Re: New York, New York, its a hell of a town...

Abraham Moses Genen (futurist@ny.frontiercomm.net)
Wed, 04 Jun 1997 17:55:44 -0400


Dan Hook wrote:
>
> While crime rates have gone down, I have heard that complaints about police
> behavior have gone up (Newsweek, sometime in the past month or two). In
> other words, New York may be a safe place, but do not try bringing a gun
> (or illegal drugs) there. It may be legal to carry a gun, but people have
> been harassed for less.
>
> Of course, no where is perfect, yet.
>
> Dan Hook
> guldann@ix.netcom.com
> ----------
> > From: Perry E. Metzger <perry@piermont.com>
> > Subject: New York, New York, its a hell of a town...
> > Date: Tuesday, June 03, 1997 11:31 AM
> >
> > I will point out for the "New York is a filthy dangerous city" crowd
> > that New York is now at the bottom of the list for crime rates in
> > cities above 1 Million in the U.S.
>
> > So, for those looking for a nice, safe place to live, come to New
> > York! We need more Extropians here!

Although there are times when the frustration of some members of NYPD
expresses itself in unwarrented manners, the number of incidents where
this actually happens are very few and far between.
It must be remembered that there is an unfortunate tendancy on the part
of the mass media to emphasize the negative disproportianately. The
effect on an uncritical general public is invariably received in an
uncognitive, and primarily emotional framework.
Critical thinking has not yet become as commonplace in our cultural
evolution as we would like. If the media persist in their de-emphasis on
critical analysis and fail to provide appropriate and balanced coverage
of daily events, lacking a viable alternative to these induced vicarious
adventures, would not humankind respond accordingly in most
instances?