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The full data overview is pretty interesting: https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-evidence-on-violent-deaths https://ourworldindata.org/
by jvanderbot 3y ago
The full data overview is pretty interesting:
https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-evidence-on-violent-deaths https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-e...
Reexamining the chart, you're right, it is in fact the full data analyzed. It's fair to reconsider at this point, but I think my initial reservations about the selection of the data still apply - author did not choose the 25 most deadly tribes, but he did choose only data for which violence was the subject. Ostensibly, there must be some under-representation among peoples that didn't leave mass graves, burned villages, etc.
So we see a 100x increase over modern day USA murder rates among chiefdoms and anarchic tribes, which who knows how much of the population that represents. Again, I also take issue generalizing from that.
For example, here's the same author estimating state deaths. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-violent-deaths-state-societies https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-violent-deaths-s...
So, how many lived in states vs tribes over time? And where are all the other states and tribes? I'd expect a power-law relationship, with the worst atrocities being highly visible, and a long tail of less-awful areas to live. The problem is did lots or a little people live in those places
All I'm saying is "Was life basically nasty brutish and short for everyone?" I doubt it was all that bad, though I would never want to go back.