The Most Peaceful Time in History

enfant terrible

Would you agree were living in the most peaceful time in history

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk

Steven Pinker charts the decline of violence from Biblical times to the present, and argues that, though it may seem illogical and even obscene, given Iraq and Darfur, we are living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence.

conscious

Is this a joke? Have you been asleep the past decade?

AgileMyth

Hard to say. I haven't lived in that many other times tbh.

enfant terrible

conscious wrote: »

Is this a joke? Have you been asleep the past decade?

You like to jump in to things without thinking don't you?

BunShopVoyeur

enfant terrible wrote: »

Would you agree were living in the most peaceful time in history

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk

Possibly, but give it time....

Deus Ex Machina

I think the distinctions are drawn between the types of wars taking place, rather than whether or not one is actually going on at any given time, because there invariably is. As Judge Holden said, war is god. There never has been peace for mankind and there never will be.

BickNarry

'Would you agree?'

To seriously disagree you would need to disprove Pinkers claims or offer an alternative theory with some degree of tangable evidence. And this is After Hours.

I've never said this before but '/thread'. (is that right?)

Unless what you meant was, what do ye think?

enfant terrible

Deus Ex Machina wrote: »

I think the distinctions are drawn between the types of wars taking place, rather than whether or not one is actually going on at any given time, because there invariably is. As Judge Holden said, war is god. There never has been peace for mankind and there never will be.

You are basically saying nothing there.

TheUsual

Depends where you live.

If this was Somalia, then no.

enfant terrible

TheUsual wrote: »

Depends where you live.

If this was Somalia, then no.

Lets say the world not just one location.

ejmaztec

The most peaceful time in history was the day before the big bang, and it's been pretty much downhill all the way since then.

TheUsual

enfant terrible wrote: »

Lets say the world not just one location.

For rich white people then the answer is yes.
All we have to worry about is do we have the latest gadget.

Capt'n Midnight

compared to world population there are relatively few being killed in wars

Turtwig

Yep, this is the most peaceful, least violent era of humans yet.:D

conscious

Malty_T wrote: »

Yep, this is the most peaceful, least violent era of humans yet.:D

how many wars are going on currently compared to 11 years ago?

Daegerty

There's still about 50 perpetual wars going on in Africa and another good few in Asia.

Things aren't all that quiet down in parts of South America either.

Back in the good old days there were only a few cavemen throwing rocks at each other over who got to shag the nicest beour in the cave

K-9

Daegerty wrote: »

There's still about 50 perpetual wars going on in Africa and another good few in Asia.

Things aren't all that quiet down in parts of South America either.

Back in the good old days there were only a few cavemen throwing rocks at each other over who got to shag the nicest beour in the cave

True, there was only a few million of is then!

I'd say here in Ireland we are living in relatively peaceful times, with so much press and social media about it seems not.

It definitely is safer in Northern Ireland!

KyussBishop

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

compared to world population there are relatively few being killed in wars

Or comparatively, a larger number of people being killed regularly (on average over the last century, inc. WWI/II) now than at any point before in history:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/21st_century#Worldwide_deaths_from_war_and_terrorist_attacks

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll

Judging by the first article, with a (conservative, not counting a lot of other causes of death) estimate of about 4.3-5.2 million war-related deaths in the last 13 years, it's not exactly the most peaceful time in history.

KyussBishop

Also interesting:
http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_map287_ver5.pdf

"An estimated 51 million people have been killed in wars between 1945 and 2000"

enfant terrible

KyussBishop wrote: »

Also interesting:
http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_map287_ver5.pdf

"An estimated 51 million people have been killed in wars between 1945 and 2000"

Did you even watch the video:rolleyes:

KyussBishop

I agree with the video pretty much, and that percentage wise the world is less violent (and judging it that way that the title may be true);
when you look at it as overall numbers (e.g. of deaths) though, I don't think it's less violent enough to call it the most peaceful time in history.

Caoimhín

Maybe not now but once Jesus comes back down from the clouds on his unicorn and kills the divil about a thousand years of peace will follow.

JohnMarston

With terrorism, crime and civil unrest on a daily basis?

I'm sure its nice and peaceful inside your little bubble

Jesus Wept

As demonstrated by this thread, most people can't see more than 6 inches in front of them.
Nice post OP.

Big Nasty

Most peaceful time in the western world for sure. Hopefully in another 50 years this can spread to other regions.

Duggy747

Compared to other times in our history the western world is arguably in it's relatively most peaceful time.

The rest of the world like Africa and Southern America are still killing and destroying each other's lives like there's no tomorrow. Same can also be said for certain countries in the Middle East, too.

Capt'n Midnight

KyussBishop wrote: »

Or comparatively, a larger number of people being killed regularly (on average over the last century, inc. WWI/II) now than at any point before in history:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/21st_century#Worldwide_deaths_from_war_and_terrorist_attacks

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll

Judging by the first article, with a (conservative, not counting a lot of other causes of death) estimate of about 4.3-5.2 million war-related deaths in the last 13 years, it's not exactly the most peaceful time in history.

sort by the column that says percentage of world population

also between 1900 and 1973 between 300,000,000 and 500,000,000 people died from Smallpox (compare that to world population in 1900 !)
none since

If you ignore the congo civil war and the wars that the US have started (Iraq / Afghanistan) , it's not been too bad , also lots of low key wars that only escalate when arms are given to the fighting parties,

KyussBishop

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

sort by the column that says percentage of world population

also between 1900 and 1973 between 300,000,000 and 500,000,000 people died from Smallpox (compare that to world population in 1900 !)
none since

If you ignore the congo civil war and the wars that the US have started (Iraq / Afghanistan) , it's not been too bad , also lots of low key wars that only escalate when arms are given to the fighting parties,

True true I concentrate on the total number of people killed though, not percentages.

I'm not sure what to think about it; percentages just seem a bit of an odd way to rate things here, even though I see the sense in it.
Which is worse: 1 million people dying today, or 1 million people dying 100 years ago when there were less people overall?

Or to put it another way:
2% of people 100 years ago - 3.7 million
1% of people today - 6.7 million

If you go by percentages, 3.7 million dead then is worse than 6.7 million dead today.

Nodin

JohnMarston wrote: »

With terrorism, crime and civil unrest on a daily basis?

I'm sure its nice and peaceful inside your little bubble

Societies in general are far less violent than they were, excluding the circumstance of war. This extends outside the West in places as well. Thus the world is genuinely less violent than it was in previous centuries.

ScumLord

I can't watch the video yet but I've believed this for a while. The only reasons the American wars are taking so long is because their not able to kill all the males and children and take the women into slavery like they would have done in the good old days. since they can't wipe out the oppositions culture there's always going to be a culture clash which looks and sounds worse than it actually is.

Everything is better now, technology, medicine, human rights, women's rights, children's rights. It's not perfect and I think we've hit a bit of a wall with capitalism hurting any advances we make by trying to put a price on it but definitely a lot better than it was even 50 years ago.

hatrickpatrick

From the fall of the Berlin Wall up to either 9/11 or the start of the Palestinian Intifada was probably the most peaceful time.

goose2005

Only 1.3% of deaths worldwide are homicides - in hunter-gatherer societies it can be as high as 20%. Only about 50,000 of the world's nearly 7,000,000,000 people were killed in wars last year.

Kevin Duffy

Hard to say if it's more or less violent, technology changes things very quickly. Wars prior to the 20th Century took a long time and lots of manpower to do their damage. WW1 had a huge technological shift, but still got stuck in trench warfare, WW2 was fought in a number of ways that showed the difference between what a man with a gun, a man with a tank and a country with a bomb could do, very different scales of killing.

Now, people are killed remotely, a single person with determination and the right weapons can take out a disproportionate number of victims and the nature of international trade is such that some countries are kept in poverty with it's attendant mortality, disease etc. That nature of violence is broad, so just comparing war fatalities isn't a very accurate tool.

Deus Ex Machina

enfant terrible wrote: »

You are basically saying nothing there.

I respectfully disagree.

mikemac

Depends where you are from

Is this man including Rwanda in his study

Or Somalia

Or even those Somalian pirates who were rightfully killed by the Russians, you don't **** with Russia.
If you are a pirate and lose, you face death. It's been the way for centuries

goose2005

Kevin Duffy wrote: »

Hard to say if it's more or less violent, technology changes things very quickly. Wars prior to the 20th Century took a long time and lots of manpower to do their damage. WW1 had a huge technological shift, but still got stuck in trench warfare, WW2 was fought in a number of ways that showed the difference between what a man with a gun, a man with a tank and a country with a bomb could do, very different scales of killing.

The Mongols wiped out tens of millions with mounted archers.

the nature of international trade is such that some countries are kept in poverty with it's attendant mortality, disease etc. That nature of violence is broad, so just comparing war fatalities isn't a very accurate tool.

Even truer in the past.