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> People hope for that every century And statistically speaking, we may have achieved it. At least since 1950, possibly since the Industrial Revolution, specul
by JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
> People hope for that every century
And statistically speaking, we may have achieved it. At least since 1950, possibly since the Industrial Revolution, speculatively for millenia, war has become less lethal [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur...
- graemep 8mo agoIt is an interesting point, but I am not entirely convinced. In absolute numbers the last 100 years have been peak genocide. Of course given the much bigger global population it might well be better per capita. Even if you exclude the contested ones in this list its still a lot: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=47580348&goto=threads%3Fid%3Dgraemep%2347580348 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=47580348&goto=threads%... It also illustrates the capacity we have for mass murder. The long peace/new peace looks like a bit of historical luck, and increasingly so. The new peace came at time when, post cold war, the world was relatively stable under western dominance, and the west was less inclined to violence as a result of prosperity, the the lessons of the holocaust and WW2, etc. The rise of China (and other Asian powers over time) will make the world look very different. There were plenty smaller wars even during the "peace" period.