Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
#2I have seen a lot of comments supporting Pax Americana, stating that we have seen fewer conflicts and therefore that violence has been in decline... This would seem to refute that.
Re: Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
#3There has been lots of contention around this topic. I personally agree with the contrary and Steven Pinkers position. You can see him refute Taleb's claims here:
http://stevenpinker.com/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker....
Re: Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
#4There has been lots of contention around this topic. I personally agree with the contrary and Steven Pinkers position. You can see him refute Taleb's claims here: http://stevenpinker.com/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker....
I don't understand. Are you saying that Pinker claims that violence HAS been declining over time??
Re: Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
#5There has been lots of contention around this topic. I personally agree with the contrary and Steven Pinkers position. You can see him refute Taleb's claims here: http://stevenpinker.com/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker....
I don't understand. Are you saying that Pinker claims that violence HAS been declining over time??
He does
Re: Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
#6There has been lots of contention around this topic. I personally agree with the contrary and Steven Pinkers position. You can see him refute Taleb's claims here: http://stevenpinker.com/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker....
I don't understand. Are you saying that Pinker claims that violence HAS been declining over time??
his book is titled "Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined"
Re: Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
#7I have seen a lot of comments supporting Pax Americana, stating that we have seen fewer conflicts and therefore that violence has been in decline... This would seem to refute that.
I don't understand how the two are in conflict. Taleb asserts that the drop in violence is not somehow inherent to human nature, while the Pax Americana is a time of relative peace guaranteed by americas military advantage. When that advantage drops and other countries contest it, then violence will go up, just like the Roman Empires temporary advantage in military power produced a time of relative peace. For the two to be in conflict you'd have to assert that the Pax Americana was an inevitable and inherent development in human nature, which I'm not aware of anyone claiming.
Re: Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
#8There has been lots of contention around this topic. I personally agree with the contrary and Steven Pinkers position. You can see him refute Taleb's claims here: http://stevenpinker.com/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker....
I'm tempted to dismiss the Taleb paper as "lies, damned lies, and statistics". It has to do some rather complicated things to reach its conclusion, which correlates well with massaging data to fit an argument, and seeing as there's an academic dispute motivating that argument, there's a circumstantial-evidence case to be made for giving it no further thought.
Re: Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
#9I have seen a lot of comments supporting Pax Americana, stating that we have seen fewer conflicts and therefore that violence has been in decline... This would seem to refute that.
Pax Americana is kind of riddiculous name for the fact that US has started over 200 military conflicts since WW2. America is at war 93% of it's existence:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/america-war-93-time-2...
Re: Violence Has Not Been Declining Over Time
#10There has been lots of contention around this topic. I personally agree with the contrary and Steven Pinkers position. You can see him refute Taleb's claims here: http://stevenpinker.com/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker....
I don't understand. Are you saying that Pinker claims that violence HAS been declining over time??
Great. Now I have to go and burn my copy of Blank Slate. Another one bites the dust. I feel like an orphan now.