>Isn't the current period the most peaceful in known history?
[Citation needed].
Define current period and define peaceful? We haven't had a global conflict in 60-odd years (and yay for that), but we had two global conflicts in the last hundred years. We almost had a third (US vs PRC)and forth one (US vs CCCP) but it appears that nuclear war let cooler heads prevail. In the past two hundred years there is almost no place of human habitation that has been untouched by war.
In fairness most of the civilized world has, with a few rare exceptions, always been in a state of perpetual war.
For bonus points how many wars is did the US fight during the year 2012?
It doesn't much matter what you choose as "current period", because war and violence has been on the decline for quite a long time.
It's pretty annoying to try to have a factual discussion and get replies that are nothing but handwaving and anecdotes. Listing off the violent conflicts in the past century without offering any comparison to wars further in the past is completely useless to this discussion.
That citation agrees with me rather than with you.
>"GOLDSTEIN: Well, no, because the past 100 years were - there was a big explosion of violence in the early part of the 20th century, but the 17th century was no picnic either. The Thirty Years' War destroyed a third of the population of Germany, and back through history there have been terrible wars much of the time."
>"And even in prehistoric times, as many as a quarter of the men in a society not infrequently died in wars. So it's actually a new thing and something that's developed in the least 60 years and especially the last 20 years. And we can talk about why it is, and Steven Pinker will have more to say about that also, but the big change is that people are finding other ways to solve their problems, not through war, and we're seeing an actual shrinking in the number of people killed worldwide."
That is to say that the source you found is making the claim that the reduction has happened in the last 20-60 years. Read that again: "So it's actually a new thing and something that's developed in the least 60 years and especially the last 20 years." Is that not the same thing I said: "We haven't had a global conflict in 60-odd years (and yay for that), but we had two global conflicts in the last hundred years." In fact what is said in this interview is pretty much what I said in my post.
>It doesn't much matter what you choose as "current period", because war and violence has been on the decline for quite a long time.
Yes it does, it really matters what you choose as your current period. Your own source backs me up on this.
>It's pretty annoying to try to have a factual discussion and get replies that are nothing but hand waving and anecdotes.
Large scale violence like WW2 is not really an anecdote but in fact a large chunk of data. I assumed that you were aware that most historians accepted that WW2 claimed the largest number of lives in human history:
> I assumed that you were aware that most historians accepted that WW2 claimed the largest number of lives in human history:
Largest number, but not largest proportion. A human alive during WWII was far more likely to survive that war than a human alive during the Mongol conquests or the An Lushan rebellion was to survive those. The Mongol conquests were about as deadly as WWII, yet happened in a world with only 1/5th of the population. Those two events killed 5-10% of the total world population, while WWII "only" killed about 3%.
This business where literally everyone who replies to disagree with me only looks at absolute numbers is getting pretty irritating. It just makes no sense.
>This business where literally everyone who replies to disagree with me only looks at absolute numbers is getting pretty irritating. It just makes no sense.
This is a learning moment. Other people are using different assumptions about war and how to measure it maybe they have something to offer you in perspective.
For example a war is not merely summed up by number of peoples killed nor is it understood by the chance that a single person at that time period might be killed or the total world population killed. In fact the level of war or numbers of wars could increase dramatically without any increase in violence by merely varying the culture, technology and other circumstances.
You did not address the fact that the source you cited for your argument supported my claims and not yours. Have you cast Pinker and Goldstein aside? If you still agree with Pinker and Goldstein then you agree with the claim I put forward and I'm not sure we have much more to talk about. If you don't agree with Pinker and Goldstein, why not?
Expressing how irritating or annoying you find the people with whom you are having a discussion is rude. Why do you think such statements are a good strategy?
> This is a learning moment. Other people are using different assumptions about war and how to measure it maybe they have something to offer you in perspective.
Right, right. I'm supposed to sit back and think about why people are saying this stuff, while you're free to make idiotic statements about my ignorance of history. Did you ever stop to think that maybe I had some other reasoning behind my statement beyond ignorance of the death toll of WWII?
Regarding the claims, the only important one is whether we are headed toward perpetual war or not. The trend is against it. Specific timeframes are just bikeshedding.
> Expressing how irritating or annoying you find the people with whom you are having a discussion is rude. Why do you think such statements are a good strategy?
I'm hoping that it would cause people writing without thinking to take a moment before replying. No, it doesn't appear to be working well.
The only reason we aren't aware of the number of military conflicts taking place is because they aren't on the evening news.
And yes, by any objective measure, this is a more warlike time than any in prior history, simply because there are more people available and willing to fight.
That's not actually evidence related to the assertion at hand. For that, you'd need a historical comparison, which that list does not provide.
You may be right about absolute numbers, but absolute numbers are pointless here. From what I've seen before, in terms of the relative number of people killed in war compared to the overall population, this is the most peaceful time known. If 2x as many people get killed in wars, but there are 4x as many people alive, that world is more peaceful, not less.
I think many would disagree with you on your definition of what makes a time 'warlike'. I think proportions involved in war would make a lot more sense than absolute numbers.
The only reason we aren't aware of the number of military conflicts taking place is because they aren't on the evening news.
That's a little unfair. They're rarely covered on submission/popularity-driven news sites, either. People tend not to care unless it figures into their usual political arguments. I notice this a lot with terrorism: people in the US seem to think it's mythical because it doesn't happen to them very often, even if it's unfortunately common globally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents,_Ja...
