Steven Pinker's assertions in TBAOON are nice and intellectually attractive but ultimately, difficult to prove or disprove. Naseem Taleb had quite a strong reac

Steven Pinker's assertions in TBAOON are nice and intellectually attractive but ultimately, difficult to prove or disprove. Naseem Taleb had quite a strong reaction to it. " "Pinker doesn’t have a clear idea of the difference between science and journalism, or the one between rigorous empiricism and anecdotal statements. Science is not about making claims about a sample, but using a sample to make general claims and discuss properties that apply outside the sample. " Further here: https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577#.mjjzuif7b https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e... Since at least a bit of that seemed like a personal attack on Pinker, that was then followed by personal attacks on Taleb by Pinker. He even wrote a quora post on it describing it as "The paper by Taleb that I saw was a mess: sloppy, inaccurate, and incoherent." https://www.quora.com/Is-Nassim-Talebs-criticism-of-Steven-Pinkers-work-fair https://www.quora.com/Is-Nassim-Talebs-criticism-of-Steven-P... I think our recent history with Trump, and the increasing friction with China suggest that perhaps the celebration of Pinker's ideas was a bit premature. As Taleb has shown us, a long period of peace doesn't mean that violence is declining or that we can presume that it will never reoccur with the magnitude and intensity we saw during earlier periods.