Are we becoming more peaceful as we become smarter?

So you're running with the theory that if it doesn't cause death then it counts as becoming more peaceful?

I'd also question your stone age statistics, and their relevance. The exceedingly high infant mortality rate would no doubt be the highest cause of death, as it often has been throughout history.
Second to that, food shortages are a somewhat special circumstance that would recreate the same situation with any modern population. When it's kill or die, then humans choose to kill. Unless you feel the intelligent option is to die, which would be most questionable indeed. :shrug:

 

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Are you a sock

 

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it is a trend . A trend downward . Over all fall in violent offenses . Like the change in population factors . The trend says there is an over all fall in violence in America . Course that can change anytime you know . People have a tendency to get violent when they figure out they been fucked by the same people from the beginning of time it self . Don't take that wrong cause most of us are our own worst enemy. Self doubt has stop many

 

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I don't believe that.

For one thing, I don't think that evolutionary change works that fast. We probably haven't seen any dramatic changes in fundamental human intelligence for the last few tens of thousands of years.

Most of the changes that might suggest changes in general intelligence over the last 100 years have been social changes.

Some of the changes are probably illusory. In the late 19'th century, graduating from high-school was a big deal. People were proud of their high school diplomas. Today they mean little and probably a similar percentage of the general population earns bachelors degrees. In Victorian times scholars typically had MAs and sometimes no graduate degrees at all. Today's iconic and increasingly ubiquitous PhD wasn't even introduced until the mid 19'th century.

Does that mean with all of our diplomas, degrees and qualifications, that we are more intelligent than the Victorians? I seriously doubt that. A strong high school college-prep program in the 19'th century was probably more demanding than many university undergraduate programs are today, requiring students to learn Greek and Latin for example.

What's happened is that education has been extended to the masses and made universal, and it's been kind of dumbed-down and turned into a lowest-common-denominator in the process.

That's probably been advantageous down on the low-end, since even a crappy high-school education is better than no schooling at all.

The general population might display slightly higher average IQ scores today than they would have 100 years ago for that reason, since the results of IQ tests can be influenced to some extent by educational preparation. But the underlying intellectual ability that the IQ tests purport to measure probably hasn't changed significantly over the last 100 years.

 

At some point, you may gain the perspective required to realize we know very little about such things. There is always in every generation the human nature to think we do know so much.

Just finding a single man in the ice rewrote the 'established and scientific' wild-ass guesses, I mean 'established theories', on many things about ancient man, including large things like ages and dates of metal working and etc. While of course the dates were adjusted, what it proves is we had no idea when mankind began working in the various metals, and the dates had indeed been wild-ass guesses based on scant evidence. Moving the dates due to finding one man is no closer to be accurate on such things, but I'm sure universities are filled with students being taught these new 'facts'.

We know almost nothing about ancient man... Yet with the same surety and arrogance, with the same naive and foolish 'faith', every generation of thinkers/naturalists/scientists believe we know almost everything. Of course, they are not wise enough to notice that the last generation's 'we know all' turned out to be mostly if not completely wrong, thus they are unable to gain a wise understanding of human nature, and thus gain a perspective and understanding from it to filter the current generation's 'we know all' through.

The Peasant Wars killed more people than WW2 btw... we don't even know how many(as in most things in human history, we don't know). There were so many millions and millions killed it boggles the mind.

But keep on quoting the same information you've put so much faith in, and keep telling me I haven't done my homework. I feel sure in another time you would do the same about the Four Humours of the body, or some other 'established scientific data'.

 

Anyway, the purport of violence would have different connotations to different ages. And in this age, with all our new spangled comprehensions on matters of history, sociology, psychology, technology, one would think we'd have a better grasp on matters of the environment.

I'm sure our ancestors would shrivel in horror at the total desecration and destruction of our environment. And the waste we produce… it's really too fantastic for words.

 

Absolutely. I don't think we are any less violent; our violence is simply expressed or channelled in ways that weren't typical before.

 

My understanding and memory of readings I've done over time is that human ability to mentally process information hasn't appreciably increased and that physical violence is indeed trending downward, arguably greatly now. IQ measures many forms of intelligence and ways of thinking that can be artificially increased. Compare this to SAT scores, though maybe there is an increase there when accounting for less intelligent people taking the test now. On physical violence, can anyone produce an article citing evidence against decreasing violence?

 

The correlation between IQ and being nonviolent is indirect, and two-fold. First, I believe there's a very loose negative correlation between intellect and testosterone-enhanced aggression. Not to say that the two are mutually exclusive or incompatible, but it's hard to deny reality: neither the IQ distribution of the football team nor the physical, athletic prowess of the chess club would typically resemble the norm of the population as a whole. Secondly, smarter = higher earning potential, regardless of whether "smarter" in this context means higher mental capacity or better education. The link between poverty and violence is indisputable.

In summary, the path to a peaceful world is through economic growth fueled by the chess geeks.

 

Actually I think that we become more greedy as we become smarter.

 

This implies that you equate having more money with being "more greedy", which is silly. The smart ones are simply able to acquire money more easily (sometimes) and when they have it they don't blow it on depreciating assets. In other words, being smarter includes being smarter about money management.

Have you ever heard of a successful businessman giving away Ferraris at house parties? Neither have I.

 

But what does that tell you about Paleolithic man? That rivals couldn't be so easily disposed of as elegantly as we do today? That large number figures meant single-digit objectives—as they still do today? That a sense of "humanity" wasn't even a concept beyond one's vague notion of tribal cooperation—as is more or less the truth for today's clique culture? That violence was an inevitable means to a solution because there was no other way—unlike today when rivalry can easily be disposed of and swept under the rug? Today, too many undeserved citizens are manipulated and consequently lose their jobs, their life's savings, go homeless, succumb to drug addiction, are incarcerated, become mindless drones to the establishment, or simply lose their minds altogether. But all of that today is conveniently shrugged off as collateral damage. Smart.

What about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Space junk? Radioactive waste? Smog? Water shortage? Food spoilage? Is it getting any better?

 

Wow, dramatize much? Yes, when the Great Pacific Garbage Patch reaches critical capacity and the land dwellers of the world are floating, face-down and strangled by plastic six-pack rings, then clearly we'll all be DOOMED!

It cracks me up when folks assign some kind of absolute evilness to human concepts like "garbage" (or water shortage, or smog, or food spoilage...basically your entire list).

 

The point is none of these turning point scenarios were really present before now, were they? So I ask again, is it getting any better? Are we more civilized because of it? Are our distant ancestors more barbaric because we—as in your attitude—can find it in ourselves to make light of it all?

 

Is "it" getting any better? You mean like...disease? Global infant mortality? Life expectancy? Quality of life? Technological advances? Global economy? Average human education levels?

Yes, everything in my list is quantitatively getting better over any statistically significant time period. And yes, I can make light of everything in your list. For example: food spoilage...think about that for a second. Are you referring to the decomposing rabbit in the forest, or the apple that fell from the tree? And how exactly do we "waste" water when you cannot practically destroy it? And what the hell are we going to do about that massive body of radioactive material in the sky?

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Just sayin, there's always progress to be made but be clear that we're always making it. You need to check your fatalism.

 

I must be getting dumber because I'm very agitated quite allot.

 

You, agitated?!

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