www.astralcodexten.com/p/crime-as-proxy-for-disorder
3 corrections found
There was no graffiti: spray paint had not yet been invented.
Spray paint was invented in 1949 (before 1950), and graffiti as wall inscriptions/drawings existed long before spray paint.
Full reasoning
The post presents “no graffiti” as a consequence of spray paint not existing before 1950.
1) Spray paint existed before 1950.
Seymour Paint (the company founded by the inventor) describes the invention of aerosol paint in 1949 by Ed Seymour. That directly contradicts the statement that spray paint “had not yet been invented” (as of the “before 1950” timeframe discussed in the post).
2) Graffiti existed long before aerosol spray paint.
Even if the author meant spray-painted graffiti specifically, the sentence as written asserts there was “no graffiti” before spray paint. But authoritative references document graffiti (incised/marked inscriptions) in ancient contexts (e.g., ancient Roman ruins), centuries/millennia before the 20th century.
So the claim is incorrect both on the narrow factual point (spray paint was invented pre-1950) and on the broader historical point (graffiti predates spray paint by a very long time).
3 sources
- Seymour Paint | Premium Spray Paints and Coatings
“In 1949, Ed Seymour mixed paint and aerosol in a can and topped it with a spray head… Today, aerosol paints have become a global phenomenon…”
- Graffiti | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica
Britannica notes graffiti “has a long history” and that “markings have been found in ancient Roman ruins…”
- What Does First-century Roman Graffiti Say? | National Geographic
National Geographic describes discoveries of “first-century Roman graffiti” and “inscriptions… from antiquity” at the Colosseum.
starting with litter in the 1950s and continuing to cheap boom boxes around 1990.
Boomboxes were invented decades earlier (1966) and became widely popular in the 1970s and 1980s, not “around 1990.”
Full reasoning
This sentence places the emergence of “cheap boom boxes” around 1990 as part of a timeline of modern disorder.
However, credible historical summaries describe boomboxes as existing well before 1990:
- Bose’s history article states the first boombox was invented in 1966, and that boomboxes became hugely popular after Japanese mass production in the 1970s and 1980s.
Given that (a) boomboxes existed by 1966 and (b) were already a mass-market phenomenon in the 1970s/1980s, locating their rise “around 1990” is off by at least a decade (and arguably two).
1 source
- What Is a Boombox? A Brief History | Bose
“The first boombox was invented in the Netherlands in 1966… [They] became hugely popular… mass-producing boomboxes in the ‘70s and ‘80s…”
The tenements were being replaced by suburbs, but graffiti had not yet been invented.
Graffiti was not “uninvented” until modern times; it existed for centuries (including in ancient Roman contexts), long before mid-20th-century housing/suburbanization trends.
Full reasoning
This sentence implies graffiti was not yet an existing phenomenon during the era when tenements were being replaced by suburbs (a process that was already underway well before the late 20th century).
But authoritative references describe graffiti as having a long history with examples in ancient Roman ruins. That makes the claim “graffiti had not yet been invented” historically incorrect in the plain meaning of “graffiti” (writing/drawings on walls/surfaces).
Even if the author intended “modern spray-paint graffiti,” the post elsewhere ties this to the existence of spray paint; however aerosol spray paint was invented in 1949, which further undermines the “not yet invented” framing for the mid-20th century period.
2 sources
- Graffiti | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica
Britannica: graffiti “has a long history” with “markings… found in ancient Roman ruins…”
- Seymour Paint | Premium Spray Paints and Coatings
“In 1949, Ed Seymour mixed paint and aerosol in a can…” (describing the invention of aerosol paint).