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It does include wars. Remarkably, even though WW2 was the most bloody conflict known to man when viewed from the perspective of the totality of deaths when view

It does include wars. Remarkably, even though WW2 was the most bloody conflict known to man when viewed from the perspective of the totality of deaths when viewed from the perspective of per capita deaths there have been far more bloody conflicts in history. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_... and sort by Percentage of the world population. Five conflicts: Mongol conquests, Late Yuan warfare and transition to Ming Dynasty, An Lushan Rebellion, Qing dynasty conquest of the Ming Dynasty, Conquests of Timur-e-Lang all were more bloody as far as we can tell (per capita) than WW2. It does not attempt to control for other variables. This is a deeply complex caveat. It is not like for like because societies move on in terms of, as you say, technology and so on. Our medicine is better now and our weapons are more lethal. Violence is taken to include person on person violence, state violence towards persons and state on state violence (wars). Read the book! Hope that helps :)

baddox 13y ago
It's true that wars have gotten less violent per capita over time, but all the earlier wars you listed were state endeavors as well. I was talking about comparing human violence before states to human violence after states.
- igravious 13y ago
  Yes, I addressed that didn't I? Before states there is tit-for-tat killing, blood feuds, taking justice into your own hands, raids on ones property ... after states, plus property rights plus trade there is a reduction. It seems that property rights plus trade would lead to a decrease in violence also but there would be a power vacuum and you would still need some entity to enforce the rules (consistently, fairly and not punitively) and it is difficult to imagine a non-state structure filling that role. A volunteer police force and judiciary? Free market militia? I mean, we all see what can happen when a police state goes bad so that prompts some to imagine a utopian world without the 'evil' cops but unfortunately we had that world in the past and it was, in fact, worse. This is not comparing like with like though. It would be difficult to definitively know without, I think, accurate computational modeling of societies and that's a toughie, I don't know if anyone has tried that. Stephen Pinker does provide data on societies that haven't integrated into the modern world (hint: more per capita violence than our own, including the US which is far more violent than any other developed country) and also there is archaeological and historical evidence from societies of the past (seems to indicate they were more violent as well: homicide, torture, theft, rape, ...)

baddox 13y ago

It's true that wars have gotten less violent per capita over time, but all the earlier wars you listed were state endeavors as well. I was talking about comparing human violence before states to human violence after states.

igravious 13y ago
Yes, I addressed that didn't I? Before states there is tit-for-tat killing, blood feuds, taking justice into your own hands, raids on ones property ... after states, plus property rights plus trade there is a reduction. It seems that property rights plus trade would lead to a decrease in violence also but there would be a power vacuum and you would still need some entity to enforce the rules (consistently, fairly and not punitively) and it is difficult to imagine a non-state structure filling that role. A volunteer police force and judiciary? Free market militia? I mean, we all see what can happen when a police state goes bad so that prompts some to imagine a utopian world without the 'evil' cops but unfortunately we had that world in the past and it was, in fact, worse. This is not comparing like with like though. It would be difficult to definitively know without, I think, accurate computational modeling of societies and that's a toughie, I don't know if anyone has tried that. Stephen Pinker does provide data on societies that haven't integrated into the modern world (hint: more per capita violence than our own, including the US which is far more violent than any other developed country) and also there is archaeological and historical evidence from societies of the past (seems to indicate they were more violent as well: homicide, torture, theft, rape, ...)