harsher sentencing (and perhaps c) the worst race riots the U.S. had seen in a generation?). You would think less violent crime would lead to fewer people in prison, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

Check this out - Levitt's notorious paper, The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime.

We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly eighteen years after abortion legalization. The five states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.​

 

[Mr. Tea]

Hmmm...it will be especially hard to get them to want to bother with disgusting biological women with real flesh and bodily functions (even possibly-- gasp--pubic hair) after all of the net porn intake, as well.

You might be right.

Yeah, good point - women *are* pretty gross, come to think of it.

 

[mistersloane]

Yeah, good point - women *are* pretty gross, come to think of it.

There's something really wrong with me, I like real women and real men without tans and with hair and all sorts, I think I may be some sort of prevert.

 

[Mr. Tea]

If nomadologist thinks porn portrays women with no bodily functions, she's been watching the wrong porn...


[DISCLAIMER: Mr. Tea is joking and firmly believes there is a special area of Hell set aside for people who get off on shit, located between somewhere between those for Popes and corporate lawyers.]

 

[Gavin]

Check this out - Levitt's notorious paper, The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime.

We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly eighteen years after abortion legalization. The five states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.​

And in return, another Levitt article about the decline in crime in general. In this one he credits the large increase in police officers, increased imprisonment, decline of the crack epidemic, and abortion. Of course, nothing on the ethics of anything, but he's just crunching numbers.

 

[Gavin]

[DISCLAIMER: Mr. Tea is joking and firmly believes there is a special area of Hell set aside for people who get off on shit, located between somewhere between those for Popes and corporate lawyers.]

You'd better watch out, or someone here's going to charge you with a Lacanian envy of the enjoyment of the Other...

 

[Mr. Tea]

You'd better watch out, or someone here's going to charge you with a Lacanian envy of the enjoyment of the Other...

The other what?

 

[mistersloane]

The other what?

The Other Side of Love, like Alison Moyet sang about when she woz in Yazoo.

 

[vimothy]

And in return, another Levitt article about the decline in crime in general. In this one he credits the large increase in police officers, increased imprisonment, decline of the crack epidemic, and abortion. Of course, nothing on the ethics of anything, but he's just crunching numbers.

That's because Levitt is in microeconomics, not the church. Good articles, though, and his book's great fun.