POLITICS

[SchnidlersLeest]

If someone commits a crime against another person they'll go the cops, rather than machete the person themselves. This is what I meant by "individuals".

Okay, so you meant to say that the power of violence was taken away from the people who weren't the individuals known as the "police." How is that a good thing?

I don't think Steve was arguing that the decline in violence was a psychological thing; we could very well be exactly as bloodthirsty as our ancestors. The data - according to Pinker - seems to show a correlation between the increase of governments and the decrease of violence of all kinds.

Well, I was referring to the data that has long been researched on how human children, or animals in general, respond to violence in their growth when they're young, and how it makes them more violent when they're fully grown, not any sort of fundamental change in our genetics from our ancestors.

It's worth reading, the government angle is only one part of the book. He also talks about our romanticised ideas about the "noble savage" and how we assume, wrongly, that primitive or tribal peoples are by definition more moral and in touch with nature than modern day people, etc.

I would say I have to agree with that; but the most romanticized ideal of an age-old ancient brutal tribal hierarchy is the government! An expansion albeit, but it's, at its core, a violent hierarchy that has been showered in moral nobility and righteousness for hundreds of years! And it is because of its age and because of its brutality that we must abandon it.