The "bad blood on the rise" meme has been stuck in my head for years. I see it on the teevee, read it in the news, know it's exaggerated but filtering it all the same. Processing. Absorbing. Took a bit of shrapnel.
Always Knew a lot less people killed in modern warfare, compared to 1st and 2nd and previous big rammies but that was filed away in a separate compartment, under "statistical trivia". Link was never bridged.
This resulted in a fatalistic/nihilistic tinge to my long term/big picture mental musings. Shit was getting worse. More importantly, shit was getting - seemingly beyond anyone's ability to do much to prevent - worse.
I wasn't satisfied with this. Wanted to snap out of the whole retarded reality-tunnel, so I've spent the last while reorganising my filters and biases about humanity in general and whether it's headed for hell or handbasket, specifically. Finally got done. Feels much better. Had a sniff about for a link that would drive the point home.
Can't remember if this showed up on FB or Youtube but it pretty much covers it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk)
Nice. Good meme to hack at. Have you read Pinker's book? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature)
I've been re-exploring some broader cognitive biases lately, one or two of which led me to realise I was infected with this. I gave it a name and started exploring it. If I'd found a book like that, while I was following leads, it may or may not have helped immensely. As it is I've already transplanted an alternative memeplex. For the purpose of the exercise, I've accomplished what I set out to. Still need to reinforce the structure and make sure it "takes" but I'm working on a major service and overhaul, right now. Lot's of other shit that needs attention. Lot of previous work that I want to revisit, see how it's holding up, see if there's anything new and improved I can apply.
I've been lazy for a couple of years. Let shit slide. My mind is no different from any other machine I own - I like to strip it down and get it up on the ramp from time to time.
Yeah, oddly one of the reasons we have an increased horror of violence and inequity is because we have a decreased tolerance for it, and one of the reasons we have a decreased tolerance for it is because we seem to, overall, gradually, be becoming less shitty to each other, as a species.
That doesn't mean we should get complacent about it, it just means we're heading in the right direction. If we manage to avert our headlong rush into the sixth great mass extinction event we might even evolve into a species other civilized people would want to meet.
Of course, it is also worth noting that the source of most of his statistics also potentially supports the hypothesis that there was some sort of European/Western Asian "violence disorder" mutation that led to colonial expansion and it's accompanying horrors, which is gradually in decline partly due to interbreeding with populations with a low incidence of the mutation.
Quote from: Nigel on March 18, 2014, 09:16:30 PM
Of course, it is also worth noting that the source of most of his statistics also potentially supports the hypothesis that there was some sort of European/Western Asian "violence disorder" mutation that led to colonial expansion and it's accompanying horrors, which is gradually in decline partly due to interbreeding with populations with a low incidence of the mutation.
There's almost a kind of poetic justice there. :lulz:
Does violence decrease, or does it simply transform? (i understand PHYSICAL violence is going down, but theres many types of violence)
Does violence manifest nowadays economically more than before? Or is it transformed to psychological violence? Symbolical?
I want to bring up Foucault's Discipline & Punish, where he talks about the transition between torture and public execution and our current criminal justice system.
Foucault doesn't attribute the shift to some kind of moral trend towards compassion. He does note that lots of 17th and 18th century writers were pushing for less torture, but he makes the case that the real impetus for change was that the old system of justice just wasn't effective.
Public torture and execution created a physical site where the sovereign's power manifested and therefore could be resisted. The intent of a public execution is to return stolen authority to the sovereign. Therefore an execution which goes poorly (ie: the public riots and lynches the executioners, which was happening more and more in the 18th century) does more harm to the sovereign's authority than any single lawbreaker could do.
So we reformed the justice to have judges and eventually juries not because authorities now deplored violence, but because it confused the public about whom to lynch. I mean, it's not that a "jury of peers" is inherently good at ruling on matters of justice - it's there so that you believe the verdict came from your peers and not the state.
I think a fair amount of the historical trend away from violence is really a matter of efficacy. If wars were just as easy to enact as sanctions, there would be more wars. Nations are more interdependent now than they've ever been - for many countries, acts of war are more harmful to themselves than to the people they might attack. Nobody can afford a world war. So we have peace!
That's a really interesting perspective on the whole thing.
It's not about being fair, or moral -- it's about retaining power.
Quote from: Cramulus on March 21, 2014, 02:09:31 PM
I want to bring up Foucault's Discipline & Punish, where he talks about the transition between torture and public execution and our current criminal justice system.
Foucault doesn't attribute the shift to some kind of moral trend towards compassion. He does note that lots of 17th and 18th century writers were pushing for less torture, but he makes the case that the real impetus for change was that the old system of justice just wasn't effective.
Public torture and execution created a physical site where the sovereign's power manifested and therefore could be resisted. The intent of a public execution is to return stolen authority to the sovereign. Therefore an execution which goes poorly (ie: the public riots and lynches the executioners, which was happening more and more in the 18th century) does more harm to the sovereign's authority than any single lawbreaker could do.
So we reformed the justice to have judges and eventually juries not because authorities now deplored violence, but because it confused the public about whom to lynch. I mean, it's not that a "jury of peers" is inherently good at ruling on matters of justice - it's there so that you believe the verdict came from your peers and not the state.
I think a fair amount of the historical trend away from violence is really a matter of efficacy. If wars were just as easy to enact as sanctions, there would be more wars. Nations are more interdependent now than they've ever been - for many countries, acts of war are more harmful to themselves than to the people they might attack. Nobody can afford a world war. So we have peace! between rich countries
Edited for truth.