Hoboken

[Icey]

What a terrible accident!

I hope that the cause of a train derailing and ploughing into a station's soon discovered. What a tragedy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37503920

[tomsk]

there's so much sadness around ..

[Icey]

You're right, T. What with that school girl being abducted and raped in broad daylight, the couple stabbed to death as they left work .... horrors surround us all.

[tomsk]

we must remain upbeat though...
throughout History there have been troubled times..

[Icey]

True enough, but the crimes that're happening on a daily basis, away from any wars or battles, are just getting worse. There're no punishments these days, so the perpetrators don't care.

[tomsk]

It is difficult but we never surrender....
NEVER!!!!!!!!!

[tomsk]

Right, now I'm off for a cup of tea!

[Icey]

It's OK talking like that, T. I agree up to a point, but that doesn't solve the problem of stopping vicious crimes. People can make all the excuses they want, but more and more of them're being carried out. I don't think it has much to do with rising populations. Something horrible's going on, and turning people into monsters.

[yogi]

Studies have been conducted and show that there is a maximum population density that humans can tolerate. Violence against each other increases as that limit is approached. There are calculations showing that the earth can sustain about 2-4 billion people (depending on the resource) before there are not enough resources to keep everyone fed and stop them from killing one another in search of food. You Europeans already know what happens when large populations are affected by long term famine. That little migration problem is just the beginning. Hungry people tend to get mean regardless of their culture and it looks like we are already heading in that direction.

[Icey]

Interesting, Yogi. I can quite accept that people, desperate for food, might get mean and do anything to get it, but this doesn't account for all the murders, rapes and other acts of wanton violence that we're seeing now. I seriously believe that the massesd're being affected by something they're eating, drinking or breathing in, and it's affecting peoples' brains.