[rendall]

> Do you think that these murders (as stable or as decreasing as you believe them to be) should not be reported on?

Personally, I don't like this kind of discourse. It gets people excited, anxious, and not thinking clearly, as intended. That would be ok with me maybe, if there ever were some good results from that (e.g. effective environmental control, or good legislation), but there never, ever is.

I could go through and answer your questions as if we were talking for real, but your response is kind of a poison pill, designed to put me on the defensive ("Oh, of course I didn't mean...")

No. The adults in the room do need to know if activists are being murdered at an ever increasing rate, or if we can devote our limited time and attention to other very important matters. We don't like to be guided to the "proper" opinion by people who will shout But it's murder, you cold-hearted nerd! if we go off track and ask for accurate information

[yunohn]

Effectively you’re saying that a status quo of stable-percentage murders is okay. I (and others on this post) are saying that any non-zero percentage is bad. So I guess we fundamentally disagree then.

[kodah]

Nobody thinks murder is okay, and if this is the way you conduct discourse you're probably working against your own goals.

There is a lot more behind a statistic than just a number or trend-line, one which often requires single or multiple policy changes that could take years. So yes, observing that the trend line goes and keeps going down is good, a sharp rise is a cause for concern. That is not the same thing, at all, as thinking the status quo is just fine.

[rendall]

Well stated.

[rendall]

The article premise was not "Environmental Activists continue to be murdered at a rate higher than the general populace".

It instead implies that it is an increasing problem, without giving us the tools to evaluate the claim or understand the scope of the problem.

If you want to accept such claims as true, go ahead. That practice won't arm you to understand your world better, but will instead make you excitable and easily swayed.