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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 27, 2025

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Is declining rates of violent death adjusted for 1) rising average ages

I don't think that adjustion should be done. 1. Rising average ages means people live longer, and that longer life means more opportunities to encounter violence. An old man might be less likely do get into violence, but before he was old, he was a young man for as long as his ancestors were, so all else being equal, he should get into more violence over his longer lifespan.

If there's a positive effect, it's probably from the effects on society from having more older people around too cool down and dilute young hotheads - but why would you control away social structure?

Also, people who didn't die violently live longer, so there's causality in the other direction (declining rates of violence cause rising average ages) and you're controlling away what you're testing for.