Are we living in the least violent times in history?

Here's a presentation by Steven Pinker which argues that this is indeed so and that violence has been decreasing over the past millennia, centuries and decades.

Steven Pinker: A brief history of violence

And a related article.

 

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We're working too hard, we don't have time. That's worldwide.

 

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Good link. Its always interesting to have the rubbish that the media feed us disproved. Also, many religions feed us the world is getting worse its a sign of the end, crap.

 

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Pinker is a lightweight, and that video is tedious propaganda. He gives thanks to Clinton for fewer deaths in America (presumably because of his failed 100k 'more police' initiative), yet 'forgets' to mention, apparently, the half-million Iraqi children Clinton murdered through sanctions. Or his inaction during the Rwandan genocide, among other slaughters. And his radio-controlled bombing of hospitals is legendary. Pinker also 'forgets', while showing Western European figures, to mention the horrors going on elsewhere in the world due to the colonial ambitions of those 'Enlightenment' countries - horrors in places that did not have European-style censuses and mortality figures.

Pinker discusses 'violence' as though violence equates to violent death only. He entirely ignores the threat of global nuclear apocalypse which loomed for half a century. It didn't come to pass (despite many 'close calls'), but the 'just nuke 'em' perspective was strong in the hearts of millions in both hemispheres. He also 'forgets' the impending catastrophe of peak oil wrought by greed and complacency, the man-made environmental disaster of global warming, industrial wage slavery, children in the coal mines, the psychological violence of media, the emotional violence of an increasingly sociopathic society, the physiological violence of hard drugs (both legal and other) and highly unnatural diets and lifestyles, et cetera. Humans haven't become less violent, they've just found more ways to diversify their violence - and they have scaled it up a notch or two. Genghis Kahn, for all his blood-lust, was a mere amateur compared to warmongers within living memory - including any number of video-game players.

 

Where did you get that from? And exactly how did that happen?

 

"highly unnatural diets and lifestyles" have nothing to do with violence. But you are right humans have created new problems that have replaced many of the old. However, things are still better today.

 

I think it is really better today mainly due to better law enforcement. At least in U.S, look at the 'wild west' i guess you could pretty much kill someone and ride into another town and who would even know?

 

First of all BELLS, i am educated. I am educated enough to know that reading about someith is nothing like actually living there. You mean to say that if the U.S stops trading with a country all those people die? Couldnt they get supplies elsewhere? Saddam\Iraq was worth billions but why couldnt they get the stuff they needed from other neighboring countries? Money talks and with cash you can buy almost anything.

Dont get all high and mighty BELLS i dont like to see anyone suffer either but it just does not make sense. Saddam built how many palaces during those sanctions and sold plenty of oil, i just dont understand what happened thats all.

You can even get tons of cocaine through some of the toughest security, they could not get medical supplies? Can you explain that?

AND dont forget BELLS Saddam invaded Kuwait and after that made Saddam called for U.S to go down in some pretty graphic speeches and for what helping Kuwait against a country that also wenrt to war with Iran...For 10 years.

 

Indeed they do. Type two diabetes, cancer, ischemic stroke, heart attack, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain, depression, migraines, physical degeneration - all can be attributable to diet and lifestyle factors. Some incidents of these are genetic or of unknown provenance, to be sure, but the mountain of scientific evidence linking what we put into our bodies to what happens to our bodies dwarfs Mt Everest. Manufacturers freely put hydrogenated fats, scandalous levels of salt, white flour, refined sugars, lethal low-density lipoprotein cholesterol from dairy and eggs, high fructose corn syrup, dioxins, and other deadly trash into every part of our food supply without blushing, despite the widely known dangers. This, too is violence - as you know if you have ever experienced one of those maladies.

 

Thats right LH, guess that is why hospitals and old age homes are so violent. Corn flakes are a cure for violence for sure.

 

Movies don't count as history, dear.

 

There is a tremendous level of violence in hospitals and 'nursing homes', and not only from the pain induced from the maladies which in turn were inflicted by the insatiable rapacity of the food, drink, and tobacco syndicates. There is routine abuse of patients in these places - some that would make even Chuck Norris blanch. Even the most cursory peek into the subject will yield much more than you ever wished to know.

Corn flakes are hardly the answer, either. They are filled with carcinogenic acrylamides.

 

Come i think that now your just reaching. But seriously as far as my comment about the west is concerned it is historical record and the reason was simply law enforcement was nothing like what we have today.

But more than that i would like an answer for post #10, either you or Bells can take a crack at it and i would also like to point out that Cuba is in a similar situation and they are not really doing all that bad. U.S does not trade with Cuba and hasnt for decades.

 

Are we talking about relative or absolute numbers?

That is not good logic. Even with sanctions you would expect a country in the 20th century has less deaths than a country in the let's say 15th century...Also the OP meant violent actions. You could blame Henrik the VII that he didn't go to Africa to feed the starving...

 

The embargo of Cuba is similarly stupid. However, the US knew about the deaths of Iraqi children its vigorously-enforced embargo was causing, and yet continued full-speed ahead.

 

The question is 'Are we living in the least violent times in history?' and the answer is that it is irrelevant: we're still very violent, so violent that no great moral distinction can be drawn between events of today and those of of 50, 500, or 5000 years ago. The reptilian brain still prevails in the human historical narrative.

 

No offense but cant you answer the question directly instead of tap dancing. Isn't Iran in similar circumstances too? And i am sure that Iran is doing just fine as far as heathy citizens...

Bellllllssssss where are you?