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The clear trend from hunter gatherer to modern society is a dramatically declining murder rate. The murder rate has declined by about 50x thanks to modern soci

The clear trend from hunter gatherer to modern society is a dramatically declining murder rate. The murder rate has declined by about 50x thanks to modern society. This is what I mean when I say that these actions are human nature. Only because of the state Leviathan and modern cultural zeitgeist have we been able to change this behavior from very common (in some cases more likely than not) to rare. What's the murder rate of the Moriori? Is it less than 5 per 100k per year? If modern society were to disintegrate, the murder rate should increase by 50x roughly as we trend back to our raw nature without these artificial attenuating forces.

viraptor 6y ago
> The murder rate has declined by about 50x thanks to modern society. > This is what I mean when I say that these actions are human nature. That carries an assumption that modern society restricted that side of human nature. An alternative: modern society enables us to act according to human nature and not resort to actions necessary for survival in previous societies. If modern society disintegrated, there wouldn't be a lack of society influence. It would be a different society. That's why we have the whole nature-vs-nurture debate which is not trivial. That's why I objected to the original claim. (Although as Doreen mentions, some behaviours are much more common than others)
- hntrader 6y ago
  I get where you're coming from, but modern society is clearly pushing us away from our own nature in this instance, not towards it. To establish this, we just need to ask the question of what would happen if the explicit state punishments for murder, rape, etc were removed. The rates would increase significantly, implying that the existence of these measures is attenuating behaviour that's otherwise rather natural. If chimps received an electric shock each time they tried to murder another chimp, would they murder less often? Yes, because that shock is attenuating their true nature. Admittedly, "human nature" is a rather fuzzy concept and isn't a scientifically precise term.
- sjg007 6y ago
  Historians and scientists have studied this and basically the rise of government has reduced the murder rate. There's a great PBS episode on it.
kiliantics 6y ago
Again, why are you basing your understanding of the world on the ideas of enlightenment hacks like Pinker, who can't get past 18th century understanding? It must be truly sad to only be able to see the world in such a grim and pessimistic way. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-steven-pinker-wrong-violence-war-declining https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-stev...
- hntrader 6y ago
  Whenever I read Pinker critiques (and I've read a few) they're always dripping with dishonest reasoning that leaves me even more confident in his position. Take Jason Hickel's critique, where he lies about the poverty rate increasing (when in fact it's decreasing according to his own data) and then hand waves away all the other metrics that Pinker discusses in a single paragraph. Take Nassim Taleb's (who I usually respect) critique, where he comes off as a raving lunatic, accusing Pinker of inadequately addressing tail risks when the objective of his work is mostly descriptive and not pertaining to possible existential risks. I recommend you read Pinker's hilarious dismantling of that rambling nonsense. Or the debate between Pinker and Gladwell where Gladwell totally ignores all the actual metrics that Pinker discusses and instead waxes poetic in narrative form, discussing single anecdotes. Now I'm half way through this Guardian piece and I already had to stop. Just because some Enlightenment thinkers had truly backwards ideas - and I'm sure that Pinker would agree that they're extremely backwards - says zero about Pinker's thesis. It's a borderline straw man to think that that's relevant to his thesis. If the latter part of the article has a better argument, let me know.

viraptor 6y ago

> The murder rate has declined by about 50x thanks to modern society. > This is what I mean when I say that these actions are human nature. That carries an assumption that modern society restricted that side of human nature. An alternative: modern society enables us to act according to human nature and not resort to actions necessary for survival in previous societies. If modern society disintegrated, there wouldn't be a lack of society influence. It would be a different society. That's why we have the whole nature-vs-nurture debate which is not trivial. That's why I objected to the original claim. (Although as Doreen mentions, some behaviours are much more common than others)

hntrader 6y ago
I get where you're coming from, but modern society is clearly pushing us away from our own nature in this instance, not towards it. To establish this, we just need to ask the question of what would happen if the explicit state punishments for murder, rape, etc were removed. The rates would increase significantly, implying that the existence of these measures is attenuating behaviour that's otherwise rather natural. If chimps received an electric shock each time they tried to murder another chimp, would they murder less often? Yes, because that shock is attenuating their true nature. Admittedly, "human nature" is a rather fuzzy concept and isn't a scientifically precise term.
sjg007 6y ago
Historians and scientists have studied this and basically the rise of government has reduced the murder rate. There's a great PBS episode on it.

kiliantics 6y ago

Again, why are you basing your understanding of the world on the ideas of enlightenment hacks like Pinker, who can't get past 18th century understanding? It must be truly sad to only be able to see the world in such a grim and pessimistic way. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-steven-pinker-wrong-violence-war-declining https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-stev...

hntrader 6y ago
Whenever I read Pinker critiques (and I've read a few) they're always dripping with dishonest reasoning that leaves me even more confident in his position. Take Jason Hickel's critique, where he lies about the poverty rate increasing (when in fact it's decreasing according to his own data) and then hand waves away all the other metrics that Pinker discusses in a single paragraph. Take Nassim Taleb's (who I usually respect) critique, where he comes off as a raving lunatic, accusing Pinker of inadequately addressing tail risks when the objective of his work is mostly descriptive and not pertaining to possible existential risks. I recommend you read Pinker's hilarious dismantling of that rambling nonsense. Or the debate between Pinker and Gladwell where Gladwell totally ignores all the actual metrics that Pinker discusses and instead waxes poetic in narrative form, discussing single anecdotes. Now I'm half way through this Guardian piece and I already had to stop. Just because some Enlightenment thinkers had truly backwards ideas - and I'm sure that Pinker would agree that they're extremely backwards - says zero about Pinker's thesis. It's a borderline straw man to think that that's relevant to his thesis. If the latter part of the article has a better argument, let me know.