
The violence paradox: Is violence actually declining? - hhs
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/the-violence-paradox/
======
pjc50
This is long, and I suspect most of us have neither watched it nor read all
the transcript; but from the parts of the transcript I have skimmed it seems
to hit absolutely all the areas I would expect it to cover. Everything from
evolutionary biology to memetics through colonialism, inequality, the
epidemiology model for interventions, sports across cultural divides. I
suspect most sentences are themselves summaries of a stack of investigations.

Stephen Pinker may get some flak for being a pop-science writer but this seems
extremely thorough. It would be nice not to use this article as a platform for
exercising our pre-existing prejudices.

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lazyjones
Violence as a contagious disease is a concept that isn't going to fare well in
certain circles (of proponents of open borders, migration etc.). More research
should be done in this area, if possible.

~~~
pjc50
A border is a structure that requires violence to maintain.

~~~
larnmar
Well if we want to be like that, then everything requires violence to
maintain.

The Empire State Building takes violence to maintain because without the
threat of violence someone might carry away all the rocks. Your local library
takes violence to maintain because without the threat of violence someone
might burn all the books. Your own life requires violence to maintain, because
only the threat of violence from the state prevents someone from killing and
eating you.

~~~
krapp
That is basically just a snarky way of restating the premise of the monopoly
on violence[0].

And we do want to be like that, in theory, because violence cannot be avoided
entirely in human interactions, and because violence as a regulated market is
more humane than violence as a free market, and because that violence in the
former case is mostly abstracted into the bureaucracy. For many people in a
modern society the closest they'll ever come to seeing the "violence inherent
to the system" is maybe a speeding ticket or misdemeanor jail time.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence)

~~~
lazyjones
> _And we do want to be like that, in theory_

One problem is that the whole illusion of power a government requires to
operate falls apart when this promise isn't kept in practice and a large
number of people become aware of this failure through media. Perhaps the news
and following public outcries about e.g. police violence in the US serve a
(second) purpose.

~~~
krapp
Yes, in exchange for the people ceding their right to violence to the state,
states are supposed to be trustworthy and neutral arbiters who follow their
own rules and are subject to the will of the people. Both the people and the
state are supposed to be limited in their power.

When that falls apart, and people decide to no longer participate in the
fiction that is civil society, things can get ugly.

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aaron695
> Is violence actually declining?

We know it is. Not in question at all. But we don't know for sure if war is
declining since it's overwhelmed in large spikes.

Good doco.

I liked the theory good manners is one possible reason. It's cute but actually
makes sense, although not a huge fan of the it works part of the brain more.

I'd go with a lot of violence is embarrassing and we are taught embarrassing
is bad. Sit up straight, use a knife and fork and don't hurt people.

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arctangent
I can't view the video but since Pinker is mentioned in other comments I
assume it is a summary of this (not yet read) book on my bookshelf:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature)

------
rustybolt
Here in the Netherlands, crime statistics are declining, but many people
suspect that the real reason is that the police often refuses to register
declarations (or advises against filing declarations).

~~~
shellac
Does the Netherlands not have the equivalent of
[https://crimesurvey.co.uk/](https://crimesurvey.co.uk/)?

~~~
Doxin
I bet the dutch central office of statistics keeps track of it. But then if
you don't trust the one government body why should you trust another?

Personally I trust the dutch police force and in fact admire them greatly.
They handle dangerous and stressful situations much better than I personally
ever could. That said I do see why you'd be mistrustful as average citizen,
the most you'll have to do with police is reporting crimes such as broken
windows or stolen bikes, in which case you'll probably get a shrug and a
"we'll look into it" at most.

The police force is currently _very_ well trained and adequately supplied, but
as is the story in many places budget cuts are being made all over and I worry
for the future.

In any case an independent research office looking into the crime stats
wouldn't be a bad thing, but I suspect it's a rather tricky thing to gauge in
the first place.

~~~
the-dude
Police stations are closed en masse. Police has been in reorganisation since
forever. Personnel is over-extended to the point they are contemplating
strikes.

~~~
Doxin
> Police stations are closed en masse.

I can't find any info on that for the dutch police, do you have a source?

> Police has been in reorganisation since forever. Personnel is over-extended
> to the point they are contemplating strikes.

Yep. And it's getting worse. For now it's all still operating well enough but
we're at an inflection point for sure.

~~~
the-dude
[https://www.rtlz.nl/algemeen/binnenland/artikel/4394841/poli...](https://www.rtlz.nl/algemeen/binnenland/artikel/4394841/politiebureau-
verdwijnt-uit-het-straatbeeld-bijna-200-bureaus)

Are you actually living in NL?

~~~
Doxin
Yes I do live in The Netherlands. Excuse me for not remembering a year old
news item that didn't have any direct impact on me.

Thanks for the source, closing police stations is definitely not a good sign.
I hope that that's a trend that has reversed since that news article came out.

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fithisux
Violence is changing by getting a more peaceful face in order to be
"legalized" and "digested". Violence is always here and it gets stronger.

~~~
ekianjo
What do you mean?

~~~
throw_m239339
I don't know what the parent means however isn't it true that some cities in
the US stopped prosecuting some crimes deemed "petty" such as theft, "hard
drugs" dealing, …

Which would make crime statistics lower than they really are.

~~~
ekianjo
I think "under reporting crime" is not something very recent. But something
that is usually not under-reported, is violent crimes like murder or assault
resulting in severe injuries, because someone ends up at the morgue or in the
hospital where they are definitely tracked and recorded. As far as I know this
is where we are pretty much sure violence is decreasing over time.

------
simonblack
The world goes through cycles of peace and violence.

We are due for the next cycle of violence to rival WW2, if not even more so.
We have forgotten and are unable to imagine when more than a hundred thousand
are killed in a single day. But those days will come again and very soon.

The next war will be (pretty much) the West against the Rest. The whole of the
West has a smaller population and less manufacturing capacity than China
alone.

~~~
Scapeghost
If you haven't noticed by now, the world is a plutocracy/oligarchy.

It hasn't been about nations for a long time, but the rich and powerful people
who influence them. Many of them aren't even elected officials.

See Trump and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Khashoggi, the American citizens beaten
up by Erdogan's bodyguards on American soil, the UAE and Sheikha Latifa,
American corporations kowtowing to China, the US ambassador's wife who got
away with murdering a UK teen, Jeffrey Epstein and his private island of
underage prostitution for the cream of society's crop, and the _many_ other
cases where the personal whims of the elite few override sovereign laws.

Those people literally have access to everything that human civilization has
to offer, and they're not going to ruin their playground.

~~~
Mirioron
Hasn't it always been like this though? At least nowadays they don't claim to
just be better humans (nobility).

~~~
Scapeghost
Indeed, the ruling class never stopped ruling.

But this is the first time in human history, when they can go anywhere, do
anything, to anyone, at anytime, without having to worry about national
borders etc.

Money is the universal differentiator now, and anybody of any nation or race
can have it.

Until you piss off someone else who also has money, then connections come into
play, _then_ the might of arms.

~~~
charlesism
This comment seems strained. A history book would neither back up the claim
about unfettered travel, nor the claim about corruption.

The parent comment actually seems reasonable to me. It really wouldn’t take
much escalation for a trade war to turn into a shooting war between, at least
China and America.

~~~
Scapeghost
> A history book would neither back up the claim about unfettered travel, nor
> the claim about corruption.

I don't think any ruler would have been able to easily hop to another
continent on a whim for an orgy with a wide selection of sex slaves and be
back home by next dawn, before the advent of instantaneous communications and
jet planes.

The point was that the people who command nations have access to a previously
unprecedented level of luxury which would be ruined if the world wasn't
largely at peace.

~~~
charlesism
Ah, okay. I thought you were referring to well-defined borders, and strict
border controls. Both these were generally lax before the 20th Century.

I don’t see how this poses much of a safeguard, in any event. If millions of
Chinese wind up starving due to a trade war, for example, a shooting war is
almost inevitable.

~~~
Melting_Harps
> I don’t see how this poses much of a safeguard, in any event. If millions of
> Chinese wind up starving due to a trade war, for example, a shooting war is
> almost inevitable.

It doesn't.

A shooting war has already commenced by the CCP in Hong Kong because they
refuse to acquiesce to the dominion of the PRC's illegal dictates, so what you
should be worried more about creating a 'shooting war' is China's economic
turmoil (much by the machinations of the CCP/PRC) having a spill-on effect
outside of its borders than within. Moreover, a correction is long over-due,
just to be clear, the US shouldn't be a super power anymore, either; nor
should any nation if we've seen what they do with said power.

While I agree the World is under a kleptocractic-plutacracy, the emergence of
the Nation-state was only ever just that; there was no 'Golden era' of the
State, it was only forced down the serf/peasant class' collective throats and
legitimized under a thinly-veil scam called an election process which promotes
division and mob-justice. One in which can be altered/manipulated in masse and
in certain cases outright removed as it sees fit.

------
noirchen
Nylonkong are getting more attention with Trump, Brexit, and the protests.
When was the last time you read an in-depth news about some under represented
region, say, Nigeria? For a country experiencing population boom and worsening
internal conflicts, 200 million people there ARE going to fight for fresh
water and other resources if the rest of world just sit there and do nothing.

~~~
nootropicat
What is 'the rest of the world' supposed to do? It's not like they don't have
access to internet or condoms (even free), not in 2019. It's a (collective)
choice. See [1]. It's about Niger (same largest ethnic group - Hausa[2]),
which is also experiencing a population explosion, but the principle appears
to be the same:

>“I just pray to God to bless those three babies I have,” she says. The local
health centre in her village of Darey Maliki offered her free contraception,
which they get partly from the NGO Pathfinder, but Hamani declined. “Maybe [my
in-laws] would tell my husband to marry another woman to have more babies,”
she says. “If they want me to have another pregnancy, I can do it just for
them to feel happy.”

Perhaps that culture changes in the future generations, but for now Subsaharan
Africa is on track for 2B+ in 2050, and nothing short of starvation or
violence can change that.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-
professionals...](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-
professionals-network/2017/mar/15/why-have-four-children-when-you-could-have-
seven-contraception-niger)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausa_people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausa_people)

~~~
fungicide
Where infant mortality is high, humans tend to have more children.

