Reddit reviews The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

I know it's high hopes, but if at all possible, I would love to get mentally in JWs who believe times are getting worse to read The better angels of our nature by Steven Pinker.

Fascinating book that documents the history of violence and its decline over time across the world.

I'd propose The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. In true neo-liberal fashion, I'll just quote a bit of the Economist's review for the summary:

>FIRST the good news—people are much nicer than they used to be and they are becoming steadily less violent. This is the thesis of Steven Pinker's absorbing and detailed survey of human behaviour that goes right back to early Christendom. His work is based on two arguments. The first is that the past was far more unpleasant than it was thought to be, whereas the present is altogether more peaceable, contrary to what many believe.

...

>But what is the lesson of this generally benign assessment? Immanuel Kant's famous “triangle” of factors—open economies, democracy and engagement with the outside world—are still the prerequisites for reliable peace. Professor Pinker (unfashionably) praises United Nations peacekeeping. It makes it harder for the bellicose to start wars and helps nip some resurgent conflicts in the bud before they can spark off yet more carnage. Aspiring to bourgeois prosperity and free trade is also important; people are less inclined to kill those with whom they can do business.

>Professor Pinker ends with a treatise on brain science, a fluent home run for a psychologist-turned-historian. Neuro-plasticity, the human brain's ability to change in response to experience, means that people are less likely to resort to violence in their daily lives than their forebears; other behavioural strategies work better. That may not have been quite what Lincoln meant, though the belief in man's improvability is as uplifting in this magisterial work as it was in the president's speech.

I highlighted the bits of the conclusion that are particularly ((neoliberal))) for your convenience.

In all seriousness, it's a fascinating very well-written and very wide-ranging book with a neo-liberal conclusion, but also one which has already invited a lot of debate and criticism. That makes for more interesting discussion and a perfect book club selection. The only downside is the intimidating length of the book, but I think many of the chapters could be read separately instead.

Buy here: https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/1531823971

Genre: Amazon puts it under 'Psychology and Counselling', but in reality it could fit under 'sociology', 'cultural history', 'anthropology', 'psychology' and 'philosophy'.

It is a trend, but it's not inevitable.
I highly recommend Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion as one of the best intros to the cognitive science of politics. The short story is we will always have a left/right divide, but the degree to which we feel safe, secure, and similar to the rest of our fellow humans drives how much each side holds power at any given time.

This is why modern news media with it's focus on threats is perhaps the biggest enemy of the march of leftward progress. We as humans suck at risk assessment, and are demonstrably way more pessimistic about the state of the world than we should be. People think the world is much more violent, poor and uneducated than it actually is. Things have never been better in almost every measure since the dawn of civilization, and in most respects in the history of the world. People like Hans Rosling, Steven Pinker and Max Roser who are campaigning for a data based assessment of the state of the world instead of a anecdote and emotional based assessment have the best chance of moving us towards a better world.

>No, it is precisely because Jews have adopted secular moral systems that they suffer. That's my point.

Really? Seems like they're doing fine here in the US. Exactly which suffering are you referring to? Are you referring to Israel? How are they suffering from secular morality? Can you draw a causal link from:

We gave up slavery ---> therefore we are suffering

We gave women rights --> therefore we are suffering

>That's my point. And I don't know what, exactly, you're thinking of when you say that people today are flourishing as opposed to previous times.

http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/edumat/hreduseries/hereandnow/Part-1/short-history.htm

Then there's just flourishing in general...:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

Deaths caused by disease, technological advancements, etc.

Further reading: https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/1531823971

Oh man, "The Better Angels of Our Nature" by Stephen Pinker. https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/1531823971

Crazy smart, insightful, and funny exactly when it needs to be. Really changed the way I looked at things.

Peaceful is relatively. There are a few open conflicts right now around the globe but they are all small and isolated.

However, in general it is a more peaceful time, the fact is the murder rate is down, gun violence is down, and disease deaths are down. Fewer people are going hungry, clean water access is at an all time high, and recovering from disasters is faster.

There are of course still problems in the world and thanks to 24 news and the internet you hear about them more often and quicker but there is in total less problems then there was 30 years ago. You can read this book if you want to know more about how things are not getting worse but actually better. But news agencies don't typically make a lot of money on good news.

As for the doomsday clock, when the cold war ended it only got to 17 mins till midnight which is the farther it has ever been. Which was either the safest time ever or the most dangerous since a nuclear power was collapsing. So you can safely consider it all bullshit, a fun thing to put in the newspapers during the cold war and nothing more.

I dunno but this guy does

I always wondered how would Hoppe answer the empirical evidence of democratic peace. I read Democracy: The God That Failed long time ago but if I remember correctly he was arguing that since kings use their own resources they would be more careful to going into war. Even if he wasn't explicitly saying that, his reasoning can easily lead us this. Yes there are still wars but it's much less frequent compared to the pre-democracy. Liberal democracy creates both internal and external pressure against war; in domestic affairs voters care about deaths of their families and citizens so they don't want war, so if a politician wants to get elected or stay elected he should be careful with international relations. Externally, liberal democracy creates an interdependency -economically and politically- in international arena so this leads to a more peaceful relation with other countries. Yes, liberal democracies have lots of flaws but Hoppe misses almost every one of them, overall democracies are far better in every way than kingdoms and empires. Why should we read Hoppe when we have Caplan, Brennan, De Jasay?