The Left in Britain has become completely obsessed with Adolescence, a fictional TV show in which a schoolboy brutally murders his female classmate after being exposed to incel ideology online. The Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said we must tackle the “emerging and growing problem” the show highlights. And the Labour MP Anneliese Midgley has gone as far as calling for it to be screened in Parliament.
Meanwhile, the BBC has published literally dozens of articles about the show. In a particularly bizarre recent TV segment, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch was interrogated by two BBC journalists because she said she hadn’t watched it. When Badenoch explained that she doesn’t watch Casualty to know what’s going on in the NHS, she was met with the following response:
Do you stand by the thing that you just said about you comparing Adolescence with Casualty, these TV programmes? Did you really mean to say that?
It’s as if she drew a comparison between herself and Adolf Hitler. What’s so unreasonable about comparing two fictional TV shows?
Like Badenoch, I haven’t watched the show — but I get the basic premise. So how useful is it for understanding violence in Britain?
Let’s begin with crime statistics. The character who is murdered in the show is a 13 year-old white girl. Is this a demographic group with a high risk of being murdered? No. ONS figures show that, in the year 2023-24, there was a single murder of a white female aged 5-15. In the year before, there were four such murders, and in the year before that there were five.
But has the risk risen over a longer timescale — the last 10 years, say? The ONS does not provide a breakdown by age, sex and ethnicity, though it does provide one by age and sex. The figures show there has been no trend in the homicide rate for females aged 5-15.
The character who commits the stabbing is a 13 year-old white boy. Is this a demographic group with a high rate of knife murder? The ONS does not provide a breakdown by age and ethnicity, but we do know that such crimes are disproportionately committed by black males, rather than white or Asian males. According to the Mayor of London’s office, black Londoners comprise 61% of knife murder perpetrators, despite being only 13% of the population.
What about incel ideology — are its adherents particularly violent? Not according to recent research. Although there have been murders that were motivated by incel ideology, William Costello and David Buss find that “incels are not particularly prone to violence” and their “propensity for violence appears relatively low compared to that of the general population”.
Fortunately, crimes like the one portrayed in Adolescence are extremely rare in Britain, and to the extent that murders of 13 year-olds by 13 year-olds do happen, the show misrepresents the most likely ethnicity of the perpetrator. What’s more, research suggests that individuals who subscribe to incel ideology are not particularly violent. While the show may have a compelling narrative, it doesn’t seem particularly useful for understanding violence in contemporary society.
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Much as I appreciate DS, please stop with these articles on masks and lockdowns and whether they “work” or not.
They are plain wrong on their face; no further analysis required. It was known from the start that Covid was a mild for most virus in the realms of a bad strain of flu, that was fatal almost exclusively for the frail.
We simply cannot shut the world down and stop living normally for such things.
This is just a rabbit hole.
Quite, how we can ensure this never happens again is far more pressing..
And hold the perpetrators to account!
LOL you saved me a comment. I’m bored shitless with all of this harping on about lockdowns, masks etc. It’s all been done to death, the jury was in a long time back on these matters and things have moved on significantly. Time to worry about the things coming down the pipeline in our future ( if not present ), not keep dredging up the past.
Hear, hear.
100% agree tof. I was just about to post:
Give it a bloody rest!
You said it all.
I disagree.
We need to keep trying to convince people that the world over-reacted, and that the reaction was not effective or necessary. We need to present concise, coherent arguments so that people can convince themselves that if only they had known *whatever* they would have behaved differently. Telling people they’ve been stupid is not going to be effective – they need to believe they’ve been fooled by the people they followed. It is important that people have a chance to save face as they convert from supporting the restrictions to protesting them. People need to hear the arguments or they will never convert.
Even the complicit media need to be allowed to claim ‘we were only following orders’ or some other excuse. If they aren’t allowed that fig-leaf they won’t convert until hell freezes over.
Presenting convincing arguments is key. We have to start with simple things like did lockdown work ‘here’? And go on to did they work anywhere? When did masks become a thing? Unless and until other media outlets start carrying these stories DS and the like must do so – and no matter how disheartening we have to keep offering these alternative views without alienating our audience.
Discussing whether lockdowns and masks work is a distraction and a rabbit hole. Our very own MTF is a perfect demonstration of that. Covid was never an emergency and saving lives at all costs is futile and immoral and unnatural. Those are all the arguments you need. As soon as you start arguing about what measures “worked” you more or less concede that “something” needed to be done.
The fact that Covid was never an emergency is not accepted by far too many people; we need to prove that to them somehow. Then we can move on to showing that authorities were whipping up fear to make it appear to be an emergency.
I need to have the necessary rebuttals in mind when people state that lockdown ‘worked’ in Wuhan. To counter that one I have previously relied on stating that we can’t trust China’s figures. It’s good to have additional ammunition from articles like this.
Only later will many people be ready for complex ideas like ‘don’t just do something, stand there’. Or that gathering data before deciding on anything is doing something.
Yes of course hardly anyone believes Covid was not an emergency and hardly anyone believes that saving lives at all costs is wrong and hardly anyone believes that doing nothing is often the best option. I remain convinced that these must be the starting points for any discussion of Covid and the wider subject of collectivism versus personal freedom. I think it’s really a philosophical debate about how you see life. Picking over the minutiae of whether lockdowns worked is a rabbit hole you will never come out of. If you really want a ready rebuttal then ask them to prove lockdowns worked using worldwide real world data and they will not be able to find any pattern that shows they did – another important concept which is that the burden of proof is on the lunatics imposing untried and dangerous measures.
the burden of proof
isshould be on the lunatics imposing untried and dangerous measures.But it isn’t yet for far too many.
Indeed
Sadly I don’t think Covid was some
one off aberration but an extreme manifestation of a drift that has been going on for decades
I fully agree.
So I want to get a majority on board to try to stop that drift.
Amen. We need to refute the specious utilitarian calculus entirely, root and branch, not merely say it was calculated incorrectly, if we want to prevent this from ever happening again. Lockdowns are wrong not only because they are all pain and no gain, but *a fortiori* because they are inherently a blatant violation of basic human rights and civil liberties.
And on that note, the specious notion that “rights are merely a social construct” needs to be jettisoned as well.
Talking of worrisome things coming down the pipeline, this looks slightly concerning, and worth more energy expenditure than flaming ( yawn ) lockdowns for the squillionth time. mRNA in milk!
Yes, it’s ruddy China at it again;
”From a scientific perspective, these experimental steps taken by the Chinese were a stunning success. However, given the damage mRNA vaccines have generated in terms of injuries, disabilities, and deaths, these data raise considerable ethical issues. The COVID States project has shown that 25% of Americans were successful in remaining unvaccinated. This group would have strong objections to mRNA in the food supply, particularly if it was done surreptitiously or with minimal labelling/warnings. Children could be targeted with easily administered oral vaccine dosing or potentially get mRNA through milk at school lunches and other unsupervised meals.
For those who have taken one of the COVID-19 vaccines, having milk vaccines as an EUA offering would allow even more loading of the body with synthetic mRNA which has been proven resistant to ribonucleases and may reside permanently in the human body.
These observations lead me to conclude that mRNA technology has just entered a whole new, much darker phase of development. Expect more research on and resistance to mRNA in our food supply. The Chinese have just taken the first of what will probably be many more dangerous steps for the world.”
https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/chinese-load-cows-milk-with-mrna
Very disturbing news Mogs which certainly points to a dark and limited future for many.
Wow that is horrifying!
The answer is obviously no. The real issue is that that they were attempted in the first place, and the gross over reaction, and the abuse of the authority of politicians and servants etc. This includes the opportunism that has been evident in various branches of the medical trade.
The long term effect of that could well be that lots of potentially useful organisations have lost their reputation with intelligent citizens; we’ll see. What it has done is to encourage worthwhile organisations like this site!
LDs worked at; killing old people, destroying businesses, annihilating our immune systems, destroying our freedom, rendering families, increasing suicides and divorces, psychologically damaging children, handing unfettered power over to Health Nazis and effacing our constitution,.
NO. NO. NO!
Even if it were a pandemic, which it was not, they still wouldn’t work!
Indeed, they are all pain and no gain, and the therapeutic window is closed from the start.
I doubt that any DS regulars will read this article. Sorry guys… There are so many other topics to research.
Whether lockdowns ‘worked’ medically is now beside the point.
No cost benefit analysis prior to their introduction, no coherent after action review of the health, social and economic cost of their introduction now that the data is available.
Incompetent, inhuman, irresponsible, arguably criminal, definitely bovine, moronic government at home and globally, with few, notable, exceptions.
‘What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought through the economic impacts.‘ Melinda Gates Dec 2020
Pathetic.
Amen
To repeat an old German joke I brought up in relation to this topic somewhat early: What’s that? It’s hanging on the wall and ticks and when falls down, the garden door opens? Answer: Happenstance. See also post hoc non est propter hoc and cum hoc non est propter hoc.
MTF would probably frame this as something like But if the only thing we have is handwaiving and we absolutely must do something, what other options are available?
However, this approach is wrong. Something with numerous obvious downsides whose supposed positive effects cannot be reliably assessed is something which must not be done. Not even when thousands of dimwitted hysterics demand it. These are prone to demanding anything some motormouth sold them as miracle cure for their largely imaginary problems.
Very well-said. Taiwan is another example. They had strict border controls but NO lockdowns and barely any other restrictions, and had no meaningful Covid wave until April 2022. Lockdowns are clearly an unnecessary add-on that is all pain and no gain.
You mention the five million who allegedly flew round the world (particularly to ‘Belt and Road’ terminals like Lombardy.
But you forget that, at that very time, internal travel in China was strictly banned.
And let’s not forget the Milan Mayor: – ” Go hug a Chinaman”.
I can honestly see the logic in ‘stop the spread’. But, isolation only works if its 100% controllable, which it never was. This is something airborne, and unless you can stop air circulating, it is facile and ridiculous. The fact that so many educated people appear to have been taken in by this is mind numbing. Like face screens with their large gaps at the sides. I just wanted to ask the wearers how big they thought the virus was, like the size of an apple..?
I can honestly see the logic in ‘stop the spread’.
I still think this sounds like Something must urgently be done about Marmite! If the people who kept repeating this had been serious about it, they would at least have gone to the lengths they did go to during the most-recent Ebola epidemic.
I appreciate the DS to a good part for giving us the two sides of a story. It is obviously biased towards the sceptical side, which I appreciate even more, but thereby it has laudably avoided becoming entirely an echo chamber of and for fanatics.
But I also agree with some of the criticism here, in that the really big points in such discussions are.and.must remain:
Lockdowns might or might not have worked in the meaning of delaying the spread a bit, but they have not and cannot ever ‘work’, if their multiple harms are incorporated, which proper scientists like Henderson and politicians recognized and therefore adhered to up until 2020, and, above all, there is simply zero legitimacy for state or other actors to infringe upon peoples natural rights and freedom.
Or in short: no one has the right to deem anyone or anyone’s business to be ‘essential’ or ‘not essential’.
And the very same goes for masks, test, vaccine mandates&co. and anything else related to ones sacrosanct bodily autonomy.
This is non-negotiable and non-discussable.
Straying from that line got us where we are at with regard to wokeness, free speech, the trans/women farce, man-made climate change/CO2 hoax etc..
“Do Lockdowns Work?”
No!
Good article, until I got to this sentence: “The question we’re looking at here, though, is not whether strict border controls can keep out the disease – I think the evidence suggests they can, for a time.”
Come on. The UK is supposed to have had this big covid wave in early 2020 – but we know now from FOI requests that only around 1000 people died OF covid in 2020 so the whole idea that there was a big covid wave is nonsense.
As Will rightly mentions covid was spreading all around the world before Wuhan locked down. I remember in 2020 watching reported death rates all around the world going up and up but China’s staying at a few hundred. Who can believe China’s own figures?
As for New Zealand, did they REALLY keep the virus out as they claimed to have? Loads of people were sick in NZ in March 2020 with some kind of bug as we were here at around the time we all went into lockdown. And then after that did nobody in New Zealand get a respiratory infection in all that time their borders were closed? I very much doubt it. And there were reports that they banned the immunity tests so that people wouldn’t realise they had already had it and were immune.Planes were still arriving, ships were still coming and going all that time. Even Antartica couldn’t keep covid out. It is just far too much of a stretch to believe that New Zealand actually kept covid out as it claimed to have.
And then there is the question if “covid” even exists at all or are the covid tests just picking up cold/flu bugs?