Sanity Check

Cattle prod Bear pepper spray

Item description says: 30 - 35 pounds. Heavier than I thought. Its what mercenaries and warriors of past eras wore as standard fare. Modern day soldiers carry 70 pounds of gear not including their rifle. A good .50 caliber sniper rifle weighs near to 50 pounds by itself. Hmm. Cut resistance and kevlar are good ideas. But I think that item you listed is cut resistant only, not stab resistant.

Not search engine. Amazon searching for body armor. There are so many knife attacks in places like the UK. I wondered if chain mail would be a good option for daily wear. If it could be worn underneath normal clothing comfortably. If daily body armor wear became standard. Why not wear other types of body armor. Maybe if the apocalypse happens, we'll all be wearing some type of body armor. To protect against wild dogs if nothing else.

Does body armor have a place in martial arts in the modern world?

Do martial artists train athleticism? What are good strength and cardio conditioning methods for martial arts?

Why New York City’s Crime Rates Are the Lowest in Modern History In 1990, more than 2,200 people were murdered in the city. Last year, it was less than 300. By Rebecca Gibian January 11, 2018 Back in 1990, New Yorkers might not be able to fathom a time when murder wouldn’t be part of their daily lives. That year, more than 2,200 people were murdered in New York City. But after three decades of declines, the murder rate in 2017 was down to 290. The significant change marks a trend that has been occurring for 27 straight years: violent crime in the city keeps dropping in every borough. “(This year) will go down in history as the safest year we’ve seen in nearly seven decades, that span covers three generations of New Yorkers,” said Commissioner James P. O’Neill, of the New York Police Department, during a year-end crime press briefing held at NYPD Headquarters on Jan. 5. https://www.insidehook.com/culture/crime-rates-in-nyc-the-lowest-in-modern-history

There's a youtube channel entitled Anatoly. Featuring a weight lifter 5 foot 10 weighing 172 pounds. Who consistently lifts weights heavier than men who are much bigger who clearly outweigh him. Is it possible he accidentally stumbled across some random type of qi training during his weight lifting career. Which gives him an advantage?

Crime and violence were at all time historical lows in some US cities. New york politicians would cite this claiming their "stop and frisk" policy was responsible for achieving all time crime and homicide lows. If homicides in 1960 were 5 per 100,000. And 5.1 in 2014. That's only 2% difference. That's not enough of a change to account for the shift in public perspective. And so we must search elsewhere to explain it.

1960 - 5 homicides per 100,000 population 2014 - 5.1 homicides per 100,000 Minimal difference. The only thing that changed is the media's reporting of crime.

My approach to topics like these has been to read thousands of news articles on finance, current events, science every year for 15+ years to learn the basics and avoid illiteracy. Over the last 10 to 20 years I tried to inform people about some aspects of things like healthcare reform. And encourage them to care enough to get their facts straight before committing to things which might not be in their own best interest. But what stood out the most is how determined everyone was to fight & die on a hill of their own convictions. It was never about science or facts. It was all about living and dying on whatever random opinion a person happened to have at the time. Its hard for me to be mad about CEOs engaging in predatory practices when the majority of people supported everything that made it possible. These negative trends didn't happen overnight but rather over the span of many decades. There were countless warning signs no one wanted to acknowledge until it was too late. I don't know if CEOs are mass murderers. To me its more like a case of domestic abuse. Where the abused makes excuses claiming they "fell down the stairs" for decades to avoid acknowledging the real issues. 15 years ago there was a story published in the news claiming CEOs identify non essential workers to fire. They add the fired workers paycheck to their own salary to give themselves a raise. Rinse and repeat. 15 years ago I was angry about this. I shared this story with many who wanted nothing more than to pretend it didn't happen. I shared a lot of things that needed addressing which were all ignored. It felt like I was the only one that cared about anything and everyone else only wanted to live under a rock and see and hear no evil. After awhile I realized I had not given up or quit. But everyone else had somewhat given up and quit on themselves. So its like ok people. Make your choices. I hope you make decisions you can be proud of. And that's about as good as things get.

For many years I thought 10% economic growth in the USA before 1913, when income taxes were legalized, had everything to do with economic & financial efficiency. But recently I realized a good part of that 10% GDP growth was actually population expansion. So yah its definitely easy to get lost attempting to identify trends and causality in historical financial data. Leading up to the american civil war the north paid 25% of all taxes in the country. The south covered 75% of the tax burden. 25/75 split. That's wholly irrelevant though considering the war was all about racism and slavery.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/187592/death-rate-from-homicide-in-the-us-since-1950/ 1960 was lower. 1970 higher though. Economic conditions also play a big role in violence and crime.

Productivity was so much lower back then. 2% tea tax was huge? Interestingly enough economic growth for that era in the USA was 10% or higher. Now politicians break their arms patting themselves on the back if they can achieve 3% growth.

Good story, bro. When I was 7 there was a freshwater stream a few roads up the hill. There was a kid younger than me everyone called Dennis the menace smoking cannabis. Another kid told me if you burned the claw of a crawfish a certain way it would make a blue flame. I don't know if there was less murder and violence in the 60s - 70s. There may actually have been more murder & violence in that era although it was less publicized by the media. Whatever the statistics people certainly did trust each other more and there was a greater sense of community, I would guess.