T8. I’m sorry to say most of your headlines are garbage.

The sexond one asked if children today will die younger than parents.  Infant and child morality are something I study.  The trend is huge and extremely clear.  Much much mmuch smaller infant mortality rates which ends up equaling longer lives on average.  You have to know this is true…[Read more]

Even though droughts floods and storms have globally stayed the same, deaths due to these things are down 98% globally since the 1920’s!!

yes. 98%.

You our mentioned better communication and technology There is also better medical aid and transport and trade When a drought hits one country they can trade with another and so don’t experience the…[Read more]

Even though droughts floods and storms have globally stayed the same, deaths due to these things are down 98% globally since the 1920’s!!

yes.  98%.

You our mentioned better communication and technology   There is also better medical aid and transport and trade   When a drought hits one country they can trade with another and so don’t ex…[Read more]

T8

you keep saying the same thing.  But I’m not just basing this on personal feelings, anecdotes, the news.  And I’m not too interested in local stats.

It’s true you and I live in great places with good economies and great health compared to the rest of the world.

Mom not too interested in New Zealand or Canada.  (Canada a bit but only be…[Read more]

Im really not just using anecdotal experience or personal opinion or feeling to come to these conclusions.  That is what people tend to do and why they get it wrong.

I’ve  separated out the cognitive illusions involved in this–that deceive most.

Mane I know Africa and China and India still have problems.  The whole world still has problems in…[Read more]

Your last sentence.  Yes.  Only about 40% of the world has internet access.  True.  And this is a huge jump from just a few years ago.   5 years ago it was about 33% I think.  But guess how many had internet access 100 years ago. Or 1000. Or 3000?

zero.

So so yes I feel bad for the people that don’t have Internet access.  But I also point out it…[Read more]

Yes. The world is full of suffering poverty disease and pain.

But much less full than the past.

Imagine every time you have been to the doctor or dentist in your lifetime.  Now imagine doing those things 300 years ago.  Or 3000 years ago.   How would that go?  No anesthetic remember.   Urine and feces were used by dentists and doctors for a long…[Read more]

T8
you mention life in prison likely not being very comfortable in the US.

You our do realize that for most of history in most places previous were essentially death camps.  People rotted away and starved in prisons.  You sometimes had to pay to be released from irons.  To pay for food.  You needed others to do this from the outside.   With the…[Read more]

if you think it’s easy for me to not think the world is that bad, you are wrong.  I’ve been indoctrinated, programmed and conditioned to think that everything is bad and getting worse my whole life.   The average person in North America thinks this is the case simply because of the way the news works and human psychology.  But as for me, I was ex…[Read more]

When I said its trivial compared to every other way to die I meant every other way to die from violence (homicide/war/etc).

I wasn’t comparing terrorism deaths to deaths of natural causes.

T8, if I stated that terrorism is trivial, it is only trivial in the way that 50 is trivial compared to 20,000.

“Another factor is that human beings live longer on average today that we did in the Middle Ages leaving even a lower proportion of individuals in that young adult state where violence is more likely.”

sure, violence is more likely among younger people.  And sure, in the Middle Ages people lives on AVERAGE much younger.   But what that average 3…[Read more]

“Also, logically speaking, no increase in anything is uniform. What you find is the overall graph goes up or down with smaller ups and downs in between. Jesus taught that terrible things would increase. He didn’t say that every day or every year would be worse than the previous. He talked about the overall trend.

For example nation will rise a…[Read more]

Why does terror work?  It works because of news agencies and people talking about it and spreading the fear around.  Fear sells.  The number of people killed by terrorism is on the noise.  It’s minuscule compared to almost every other way to die.   The tiniest tiniest tiniest fraction of what homicides are for example.

Pother than feelings that…[Read more]

I’m talking about the WHOLE WORLD.  Not just the Middle East which is a tiny percentage of the world.

English soldiers used to get 1000 lashings for things like disobedience.  They would scream for the first 300 or so and then stop screaming for the next 700.  It wasn’t uncommon for the solider to have to go to the armoury part way through and ge…[Read more]

Kerwin. This is why when watching police shows they try to personalize the hostage.  Because it’s much harder to shoot a person who you can name and empathize with.  The explosion of literature and literacy a couple centuries ago contributed greatly to the expanding Circe.  The global village effect.  We can relate more.

also people have got…[Read more]

As for earthquakes the graph goes flat for about 100 years with bumps up and down and then about 13 years ago spikes upwards.

This is for great earthquakes.   Ones with magnitude of 7 or greater I believe.

I I can’t think of anyone that wrote a more complete book on the history of violence than Steven pinker.   It is an 800 page book but h…[Read more]

Kerwin. I thought that for the first couple years I was looking at this.  The baby boom in Canada and the US.  From is a young persons game.

But it’s been pointed out by people much smarter than me that this mathematically can’t count for it.  It likely contributed to it but the contribution is actually pretty small given the decline.  There are…[Read more]

I have studied earthquakes in ways you can’t even imagine.  About 13 years ago they picked up in intensity and magnitude.  The USGS says the is nothing special.  Bumps Come and go.   Some religions have been saying how much worse they were when there was zero evidence of this.  You can argue that the devastation is worse because of things like…[Read more]

Yes.  The horrible crimes are still with us today.  I would never argue otherwise.  I’m merely saying violence is declining. Not that it has vanished.

In America there is still the odd black hate crime mirder.  But there isn’t 150 lynchings as an example.  So yes.  Racism still exists.  But we don’t have 4 million kkk.  We have 4000.  So it still…[Read more]