mkay.
A.S: My comments now are largely unsorted as the film goes twenty minutes which is quite a homework you expect me to look through. Deal with that. I will probably post later in the evening about your earlier post in a more clean manner.
about the video: the speaker does mostly speak out self evident facts, and sometimes he confuses things or is plain ignorant.
A paleo or tribal society wasn’t more peaceful, or in tune with themselves and nature. Thank you Mr Speaker, but we knew that already. An unrealistic hippie dream, savage societies have little sense for nature and little remorse for gutting their neighbour and robbing his wenches. OK, I agree.
Well, obviously violence is in decline. Can’t disagree with facts.
his points:
Medieval societies weren’t crueler because they tortured. The guy swallows all those movie cliches.
What should the people have done? Lock someone up and feed them like we do? No way, life was a constant struggle and the idea of idle prisoners hanging around and staring at the ceiling for ten years+ would have been absurd. Enslave them? Well, they already were. So getting over it and taking “just” an ear or a hand was a sensible choice as it also discouraged others.
Homicide rate rising in the sixties. Having no explanation for this, he simply jokes around. Great.
Decline in wars, genocides etc since the sixties: well, since modern wars bind a lot more money, people and effort this is hard to compare. Vietnam , for example was a war which involved many major players (US, Russia, China) and had a lot of influence over neighbouring states. To simply say this is just one conflict versus many more in the same decade hundred years ago is just as sensible as comparing the overall amount of combustible material deployed and coming to the opposite conclusion: as we get better at shelling our enemy with bombs and grenades (WW2> Vietnam >Iraq) wars actually get crueler.
And don’t forget, small conflicts are steadily on the rise. I don’t know what material he’s been referring to, but I’ve read dozens of times that since the fifties, local uprisings and conflicts have nearly doubled per year.
His theory explained (e.g. borrowed ideas from other sources mixed together, at least he admits):
Some remarks are then just plain stupid- like his guilt theory or the idea that a change of standards outpaced behaviour, thus making us loath violence. Of course wealth leads to less violent behaviour. After all, it’s risky and you can lose everything.
And because the middle class is wealthy like never before, we fight less over stupid things.
And most people don’t find an execution more gross then they would three hundred or thousand years ago. Death penalty has become more illogical. You kill someone mainly out of personal reasons. If you die because you insulted a king or poached in his forest, there was no misunderstanding: he is way stronger, the supreme alpha, and he can rip you apart. You mother cried just as many tears, but the thing was more consistent. You were too dumb too not realize who is the stronger, messed qith the wrong one. Today, we believe we are or should be all equal. So that means only society/state as a whole should kill you, because you pissed everyone off. But since we seldom agree on one thing, death penalty isn’t very popular.
…then he proceeds and says, so why has it declined- We don’t know!
Now for the (borrowed)explanations:
Hobbes theory
Valid to a certain point. Better to attack first is in many cases beneficial.
His example, however is funny, since guns are modern weapons and are THE prime preemptive weapons. So, today it should be way more sensible to attack blitzkrieg style, right? And because we don’t, this seems to indicate that our bahaviour has changed to nonviolent? The leviathan works?
Again, this mixes up warfare, small scale conflicts and homicide.
A preemptive attack seems to be a great idea all the time, but it rarely can be achieved. In theory, nobody could strike back when you whacked someone from behind with your bronze axe 1000 AD, right? Then you snatch all his slaves, camels, and this funky bronze barbell set? No, because, chances are, his clan would have declared war onto your clan. This question is less about attacking first but more about attacking at all. Why were people more fond of feuds and tribal warfare then today? The Leviathan works to a certain point. Justice should the states responsibility if you want stability and (religion induced) morality must part from it.
But why don’t the leviathans wage war with each other?
There are nukes. A lot of people won’t hear it, but the prospect of a full scale nuclear war is a very reasonable pacifier. And contrary to many theories, mostly because it assures that the upper class will be affected, too. In the age of imperialism, war meant nothing to the aristocracy, simply because even getting captured was but a slight annoyance. You could screw up so hard on the battlefield, sacrificing thousand of soldiers one day for naught, and still return to your luxuries afterwards, even have dinner with your foes.
With nuclear warheads plowing your country’s soil, this won’t be the case.
But again, concerning homicide rates: The Leviathan ensures that precisely something like the in the islamic world so popular honor killings won’t really work.
So, this is like 300 years old. Hardly news.
life was cheap.
Duh. This is even more important if you look at your children output and demographics, which he miraculously fails to explain. It escapes me how the man completely ignores key points.
He is mistaken if he thinks that death and bloodshed is a large dehumanizer. Often, those who saw one big war avoid another one. And a generation that experienced war from the comfortable second seat row lusts even more for war-adventures. The very reason why the Washington chickenhawks practically all dodged the draft one way or another.
No, the most important question is, how many of your children will you be able to sacrifice? If you’ve got one son, you’ll hardly send him into a foolish war. With four sons, this is entirely different.
Demographics, baby, demographics.
Allow the arabs to maintain their big ass clans and the war in palestine will never stop.
On the other hand, tame Germany has far too little soldiers for another infantry world war escapade.
Also, slaves were never so cheap like today. You can buy babies for a few bucks in Africa. If America decided tomorrow, that slaves were a good idea after all, man, would you all get some cheap labor!
And read up how vast the industry of forced prostitution is.
So no, life isn’t worth more today.
Nonzero sum game:
duh. Wealth makes fat fucks even out of mongols. Hooray capitalism!
expanding circle:
duh.
But as long as you can divide for bullshit reasons, for instance through religious dogma e.g. brother in faith<> heathen scum, it becomes meaningless.
So the main objections in my pov are: The leviathan works … to a certain point. Wealth is fine, as long as we keep fat. You can be cruel without experiencing suffering and vice versa. This is actually quite a complicated matter with dozens of historical references one way and the other. And finally: With intact religions and similar moral superstitions (communism), with a reproductive arms race going on, we’ll experience some serious killings.
