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Critical Review of Steven Pinker's “Enlightenment Now” [pdf]
- Bucephalus355 8y agoAlso want to say, as anyone who is familiar with the massive rise in violence Latin America should know, Steve Pinker’s conclusion that violence around the world is dropping is heavily suspect.
- manfredo 8y agoViolence persists, and may be increasing in certain areas but it's definitely less prevalent when viewing in a global sense. One figure that really struk me when taking a world history class was that the rate of violent death (as in, the percentage of people that died at the hands of other humans) in pre-agricultural societies was estimated to be between 10-20%. In the 20th century, despite two of the most destructive wars in history, the global rate of violent death was estimated to be 1.7 to 1.8% - and this was less than the preceding century.