Right now is probably the safest time in human history wrt to dying in a war, on average. At least if you look at actual deaths, not potential ones from a nucl

Right now is probably the safest time in human history wrt to dying in a war, on average. At least if you look at actual deaths, not potential ones from a nuclear war. Putting numbers to that last is difficult. If we assume the war is not between major powers with large numbers of nuclear weapons (i.e. assume North Korea, not Russia), then the potential death toll is in the millions to tens of millions and the probability is likely in the single digits at most, I would guess... But I welcome sources on good estimates for this. On the other hand, in the 19th century diseases _would_ get about 1/4 to 1/2 (depending on what country you were in) of your kids before they turned 5. Check out http://www.gapminder.org/tools/#_state_time_value=1800;&marker_axis/_x_which=time&domainMin:null&domainMax:null&zoomedMin:null&zoomedMax:null&scaleType=time;&axis/_y_which=child/_mortality/_0/_5/_year/_olds/_dying/_per/_1000/_born&domainMin:null&domainMax:null&zoomedMin:null&zoomedMax:null&scaleType=log;;;&chart-type=bubbles http://www.gapminder.org/tools/#_state_time_value=1800;&mark... for example. And diseases were, at the time, very much an inhuman threat that you couldn't protect against; people didn't even have a very clear understanding of why they happened, much less what to do about it until the _end_ of the 19th century. Dying in a mine or being murdered by noblemen isn't even a blip compared to dying of good old cholera, measles, typhus, etc, etc.