4 ms·

why have someone's distillation when the article is available here? http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4022091.ece?print=yes&randnu

why have someone's distillation when the article is available here? http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4022091.ece?print=yes&randnum=1212475411171 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/art... The following quote from the article: "Take away religion, he says, and people start believing in nationalism, which has killed far more people. Religion is also a good way of handling uncertainty. It lowers blood pressure. He’s convinced that religious people take fewer financial risks. " is a pretty lame conjecture. Has nationalism really killed more people? Even if it has, is there any proof that atheists are more prone to nationalism? And even if that is so, is there any proof that nationalistic atheists are responsible for any significant proportion of deaths attributable to nationalism? Contrary to the above, I did like most of the original article.

BRadmin 18y ago
i don't take that quote as a condemnation of atheists. rather, i think he's saying that there will always be people who want to 'believe in' or 'belong to' something - and w/o religion, that hole would be filled with nationalism... which has problems in its own right.
- serhei 18y ago
  For many people, that hole is now filled by computers! (Read: forum zealots.) Thus, things like Digg will be a huge factor in the creation of world peace! Or something!
antiismist 18y ago
Why read that when you can read his books: The Black Swan or Fooled by Randomness. They are pretty amazing.
- DTrejo 18y ago
  I loved The Black Swan. I filled it with post its and have used it for multiple school projects. If I had to name one person who tossed me into the world of non-fiction intellectual books, it would be Taleb. As I learn more and read more I see more connections between him and others (eg he is a part of EDGE.org where I learned about Dawkins, Zimbardo. Through him I also know of Yossi Vardi and Benoit Mandelbrot. He probably also has connections with Douglas Hofstadter, another cool guy.) I like Taleb. For anyone who has read The Black Swan, you will see how this DARPA project may have to do with his Las Vegas casino visit. http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrusts/math/appliedcompmath/rum/index.htm http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrusts/math/appliedcompmath/rum/in...
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
yummyfajitas 18y ago
>Has nationalism really killed more people? It's certainly plausible. Top 10 genocides of the 20'th century: 1: Great Leap Forward (Communist) 2: Soviet Purges/Ukrainian Famine (Communist) 3: Nazis (Nationalist) 3 (Roughly Tied): Congo Wars (Nationalist) 4: Imperial Japanese (Nationalist) 5: Pol Pot (Communist) 6: Kim (Communist) 7: Mengistu in Ethiopia (Mix of Communist and Nationalist) 8: Armenian Genocide by Turks (Nationalist) 9: Igbo genocide of Nigeria (Nationalist) http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html (Note: some of these numbers are sketchy, especially towards the bottom of the list. The list also missed the Congo (WTF!), which I added.)
- jon_dahl 18y ago
  Can I just say "Thanks" to the Hacker News crowd? comatose_kid asked a fair question about religion and atheism, and yummyfajitas gave a fair answer. No trolls, no painful Reddit-style debates on atheism vs. religion. Let's keep this up.
- 13th 18y ago
  And one more modern crime - Iraq War http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/international/europe/29casualties.html?_r=1&oref=slogin http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/international/europe/29cas... And do not forget about Hiroshima... p.s. world isn't black and white.
  - yummyfajitas 18y ago
    I only listed the top 10. Iraq and Hiroshima (FYI: Tokyo and Dresden are better examples) just don't compare in scale to the Congo, the Nazi's or even Rwanda. Also, the study your article describes (and it's followup) is seriously flawed.
- strlen 18y ago
  There's plausible elements of religion being an element in #8 The Soviet regime also did have a great amount of Nationalism built into it as well. The people who are also in the "religion kills" camp will also argue (and not without good arguments) that you could call communism a religion. And of course for every single one of these genocides religion, class warfare and nationalism played a role (targetting of ethnic minorities under Pol Pot, state Shinto in Japan, Socialist and volk-Religion elements in Nazism, "communism as religion" so on). (Overall I'll tend to fall within the "nationalism kills more" camp.)

BRadmin 18y ago

i don't take that quote as a condemnation of atheists. rather, i think he's saying that there will always be people who want to 'believe in' or 'belong to' something - and w/o religion, that hole would be filled with nationalism... which has problems in its own right.

serhei 18y ago
For many people, that hole is now filled by computers! (Read: forum zealots.) Thus, things like Digg will be a huge factor in the creation of world peace! Or something!

antiismist 18y ago

Why read that when you can read his books: The Black Swan or Fooled by Randomness. They are pretty amazing.

DTrejo 18y ago
I loved The Black Swan. I filled it with post its and have used it for multiple school projects. If I had to name one person who tossed me into the world of non-fiction intellectual books, it would be Taleb. As I learn more and read more I see more connections between him and others (eg he is a part of EDGE.org where I learned about Dawkins, Zimbardo. Through him I also know of Yossi Vardi and Benoit Mandelbrot. He probably also has connections with Douglas Hofstadter, another cool guy.) I like Taleb. For anyone who has read The Black Swan, you will see how this DARPA project may have to do with his Las Vegas casino visit. http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrusts/math/appliedcompmath/rum/index.htm http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrusts/math/appliedcompmath/rum/in...

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

yummyfajitas 18y ago

>Has nationalism really killed more people? It's certainly plausible. Top 10 genocides of the 20'th century: 1: Great Leap Forward (Communist) 2: Soviet Purges/Ukrainian Famine (Communist) 3: Nazis (Nationalist) 3 (Roughly Tied): Congo Wars (Nationalist) 4: Imperial Japanese (Nationalist) 5: Pol Pot (Communist) 6: Kim (Communist) 7: Mengistu in Ethiopia (Mix of Communist and Nationalist) 8: Armenian Genocide by Turks (Nationalist) 9: Igbo genocide of Nigeria (Nationalist) http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html (Note: some of these numbers are sketchy, especially towards the bottom of the list. The list also missed the Congo (WTF!), which I added.)

jon_dahl 18y ago
Can I just say "Thanks" to the Hacker News crowd? comatose_kid asked a fair question about religion and atheism, and yummyfajitas gave a fair answer. No trolls, no painful Reddit-style debates on atheism vs. religion. Let's keep this up.
13th 18y ago
And one more modern crime - Iraq War http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/international/europe/29casualties.html?_r=1&oref=slogin http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/international/europe/29cas... And do not forget about Hiroshima... p.s. world isn't black and white.
- yummyfajitas 18y ago
  I only listed the top 10. Iraq and Hiroshima (FYI: Tokyo and Dresden are better examples) just don't compare in scale to the Congo, the Nazi's or even Rwanda. Also, the study your article describes (and it's followup) is seriously flawed.
strlen 18y ago
There's plausible elements of religion being an element in #8 The Soviet regime also did have a great amount of Nationalism built into it as well. The people who are also in the "religion kills" camp will also argue (and not without good arguments) that you could call communism a religion. And of course for every single one of these genocides religion, class warfare and nationalism played a role (targetting of ethnic minorities under Pol Pot, state Shinto in Japan, Socialist and volk-Religion elements in Nazism, "communism as religion" so on). (Overall I'll tend to fall within the "nationalism kills more" camp.)