22 ms·

The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

205 points by crgt 12y ago

xahrepap 12y ago
I wish this kind of data was frequently mentioned throughout the year in mainstream media. Continue to show the news the way they are but keep this kind of data around to jeep people "calibrated" I think would help people's perspective on the world more positive.
- jotux 12y ago
  >I wish this kind of data was frequently mentioned throughout the year in mainstream media. Except bad news is what people want to see and it's what makes money. If you try to shift your news reporting away from crime and gore it kills viewer/readership. example: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-30318261 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-30318261
chasing 12y ago
"The World is Falling Apart!" gets way more clicks than "The World is Not Falling Apart," though.
- rimantas 12y ago
  Exactly. It is journalism what is falling apart, not the world.
patronagezero 12y ago
Yeah, your government isn't torturing innocent people, murdering others with drones and promoting riots and revolutions abroad as subversive acts of war. Your economy is doing great, and should inspire your confidence in purchasing. God Bless the US.
- deciplex 12y ago
  If you assume that most governments have been doing that to various degrees since forever, and the only thing that has changed is the degree to which the information can get out, and the ease of anonymous whistling-blowing (which still carries too much risk, however it's arguably better than it's ever been) - seen in that light, you might suppose that while things seem to be getting worse, in fact they are getting better precisely because we're more aware of these various atrocities than we ever have been. It's possible to be very optimistic for the future while also outraged at what these inhuman murdering savages are doing in our name. For example, I'm sure now that the CIA tortured countless Vietnamese during the Vietnam war, Iraqis during the first Gulf War, and you can apply this to the Korean war, WW2, basically as far back as you want to go. We just didn't know about it then, because it was easier to silence journalists and neutralize (murder) whistle-blowers or suspected whistle-blowers without the general public knowing about it. FWIW, I am in the pessimist camp as well, in spite of my reasoning here, but just barely. I think probably things are actually about the same as always, but perhaps with the broader awareness we're just starting to see, that is just beginning to change. It's comforting that at least I'll probably know one way or the other within my lifetime.
  - patronagezero 12y ago
    Throw yourself in the 'pessimist' camp if you like, I'm merely not an optimist to the point of ignoring reality. I love watching people gasping for optimistic news, it speaks to just how hard reality is going to slap those people in the face in the next few decades.
retrogradeorbit 12y ago
The world can "fall apart" without people dying. For example, the ongoing currency wars. You can also have violence without death. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are examples. Because these people are only tortured, and not murdered, is that considered "peaceful"? And it also would depend on how far back you draw the data from. Is the Stalin famine of the 30s modern, or ancient? If we cast the data back to the 1600s, it's new. If we cast the data back to the 1920s, its old. Some data sets in this article go back to the 60s, some go back to the 30s, some only back to the 90s. Maybe we need more data. Lets cast all the data sets back a few hundred years and look again. Consider me unconvinced.
- everyone 12y ago
  I think the global decline in viable arable land and fresh water are the most likely factors to cause the world to 'fall apart', which I take to mean; the collapse of many industrialised societies and countries, and the collapse of much of international trade.
- tatterdemalion 12y ago
  Indeed. Death by war has been on the decline since after World War II - the most violent war in our history? That's not exactly exciting news. The first half of the twentieth century revealed the contradiction of modernity: the terrible brutality of the industrial processes (including mechanized war) which underlay a system that on the surface had brought forth so much prosperity. The period since has been an attempt to resolve this contradiction through new tactics (specifically information and communication technologies) which allow the 'necessary' application of power's blunt end to be as precise as possible. "Wars were never as bloody as they have been since the nineteenth century, and all things being equal, never before did regimes visit such holocausts on their own populations. But this formidable power of death – and this is perhaps what accounts for part of its force and the cynicism with which it has so greatly expanded its limits – now presents itself as the counterpart of a power that exerts a positive influence on life, that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations. Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone; entire populations are mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity: massacres have become vital." - Michel Foucault
hentrep 12y ago
This point of an increasingly peaceful world has come up repeatedly over the years, but I think there is an inherent problem in the way it is viewed. The rise of the internet and social media has facilitated glimpses into the terrible acts which humans are capable of perpetrating against one another. That combined with a biased media who thrives on shock and outrage, it's no wonder we find this data difficult to digest. Most of the modern world influenced by this biased media reside in very sterile, largely safe environments. In effect, we've become ultra-sensitized to gore and violence, and as a result our impression and response to any sort of mayhem is skewed accordingly.
- StefanKarpinski 12y ago
  Perhaps this combination is positive. Horrible things have always happened. While they are happening less today, we have much greater visibility of the horrors that do happen. And they still horrify us – as they should. This gives us motivation to strive harder to eliminate them altogether. The jarring thing about looking at those charts is the labels on the y axis – murder, war, genocide, rape, child abuse. It's certainly good that they are trending down, but how much genocide is ok? How much rape is acceptable? Perhaps our natural fixation with the dark side of life is a good thing. True, there is much cause for optimism, but should we really be complacent when these numbers aren't zero?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- bane 12y ago
  I think it's interesting in how people are readjusting their views to stop thinking of violence and misery as "normal". This makes cases where it happens more notable. You'll notice in countries with extraordinarily low crime rates (South Korea, Japan, etc.) that the locals don't perceive their relative safety and point to various happenings in the news as evidence. Yet while I'm here in America, supposedly surrounded by gun violence, mass murders and other crazy nonsense. I feel no issues at all with walking by myself to the local store at night. I've even seen opinions here on HN by non-Americans who talk in frightened tones about the violence levels in the U.S., but may come from countries that we Americans are educated to perceive as scary places.
diafygi 12y ago
Great! We're better overall than we were! No reason to rest on our laurels, though. How can we be better than we are now? Here's some areas that aren't doing too well: 1. Climate Change - We're in store for a lot of trouble over the next few decades[1]. How will we manage? 2. Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening[2]. How do we reverse the trend? 3. Gerrymandering/voter suppression - The ones in power are the ones who draw the district boundaries[3]. How do we stop the feedback loop? [1]: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/ http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/ [2]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealt... [3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/the-pernicious-effects-of-gerrymandering/383418/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/the-pern...
- ef4 12y ago
  > Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening In the US, yes. Globally, no. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/upshot/income-inequality-is-not-rising-globally-its-falling-.html?abt=0002&abg=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/upshot/income-inequality-i...
  - bluthru 12y ago
    That just makes us even more embarrassing.
    - saryant 12y ago
      "Globally" includes the billion or so people lifted out of poverty in the last twenty years.
    - SamReidHughes 12y ago
      If globalization is what's driving down wages for lower-wage Americans that's not embarrassing, that's just math.
    - MarkPNeyer 12y ago
      the us had a higher standard of living than the rest of the world for years. now the rest of the world is catching up to us; that means things will seem to suck for us by comparison for a while.
seivan 12y ago
Tell that to the 7000 Yezidian women in ISIS captivity marked with a price tag, paraded through Raqqa then gang-raped, tortured and starved. Forced to strangle themselves to death using scarves to get out. Or the Female PKK/YPG soldiers defending their families being captured alive by Swedish Arabs and Somalians islamic rapists. For them the world is falling apart. I guess since we can't blame Israel for this it's not front-page news. But lets worry about about the lack of feminine characters in a Donald Duck video from the 70s or the apparent sexism in games.
- marknutter 12y ago
  talk about missing the point. You can acknowledge that violence is on the decline while also wanting it to continue to decline. The danger in ignoring the decline is that resources will be disproportionately redirected to solving problems that aren't of any real concern (terrorism, war on drugs, etc) instead of the problems that are actually in need of solving.
  - seivan 12y ago
    I never acknowledged anything you mentioned, so I am not sure what you've been reading or smoking. Please, tell me what resources have we spent on saving these 7000 women (probably more) used as sex-slaves by these islamists? I guess they are not a real concern because they're not as bad as "sexism" in video games or the "racism" in using native American outfits for Halloween.
    - ps4fanboy 12y ago
      Short of supporting a full scale invasion and colonization of the countries in question how do you propose to change the situations that allowed this to happen?
esaym 12y ago
I've always heard that more people died in the 20th century than any other... Not sure if that is true or not. Never did the research.
- sanxiyn 12y ago
  More people were born in the 20th century than any other. Comparing the absolute number instead of ratio is misleading.
aryehof 12y ago
> England, Canada, and most other industrialized countries... England isn't a country. Constantly referring to it as one, was a distraction from the contents for me.
- rroblak 12y ago
  Actually, it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England
- 0x5f3759df-i 12y ago
  Wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_United_Kingdo...
  - tempodox 12y ago
    “Wrong” is wrong. The linked article cites England as a country in the UK.
- tome 12y ago
  Not sure why you were downvoted. England certainly isn't a country in the sense that's important in the article, i.e. a self-governing entity with control over its own economic system.
  - rorygreig 12y ago
    Why is the fact that it's not self-governing relevant to the article? If the violence statistics cited apply to the (country/nation/administrative region/chunk of land) that is England, then surely that's all that matters.
- ctdonath 12y ago
  "America" isn't, strictly speaking, "The United States of America" - but when people use the term, we all know of which is spoken. Likewise "England". Can't resist... Guildenstern: I don't believe in it anyway. Rosencrantz: What? Guildenstern: England. Rosencrantz: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?
desireco42 12y ago
This is a proof that there are lies, damn lies and statistics :). World is in terrible shape, from climate, to new conflicts emerging, richest people detachment from reality are some that come to mind.
- girvo 12y ago
  Solid evidence you've given there. I'm even sympathetic to being convinced that things aren't as good as the datasets I've looked at personally seem to show, but I've not had much that shows me otherwise. Instant world-wide wide-band communication and mass media's adoption of it has had an interesting effect on society's perception of how "terrible" the shape the world is.
Animats 12y ago
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey informed the Senate Armed Service Committee (in 2013), "I will personally attest to the fact that [the world is] more dangerous than it has ever been." Now that's surprising from the head of the JCS, and from a former commander of an armored division in combat. He's a trade-school guy (West Point), so he knows his military history. Things have been much, much worse for the US. Early in WWII, it didn't look good. When the USSR got ICBMs and H-bombs, it really didn't look good. Worldwide, nobody is having a really big war right now. The USSR lost 20 million people in WWII. Nothing that bad has happened since. There are some big worries ahead, mainly regarding proliferation of nuclear weapons and troubles involving existing nuclear powers - Russia, China, Pakistan, and North Korea. Those are the things that can kill us. Domestically, the biggest threat is the Mississippi River, with major floods both at New Orleans and further upstream.
- learc83 12y ago
  >Now that's surprising from the head of the JCS, and from a former commander of an armored division in combat. He's a trade-school guy (West Point), so he knows his military history. Of course he says that, the budget for the department of defense is in part dictated by how dangerous the public and congress perceive the world to be. Military leaders have been saying this exact same thing for centuries.
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    Of course he says that, the budget for the department of defense... Yet who does Congress consult when they're considering how much to spend? It's almost as if they want to spend more money on the military...
kristiandupont 12y ago
I am increasingly worried about the state of the world each year. However, I was discussing this with a friend recently and we were talking about how much of it was simple the result of more reports about the trouble in the world. I realized something: if there was, say, ten reports of really bad, violent crime in Denmark (where I am from -- population: 5 million people) per year, that would be very little. But even so, if I heard about each of them, it would be practically something really bad happening every month which would lead me to feel that things were going down the drain. In other words, an unchanging constant violence rate would seem like a deterioration. And furthermore, if the type of violence was different every time, I would start to feel that all the different types of violence were on the rise. So maybe my fear is not completely justified. But I still don't feel completely convinced.
- tim333 12y ago
  It's easy to get the impression that things are going to hell from the news because that's what gets viewers. If you want evidence for the opposite I recommend Pinker's very good book: http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence-ebook/dp/B0052REUW0 http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence-eboo... Or to save the cost and hassle of getting his book, watch Pinker talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5X2-i_poNU&feature=youtu.be&t=3m40s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5X2-i_poNU&feature=youtu.be...
RodericDay 12y ago
Steven Pinker has built a writing career out of telling people who are doing really well that everything is fine and that they should keep on enjoying.
- gjm11 12y ago
  He has built a writing career out of writing books about cognitive science and language, and then more recently diversified into history and writing style. Exactly one of his books, so far as I can tell, has anything to do with telling anyone "that everything is fine". But it doesn't claim that everything is fine (only that violence is on a long downward trajectory). I'm guessing that your real objection is to The Blank Slate, which you see as justifying entrenched discrimination. I'm not at all convinced that it does any such thing, but in any case it's a long way from "Pinker wrote one book that some wealthy right-wingers might find comforting" to "Pinker's writing career is built on comforting wealthy right-wingers".
UVB-76 12y ago
I think a lot of this has to do with perception. The violence and suffering in the world, particularly overseas, feels more inescapable in the digital, high definition, always connected age. This age has gifted us perception, but not perspective.
- kpennell 12y ago
  Saved that last line in Evernote to ponder later.
guard-of-terra 12y ago
By the way, homicide rates chart should account for age distribution. As population ages, the 18-40 age group dwindles. And, statistically, that is who dominates homicide deaths. If you account for that, your chart may switch polarity. Same for rapes. As for "Democracy and Autocracy" - this chart comes from people who still call Uzbekistan a "young democracy". Actually, many supposedly democratic countries actually aren't.
stealthfound3r 12y ago
It`s the end of the world as we know it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzqiPvGrkTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzqiPvGrkTo
tim333 12y ago
The world is not falling apart. Personally though things are wearing out. They should fix that!
agentultra 12y ago
This article is pure link bait. Both ends of the extreme are far removed from the truth. There is hardly anything in this article that isn't sensationalist fluff.
Zigurd 12y ago
A better title would have been "Progress isn't uniform, and measuring it is hard." Each war brings progress in trauma medicine, which contributes to making war (and driving) less deadly. That's good, right? Right? Higher education requirements and increasing relative status as policing becomes a relatively more desirable job for people with lower (and capped) aptitude means policing gets better by many metrics. Nonetheless, militarization is a bad thing, solution rates are shockingly low, the Drug War is a distraction, and cop culture is rotten: http://www.salon.com/2014/12/23/deader_than_a_roadkill_dog_disgusting_racist_song_about_michael_brown_performed_at_lapd_officers_charity_event/ http://www.salon.com/2014/12/23/deader_than_a_roadkill_dog_d... Some things are clear, however: Terrorism is a negligible threat. Nuclear weapons are still the #1 threat to civilization. But there is a lack of intentionality in both these areas.
YesThatTom2 12y ago
THIS IS TERRIBLE. How can news agencies make any money if they can't scare people into hysterics that keep them glued to the TV screen? How can gun companies and home security firms sell product if people aren't afraid of everything around them? THIS KIND OF RESEARCH HARMS THE ECONOMY AND MUST BE STOPPED. Sincerely, Tom being cynical
RoboTamer 12y ago
It's simple, yes we might have less violence and your stats seem to make sense. However, the reason you are right is because we are being more controlled by, I don't know world bank, countries, laws. Today in Turkey they want to give the president the power to turn off the internet at will for 24 hours. There is news like this every day, ways to get more control and power over people. There are 1 million camels in Australia, the government thinks that that is to much and they pay people to shoot them. So, one milion camels is too much for a whole continent but there is nothing wrong with having 8 billion people on earth, destroying just about everything, that is ok? We have no choice in what is happening around us, most people I know would want their country to stop importing oil and find a greener alternative. This day an age that wouldn't be too hard. So why aren't we? That is not in your equation! We are destroying our oceans, atmosphere, finally the republicans are willing to talk about climate change, but all is still weight around money and cost. The monetary system is broken and it is global. One little change effects one way or the other the entire globe. If you ask me it all is hanging in a balance that is controlled by a few wealthy. And it is hanging on very thin strings these days.

205 points by crgt 12y ago

I wish this kind of data was frequently mentioned throughout the year in mainstream media. Continue to show the news the way they are but keep this kind of data around to jeep people "calibrated" I think would help people's perspective on the world more positive.

jotux 12y ago
>I wish this kind of data was frequently mentioned throughout the year in mainstream media. Except bad news is what people want to see and it's what makes money. If you try to shift your news reporting away from crime and gore it kills viewer/readership. example: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-30318261 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-30318261

chasing 12y ago

"The World is Falling Apart!" gets way more clicks than "The World is Not Falling Apart," though.

rimantas 12y ago
Exactly. It is journalism what is falling apart, not the world.

patronagezero 12y ago

Yeah, your government isn't torturing innocent people, murdering others with drones and promoting riots and revolutions abroad as subversive acts of war. Your economy is doing great, and should inspire your confidence in purchasing. God Bless the US.

deciplex 12y ago
If you assume that most governments have been doing that to various degrees since forever, and the only thing that has changed is the degree to which the information can get out, and the ease of anonymous whistling-blowing (which still carries too much risk, however it's arguably better than it's ever been) - seen in that light, you might suppose that while things seem to be getting worse, in fact they are getting better precisely because we're more aware of these various atrocities than we ever have been. It's possible to be very optimistic for the future while also outraged at what these inhuman murdering savages are doing in our name. For example, I'm sure now that the CIA tortured countless Vietnamese during the Vietnam war, Iraqis during the first Gulf War, and you can apply this to the Korean war, WW2, basically as far back as you want to go. We just didn't know about it then, because it was easier to silence journalists and neutralize (murder) whistle-blowers or suspected whistle-blowers without the general public knowing about it. FWIW, I am in the pessimist camp as well, in spite of my reasoning here, but just barely. I think probably things are actually about the same as always, but perhaps with the broader awareness we're just starting to see, that is just beginning to change. It's comforting that at least I'll probably know one way or the other within my lifetime.
- patronagezero 12y ago
  Throw yourself in the 'pessimist' camp if you like, I'm merely not an optimist to the point of ignoring reality. I love watching people gasping for optimistic news, it speaks to just how hard reality is going to slap those people in the face in the next few decades.

retrogradeorbit 12y ago

The world can "fall apart" without people dying. For example, the ongoing currency wars. You can also have violence without death. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are examples. Because these people are only tortured, and not murdered, is that considered "peaceful"? And it also would depend on how far back you draw the data from. Is the Stalin famine of the 30s modern, or ancient? If we cast the data back to the 1600s, it's new. If we cast the data back to the 1920s, its old. Some data sets in this article go back to the 60s, some go back to the 30s, some only back to the 90s. Maybe we need more data. Lets cast all the data sets back a few hundred years and look again. Consider me unconvinced.

everyone 12y ago
I think the global decline in viable arable land and fresh water are the most likely factors to cause the world to 'fall apart', which I take to mean; the collapse of many industrialised societies and countries, and the collapse of much of international trade.
tatterdemalion 12y ago
Indeed. Death by war has been on the decline since after World War II - the most violent war in our history? That's not exactly exciting news. The first half of the twentieth century revealed the contradiction of modernity: the terrible brutality of the industrial processes (including mechanized war) which underlay a system that on the surface had brought forth so much prosperity. The period since has been an attempt to resolve this contradiction through new tactics (specifically information and communication technologies) which allow the 'necessary' application of power's blunt end to be as precise as possible. "Wars were never as bloody as they have been since the nineteenth century, and all things being equal, never before did regimes visit such holocausts on their own populations. But this formidable power of death – and this is perhaps what accounts for part of its force and the cynicism with which it has so greatly expanded its limits – now presents itself as the counterpart of a power that exerts a positive influence on life, that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations. Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone; entire populations are mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity: massacres have become vital." - Michel Foucault

hentrep 12y ago

This point of an increasingly peaceful world has come up repeatedly over the years, but I think there is an inherent problem in the way it is viewed. The rise of the internet and social media has facilitated glimpses into the terrible acts which humans are capable of perpetrating against one another. That combined with a biased media who thrives on shock and outrage, it's no wonder we find this data difficult to digest. Most of the modern world influenced by this biased media reside in very sterile, largely safe environments. In effect, we've become ultra-sensitized to gore and violence, and as a result our impression and response to any sort of mayhem is skewed accordingly.

StefanKarpinski 12y ago
Perhaps this combination is positive. Horrible things have always happened. While they are happening less today, we have much greater visibility of the horrors that do happen. And they still horrify us – as they should. This gives us motivation to strive harder to eliminate them altogether. The jarring thing about looking at those charts is the labels on the y axis – murder, war, genocide, rape, child abuse. It's certainly good that they are trending down, but how much genocide is ok? How much rape is acceptable? Perhaps our natural fixation with the dark side of life is a good thing. True, there is much cause for optimism, but should we really be complacent when these numbers aren't zero?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bane 12y ago
I think it's interesting in how people are readjusting their views to stop thinking of violence and misery as "normal". This makes cases where it happens more notable. You'll notice in countries with extraordinarily low crime rates (South Korea, Japan, etc.) that the locals don't perceive their relative safety and point to various happenings in the news as evidence. Yet while I'm here in America, supposedly surrounded by gun violence, mass murders and other crazy nonsense. I feel no issues at all with walking by myself to the local store at night. I've even seen opinions here on HN by non-Americans who talk in frightened tones about the violence levels in the U.S., but may come from countries that we Americans are educated to perceive as scary places.

diafygi 12y ago

Great! We're better overall than we were! No reason to rest on our laurels, though. How can we be better than we are now? Here's some areas that aren't doing too well: 1. Climate Change - We're in store for a lot of trouble over the next few decades[1]. How will we manage? 2. Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening[2]. How do we reverse the trend? 3. Gerrymandering/voter suppression - The ones in power are the ones who draw the district boundaries[3]. How do we stop the feedback loop? [1]: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/ http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/ [2]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealt... [3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/the-pernicious-effects-of-gerrymandering/383418/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/the-pern...

ef4 12y ago
> Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening In the US, yes. Globally, no. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/upshot/income-inequality-is-not-rising-globally-its-falling-.html?abt=0002&abg=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/upshot/income-inequality-i...
- bluthru 12y ago
  That just makes us even more embarrassing.
  - saryant 12y ago
    "Globally" includes the billion or so people lifted out of poverty in the last twenty years.
  - SamReidHughes 12y ago
    If globalization is what's driving down wages for lower-wage Americans that's not embarrassing, that's just math.
  - MarkPNeyer 12y ago
    the us had a higher standard of living than the rest of the world for years. now the rest of the world is catching up to us; that means things will seem to suck for us by comparison for a while.

seivan 12y ago

Tell that to the 7000 Yezidian women in ISIS captivity marked with a price tag, paraded through Raqqa then gang-raped, tortured and starved. Forced to strangle themselves to death using scarves to get out. Or the Female PKK/YPG soldiers defending their families being captured alive by Swedish Arabs and Somalians islamic rapists. For them the world is falling apart. I guess since we can't blame Israel for this it's not front-page news. But lets worry about about the lack of feminine characters in a Donald Duck video from the 70s or the apparent sexism in games.

marknutter 12y ago
talk about missing the point. You can acknowledge that violence is on the decline while also wanting it to continue to decline. The danger in ignoring the decline is that resources will be disproportionately redirected to solving problems that aren't of any real concern (terrorism, war on drugs, etc) instead of the problems that are actually in need of solving.
- seivan 12y ago
  I never acknowledged anything you mentioned, so I am not sure what you've been reading or smoking. Please, tell me what resources have we spent on saving these 7000 women (probably more) used as sex-slaves by these islamists? I guess they are not a real concern because they're not as bad as "sexism" in video games or the "racism" in using native American outfits for Halloween.
  - ps4fanboy 12y ago
    Short of supporting a full scale invasion and colonization of the countries in question how do you propose to change the situations that allowed this to happen?

esaym 12y ago

I've always heard that more people died in the 20th century than any other... Not sure if that is true or not. Never did the research.

sanxiyn 12y ago
More people were born in the 20th century than any other. Comparing the absolute number instead of ratio is misleading.

aryehof 12y ago

> England, Canada, and most other industrialized countries... England isn't a country. Constantly referring to it as one, was a distraction from the contents for me.

rroblak 12y ago
Actually, it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England
0x5f3759df-i 12y ago
Wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_United_Kingdo...
- tempodox 12y ago
  “Wrong” is wrong. The linked article cites England as a country in the UK.
tome 12y ago
Not sure why you were downvoted. England certainly isn't a country in the sense that's important in the article, i.e. a self-governing entity with control over its own economic system.
- rorygreig 12y ago
  Why is the fact that it's not self-governing relevant to the article? If the violence statistics cited apply to the (country/nation/administrative region/chunk of land) that is England, then surely that's all that matters.
ctdonath 12y ago
"America" isn't, strictly speaking, "The United States of America" - but when people use the term, we all know of which is spoken. Likewise "England". Can't resist... Guildenstern: I don't believe in it anyway. Rosencrantz: What? Guildenstern: England. Rosencrantz: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?

desireco42 12y ago

This is a proof that there are lies, damn lies and statistics :). World is in terrible shape, from climate, to new conflicts emerging, richest people detachment from reality are some that come to mind.

girvo 12y ago
Solid evidence you've given there. I'm even sympathetic to being convinced that things aren't as good as the datasets I've looked at personally seem to show, but I've not had much that shows me otherwise. Instant world-wide wide-band communication and mass media's adoption of it has had an interesting effect on society's perception of how "terrible" the shape the world is.

Animats 12y ago

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey informed the Senate Armed Service Committee (in 2013), "I will personally attest to the fact that [the world is] more dangerous than it has ever been." Now that's surprising from the head of the JCS, and from a former commander of an armored division in combat. He's a trade-school guy (West Point), so he knows his military history. Things have been much, much worse for the US. Early in WWII, it didn't look good. When the USSR got ICBMs and H-bombs, it really didn't look good. Worldwide, nobody is having a really big war right now. The USSR lost 20 million people in WWII. Nothing that bad has happened since. There are some big worries ahead, mainly regarding proliferation of nuclear weapons and troubles involving existing nuclear powers - Russia, China, Pakistan, and North Korea. Those are the things that can kill us. Domestically, the biggest threat is the Mississippi River, with major floods both at New Orleans and further upstream.

learc83 12y ago
>Now that's surprising from the head of the JCS, and from a former commander of an armored division in combat. He's a trade-school guy (West Point), so he knows his military history. Of course he says that, the budget for the department of defense is in part dictated by how dangerous the public and congress perceive the world to be. Military leaders have been saying this exact same thing for centuries.
- jessaustin 12y ago
  Of course he says that, the budget for the department of defense... Yet who does Congress consult when they're considering how much to spend? It's almost as if they want to spend more money on the military...

kristiandupont 12y ago

I am increasingly worried about the state of the world each year. However, I was discussing this with a friend recently and we were talking about how much of it was simple the result of more reports about the trouble in the world. I realized something: if there was, say, ten reports of really bad, violent crime in Denmark (where I am from -- population: 5 million people) per year, that would be very little. But even so, if I heard about each of them, it would be practically something really bad happening every month which would lead me to feel that things were going down the drain. In other words, an unchanging constant violence rate would seem like a deterioration. And furthermore, if the type of violence was different every time, I would start to feel that all the different types of violence were on the rise. So maybe my fear is not completely justified. But I still don't feel completely convinced.

tim333 12y ago
It's easy to get the impression that things are going to hell from the news because that's what gets viewers. If you want evidence for the opposite I recommend Pinker's very good book: http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence-ebook/dp/B0052REUW0 http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence-eboo... Or to save the cost and hassle of getting his book, watch Pinker talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5X2-i_poNU&feature=youtu.be&t=3m40s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5X2-i_poNU&feature=youtu.be...

RodericDay 12y ago

Steven Pinker has built a writing career out of telling people who are doing really well that everything is fine and that they should keep on enjoying.

gjm11 12y ago
He has built a writing career out of writing books about cognitive science and language, and then more recently diversified into history and writing style. Exactly one of his books, so far as I can tell, has anything to do with telling anyone "that everything is fine". But it doesn't claim that everything is fine (only that violence is on a long downward trajectory). I'm guessing that your real objection is to The Blank Slate, which you see as justifying entrenched discrimination. I'm not at all convinced that it does any such thing, but in any case it's a long way from "Pinker wrote one book that some wealthy right-wingers might find comforting" to "Pinker's writing career is built on comforting wealthy right-wingers".

UVB-76 12y ago

I think a lot of this has to do with perception. The violence and suffering in the world, particularly overseas, feels more inescapable in the digital, high definition, always connected age. This age has gifted us perception, but not perspective.

kpennell 12y ago
Saved that last line in Evernote to ponder later.

guard-of-terra 12y ago

By the way, homicide rates chart should account for age distribution. As population ages, the 18-40 age group dwindles. And, statistically, that is who dominates homicide deaths. If you account for that, your chart may switch polarity. Same for rapes. As for "Democracy and Autocracy" - this chart comes from people who still call Uzbekistan a "young democracy". Actually, many supposedly democratic countries actually aren't.

stealthfound3r 12y ago

It`s the end of the world as we know it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzqiPvGrkTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzqiPvGrkTo

tim333 12y ago

The world is not falling apart. Personally though things are wearing out. They should fix that!

agentultra 12y ago

This article is pure link bait. Both ends of the extreme are far removed from the truth. There is hardly anything in this article that isn't sensationalist fluff.

Zigurd 12y ago

A better title would have been "Progress isn't uniform, and measuring it is hard." Each war brings progress in trauma medicine, which contributes to making war (and driving) less deadly. That's good, right? Right? Higher education requirements and increasing relative status as policing becomes a relatively more desirable job for people with lower (and capped) aptitude means policing gets better by many metrics. Nonetheless, militarization is a bad thing, solution rates are shockingly low, the Drug War is a distraction, and cop culture is rotten: http://www.salon.com/2014/12/23/deader_than_a_roadkill_dog_disgusting_racist_song_about_michael_brown_performed_at_lapd_officers_charity_event/ http://www.salon.com/2014/12/23/deader_than_a_roadkill_dog_d... Some things are clear, however: Terrorism is a negligible threat. Nuclear weapons are still the #1 threat to civilization. But there is a lack of intentionality in both these areas.

YesThatTom2 12y ago

THIS IS TERRIBLE. How can news agencies make any money if they can't scare people into hysterics that keep them glued to the TV screen? How can gun companies and home security firms sell product if people aren't afraid of everything around them? THIS KIND OF RESEARCH HARMS THE ECONOMY AND MUST BE STOPPED. Sincerely, Tom being cynical

RoboTamer 12y ago

It's simple, yes we might have less violence and your stats seem to make sense. However, the reason you are right is because we are being more controlled by, I don't know world bank, countries, laws. Today in Turkey they want to give the president the power to turn off the internet at will for 24 hours. There is news like this every day, ways to get more control and power over people. There are 1 million camels in Australia, the government thinks that that is to much and they pay people to shoot them. So, one milion camels is too much for a whole continent but there is nothing wrong with having 8 billion people on earth, destroying just about everything, that is ok? We have no choice in what is happening around us, most people I know would want their country to stop importing oil and find a greener alternative. This day an age that wouldn't be too hard. So why aren't we? That is not in your equation! We are destroying our oceans, atmosphere, finally the republicans are willing to talk about climate change, but all is still weight around money and cost. The monetary system is broken and it is global. One little change effects one way or the other the entire globe. If you ask me it all is hanging in a balance that is controlled by a few wealthy. And it is hanging on very thin strings these days.