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My new favorite book of all time

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Re: My new favorite book of all time

#301

Post by resu_nimda »

Bartweiss wrote: post #277
resu_nimda wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You acknowledged that he made a specific argument about violence, which is a fairly straightforward and measurable metric. He didn’t claim that “conflict is being better managed” or that “things are getting better,” which are extremely subjective and hard to quantify. Your point about the legal system, while valid, seems irrelevant to his argument. And you didn’t provide any argument that the situation has gotten wor…

> He didn’t claim that “conflict is being better managed” or that “things are getting better,” Hang on, my reading of Pinker is that he claims exactly that. Certainly Gates thinks so: this post on Enlightenment Now is about "how and why the world is getting better"! If I disagree with OP, it's only because Pinker directly addresses the growth of the legal system in Better Angels with his discussion of Leviathan. I ce…

I am legitimately interested in understanding the arguments that support a view of rising injustice. My understanding is that, historically, justice has been pretty abysmal, and as bad as it may be right now, I am not aware of when and how it was any better. It’s certainly plausible but in the arguments here it does seem like “things are bad now” is being conflated with “things were better before.”

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#302

Post by darawk »

ABCLAW wrote: post #274
darawk wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why compare it to 'perpetual' violence? I don't see a basis for that in historical data or arising out of first principles. Most of human history has been a state of relatively perpetual violent conflict. Compared to that, modern times are certainly more 'peaceful'. As you rightly point out, that peace may come through state domination, which we may qualitatively assess as good or bad (or perhaps more appropriately…

>Most of human history has been a state of relatively perpetual violent conflict. No it hasn't. Even the worst figured in Pinker's own cherry picked data show that's the case. Next, even if we jump fully onto the Hobbesian boat, conflict resolution and alignment is literally the raison d'etre of the state. Finally, we can compare judicial effectiveness (albeit somewhat crudely) across societies (and within differenti…

I'm not sure what point you're making. Calling something 'perpetual violence' is fairly relative, I suppose. So we could quibble about that. But the point that society is substantially less violent than it was seems pretty clearly true.

I don't really understand what point you're trying to make about judicial effectiveness either.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#303

Post by emmelaich »

resu_nimda wrote: post #245
ABCLAW wrote: post #213

I've read a lot of the discussions regarding Pinker's work in both books (but particularly his position in Better Angels), and I've always found his position to be slightly disconcerting. Pinker attempts to make a specific argument, that violence has decreased over time. Violence is not a first order phenomenon at a social scale - it's presence is predicated upon the existence of other key criteria, largely the exist…

You acknowledged that he made a specific argument about violence, which is a fairly straightforward and measurable metric. He didn’t claim that “conflict is being better managed” or that “things are getting better,” which are extremely subjective and hard to quantify. Your point about the legal system, while valid, seems irrelevant to his argument. And you didn’t provide any argument that the situation has gotten wor…

If you imprison people (violent or non-violent or even innocent) you may get less measurable violence. But perhaps only if you exclude imprisonment from your definitions of violence.

That's one of the things ABCLAW is hinting at I think.

I don't think it is the case, but it's worth considering.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#304

Post by thret »

bloak wrote: post #69
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…

War is perhaps illegal, except in self-defence, but certain people interpret "self-defence" to mean "defence of (national) interests", but also, belt-and-braces, they don't actually declare war any more and claim that what they're doing, killing and maiming people, bombing hospitals, television studios, water purification plants, isn't a "war". Also, Geneva Convention does not apply because the victims are "unlawful…

It still applies. It applies to the weapons we use, how we treat prisoners, and how we treat the injured. Bad things happen, but please don't ever think your solider's are willfully bombing hospitals or killing civilians.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#305

Post by TulliusCicero »

JustAnotherPat wrote: post #296
trophycase wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violence has decreased because the systems of control have improved exponentially.

Yes, just throw every potential violent person in jail/prison.

That's one route, but if you look at, say, western Europe, countries there largely have both much lower incarceration rates and lower homicide rates than the US.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#306

Post by rospaya »

Bartweiss wrote: post #290
8ytecoder wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unthinka…

> 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. Frankly, this looks to me like Pinker is reasoning from a provably false premise. Non-nuclear powers haven't avoided war. The Congo War killed ~4 million people, including 300,000+ via direct killings. The Yugoslav Wars killed…

> First, because the use of proxy wars is a defining feature of 20th century combat; war in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Syria is directly linked to great-power conflict.

Great powers have interests in every war ever, but when Yugoslavia broke up, the USSR and in 1999 Russia were too weak to be considered equal adversaries.

In the early 90s the country fell apart and a tyrant started three wars ending in ethnic cleansing and genocide. When he started a fourth one in 1999, a short and by modern warfare limited campaign finally stopped him.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#307

Post by kleer001 »

keane wrote: post #219

Pinker wants to establish metrics to evaluate the state of the world. Once he establishes the metrics, he wants to show that the state of the world is improving over time. Showing improvement by these metrics, he wants us to celebrate this. This is easy to appreciate. He is right. There really are large differences in living and these differences are commonly experienced as better. There is real cause for celebration…

> if all 7 billion people expressed that they believe "murder is wrong" this would not establish that murder is wrong.

How else do you propose we establish morality if not by consensus?

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#308

Post by hoopladler »

scarmig wrote: post #217
hoopladler wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Surely the Cold War would have been a real war if not for nukes, no? I don't think the US and Russia were avoiding conflict because "the UN made it illegal." No way, no how. Russia's economy, at their peak, was 1/7th of the size of the USA's. At the end of WW2, it's unlikely they could have beaten western Europe, let alone kept the US out, who were clocking 50% of world GDP at the end of '45. Equally, the USA could…

The 1/7 GDP figure is misleading. It is absolutely true that everyone had an incentive back then to overstate the USSR's position: Communists and sympathizers for ego gratification, American liberals to use as an argument for government intervention in the economy and internal reform, and the American Right to ramp up militarism and domestic repression. That said, the revisionism that argues that it had no more power…

>revisionism that argues that it had no more power on the world stage than South Africa based on spurious GDP comparisons is just as off base.

I don't think you're entirely wrong, but I think there are two factors at play here:

1. The USSR's power projection was really good because it's really hard to convince people to fight for capitalism. For communism, on the other hand, you always have a million volunteers.

2. The USSR's military credibility when it comes to a land war in Europe was based on the fact that they were preparing for a near-home or home defense scenario. So, instead of investing in expensive fleets, aircraft carriers, and bombers, they invested in tanks, close-support aircraft, and anti-air stuff. The Atlantic would prevent the US from effectively responding to massive columns of tanks, since tanks are very heavy and hard to transport and supply. However, it also means that the USSR wouldn't be going anywhere with its massive war machine. It wouldn't have any ability to threaten anything outside of euroope. So the obvious result of any conventional war would have been the US conventionally bombing every Russian city to dust.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#309

Post by msaharia »

bildung wrote: post #134
Fricken wrote: post #40

Pew research did a survey where it asked 42,000 people in 38 different nations how their day was. Respondents could answer 'particularly good', 'typical', or 'particulary bad'. Nigerians are having the best time, with 73% of respondents saying they were having a particularly good day. In Japan on 11% were having a particularly good day. The outcomes of this pew study correlate inversely with studies that objectively…

Interesting! Amartya Sen's theory of justice had a similar passage about quality of live of Indian women: Originally they self-assessed as healthy and without problems (while objectively being in very poor condition and having very low life expectancy), then, years later, as both education (esp. health-related) and access to healthcare improved, self-assessed as unhealthier than before! Turns out they didn't know/ co…

I think you mean Idea of Justice. Theory of Justice is by John Rawls.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#310

Post by ABCLAW »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #300
ABCLAW wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems so open ended so as to be fruitless - We aren't going to peruse 300 page UNDP or 50 page CBA methodological reports to define the issue, then jump into the data sets themselves on this forum. But they exist, and they're easy to search for if you want to satisfy yourself. This just isn't the place, nor is that the point of the assertion. If you have a particular observation or set of data which contradicts…

Are you serious? If you're making the assertion here, it's on you to support it. Don't try to put the burden on others to disprove something you've shown zero evidence for, that's ridiculous.

Entirely. The burden is placed upon the objector to have even a passing argument against the initially held position, otherwise you can raise infinite substance-less objections against an otherwise strong point and 'win'. This tactic is used in court and in point-based debate systems to game the system (in the first to drive up expenses, and in the second to score uncontested points).

The bar doesn't need to be high, but at least something needs to be offered as a counterpoint beyond someone telling an expert in their own field that they don't believe them. It helps to establish that the counterargument is made in good faith and requires effort on the part of the objector, indicating that they have some skin in the game.

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