Historically, violence was much worse in the past than today

[True Earthling]

Interesting article by Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker...

The reasons given for declining violence are the rise of government and the state with it's monopoly power of the legitimate use of force, the rise of commerce and the expansion of literacy, mobility, education, science, history, journalism and mass media.

On the day this article appears, you will read about a shocking act of violence. Somewhere in the world there will be a terrorist bombing, a senseless murder, a bloody insurrection. It's impossible to learn about these catastrophes without thinking, "What is the world coming to?"

But a better question may be, "How bad was the world in the past?" Believe it or not, the world of the past was much worse. Violence has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in the existence of our species.

This claim, I know, invites skepticism, incredulity, and sometimes anger. We tend to estimate the probability of an event from the ease with which we can recall examples, and scenes of carnage are more likely to be beamed into our homes and burned into our memories than footage of people dying of old age. There will always be enough violent deaths to fill the evening news, so people's impressions of violence will be disconnected from its actual likelihood.

http://goo.gl/EKOw7

[Posteritatis]

1. And, as usual, people will fall all over themselves to deny this. (nt)

[jberryhill]

5. I'll beat the crap out of anyone who denies it!

[bemildred]

2. True, but we make dead people in bigger batches.

[The Magistrate]

9. Not Proportionately, Sir

Relative to the number of people available to kill, the moderns have not improved on the ancients, and in many instances lag well behind them.

[Posteritatis]

11. The 15-30% figure for a lot of ancient societies, or some contemporary H-G ones, is astounding

WWII on the Eastern Front was one of the only times an industrial society came close to the violent death rates that humans lived with for the overwhelming majority of its existence.

[joshcryer]

15. Some dispute the H-G stats but I find them to be credible, but yeah, agree, it's crazy.

Throughout WWII one person died every 10 minutes or something like that. During Stalingrad it was one every 30 seconds or something like that. (Sorry I can't be bothered to check those numbers, but it's somewhere in there!)

Really crazy.

[Posteritatis]

18. Even if they were "only", say, half that...

When I came across that figure I spent awhile just looking at my neighborhood - or just about any neighborhood, anywhere, even in some war zones - and picturing it going through those kinds of losses as a matter of course.

WWII came to something close to seventy million deaths, which averages out to something more like one every three seconds, which is one of those figures I can mention but totally fail to comprehend.

[True Earthling]

19. Please clue me in.. what is H-G?

[Posteritatis]

20. Hunter/gatherer. (nt)

[bemildred]

13. Well perhaps I'm being unfair then.

It's true we don't eat each other as much. And given the means available, we could have done worse than we have. And our morals are certainly no worse, perhaps a bit better.

[joshcryer]

16. "What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the Earth not because we...

...were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle."

[bemildred]

17. Which does much to explain our present situation.

Yes?

[True Earthling]

21. Not true... there were plenty of more efficient killing machines than humans

Many predators who preyed on humans were were bigger, faster, stronger. Over time nature selected those traits that gave humans an advantage over those who preyed on them... especially sociability which promoted cooperation...

The popular view of our ancient ancestors as hunters who conquered all in their way is wrong, researchers have told a major US science conference.

Instead, they argue, early humans were on the menu for predatory beasts.

This may have driven humans to evolve increased levels of co-operation, according to their theory.

Despite humankind's considerable capacity for war and violence, we are highly sociable animals, according to anthropologists.

"Our intelligence, co-operation and many other features we have as modern humans developed from our attempts to out-smart the predator," said Robert Sussman of Washington University in St Louis.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4729050.stm

and...

And the reason we won the war against the Neanderthals, if war it was, is staring us in the face, though it remains almost completely unrecognized among anthropologists: We exchanged. At one site in the Caucasus there are Neanderthal and modern remains within a few miles of each other, both from around 30,000 years ago. The Neanderthal tools are all made from local materials. The moderns' tools are made from chert and jasper, some of which originated many miles away. That means trade.

Evidence from recent Australian artifacts shows that long-distance movement of objects is a telltale sign of trade, not migration. We Africans have been doing this since at least 120,000 years ago. That's the date of beads made from marine shells found a hundred miles inland in Algeria. Trade is 10 times as old as agriculture.

At first it was a peculiarity of us Africans. It gave us the edge over Neanderthals in their own continent and their own climate, because good ideas can spread through trade. New weapons, new foods, new crafts, new ornaments, new tools. Suddenly you are no longer relying on the inventiveness of your own tribe or the capacity of your own territory. You are drawing upon ideas that occurred to anybody anywhere anytime within your trading network.

http://goo.gl/xTPuJ

[Speck Tater]

3. k&r. Long, but well worth reading. Especially for gloomy Cassandras (like me). nt

[seabeyond]

4. i dont know about murder, but rape numbers are fudged.

U.S. News and World Report (April 24, 2000) said, ''facing political heat to cut crime in the city, investigators in the New York PPD's Sex Crime Unit sat on (thousands of) reports of rapes and other sexual assaults.''

One officer snarled; ''The way crime was solved was with an eraser.''

In 2000 even the FBI admitted that one district ''failed to report between 13,000 and 37,000 major crimes.''

''A 2000 Philadelphia Inquirer report found from 1997-1999, of 300,000 sex crime reports, thousands of rapes got relabeled ''investigation of persons'' or ''investigation, protection, and medical examination'' – non-crime codes.''

''This puts one in four rapes in a non-crime category.''

Lying sure reduces rape!

Other real men confirm additional cover-ups.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, U.S. Army (Ret.) a renowned expert in human aggression and the roots of violence and violent crime, and a West Point psychology professor says:

''The downturn in violent crime in the U.S. in the 1990s is very deceptive. Violent crime … is still about 5 times greater today, per capita, than it was in 1957.''

''Plus, a five-fold increase in per capita incarceration is holding down violent crime – we'd have to let 1.5 million convicted offenders go to get down to a 1970's-level incarceration rate.''

On Grossman's point, The National Institute of Justice Managing Adult Sex Offenders (1997) reported:

''The number of adults convicted annually of rape, child molestation, or other forms of sexual assault and sentenced to state prisons more than doubled between 1980 (8,000) and 1992 (19,100). In 1994, state prisons held 88,100 sex offenders compared to 20,500 in 1980.''

Noting the millions taking high-powered antidepressants like Prozac, Grossman observes, ''we medicate, incarcerate and police ourselves at rates never seen before.''

Yet, he says, the biggest factor for lower crime rates is that ''we are lying about the data.''

''The ''Crimestat'' program made cops accountable for bringing down crime ... When the NYPD police union went over the data the crime rates doubled in New York City if the proper classifications were applied.''

Other than murder (held down by medical technology), the pressure on the cop on the beat means ''police artificially 'bring crime down' and the root causes of the crime get off scott free, because we cook the books.''

Denver Police Lt. James D. Ponzi, a Regis University professor and author of ''Compstat Revealed,'' is quoted in ''The American Police Beat,'' May 2005:

''In 1998, Sharon Schieber was raped and murdered.'' The lawsuit her parents filed ''revealed the practice of downgrading sexual crimes. Compstat turned into ''Compscam'' as departments cooked the books to lower crime rates.''

Lt. Ponzi got ''e-mails from different departments all over the country regarding statistics being altered in their cities.'' Pomzi added:

''… the crime category that you want to lower in another category that is not counted by the National Incident Based Reporting System or is not in the public eye at that moment.''

''These 'lower' rape statistics don't reflect what is truly happening in sex related crimes.''

Just a few more examples:

''In 2004, the Policeman's Benevolent Association in New York City revealed officials were ''cooking the books'' to lower crime statistics.''

''Felonies were classified as misdemeanors, rapes were logged as ‘''inconclusive incidents.''

''Attempted murder in a drive-by-shooting where the victim is missed might be reclassified as ''criminal mischief.''

''LAPD reported a 28 percent drop in violent crime in 2005, the same year the department reclassified domestic assaults in which the victim suffered minor injuries or had no injuries.''

Since the FBI NIBRS counts only offense reports, not city charges, serious domestic violence – often tied to pornography use?is magically reduced by a city charge.

''On October 23, 2003, five New Orleans cops were fired for downgrading violent crime states.''

''On January 8, 2005, four members of the Broward County sheriff's command staff were fired. ''Sometimes a suspect would admit to dozens of crimes but only be charged with one.''

''In Atlanta, 22,000 crimes were left out of the crime reports. In New York, the crime rates doubled in a precinct when the proper classification was applied by the police union. The list goes on.''

''The cops try to do their job, but they are handcuffed by some feel-good administrators who will not back them on controversial issues.''

''Compstat relies on intimidation administrators will not investigate the numbers that make them look good.''

''Everyone is happy except the citizens who get nothing but a false sense of security about the safety of their cities.''

Concluded Lt. Pozi, ''In all my research, I didn't find any city where a chief was removed when the ''cookings'' came to light.''

So much for lawyerly fantasies of pornography reducing rape.

Our deepest gratitude to real men like Lt. Ponzi, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and their colleagues – real men, still guarding women, children and our nation.

http://www.whale.to/a/reisman5.html

[salinen]

6. Many more jails now.

nt.

[digonswine]

7. Here is a link to a TED talk he gave on the subject-

Quite interesting.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

[Juche]

8. I was going to post that

An interesting point is about 3 minutes into it when he shows that in the 20th century only about 2% of men from the US and Europe died in warfare which includes WW1 and WW2, vs 20-60% in hunter gatherer societies. Even with massive global wars, the chances of dying from violence were dramatically lower than in historical terms.

[digonswine]

12. Yes-all things considered-

we live in decent times. This is not to forgive all the evil that goes on now. It is better-by degrees.

[DrunkenBoat]

10. what? likelihood for *who*?

[Bucky]

14. This coincides with the reduction in use of corporal punishment in schools, by the way

Violence is less socially acceptable that it used to be. We're now seeing the pay off for that. Less violent street crime and more economic violence from corporations unafraid of social backlash from a docile public.