back
3 comments
American children are in more danger because the country's more diverse?
It is the difference in culture. In big cities, Japan doesn’t tolerate public deviance. Police are visible in every block. They are very strict about weapons; you can’t bring a knife in public for no reason etc.
They also have a culture of enduring things in silence for the greater collective good. For instance, most girls and women will have stories of harassment, especially by men on crowded trains but almost none of them will do anything about it.
To his point - I would say, it's a bug factor BECAUSE on average their culture seems more safe. But it's not because it's monocultural. Bad "monoculture" is bad, good one is good, nothing complex there. Simplifying, but that's pretty much what is said
You're missing the more important word.
Yes
Diversity doesn't make places more dangerous (if i understand the stats). But humans are naturally tribal and fear those who look and act significantly different.
That depends on an arbitrary perception of 'my tribe'. Irish and Italians used to riot against each other. Germans were hated (look up a quote from Benjamin Franklin). Protestants and Catholics used to riot. Every wave of immigrants seems to get the same treatment by some.

Within a few generations, their decendants marry each other.

Because humans are tribal they will also go on to attack and prey on those who are outside their tribe, making diversity more dangerous. Especially when diversity is not merely some people of different ethnic/racial backgrounds living and working together, but a population split into isolated cultures with different circumstances.

Unless there's a big strict enforcer to keep everyone in line of course.

This is something a lot of people seem to believe that is not borne out in the research. Plenty of specific counter examples like Queens NY, a densely populated and exceptionally diverse place with crime rates comparable or better than many much more homogenous places in America. Poverty and income inequality are much better predictors. I felt this reddit comment from a while ago did a pretty good job rolling up sources on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion/comments/1jxff...
monoculture has nothing to do with it, as if more diversity creates a less safe environment

but Japan is much safer than the US, in no small part because they have the sense to not allow people to own weapons

Russia is fairly mono cultural too. Is it safe?
Yes. Russia is inarguably safer in terms of street crime than the USA.

Philadelphia in 2025 had a higher murder rate than Belfast during the height of a civil war.

https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?co...

Crime in the USA is also extremely regional and local in pattern.

I don't think numbeo can be a good source, it seems to be self reported metrics. I asked it for comparison of NZ to USA and it told me that NZ was about the same or worse on most numbers. But actual crime rates are lower in NZ. The murder rate is 5x lower.
Murder is a faulty good comparison as it’s unlikely to be a stat that gets manipulated much. Every other crime seems subject to political and social whims of various departments and political agendas.
> Philadelphia in 2025 had a higher murder rate than Belfast during the height of a civil war.

Do you have a cite? In American cities crime is at generational lows, including / especially murder.

I just looked it up, and found this in a Philadelphia newspaper:

"The numbers of homicides and shooting victims in Philadelphia have continued their sharp declines since the pandemic. There were 222 homicides last year, the fewest since 1966, and 935 shooting victims, the first time there had been under 1,000 since at least 2007."

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/pew-state-of-city...

Oh no, no way. Child violence on the streets and in school is WAY higher, it's ingrained in culture. It's also pretty rare if a Russian kid would tell his parents about it (only if property damage is involved).

I don't know how your link gathers data (website only shows one dude, software engineer, not a professional survey statistician), but from personal experience I can surely say it's rankings are BS.

The closest in US are the "bad towns" like East Palo Alto or some neighborhoods of Oakland, with their respect for ex-cons and prison slang.

1) Russia is generally very safe, and 2) I agree that the violence amongst children is crazy. It’s a great place to homeschool and free-range and I have not found a way to send children to school in a way that’s acceptable to us.
Larger cities have private schools. There are also embassy-affiliated schools (yes, even today).

In public schools there's this unofficial "letter grade system". Unlike the US, where kids homerooms are mixed around each year on purpose, in Russia a homeroom group sticks together through the entirety of their school career, grades 5-12. Of course some kids will move away, and new kids will join, but the core group remains. Many lifelong friendships are formed this way.

Now - and this part doesn't officially exist, but it certainly does in practice - these groups are not created equal. Let's say there are 3 teachers who are picking up a grade 5 homeroom. They will stick with these kids until they graduate. So, the teacher with the most seniority has their pick of the "best" graduating elementary students. These will be well-behaved and academically strong kids. Their new homeroom will be called 5A. Then the second most senior teacher has their pick. This homeroom will become 5B. And 5C onwards are the "leftovers". And these groups will stick together until they are 12A, B, and C.

If you want a good school experience for a nerdy shy kid - they have to be in "A". Of course, as a newbie who is unfamiliar with the system... your kid will likely be put in "C" ("ve"). And you probably know enough about how Russia works by now to understand how to go about changing that ;)

Russia doesn't have reliablr statistics on anything. It like saying North Korea is safe.
North Korea likely is extremely safe when things like street violence and bullying are concerned. It's only unsafe for dissidents.

And you know, you can also ask people. In software there is a large population that grew up in the ex-USSR. Many of us still regularly visit the old country and talk to friends and family that live there. And we aren't all bots, despite what many seem to believe.

The Third Reich was only unsafe for Jews, Roma, Catholics, Homosexuals and everyone who was against Hitler. Other than that it was extremely safe.
Maybe you should stop believing those bullshit sites.
Good morning from Russia, where I moved my large free-range family (from the US) with the topic of free-ranging children very high on the list of reasons why.

My children cross town by themselves to attend classes, it’s normal to see children walking or riding public transport by themselves once they turn about age 7.

There’s crime and bullying — we have always homeschooled successfully and have had negative experiences with classrooms here — but in my opinion it’s not as bad as the places I’ve lived in the US.

And the streets are definitely safer. There are some risks like gopniki enjoying causing random trouble like pepper spraying strangers, but I believe that type of danger is a threat mostly to young adult men and almost certainly not children. Our daughters can safely do what they need to do with appropriate precautions (that do not include staying within single-digit meters of a vigilant adult at all times else CPS!!!).

Russia has higher incarceration rates and higher criminality then EU and USA.

Also, French, German, Swesish, you name it do all the stuff alone. And third, they have less bullying in schools.

The US is 5th, Russia is 33rd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...

Seems like they dropped after they startes Ukrainian war. They used to be higher then USA in those rates.

Not sure "sending them to be killed by Ukrainians" is better then incarceration. But, probably costs less money.

Russia isn't mono cultural thought. It has muslim regions, buddhist regions, official jewish jurisdiction (it was created by USSR to segregate jews, so it basically has no jews left. But it's mostly because they moved to other regions). There is a duoreligion regions, where having two religions is a mundane thing. And even christian regions are various in traditions.

I wanted to write that the requirements to teach in russian language in russian schools is relatively new one. But turns out, you could still do it. Not like in private schools, you can have a government school in another language.

It can be argued that there is unifying postsoviet culture, but since different regions were treated differently under Soviet regime, there is a lot of differences.

Why do you think Russia is fairly monocultural? Russia covers a gigantic amount of territory and has people from a large number of ethnic and linguistic groups living there, many of which are not particularly closely related.
It by no means is monocultural. As for safety, well, yes, pretty safe.

More important is that helicopter-style parenting is unthinkable there, people will just not understand if someone would attempt that. Also not much in insane laws (they have some, but..) and the police will tell you to bugger off if you try make them act on those that exist. So the situation in the article is impossible.

That “but..” is a big key to the difference between Russia and the US in this conversation. The US has a severe cultural propensity for rule-following and reporting things, but in Russia there’s an interesting mix of people seeing society as a commons, seeing personal responsibility as foremost, seeing laws as guidelines that may or may not correspond to reality, and seeing reporting something as fairly extreme behavior. And this includes people at all levels.
Big cities like Moscow or St Pete are anything but monocultural.