> mass surveillance

I hear this complaint here a lot and I guess there are more cameras, but arrests have gone down in absolute terms in the US despite growing population.

> The total number of arrests in the U.S. fell sharply in 2020 during pandemic-driven shifts in public activity and enforcement—and it has changed little since then. The 2024 arrest total was 25% lower than in 2019, the year before the pandemic, and half the number in the peak year of 1997. The combination of falling arrests and rising resident population has driven down the national arrest rate, which in 2024 was 30% lower than in 2019 and 71% below its peak in 1994.

I think most (non-online) people would prefer more enforcement of laws. I've never had a conversation in real life where someone argued there should be less order and enforcement. That's an insane position to take and ahistorical. The idea you hear online that you can get rid of prisons. It's neither left nor right. You think failed communist states didn't arrest people? It's an idea whose intellectual roots go back only around 50 years and for good reason. It doesn't work, or at least doesn't produce societies that endure and get passed on.

> Climate disasters

Similarly, climate related deaths worldwide have dropped and continue to do so, pretty much a straight line. This is a more reliable proxy than the $1b damage climate events, because the other is due to development on risky coast lines and overall increase in property values above inflation.

> Economic decline

The middle class is shrinking, but the upper and upper-middle is growing. So it's a bit of a barbell. But I'll also note that many of these measures are households, and there have been changes in typical households. Many people are staying single well into their 30s which means its a household of 1 compared to what would be a 2 person household in the past

> Done warfare

Isn't this better than boots on the ground? I don't think the problem is technology, it's armed conflict. I guess if you consider that armed conflicts are more likely because nations don't need to put as much lives at risk, and maybe that is a factor. But I'm not convinced somehow drones are driving this.

https://counciloncj.org/who-gets-arrested-in-america-trends-...

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/climate-activists-disasters-fire...

> This is a more reliable proxy than the $1b damage climate events, because the other is due to development on risky coast lines and overall increase in property values above inflation.

I don't think coastal property prices are the main concern. Most of climate change damage doesn't directly show up on a balance sheet but it's already there. Drought and storm damage are causing food shortages leading to terror and war. But the people it affects are sometimes not even part of the recorded economy.

>> D[r]one warfare

> Isn't this better than boots on the ground?

The answer to this question depends on whether you firsthand experienced sleepless nights in a city when drones fly directly over your house while you wait for them do dive or get missile defenced into it, a neighbour's house, or somewhere else, and then hear explosions and wait for the morning news to learn how many people died this night, to such little grief in news' comments it makes you wonder if there is any hope for this humankind at all.

Is that reduction attributable to something like people fearing police state, you know with ICE shooting people and stuff

> > Economic decline

> The middle class is shrinking, but the upper and upper-middle is growing.

Growing is size maybe, but the middle and lower classes are both getting much richer.