In 1918, Akron, Ohio, experienced 24 murders. In 2016, the number was 34. Same place, more murders. The great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren haven’t learned any lessons.
And that takes us back to Cain. Reasoning would suggest that with time and experience knowledge increases. With an increase in knowledge comes the potential for decreasing risk. Not so, however. The absolute number of murders in Akron appear to bounce like Goodyear rubber, or, maybe like some Norman Stingley Wham-O superball. Given a little umpf beyond the mere pull of gravity, such a ball can bounce over a house. But just mere gravity alone lets the ball rebound to about 90% of its former elevation. From 2002 through 2016 Akron averaged 21.25 annual murders. Now of course, no one dies a quarter, but that’s the average. The murder superball under the sheer gravity of human interactions stays very near the 1916 number of murders.
The same elasticity of murdered humans probably applies to many cities. You can check if you want by looking at the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data.* We gather; we kill. No wonder murder mysteries are continuously popular. They mirror the tire assembly line of production in real life. Seems the first tale of murder started a genre based on the reality of homicide: If 100 billion people have populated the planet since the rise of our species, and if the superball of murder has bounced about as high as the initial elevation, we’ve murdered millions.
According to the FBI’s statistics on number of murders, the United States suffered 5.6 murders per 100,000 people in 2002 and 4.5 murders per 100,000 in 2014. During those years the murder superball bounced as high as 5.8 murders in 2006. Hard to say what the extra umpf was in that year. Anyway, the bounce was between 80% of and over 100% of that 2002 homicide number.
Let’s take that low number of homicides as a benchmark for human history. I know, there’s no evidence to support that claim short of the current statistics, but play with these numbers. One hundred billion divided by 100,000 equals 1,000,000. If the murders per 100,000 stayed in the zone of current killings in the United States, then over the history of the species there would have been 4.5 million homicides. But you know that’s a silly number, don’t you? It can’t come close to reality. The current conflict in Syria alone has over the past few years accounted for hundreds of thousands of murders. And previous conflicts have meant even more murders.
The rubber ball of Cain has been bouncing very high for 200,000 years, and there’s little hope that the manufacturers of such a bounce can reduce that elasticity even in Akron, Ohio, the home of the rubber industry. Why? Well, those ancient human ancestors used some natural materials in murders by blunt force and sharp objects. Modern materials have improved on natural ones and enhanced their properties. To whatever height the ancient murder rate could bounce, we have added more rebound through modern technology.
It’s interesting that we are trained to think that modern technology improves lives when in reality it often takes them in a relatively consistent bounce of homicides. Had that first murder been followed by the natural loss of rebound height, unknown millions would have enhanced the DNA of our species by living to procreate. In modern Syria alone the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates more than 18,000 children had been killed by mid-2017. Maybe Cain’s bouncing ball was, in fact, a superball, and modern Akron, Ohio, just manufactures more of the same. Is there some significance to the etymology of the name Akron? The name derives from the Greek for "highest point."
* https://ucr.fbi.gov/
And that takes us back to Cain. Reasoning would suggest that with time and experience knowledge increases. With an increase in knowledge comes the potential for decreasing risk. Not so, however. The absolute number of murders in Akron appear to bounce like Goodyear rubber, or, maybe like some Norman Stingley Wham-O superball. Given a little umpf beyond the mere pull of gravity, such a ball can bounce over a house. But just mere gravity alone lets the ball rebound to about 90% of its former elevation. From 2002 through 2016 Akron averaged 21.25 annual murders. Now of course, no one dies a quarter, but that’s the average. The murder superball under the sheer gravity of human interactions stays very near the 1916 number of murders.
The same elasticity of murdered humans probably applies to many cities. You can check if you want by looking at the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data.* We gather; we kill. No wonder murder mysteries are continuously popular. They mirror the tire assembly line of production in real life. Seems the first tale of murder started a genre based on the reality of homicide: If 100 billion people have populated the planet since the rise of our species, and if the superball of murder has bounced about as high as the initial elevation, we’ve murdered millions.
According to the FBI’s statistics on number of murders, the United States suffered 5.6 murders per 100,000 people in 2002 and 4.5 murders per 100,000 in 2014. During those years the murder superball bounced as high as 5.8 murders in 2006. Hard to say what the extra umpf was in that year. Anyway, the bounce was between 80% of and over 100% of that 2002 homicide number.
Let’s take that low number of homicides as a benchmark for human history. I know, there’s no evidence to support that claim short of the current statistics, but play with these numbers. One hundred billion divided by 100,000 equals 1,000,000. If the murders per 100,000 stayed in the zone of current killings in the United States, then over the history of the species there would have been 4.5 million homicides. But you know that’s a silly number, don’t you? It can’t come close to reality. The current conflict in Syria alone has over the past few years accounted for hundreds of thousands of murders. And previous conflicts have meant even more murders.
The rubber ball of Cain has been bouncing very high for 200,000 years, and there’s little hope that the manufacturers of such a bounce can reduce that elasticity even in Akron, Ohio, the home of the rubber industry. Why? Well, those ancient human ancestors used some natural materials in murders by blunt force and sharp objects. Modern materials have improved on natural ones and enhanced their properties. To whatever height the ancient murder rate could bounce, we have added more rebound through modern technology.
It’s interesting that we are trained to think that modern technology improves lives when in reality it often takes them in a relatively consistent bounce of homicides. Had that first murder been followed by the natural loss of rebound height, unknown millions would have enhanced the DNA of our species by living to procreate. In modern Syria alone the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates more than 18,000 children had been killed by mid-2017. Maybe Cain’s bouncing ball was, in fact, a superball, and modern Akron, Ohio, just manufactures more of the same. Is there some significance to the etymology of the name Akron? The name derives from the Greek for "highest point."
* https://ucr.fbi.gov/
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