4 ms·

I'm not sure you know enough to compare the two. Disease, for example, is mostly a product of settled societies, not hunter-gatherers. Crime was a different is

I'm not sure you know enough to compare the two. Disease, for example, is mostly a product of settled societies, not hunter-gatherers. Crime was a different issue as well, when tribes knew all the members. And sure, tribes had conflicts, but they were often not as violent as the total wars of the last couple centuries. I'm surprised so many people who know nothing except modern society are so quick to make sweeping assumptions about a distant and unrecorded past.

3131s 9y ago
They are also comparing it to the best outcomes for individuals in modern society. It's not like people don't still get raped, killed over resources, and finished off prematurely by disease and starvation. I'm not sure modern civilization would look the same without a long and continuing history of people sacrificed at the altar of progress.
- mjfl 9y ago
  but at least in society in the worst case I have police, medicine, insurance.. people working for money to help you
  - racer-v 9y ago
    It's a common misconception that the job of police is to help people. Their job is to apprehend and arrest people. Whether that actually helps anyone or not is highly situational. Same logic applies to medicine and insurance.
    - mjfl 9y ago
      Their job is to apprehend and arrest people who break laws. In a society without them, there's no one to arrest those who assault you, rob from you, rape you, or murder you. And if you don't think that's necessary you are incredibly naive.
      - racer-v 9y ago
        The point is that they may be ncessary, but they're not sufficient.
CryptoPunk 9y ago
Homicide rates in hunter gatherer societies are extremely high: https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/no-hunter-gatherers-were-not-peaceful-paragons-of-gender-equality/ https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/no-hunter-gat...
- marchenko 9y ago
  This is not a settled question. The references in your link are mostly new-world non-state (nonstate != hunter-gatherer), whereas Africa, where most of human foraging history occurred is under-represented. There are significant differences in environmental constraints and physical and social ecology between these regions. The link also mischaracterises the argument that anthropologists make: they do not believe that foragers had a fundamentally different ("noble savage in a Marxist feminist garden") character than moderns, but that their incentives and constraints differed. It is hard to find people to war with if you are living at extremely low population density, or to carry out ambush raids along long sightlines in the savannah. You are probably less likely to murder your neighbours' children if they are your nieces, or fail to share food with your brother's wife. Hunter-gatherer social technology exploiting human biases (e.g. toward kin) is often ignored in favour of wishful retrocasting of our own political viewpoints. Globally, foragers may not have enjoyed the low levels of violence we do in modern society, but they may have been competitive with gardening/agricultural/tribal/state societies for millennia.
  - CryptoPunk 9y ago
    My understanding is that it's a settled question and that the evidence of extremely high homicide rates in hunter gatherer societies is overwhelming. If you have any links suggesting otherwise, I'd be interested in seeing them. As for relatedness, that's relative (no pun intended). If everyone within 200 square kilometres is at a genetic distance of a second or third cousin, then a second cousin is the base for a non-relative. In any case, regardless of why precisely it is that violent death is so common pre-modern and especially pre-state societies, it's abundantly clear that it is. Regarding low population densities, you'll notice that Australian Aborigine tribes are represented in that chart and exhibit murder rates that are far higher than those in modern societies. They do however have the lowest homicide rates among hunter gatherer tribes. The highest homicide rates are found in the Amazon rainforest, where population densities would be highest. So it appears that the two factors that contribute to high homicide rates are pre-state/agricultural society and high population density, and that in the case of the tribes living in the most sparsely populated regions, the inhibiting effect of extremely low population densities on homicide rates does not make up for aggravating effect of living in pre-state societies.
riffraff 9y ago
> Disease, for example, is mostly a product of settled societies, not hunter-gatherers how is this a thing? Maybe you're thinking of large scale epidemics, but the most common cause of death in tribal settings are (modernly) treatable infections.

3131s 9y ago

They are also comparing it to the best outcomes for individuals in modern society. It's not like people don't still get raped, killed over resources, and finished off prematurely by disease and starvation. I'm not sure modern civilization would look the same without a long and continuing history of people sacrificed at the altar of progress.

mjfl 9y ago
but at least in society in the worst case I have police, medicine, insurance.. people working for money to help you
- racer-v 9y ago
  It's a common misconception that the job of police is to help people. Their job is to apprehend and arrest people. Whether that actually helps anyone or not is highly situational. Same logic applies to medicine and insurance.
  - mjfl 9y ago
    Their job is to apprehend and arrest people who break laws. In a society without them, there's no one to arrest those who assault you, rob from you, rape you, or murder you. And if you don't think that's necessary you are incredibly naive.
    - racer-v 9y ago
      The point is that they may be ncessary, but they're not sufficient.

CryptoPunk 9y ago

Homicide rates in hunter gatherer societies are extremely high: https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/no-hunter-gatherers-were-not-peaceful-paragons-of-gender-equality/ https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/no-hunter-gat...

marchenko 9y ago
This is not a settled question. The references in your link are mostly new-world non-state (nonstate != hunter-gatherer), whereas Africa, where most of human foraging history occurred is under-represented. There are significant differences in environmental constraints and physical and social ecology between these regions. The link also mischaracterises the argument that anthropologists make: they do not believe that foragers had a fundamentally different ("noble savage in a Marxist feminist garden") character than moderns, but that their incentives and constraints differed. It is hard to find people to war with if you are living at extremely low population density, or to carry out ambush raids along long sightlines in the savannah. You are probably less likely to murder your neighbours' children if they are your nieces, or fail to share food with your brother's wife. Hunter-gatherer social technology exploiting human biases (e.g. toward kin) is often ignored in favour of wishful retrocasting of our own political viewpoints. Globally, foragers may not have enjoyed the low levels of violence we do in modern society, but they may have been competitive with gardening/agricultural/tribal/state societies for millennia.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  My understanding is that it's a settled question and that the evidence of extremely high homicide rates in hunter gatherer societies is overwhelming. If you have any links suggesting otherwise, I'd be interested in seeing them. As for relatedness, that's relative (no pun intended). If everyone within 200 square kilometres is at a genetic distance of a second or third cousin, then a second cousin is the base for a non-relative. In any case, regardless of why precisely it is that violent death is so common pre-modern and especially pre-state societies, it's abundantly clear that it is. Regarding low population densities, you'll notice that Australian Aborigine tribes are represented in that chart and exhibit murder rates that are far higher than those in modern societies. They do however have the lowest homicide rates among hunter gatherer tribes. The highest homicide rates are found in the Amazon rainforest, where population densities would be highest. So it appears that the two factors that contribute to high homicide rates are pre-state/agricultural society and high population density, and that in the case of the tribes living in the most sparsely populated regions, the inhibiting effect of extremely low population densities on homicide rates does not make up for aggravating effect of living in pre-state societies.

riffraff 9y ago

> Disease, for example, is mostly a product of settled societies, not hunter-gatherers how is this a thing? Maybe you're thinking of large scale epidemics, but the most common cause of death in tribal settings are (modernly) treatable infections.