Fatal dog attacks in the US

It turns out that as Jeff Bezos's net worth climbed toward the stratosphere, American dogs became increasingly murderous, which suggests either that Amazon's logistics network has finally achieved sentience and is training attack dogs, or that the universe occasionally decides to pair two completely unrelated catastrophes just to see if anyone is paying attention. We were paying attention. We should probably stop.

The real culprit here is almost certainly population growth, which has climbed steadily from 296 million Americans in 2005 to 333 million by 2023—more people means more dog owners, more dogs, and statistically more fatal incidents. Meanwhile, Amazon's revenue rocketed from roughly $8.5 billion to $575 billion over the same period, driven not by canine violence but by the wholesale transformation of how humans buy things online, which itself correlates with rising incomes, suburban sprawl, and the sheer proliferation of stuff. The third variable, in other words, is us: more of us, wanting more things, owning more dogs, all moving together through two decades of American life like passengers on a ship we didn't realize was accelerating.

What this correlation teaches us is that almost anything will move together if enough time passes and enough people are involved, which is either deeply unsettling or deeply reassuring depending on your mood. The universe isn't whispering messages through dog attack statistics and quarterly earnings reports. We are simply very, very good at finding patterns in noise. Fatal dog attacks and Amazon revenue, 2005 to 2023: proof that coincidence has no shame.