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Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

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Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#11

Post by wamsachel »

philippoi wrote: post #4
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

The whole "better angels of our nature" optimism thing kind of seems like sticking your head in the sand to me. Of course we should have a sense of perspective about how bad things are currently (which seems to be what Pinker is saying), but we should also carefully note whether we currently appear to be on an upward or downward trajectory (IMO, downward), and more importantly, whether there are any forces or incenti…

I haven't read "Better Angels" yet or gone through this interview, but if he actually ignores the forces that are aligned toward making the global situation worse, that would surprise me. I have read "How the Mind Works" and "The Blank Slate" and neither lacks that nuance, especially the latter title. He continually refers to the political struggle at the core of the Nature/Nurture debate and its practical implicatio…

You're correct in looking at the thickness of the book and being wary of what's coming out in the media. In the book, the trends and statistics were just a section (albeit a big one) but the rest of the book discusses a lot of theory as to what is driving the downward trend.

Ed Herman wrote a critique of the book, which I think is fair. For instance, Pinker chose to use Vietnam casualty stats from a source that a lot of intellectuals dismiss as painting a forgiving picture of the situation.

Regardless, I think the book gives a lot of great history lessons, statistical explanations, game theory discussion, talk on Hobbes and the Leviathan, political correctness as a social driver, the effects that education, technology, communication have, and so on.

Unfortunately, when it comes to current event interpretations, I think overall Pinker is out of his wheel house (compared to, say, Chomsky or Ed Herman), and he should be concerned that the media, which is sympathetic to corpoarte and State interests, are eager to solicit his opinions on the present day geo-politic picture

Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#12

Post by amasad »

Analemma_ wrote: post #3

The whole "better angels of our nature" optimism thing kind of seems like sticking your head in the sand to me. Of course we should have a sense of perspective about how bad things are currently (which seems to be what Pinker is saying), but we should also carefully note whether we currently appear to be on an upward or downward trajectory (IMO, downward), and more importantly, whether there are any forces or incenti…

Not sure if you read the book but it's far from a happy-go-lucky-optimism, if anything Pinker is as cynical about human nature as Thomas Hobbs. Heck, you can even call this book the Leviathan 2.

With that being said I think he does a good job providing a lot of nuance, data, and qualitative arguments. And tbqh, it's convincing.

Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#13

Post by amasad »

Analemma_ wrote: post #3

The whole "better angels of our nature" optimism thing kind of seems like sticking your head in the sand to me. Of course we should have a sense of perspective about how bad things are currently (which seems to be what Pinker is saying), but we should also carefully note whether we currently appear to be on an upward or downward trajectory (IMO, downward), and more importantly, whether there are any forces or incenti…

Not sure if you read the book but it's far from a happy-go-lucky-optimism, if anything Pinker is as cynical about human nature as Thomas Hobbs. Heck, you can even call this book the Leviathan 2.

With that being said I think he does a good job providing a lot of nuance, data, and qualitative arguments. And tbqh, it's convincing.

Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#14

Post by stcredzero »

Analemma_ wrote: post #3

The whole "better angels of our nature" optimism thing kind of seems like sticking your head in the sand to me. Of course we should have a sense of perspective about how bad things are currently (which seems to be what Pinker is saying), but we should also carefully note whether we currently appear to be on an upward or downward trajectory (IMO, downward), and more importantly, whether there are any forces or incenti…

The whole "better angels of our nature" optimism thing kind of seems like sticking your head in the sand to me.

Any state that wants to stick around had better be good at defending itself and its interests. If you're so "enlightened" that you've forgotten how to resolve conflicts in a non-ritualized/systematized way, then someone is going to come along and

We can't really rely anymore on the "End of History" theory that the arrow of time inevitably points toward peaceful liberal democracy

Was that ever a theory, or was it really just something that people wanted to believe because it sounds hopeful and nice? For most people, it's the latter. It actually has an economic basis to it, however. The more you distribute wealth and power, the wider a constituency must be protected by the current regime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

it has definitely been much worse-- but that all the incentives are aligned toward making it worse

Exactly how much worse? There's nothing fundamentally wrong with a local maxima, so long as the overall trend is up. The backslide can't be too excessive without destabilization, however. (We're seeing that!)

Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#15

Post by philippoi »

wamsachel wrote: post #11
philippoi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read "Better Angels" yet or gone through this interview, but if he actually ignores the forces that are aligned toward making the global situation worse, that would surprise me. I have read "How the Mind Works" and "The Blank Slate" and neither lacks that nuance, especially the latter title. He continually refers to the political struggle at the core of the Nature/Nurture debate and its practical implicatio…

You're correct in looking at the thickness of the book and being wary of what's coming out in the media. In the book, the trends and statistics were just a section (albeit a big one) but the rest of the book discusses a lot of theory as to what is driving the downward trend. Ed Herman wrote a critique of the book, which I think is fair. For instance, Pinker chose to use Vietnam casualty stats from a source that a lot…

"Unfortunately, when it comes to current event interpretations, I think overall Pinker is out of his wheel house (compared to, say, Chomsky or Ed Herman), and he should be concerned that the media, which is sympathetic to corpoarte and State interests, are eager to solicit his opinions on the present day geo-politic picture"

Really good point I had been fuzzily trying to seize but hadn't been able to pin down without your perspective. I was compelled to highlight that portion of your post in particular.

Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#16

Post by 6stringmerc »

Oof, reading through the discussion on English linguistics brought back some pleasant but loud arguments I had with an Editor pal[1]. She was fantastic at grammar, of structural accuracy, and enjoyed that nature of language. On the other hand, I look at words and conventions and prefer the "let's see how horribly we can break and re-assemble these things and have fun communicating" school of grammar-as-fluid. I think it genuinely helped each of us appreciate the merits and contributions of both attitudes toward English and writing.

[1] Disclosure: She's recently become my screenwriting editor on retainer

Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#17

Post by cossatot »

pierre_d528 wrote: post #6

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violence.pdf Pinker does not know how to count. What is this doing here?

I don't think that this paper is the nail in the coffin that NNT or his groupies present it as.

There are a lot of arbitrary transformations in the data that, while acceptable and in many cases enlightening, are by no means the only way of analyzing it. For example, having a bounded function between the population min and max and then a dual function that goes to infinity may help, but it's not immediatly obvious why.

I find the rescaling of the data to be a fraction of the population (as Pinker did) to be more natural than their functional normalization, in spite of their objections. I also think that analyzing data in a cumulative fashion, rather than simply as events that occurred in a point in time (with uncertainty) is far more appropriate in the ease of simultaneously handling both short-duration events (WWII, US Civil War) and protracted violent conflicts (i.e. Mongol invasion, Hundred Years War). Then, breaks in slope in the cumulative w/ time function can be much more easily discerned. (Also do this with your budgeting/accounting instead of your monthly expenditures or whatever to see if your spending habits are changing). But again, looking at the cumulative function is great for getting a running tally through time but has problems with normalization.

The point here is not necessarily that they did anything wrong, but that it's an ambiguous situation with lots of what Andrew Gelman refers to as 'researcher degrees of freedom'[1], and it's necessary to read all of it critically, and realize what researchers are doing and why.

edit: [1]: http://andrewgelman.com/2012/11/01/researcher-degrees-of-fre...

Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#18

Post by Analemma_ »

stcredzero wrote: post #14
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

The whole "better angels of our nature" optimism thing kind of seems like sticking your head in the sand to me. Of course we should have a sense of perspective about how bad things are currently (which seems to be what Pinker is saying), but we should also carefully note whether we currently appear to be on an upward or downward trajectory (IMO, downward), and more importantly, whether there are any forces or incenti…

The whole "better angels of our nature" optimism thing kind of seems like sticking your head in the sand to me. Any state that wants to stick around had better be good at defending itself and its interests. If you're so "enlightened" that you've forgotten how to resolve conflicts in a non-ritualized/systematized way, then someone is going to come along and We can't really rely anymore on the "End of History" theory t…

I'm reading your comment and having trouble figuring out exactly where we disagree.

> Any state that wants to stick around had better be good at defending itself and its interests.

I agree? I'm not sure where in my comment you got the opposite impression, nor why it seems relevant to my argument.

> Was that ever a theory, or was it really just something that people wanted to believe because it sounds hopeful and nice?

"The End of History and the Last Man" was hugely influential in political science circles in the 90's and early 2000's, on both the left and the right. People definitely bought its premise of the inevitability of liberal democracy as eventually taking over the world through market forces and social movements alone.

I would argue it even had a cultural impact outside academia and policy wonks. Even now, when people say they're not worried about current problems because "it'll work itself out somehow", they are implicitly citing Fukuyama even if they don't realize it.

> The backslide can't be too excessive without destabilization, however. (We're seeing that!)

Which is why I'm talking about forces and incentives. I wouldn't be so worried if I could see anything on the horizon that might push things back upward. But the trends that alarm me (breakdown in social trust, loss of trust in democracy) are mostly positive feedback loops that only get stronger with time.

Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#19

Post by jhbadger »

onion2k wrote: post #5
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

The whole "better angels of our nature" optimism thing kind of seems like sticking your head in the sand to me. Of course we should have a sense of perspective about how bad things are currently (which seems to be what Pinker is saying), but we should also carefully note whether we currently appear to be on an upward or downward trajectory (IMO, downward), and more importantly, whether there are any forces or incenti…

we should also carefully note whether we currently appear to be on an upward or downward trajectory (IMO, downward) There's no interpretative reasoning required when you're looking at a graph of the level of violence in society - it can be, and is, something that we can measure. You don't need an opinion about it. There's nothing subjective to think about and decide on. It's based on information. As such, your opinio…

The problem is what time frame we are talking about. Yes, society looks nice now if you compare it to 200 years ago. But that's not relevant. The fact is by a lot of measurements (not limited to crime) the 1990s was the best decade ever (at least in the West). The question is how we can get back to that.

Re: Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence

#20

Post by return0 »

onion2k wrote: post #5
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

The whole "better angels of our nature" optimism thing kind of seems like sticking your head in the sand to me. Of course we should have a sense of perspective about how bad things are currently (which seems to be what Pinker is saying), but we should also carefully note whether we currently appear to be on an upward or downward trajectory (IMO, downward), and more importantly, whether there are any forces or incenti…

we should also carefully note whether we currently appear to be on an upward or downward trajectory (IMO, downward) There's no interpretative reasoning required when you're looking at a graph of the level of violence in society - it can be, and is, something that we can measure. You don't need an opinion about it. There's nothing subjective to think about and decide on. It's based on information. As such, your opinio…

i dont think the parent disputed the data. Why should we not be worried about the recent rise of violence, stagnant wages, rising inequality in a time of peace? there is no excuse to be complacent. If we were in a virtuous cycle before, it might well be that we are entering a vicious one. That is worrisome.

I am old enough to remember being optimistic about the next year. I m afraid the newer generation has not felt what its like

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