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My new favorite book of all time

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Re: My new favorite book of all time

#111

Post by trs80 »

JorgeGT wrote: post #72

> Time spent doing laundry fell from 11.5 hours a week in 1920 to an hour and a half in 2014. This might sound trivial in the grand scheme of progress. But the rise of the washing machine has improved quality of life by freeing up time for people—mostly women—to enjoy other pursuits. This. I remember following Reddit AMAs of two centenarian women, women who remembered SS troops arriving at their village, who watched…

In my case I wash outer garments once per month (button down shirts, pants, etc). But I wash under garments weekly: white t-shirts, underwear, long underwear (esp in winter). They protect my outer clothes so get washed more frequently. I hang up my button-downs immediately when I get home. I don't like having to wash and iron a shirt every week, which does not get dirty anyway. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who does this but I would imagine they did huge batches of clothes back then that got dirtier more often, to save time, and didn't really wash their "Sunday best" as frequently.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#112

Post by 8ytecoder »

topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

The author covers that. (More details and argument for why he thinks that is in his book)

https://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-ab...

The explanation for the decline of violence in the second half of the 20th century is obvious: The bomb. The theory of the Nuclear Peace is evaluated in chapter 5, pp. 268–278. I think it’s unlikely. World War II proved that conventional warfare was already unthinkably destructive, so the superpowers were already deterred plenty from provoking a third world war. Also, since the destructive power of nuclear weapons is so disproportionate to any strategic goal, its threat is for all practical purposes a bluff, which is why so many non-nuclear powers have defied nuclear ones since 1945. Finally, the Nuclear Peace theory can’t explain why non-nuclear powers have avoided war, too—why Canada and Spain, for example, never escalated their dispute over flatfish to a shooting war.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#113

Post by mcguire »

martin1975 wrote: post #93
topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

Nothing has had as large an impact on the maintenance of relative peace, at least between large/nuclear nations, as the atomic bomb. It's the MAD principle - mutually assured destruction. I think our discovery of nukes is actually pretty cool.

I've heard that there was a sign at Oak Ridge National Labs congratulating them that their work had kept the peace for decades.

My first thought was that they ought to have a monument to the Rosenbergs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg), if that is the approach they're taking.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#114

Post by smhenderson »

greeneggs wrote: post #65
topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

"The Internationalists" makes the case that the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact to outlaw war was what started the paradigm shift against war [1]. (Of course the thesis is controversial, as you say.) You might enjoy the book; here's an Op-Ed the authors wrote in summary [2], and a podcast interview with the authors [3]. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30753784-the-internation... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/201…

Neal Conan covered this in an episode of Truth, Politics and Power [1]. Can't say I completely agree with everything discussed but it's definitely a good listen. Both authors are on the episode and, as usual, Neal does a great job of giving them plenty of time to discuss their book and get their points across.

[1] https://truthpoliticsandpower.org/897-2-2-2-2-3-2-2/

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#115

Post by Tepix »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #85
JorgeGT wrote: post #72

> Time spent doing laundry fell from 11.5 hours a week in 1920 to an hour and a half in 2014. This might sound trivial in the grand scheme of progress. But the rise of the washing machine has improved quality of life by freeing up time for people—mostly women—to enjoy other pursuits. This. I remember following Reddit AMAs of two centenarian women, women who remembered SS troops arriving at their village, who watched…

It’s worth noting that the act of sorting, inserting, removing, and putting away clothing is not very labor intensive. Having to manually wash each article of clothing takes actual effort, which can be quite tiring. It’s not easy to engage in other pursuits when one is tired out from physical labor. One could argue that the savings in exertion even outweigh the savings in time.

Still, a robot that would remove the remaining hassle of dealing with clothing would be fantastic!

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#116

Post by shubhamjain »

chippy wrote: post #47

The British philosopher John Gray is a good counterpart to Pinker's idea of progress. He focuses on the myths of progress, civilisation and freedom. This is his response to Pinker: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-stev... "A new orthodoxy, led by Pinker, holds that war and violence in the developed world are declining. The stats are misleading, argues Gray – and the idea of moral progress is wi…

> Torture was recently brought back in the leading liberal democracy of the world.

Isn't this cherry-picking data? I don't see how the extent of torture could be said to be a valid measure of progress unless happening on a massive scale. Besides, on a global scale, I would not be too wrong in saying that torture has declined. During the investigation of 1993 Bombay blasts, the police didn't balk at interrogating and torturing even the suspect's relatives[1] who didn't have any role in the act. The probability of this happening again has certainly declined.

Picking a narrow trend doesn't refute the global one that the world is getting better in every aspect.

[1]: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-convict-s-journal-alle...

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#117

Post by btilly »

On this topic, I highly recommend watching 200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo

You see how wealth and health have changed over time. In particular you see that there is NO country today which is as badly off as EVERY country was 200 years ago. When you digest the truth of that, and look at it in terms of family stories, impact on society and so on, my impression is that we are like a world recovering from an insane collective trauma that most people have amnesia about. And the more you pay attention, the more ways in which this is obvious.

This is not to say that there isn't plenty of trauma today. As the saying goes, "The future is here. It just isn't evenly distributed." But for all the problems we have reason to worry about, there has never been a time when there was a better case for optimism for our future.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#118

Post by hinkley »

topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

We also had the horror of chemical weapons in WWI. It was becoming more and more clear that there were things men could do that men should never do, even in war.

Otherwise you could just crop-dust your downwind neighbors and be moved in before anyone could even report an attack.

I still don't understand why we're allowed to stockpile nerve gas given the past 100 years of warfare and treaties.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#119

Post by pebers »

buttcoinslol wrote: post #60
adventured wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which wars did the US start on a lie for oil ?

You already know which one. Halliburton share prices from 2003-2005: https://i.imgur.com/UgPNCBg.gif NY Times article about the division of Iraq oilfields: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/business/energy-environmen...

That graph doesn't show an obvious uptick after the big red "WAR" dot. It's growing fast but seemingly was before just as much. What's it supposed to prove?

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#120

Post by chimprich »

chippy wrote: post #47

The British philosopher John Gray is a good counterpart to Pinker's idea of progress. He focuses on the myths of progress, civilisation and freedom. This is his response to Pinker: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-stev... "A new orthodoxy, led by Pinker, holds that war and violence in the developed world are declining. The stats are misleading, argues Gray – and the idea of moral progress is wi…

> One example: Torture was recently brought back in the leading liberal democracy of the world.

True, but a) highly controversially b) condemned by much of the rest of the world c) only allowed outside US territory and d) claimed to be legal only due to the allegations that it was carried out on people falling outside the protections of the Geneva Convention.

Compare to much of history, where torture was widespread, uncontroversial, and legally sanctioned.

I don't think Pinker's thesis that overall violence is decreasing dramatically can be disproved by counter-examples, any more than climate change can be doubted due to occasional colder days. For a solid rebuttal to Pinker I'd want to see disagreement with his extensive statistics, and I don't see much of that in Gray's article.

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