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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3685 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 7, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Do countries at war experience a suppression of crime rates on the home front as large numbers of disproportionately poorer young men are instead off fighting?

I'd argue that even if such suppression takes place, which I think it usually does (sociologically it makes sense), it's bound to be undone when large numbers of young men return home after the war ends, and some of them, traumatized and disillusioned, invariably become violent criminals. It definitely happened in the Soviet Union after 1945 and also after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, to name just two examples.

Possible counteracting force: well-armed civic nationalism a la Battle of Athens. I’d expect an effective military to bias its veterans towards law and order, if only at a small scale.

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