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2011/11/05 16:19:07
Subject: Good news: humanity is becoming less violent
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Courageous Grand Master
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This is a review of a book - 'The Better Angels of our Nature: the Decline of Violence in History and its Causes' by Steven Pinker, that I come across in Daily Telegraph. It gives me hope for the future.
*Important Note* before anybody mentions the violence of the 20th century, there was another review of this same book in a different paper (which I've lost  ) which mentioned the fact that proportionally, Genghis Khan and some Turkish Sultan (forgotten his name) wiped out a higher proportion of their enemies (around the 80% mark) and did more damage to the world population than the 20th century. This was because in the middle ages the world's population was only 1billion compared to 3 billion? at the start of the 19th century.
Anyway, what do people think? Hope for humanity or a book that is talking out of it's you-know-what?
At last, some good news. In his utterly convincing book, Steven Pinker, a professor of cognitive psychology at Harvard, argues that human violence has declined. People do not kill, maim or bash each other as much as they used to. His argument is supported by the absence of a world war for more than half a century. It is also bolstered by the fact that lynchings in the United States, which persisted until the middle of the past century, disappeared with the civil rights movement. Capital punishment has also gone out of favour in many countries.
The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker
Convincing and well argued, Pinker’s book is not for anyone with an aversion to gore. There are many illustrations of torture – burning at the stake, impalement, breaking on the wheel. He draws liberally on the detailed accounts of disembowelling, flogging and slaughter of the newborn. In medieval Europe, an accepted act of vengeance was to cut off the enemy’s nose.
Pinker, the author of the bestselling The Language Instinct (1994), understands the importance of statistics, graphs and tables. Many of his graphs show a single line, plunging down, from top right to lower left. The rates of rape and murder in the US fell by three quarters from 1973 to 2008.
The strength of opposition to interracial marriage plummeted from nearly 100 per cent in 1955 to just over 25 per cent by the end of the century. Countries with policies that discriminate against ethnic minorities dropped from 44 per cent in 1950 to just over 15 per cent after 2000.
Most dramatically, the number of lynchings in the US went from 150 in the 1880s (when they were conducted in a carnival atmosphere) to zero by the Sixties. And approval of a husband slapping his wife dropped from 25 per cent in 1965 to just over 10 per cent in the Nineties. (Women’s approval fell from 17 per cent to five per cent over the same period.)
Why has violence declined? Pinker does not need numbers for his answer. As Europe became more urban, cosmopolitan, commercial, industrialised and secular, it got safer. Perhaps as important is the increasing respect for women – “violence is a problem not just of too many males but of too many young males”.
He does not argue that there is a higher power sending our species in a beneficial direction. The human race has come to share the goal of finding ways of overcoming the universal appeal of aggression. The great social factors in reducing violence, he says, have been the end of slavery, the empowerment of women and the legalisation of homosexuality. Also, contraception has become cheaper, resulting in fewer children to unwilling parents.
Another change is the great revulsion from corporal punishment of children. Even at the turn of the 20th century, Pinker reports, German children “were regularly placed on a red-hot iron stove if obstinate, tied to their bedposts for days, thrown into cold water or snow to ‘harden’ them [and] forced to kneel for hours every day against the wall on a log while the parents ate and read”.
Punishments he relates from ancient Egypt, China and Aztec Mexico include sticking children with thorns and being held over a fire of dried peppers. As Pinker acknowledges, only today is it conventional wisdom that the treatment of children determines the kind of adults they will become.
One factor in this peaceful trend is the universality of communication. Images of the shock and horror of violence touch us. Wherever they originate, they make front pages the world over – as photographs of the bloody head of Gaddafi with a bullet hole in his left temple have shown.
But one generalisation is sad and enduring. It is largely men who commit violence, and murder in particular. The angels in our nature appear to have been unequally distributed.[/i]
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"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd |
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2011/11/05 16:36:50
Subject: Good news: humanity is becoming less violent
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Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot
Karthu'ul, the Heart of the Universe
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Who suggested that humanity is getting less violent?
Let me at 'em! I'll gut them and wear their innards like a festive scarf!
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There are some who walk until their legs fail them and they fall to the ground. I find that respectable.
Then there are those who drag themselves further. I find that admirable. |
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2011/11/06 18:48:22
Subject: Good news: humanity is becoming less violent
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Boosting Space Marine Biker
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Nerivant wrote:Who suggested that humanity is getting less violent?
Let me at 'em! I'll gut them and wear their innards like a festive scarf!
Don't forget to wear their stomach lining like a leotard and do interpretive dance in the street
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your plasma weapon may be used as an explosive device in case of emergency 
Welcome to the internet, and specifically a gaming forum.
If your choice of game is not made in a blood oath that can only be broken by a quest and vow made with the most overwrought dramatics, then you aren't doing it right. -curran12 |
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2011/11/06 19:01:50
Subject: Re:Good news: humanity is becoming less violent
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Decrepit Dakkanaut
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Just save the legal age virgins...so I can sacrifice them later...on the Alter of my Gooeyness
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Proud Member of the Infidels of OIF/OEF
No longer defending the US Military or US Gov't. Just going to ""**feed into your fears**"" with Duffel Blog 
Did not fight my way up on top the food chain to become a Vegan...
Warning: Stupid Allergy
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend
DE 6700
Harlequin 2500
RIP Muhammad Ali.
Jihadin, Scorched Earth 791. Leader of the Pork Eating Crusader. Alpha
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2011/11/06 19:08:42
Subject: Good news: humanity is becoming less violent
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Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot
Karthu'ul, the Heart of the Universe
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porkchop806 wrote:Nerivant wrote:Who suggested that humanity is getting less violent?
Let me at 'em! I'll gut them and wear their innards like a festive scarf!
Don't forget to wear their stomach lining like a leotard and do interpretive dance in the street
How could I forget? I'll jump up and down on the bodies as I fire my guns in the air.
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There are some who walk until their legs fail them and they fall to the ground. I find that respectable.
Then there are those who drag themselves further. I find that admirable. |
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2011/11/06 19:11:54
Subject: Good news: humanity is becoming less violent
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Utilizing Careful Highlighting
Finland... the country next to Sweden? No! That's Norway! Finland is to the east! No! That's Russia!
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The Turks haven't done anything, why does everybody accuse us for what the ottomans did?
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Sweet Jesus, Nurgle and Slaanesh in the same box!?
No, just Nurgle and Slaanesh, Jesus will be sold seperately in a blister.
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2011/11/06 22:14:03
Subject: Good news: humanity is becoming less violent
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Boosting Space Marine Biker
Edinburgh, Scotland
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As far as i know the world's population only ever reached 1 billion at the beggining of the 19th century. Aside from that it is a valid point, all though there is arguably many conflicts in the present day, casualties are much lower nowadays. Also violence in general has been reduced, theres no long brigands and raiders running around left right and centre.
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2011/11/07 05:12:48
Subject: Good news: humanity is becoming less violent
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Fixture of Dakka
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sluggaslugga wrote:The Turks haven't done anything, why does everybody accuse us for what the ottomans did?
I think you are going out of your way to seek offense when none was offered. As modern Turkey has not had a sultan since it stopped being the Ottoman empire "Turkish Sultan" isn't a reference to Turkey but rather an identifier. Like saying German Pope doesn't condemn either Germany or the Church, plus it was the Hitler Youth; everyone was doing it.
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 Avatar 720 wrote:You see, to Auston, everyone is a Death Star; there's only one way you can take it and that's through a small gap at the back.
Come check out my Blood Angels,Crimson Fists, and coming soon Eldar
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/391013.page
I have conceded that the Eldar page I started in P&M is their legitimate home. Free Candy! Updated 10/19.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/391553.page
Powder Burns wrote:what they need to make is a fullsize leatherman, like 14" long folded, with a bone saw, notches for bowstring, signaling flare, electrical hand crank generator, bolt cutters..
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2011/11/07 21:08:10
Subject: Good news: humanity is becoming less violent
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Decrepit Dakkanaut
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We're less violent because of all the internet porn.
It's hard to get upset about something when you just rubbed one out.
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DA:70S+G+M+B++I++Pw40k08+D++A++/fWD-R+T(M)DM+
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