I find Steven Pinker even more cringeworthy than Peterson. He's just an apologist of the status quo and the neoliberal order and he's doing that with awfully bad science. As Monbiot put it nicely "Pinker's poor scholarship and motivated reasoning insult the Enlightenment principles he claims to defend".
And what makes your view unapologetic? To you anyone who presents any kind of evidence that even hints at status quo being a normal outcome is neoliberal apologist. Because in you conviction this is simply not possible. And you believe a writer an political activist more than a professor at Harward - which is shameful. You deny science because of your political views.
@@matejkleni6295 well here you just presented a bunch of logical fallacies like appeal to authority and straw man. The main problem with Steven Pinker - if you ever really considered critiques of his work - is that he uses bad science and skewed evidence in order to prove his ideologically charged thesis. His reasoning is, by his own standards, underwhelming to say the least. It is shameful that you deny this just because he is a professor or says something that is politically appealing to you. In fact, you are projecting and doing exactly the very same thing you are accusing me of, that is denying science because of your ideology and/or political views.
If half the babies die during birth or before their first birthday and everybody else gets to live 100 years, the average life expectancy is 50... I'm always baffled how many people seem to ignore how averages work when talking about life expectancies in past times
@@francesatty7022 That's actually right, my point is still true though: "“There is a basic distinction between life expectancy and life span,” says Stanford University historian Walter Scheidel, a leading scholar of ancient Roman demography. “The life span of humans - opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct - hasn’t really changed much at all, as far as I can tell.”
I agree that it’s shameful people don’t understand (nor do they seemingly care) how averaging/statistics work, but look around… those same people don’t know what temperature water boils.
In more mobile HG societies women could only care for children that were four years apart. That means a woman who was likely to give birth by the time she was 15 and remain fertile into her 30s (if she lived that long) might have to terminate or or kill at least 5 foetuses or babies bringing ave life expectancy down to single digits. BTW no-one in HG societies lived to 100.
Pinker himself argues that human nature is 'elastic': there are better and worse angels of our nature. The fact that small societies have tended to be more peaceful than Pinker claims does not mean that large societies haven't been pacified by state rule paired with change in sensibilities and trade exactly as Pinker claims. if you take the number of whatever society and added to it the population of a nation like Britain even with the population embracing their customs (in a thought experiment) then it's hard to imagine they'd stay as peaceful or have solidarity as the anthropology studies and archaeological studies bear out for smaller societies. His thesis, moreover, that violence has declined proportionally to population size is correct. Taking the later part of human existence in thousands of years may make more sense than the whole span of Homo Sapiens, since before then the population size isn't representative at all of humans living in large genetically diverse societies that are qualitatively more comparable to our own. The video also missed that the rate and danger of violence have become more efficient - so violence can be quicker and have more impact than previously. So the danger of violence is greatest whilst it's rarest. That's the biggest critique contribution to Pinker's book, in my view.
Your first paragraph was exactly my thaughts whilst watching the video. I found the video very interesting but it's nothing like the "debunking" of Steven Pinker that some people in the comments seem strangely eager to belive it is. It's more of a light critique.
Your comment does not parse well, but at best it seems misguided. Pinker is infamous for inconsistently flipping between raw and proportional numbers, whichever case better serves his neoliberal agenda. Egalitarian societies were not all isolated as you suggest, and we have an understanding of the mechanism behind why we transitioned away from egalitarian societies, which has little to do with population size, and is more a function of transitioning to surplus and commodification based societies, from which emerged personality traits centered on an obsession with hierarchy and dominance, aka right wingers. Furthermore, “genetic diversity” smacks of either ignorance or racism. This video does a pretty thorough job of debunking Pinker’s nonsense on violence, largely by presenting the work of actual scientists, experts who debunked Pinker with real research and data, as opposed to cherry picking data to write a pop science book skewed to give cover to those in power (and those with airplanes that fly to a certain island). Other research has demonstrated that Pinker is wrong about poverty as well. Pinker is not a serious academic, he’s an opportunist.
I'm curious: have you rethought any of this in light of the release of The Dawn of Everything by Davids Graeber and Wengrow? Specifically, does their complicating the idea of there having been a "state of nature" subsequent "fall from grace" complicate your argument here?
The problem is that there is actually a concise answer to whether or not the zebra is black or white. I get what you’re going for, but it’s not analogous if we’re trying to be precise
One of my gripes with people like Pinker is that they only talk about explicit violence while ignoring the implicit violence that permeates our everyday lives in civilization. It's true that it's only on rare occasions that the police and military actually kills people, but it's this threat of violence that keeps the masses in line living lives that they are not necessarily happy with. Pinker's argument that the state monopolization of force reduces violence is therefor disingenious - what it really means is that the power of the state is so overwhelming that few dare to defy it. Now, think about the extent to which a modern state dictates our lives and ask yourself how you believe that compares to life in a primitive tribe.
The state is the most violent gang there is. It is based on violence and kept at power by violence. It can be much more than that: it can promote good moral values, help poor people and provide schools and hospitals. But there cannot be a state without ability and capacity for violence.
Basic question about violence in prehistoric times: since almost every study mentioned in the video has probably been conducted on bone remains, how can we account for violent deaths that did not involve bone fractures?
My thoughts exactly. And even for fractured bones, unless there was some sort of weapon embedded or surrounded by weapons suggesting a battle field, how on earth could any archaeologist reliably say whether the person fell out of a tree or was bludgeoned by somebody? If no skeletons found in an archeological dig were declared to have died by strangulation, that doesn’t mean that none of them were murdered by strangulation.
I like the detail in this video. A lot of this is covered in Civilized to Death. But, in this video, the visual graphs are really a good way to understand the points being made.
That was excellent. A reminder to use our academic tools to question statements and seek verification and indeed perhaps ask better questions. Pinker has achieved significant acclaim for this book as has Malcolm Gladwell for his books. I wonder if you’ve done anything on the 10,000 hour myth, that gets quoted frequently.
I think Chomsky was right when he said Pinker cherry picks his data. No mention will you see of the most brutal wars in the history of humanity in the 20th century, in his books.
@@bibo2445 there's video of some Harvard thing where eminent scholars meet up for a kind of annual Alan Dershowitz appreciation pow wow. Pinker is one of the members . Wonder if they're still convening those get togethers post Jeffrey Epstein.
Yep. He's blind to objective/systemic violence as conceptualized by zizek. Violence has simply adapted and changed its form throughout history. Pinkers conception of violence is incredibly rigid and one sided. I'm not surprised the right wingers love him.
@@greenguy2372 fck knows how many peoples lives were ended prematurely in the 20th century. The assumption of a historical onwards and upwards to liberal consumer Nirvana is laughable. History isn't over.
I agree with most of what is put forth in the video, however Otzi was murdered by another group, there is ample evidence of this. DNA evidence as well as different technologies in the arrows (that he carries in the quiver and inside his back). His arrows also had DNA from his attackers, so he drew blood...He also had injuries that were tended to before he died, so he was probably not alone. #justiceforotzi
This is still being debated pretty heavily within archaeological circles so id be careful about making any definitive statements. All of the evidence you cited is true, but there are also theories that he was with a party and it may have been an accident, or animal attack gone wrong. Among others. I think the most charitable interpretation of pinkers take is that 1.) yes, interpersonal violence seems to have decreased as society has developed technologies. 2.) this does not negate the intrapersonal violence of humanity at large. The scale of violence has grown significantly. And finally 3.) pinker is driven by idealogical forces that seek to reinforce his neoliberal biases.
@@AshiwiZuni Or Steven Pinker could be correct. I have read a lot of Streven Pinker's work as well as those who oppose his views, and though I have issues with some of what he writes, I have never got the impression that he is driven by ideology. Every writer is influenced by their paradigm and Pinker is no exception. On this particular topic I have not come to a conclusion one way or another.
Watch Pinker’s car crash interview with Medhi Hassan from 3 years ago where he fails to refute or even engage with challenges from leading academics about both his data and his methodology ruclips.net/video/BkM2wiOwerc/видео.html Pinker’s work is ideologically driven. That’s how he ended up on Epstein’s private jet…
Why, you do know he's been called out on his intellectual dishonesty before and he doesn't respond. He is not honest so will not accept anything other than the status quo and you know that.
In "The Biology of Peace and War", Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt presents some compelling evidence, suggesting that territorial disputes between human-groupings, are precisely what catalyzes human conflict.
It would seem intuitive to me that violence in primitive societies is zero-inflated and right skewed; In many societies violence is a huge taboo and doesn't appear almost at all, but in a few it might have become normalized through a vicious cycle.
"In the forest we had everything we needed and life was good. Now everything is expensive and life is stressful." Elder of the Mentawai people in an interview
Really? You think life was great, wonderful and idyllic living as a hunter gatherer? Ok, go live in the woods no one will care. But don’t take anything with you but what you can pick up off the ground. Go for it.
"We lived in harmony with rainforest, because we had to. Rainforest is hell. Now we have chainsaws, we no longer have to live in it." - member of Papuan tribe
@@Zmok “Hell Is Other People” - Sartre But we have chainsaws, we no longer have to live in it. From now on when i hear "machine gun" i will think "people chainsaw" LOL Did the Korowai have chainsaws to build those fake treehouses for western documentaries?
Jared Diamond has extensive documentation of the violence of hunter gather tribes in Papua New Guinea. (Tribe on tribe violence, not involving modern colonists.)
One might counter that the Western half of the island having developed over time has placed strain on the tribes, squeezing them into a smaller territory. I still think JD would assess that there are ample resources. He even documents retributional murder. So, killings not involving scarce resources.
Yes, there cases where hunter gatherers do.kilñ each other, what does that prove? That Pinker is right and that colonialism and slavery, poverty is just the natural order of the things. You want to confirm your world view and you know that. If you have an ideology that promotes the idea that human beings are inherently evil, violent, rapists and that everything is the way it should be, then you will not be open to any other perspectives, simple as that ñ.
And yeah, you answered your own question, the Western conquering of papa New Guinea obviously had an impact on these people. It's not like Westerners haven't created tensions between groups of people.
You are telling me that Otzi was likely accidentally shot by an arrow of another hunter on the top of a mountain in a time where the number of humans on the planet was below half a million?
Great video summarising this topic. Also worth noting that how we measure violence now is different, like how we call war different from crime different from deaths totally not caused by that company that dumped their waste in the river. Millions starve each year because we don't share, is that needless death any less violent just because it used a pen and not a spear?
@@smotretvseru, the 9 million who will starve to death this year and the currently 900 million going hungry would disagree with you. Those numbers have stayed pretty consistent for quite some time now.
@@tim290280 no, it literally was 2 times more 20 years ago. Do you understand how incredible those numbers are? Just 200 years ago 99% of people was going hungry(for the last 10000 years+), now only 10. And those small percentage of people that starve to death - its sad, but we can`t help them with "sharing", we already tried, it makes things worse in a long run. Just google how food charity to some African places killed local farmers. Its far more complicated problem than "just give them food". But it will be fixed in 21-st century if current trend stays.
@@tim290280 Even Pinker's biggest critics have to agree there is a trend to reduce global poverty. It is much slower than Pinker thinks, and he's wrong about some other stuff, but he's right about the direction of things.
And the comfort of your heart disease, obesity, cavities, autoimmune diseases, flat feet, chronic pain, diabetes, near sightedness, scoliosis, cancer and so on. Do you want me to go on?! NON OF THESE DISEASES existed before your "cozy" home.
Very good work as usual. I always appreciate how careful you are with your videos, a lot of other people who talk about Pinker don't put enough work in.
The title of the video is incorrect or at least incomplete by this guy's own account. Steven Pinker is right about the decline of violence at least in the last 1000 years. This is pretty much glossed over but it's probably the most important thing to me. I suspect violence will continue to go down over time.
I agree with the Hobbesian/Pinker view of the Leviathan. If you actually had a global government, there could be no war. Nor would you have terrorism(at least not organized terrorism like ISIS). Maybe the lone-wolf who hates society, but even that could be largely diminished/controlled through an expansive police-state. Although I wouldn't call this the "Better angels of our nature". We're not becoming better people. We just have better systems of control.
we have extensive records of aboriginal society in Australia. They were pre-agricultural people so they fit into your long-range view of history. Convicts ran away and lived with these people and wrote accounts of their lives living with them. They show an extremely violent society where people were always at war and murder was common. The majority view is that Ötzi was murdered and while it might have been "friendly fire", I would say most evidence leans towards murder.
Have you heard of the observer effect? A post-colonial image is not a pre-colonial image. The fact of Europeans in the 1800s means guns, germs, liquor and competition, all of which meant social disruption.
@@MalcolmPL I do not see the relevance of this response. There is no evidence of these runaway convicts then causing an observer effect. They certainly did not bring guns, germs, liquor or competition to the aboriginals.
@@WagesOfDestruction The convicts existed in a context in which this disruption had already occurred prior to their arrival. They existed in a post-colonial world. I repeat, information from the post-colonial world is not information from the pre-colonial world.
@@WagesOfDestruction Given as you haven't named them or otherwise cited any sources, I can't say whether I've read them. But answer me this. What year were the convicts shipped, who did the convicts sail with and why were the convicts being transported?
Just one thing to note, I've been listening to a podcast on human civilization and how it got started from its most ancient beginnings called Tides of History by Patrick Wyman, and one of the things he points out is that we should not think that hunter gathers societies from 10,000 years ago are the same as hunter gather societies today. Basically, all peoples have evolution and changes to their societies, even if by our eyes they look the same. I found Pinkers critique that societies with less government and more anarchy are more violent much more compelling (when looking at more modern societies). He points out the wild west and its high amount of violence for example. But we can just look at our world today, societies where government is weak and fragmented, and people have to take the law into their own hands are extremely violent and full of armed gangs of all sorts. Another compelling argument (to me) is that societies which are younger are more violent, since most violent crime is committed by young men. And that when a certain percentage of a society is made out of young people that chance for revolutions and violence increase. This information is off the top of my head, so I might be misremembering. HOWEVER, I think the points you showed are true, his graphs can be quite lacking, and Pinkers arguments about poverty, inequality GDP getting better over time are too simplistic and quite laughable. I would take you to watch this video by Unlearning Economics where he points out the fallacy of that argument ruclips.net/video/fo2gwS4VpHc/видео.html and how GDP information from our own time can be missleading and it is probably impossible to figure out GDP from past societies.I do want to point out I have only gone through about 1/3 of the book, its quite massive, but it does give you some things to think about and others which I just don't think have enough evidence in any way to form an opinion on, as PInker has.
The wild west also had a populas of drifters. People who needed to get away from something or someone else. If we are within a set of ideas that include high amount of ownership the wild west already had those ideas and the goal was to own a piece of land if needed by gun. Colonisation is a giant take over of another land Its basicly a war. So yes it was violent
The ownership meme combined with the relation to an group identity thats bigger than 100. Nationalism, christianity, etc. more than you can know. In combination with scarcity Will get you war.
The GDP argument is based of cherry picked data no matter how you look at it, there is quite a lot of unaccounted production as well as simple cultural transferrance of the likes of art/thought/language that cannot be quantified (unless pressed into the service of capital), and thus there is no means to account for GDP other than by analysis of externalities (such as material or labor used), which must ultimately always amount to less value than a final product when forced into a capitalist environment Subsequently, any developing/impoverished nation/culture is exploited at the whims of imperialist/developed nations who define the price of any product no matter how scarce.. Thus GDP of any nation can be manipulated in order to either weaken uncooperative nations or inflate willing governments
The thing about the Wild West is thst it wasn't "anarchic" or without government, rather the power of government was vested in people for significantly different purposes and with a much larger emphasis on individual discretion. That's not anarchy, rather it's a form of government that gives power based on somewhat arbitrary criteria. If there were true anarchy, the law would not have its monopoly of (often corrupt) force that creates the narratives we now attach to. It's also worth mentioning the massive genocide of native people's in order to steal their land. That contributes a lot to the violence.
The violence of organized warfare is not the only kind of violence that afflicts modern Capitalist societies. Pinker seems to ignore that poverty, inequity, and racism are all modern forms of violence that plague present society.
@@dionysianapollomarx I know Scott cites him in 'Seeing Like A State' or 'Against The Grain' I forget which but Clastres was the first anarchist anthropologist. His work 'Society Against The State' is mostly a study on south american indigenous tribes, specifically the Tupi and Guarani peoples. But at the heart of it are several scathing critiques; one a thorough debunking of anthropology's ethnocentrism (this runs throughout the book where Clastres compares erroneous statistics wrt population etc left behind by the jesuits and anthropologists of the past and systematically eliminates them by comparison/imparity, sometimes with a sense of humor much like Then And Now's), and the other a strong denunciation marx's conception of history and the state: "The political relation of power precedes and founds the economic relation of exploitation. Alienation is political before it is economic; power precedes labor; the economic derives from the political; the emergence of the State determines the advent of classes."
This is an excellent channel, worth following. A few things appear to be off track, the concept of "Hunters and gatherers" appear to only have been valid in the northern portions of the planet and those experiencing the worst of the ice age. So, Meso-american tribes had agriculture since their migration to the American continent and from Mexico to Argentina without having to constantly migrate. Some sociologists such as David Graeber appear to have considered the birth of the "civilized world" linking it to the Indo-European migrations since these migrations appeared to have carried the concept of Hierarchy and the stratified society. The word Slave and Robot both are indo-european in origin. Even the Meso-american tribes, only those linked to pyramids had a hierarchy all others had horizontal forms of government and cooperation. Consider reading Howard Zinn and the other history of the united states ...read about the paradise lost...upon Columbus arrival to the American continent. Greetings from Chicago!
Agreed, the need for war probably depends on a specific socioecological environment (pan troglodytes (chimpanzee) proactive political games over status (Goodness Paradox), fertile females and offspring compared to pan paniscus (bonobo) society based playful prosociality/sociosexuality for promotion of group stability regardless of age and gender), or human society after the agricultural/pastoral revolution leading to competitive possessiveness over private property (marriage, amatonormativity), inheritance, virginity, fertility cults and maximization of birth rates regardless of ideologies such as antinatalism based on consent. Not sure about Trobrianders, Kaluli, Sambia people, !Kung San, Mosuo, Batek , Etoro and all the extinct undocumented more or less egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies with different effects on epigenetic expression.
@@uvwuvw-ol3fg Sounds like the greatest tragedy of the past few million years is that bonobos weren't the ones to take the evolutionary steps leading to technology. It was we violent competition and dominance oriented hominids that did.
Matt Cartmill has a book that can shed some light on why Pinker and others write what they write - it's called "A View to a Death in the Morning" and the first chapter is called "The Killer Ape" about how a theory created on observing two skulls was widely accepted for 30 years. There are also 3 lectures from Yale (available on RUclips) by William R. Polk - as in Pres. Polk - about the American Empire. Those lectures may explain why Pinker would have a particular tendency to write what he wrote. The best explanation I found is from Colin Powell's chief of staff, Col. Lwrence Wilkerson: (paraphrasing) "Americans don't care about other people - they don't even know they exist". Col. Wilkerson deserves respect and I respect him. I should not put words on his mouth so here's his interview on the DW documentary series "Iras: Destruction of a Nation" - the part I tried to quote: ruclips.net/video/UStz5tSwaSM/видео.html
Vaguely related, I'm curious if modern studies have shown whether violent media (video games, comics, movies, etc.) actually have any affect on people's inclination towards or away from violence. From what I am aware, most studies on the topic seem to fall apart on deeper inspection, and there isn't an conclusive proof one way or another...
I’m amazed each time I (occasionally) come across an educated person who say they are a fan of Steven Pinker. This video (also Noam Chomsky) debunks the loose claims.
It would be so unlikely to accidentally shoot someone back then . The bows didn't shoot far , so you would have a good look at what you were aiming at . Another factor is the arrows would've been too valuable to shoot blindly .
I know for a fact that many crimes in the UK aren't written up, which means they don't add towards crime statistics. Many court cases are postponed indefinitely too, which also adds to the impression that violent crime is on the decline. People constantly argue that statistics don't lie, but they can and are being falsified and misrepresented.
So far all i've seen from the video is how pinker got his data on violence wrong about the prehistoric era and H/G tribes but what about data on historic/medieval violence? Also have you taken into account violent deaths that do not originate in head trauma such as stabs?
This is such a good late modern follow up to your Hobbes video. I wholeheartedly agree with the alternate take on this whodunit. There's more to human nature than violence in a stateless world. Prior to that, there's more cooperation because it is inherently more effective for species survival, genetic proliferation, and cultural stability.
Yes, this reminds me of my frustration with the "human nature" arguments against left wing forms of government - firstly because as mentioned in the video, human nature is malleable, but far more because human nature really isn't just to be greedy and selfish in an individualist manner. We're a highly social species and capitalism is only a few hundred years old. Some of humanity's most spectacular achievements predate not just capitalism, but even currency! The way we behave under capitalism isn't "human nature" - it's just the way we behave under capitalism. Personally I'm inclined to think there's not a lot of value to the concept of human nature under any circumstances.
Others may say that human civilisation has been in a period of rapidly increasing instability since the neolithic revolution. Funny to think of the advent of farming and citystates as the end of the human story.
I liked the video. It is a good contrapoint to Pinkers book. I still suspect that you make hunter gatherer life more rosy that it was in reality. You said that prehistoric hunter gatherers didnt have war as we know it. Of course they didn’t. They didn’t have guns and tanks so they didn’t have war as we know it. They still had war. Intertribal conflict is war for them. If one band of 100 hunter gatherers wars with another group of 100 that is war for them. I agree and the dawn of civilization led to more war and worse health for thousands of years, but it is better now. It’s nice to romanticize about the lives of prehistoric hunter gatherers but who would want to live that way now? Who is going to go without modern medicine, electricity, feminine hygiene products, etc. You didn’t mention the most infamously violent group of hunter gatherers today. The Sentinelese have killed Christian missionaries, and many would argue they deserved it, but I have a feeling they would act the same way towards other indigenous groups. I have a feeling that Sentinelese-like tribes have existed throughout prehistory.
This is a good video. I don't think we can dismiss that humans did kill or fight amongst each other in prehistorical time... most animals that are territorial do compete and at times individuals do die. That being said an estimate of 2 - 4% deaths due to group conflict sounds reasonable. Some may have died in a fight, others could have suffered and died from infection due to injury, and still others could have died much later but the cause of that death could be attributed to long term complications from an injury suffered in a fight. I wonder what the archeological record says about these sorts of deaths. We also have to consider that not everybody involved in a small scale competitive conflict would have died as a result of a conflict and simply gone on to live to a relatively ripe old age. Many would have survived such small fights and battles. So there could have been more conflicts but with relatively fewer deaths from those conflicts ... that is the archeological record may speak more to the overall deaths due to conflict but not the rate that conflicts occurred at. One thing not mentioned would be that small hunter gatherer groups would want to avoid conflicts that see large numbers of people killed or severely injured because the losses would be far more impactful to group survival. Why foolishly risk losing your hunters in an unnecessary and avoidable fight when that loss might mean that many more starve in the winter. I am also not surprised conflict increased as we civilized, farming and population centers would have provided a larger surplus population to draw combatants from and thus reduced the risk of conflict to group survival. Just my thoughts on the subject.
Steven Pinker is a "Celebrity Scientist." He simply isn't credible. He is an example of the worst thing a human can do with his or her intelligence. As well, Keeley's book and hypothesis is abysmal. I've studied this for over 35 years. Overlaying Marija Gimbuta's discussion of the Kurgan Hypothesis onto this discussion is also very insightful. Good job, these videos you produce are a great deal of work. Thank you for making them and sharing them.
When anyone argues civilization is less violent than the past, I just think of two world wars. But no, people don't want to kill people. An entire science was created partly to stop soldiers firing above rather than at the heads of "the enemy".. Soldiers return from war traumatised not triumphant.
I’ve been seeing a lot of Steven Pinker critiques on my feed. I need to read his book and decide if its accurate, then rewatch these critique videos lol
I like your work, it seems well researched, presented in an engaging way. enjoyably informative. it blows the dust off history and it is obvious that you work very hard on producing your videos. However, I dont want to be that guy...but if I didn't mention it after noticing it that would feel disrespectful to the quality of your content. The nit I'm going to pick concerns imagery used in the evolutionary bit from 16.26 -16.50. the more primitive the example the darker the skin. We get to the first homo sapiens - modern humans and we see a very white slightly gormless looking youth. Thing is its called unconscious bias for a reason. Otherwise you would have remembered that its pretty widely accepted that the first modern humans would have probably had dark skin, coming from Africa as they did. It only matters because it helps perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes.
He so obviously has an agenda. Whenever there is a debate or documentary on some “uncomfortable truth” the Left doesn’t want to swallow, his giant powdered wig looking dome shows up.
@@twoforcesinbalance1543 yeah they have a bad tendency of generalizing psychological data onto society. Gabor Maté isn’t that bad tho, from what I’ve heard. At least he seems critical of capitalistic institutions
Stephen Taylor’s well researched book ‘The fall ‘ makes the very clear point that pre 10000 years ago there is little or no evidence of war or murder amongst humans. It started with farming and the development of the ego. It’s a good read.
I think our ancestors were like cats, cats meet in the night but don't fight usually ( they have the carnivore thing of remembering to preserve their fighting ability to take down prey ) but hunter gatherers woudn't so attached to one place ( unlike later agrarian societies ) only with the rise of the state whos default stance is to attack any other intruder that wide scale conflicts and deaths occurs
War and violence is a concequence of civilization not functioning. While Paleolithic people, had the capability for violence lived relatively peaceful lives due to the abundance of space, common resources, and mutual threats to survival like predators. But once civilization started, it limited space because the need for permanent farmland led to property as a concept. Stratification of society began. This made for more short term stability but transitions between hunter gatherers as well as environmental pressures led to increased violence and anxiety. War is a mechanism for societies to externalize that violence. the only reason for the decline in violence in modern society is that technology, globalization, and international laws and norms have addressed many of the instabilities that society creates. My fear is that with globalization breaking and climate change beginning to cause problems all over the world that a return to violence is right over the horizon.
Your comment about art is important, I feel. We seem to view ancient art as some form of accurate and literal pictorial diary rather than as storytelling and a manifestation of myths, symbolism, allegory, flights of fantasy, etc. I think, essentially, we view our forebears as simple minded bufoons with no capacity whatsoever for abstract thought. Drawing and painting as an activity in itself requires advanced cognitive abilities.
I thought I remember Pinker saying that Niether Hobbs nor Rousseau were completely correct. In chapter 2 somewhere. I found it he does. He says that both were "talking though their hats. Niether kew a thing about life before civilization." Granted I am still reading this book.
His graph is pseudosciencitific mumbo-jumbo but were it true you would be absolutely correct. I want to see where his graphs on animal populations, soil health, forestation, clean drinking water etc, etc are....
Perhaps I've misunderstood Pinker or my reasoning is off. I've always considered him as an evolutionary psychologist, who believes that our nature is principally governed by our genetics. So, how does he get from there, to 'civilization is making us less violent'? If he believed that our genetic makeup drove behaviour and our genes are pretty stable, then wouldn't our aggressive tendencies also be relatively static across time?
Well one of the common complaints many anthropologists have had with a lot of work in evolutionary psychology is that they use models of pre historical societies and paleolithic groupings which contradict their own findings. Their claim is that these models use a lot of assumption about levels of violence and scarcity that are not justified, and then these are used as evolutionary pressures that give rise to this or that modern behaviour and how they may have evolved.
Pinker (IMO) holds this contradictory position that you point out because the Hobbesian view is central to his discipline and secondly he is interested in showing that modern liberal capitalist societies are really not that bad and to assure people that they don't need any radical transformation. He does write Enlightenment Now, which makes a similar but broader case.
That is why his book is called The Better Angels of Our Nature. He is claiming that circumstances can allow our better side thrive. No contradiction here.
@@janosmarothy5409 A) He is using several different methods to determine that the paleolitic past was more violent including forensics (signs of violent death on skeletons), and studies of recent or contemporary primitive societies. His conclusion is that you are less likely to meet a violent end today. B) The circumstances he mentions include i. The monopoly of force (Hobbesian pacification that lessens small scale conflicts like vendetas, highway robbery etc. ), ii. Increasing living standards that make us value life more, iii. The increase of trade and plus-sum games replace plunder and other zero-sum games, (the pro free market capitalist argument) iv. Education and literacy increases our capacity to know the other (also arts and lit.), v. The expanding moral circle due to the Kantian logic of not thinking that we are so special that we obey different laws, universal value thinking... These were some of the reasons he gives. Obviously the fact that you have a neglible risk of dying, and a high chance of reaching 90 years old, may have something to do with the aformention developments. NO does not say that things are perfect, and he does think that progress is a bumby ride with huge setbacks, still today nearly everyone on earth is living with less of a risk of dying a premature death. Life span has doubled in 100 years only. Clearly we are doing something right, he says. Does not mean that they cannot be improved. But not everything is wrong, and some grand scale revision may lead to worse outcomes. That is obviously undeniable.
Ive seen a couple videos now highlighting Pinker's "arguements" on the matter. This is the first one that used the word "plonker" and im here for it. I appreciate your thoroughness and the fact you translate that into an easily digestible format. Well done m8
So, yes - Pinker's assertions are cultivated around evidence that has been cherry-picked. On one vector we might suggest that this is an act of enlightened self-interest and that strong positions sell more books than less certain ones, but then - the counter-arguments to Pinker remain equally as strong. In Pinker we find a brilliant mind that has been bewitched by notions of political necessity and difference that inflate and shape or colour and influence his conclusions. The long-game he plays is that of valourising capitalism, conservatism and seeking a tautological self-validation for the ideological and sociocultural position he occupies. Politics is as hard to extract from his position as is a metastatic tumour from a body. Pinker is worth reading as an exercise in learning how to assert a position, just as Nietzsche is worth reading in order to learn how to think, or playing Bach for learning how to understand and inhabit music agnostic of instrumental context. We should still differentiate the man, his intellect and aptitude from his conclusions regardless that an implicit political undercurrent is a rationally polluting factor that notwithstanding his own enlightened self-interest in making a profit, hints at deeper, underlying causal and motivational patterns here. Jordan Petersen is similar. Brilliant but bewitched by a belief in the normative difference and reflexively aspirational psychological and social self-determination and certainty that a bipolar ideological world brings. Being able to argue a strong point does not, however, make a person more correct - as we should see in law and legal decision-making; the argument appears as strong as its selling and its symbolic purchase but is only ever, as are all systems of belief, partial, incomplete and profoundly uncertain. Pinker is of a similar ouvre. It is true that we should debate ideas, not personalities, but I wonder if they are ever truly separable.
27:29 from jean-jacques russo first man 27:34 who after enclosing a piece of ground 27:37 took it 27:37 into his head to say this is mine and 27:40 found people 27:41 simple enough to believe him was the 27:43 true founder 27:44 of civil society how many crimes 27:48 how many wars how many murders how many 27:50 misfortunes and horrors 27:52 would that man have saved the human 27:54 species who pulling up the stakes or 27:56 filling up the ditches should have cried 27:58 to his fellows 28:00 be sure not to listen to this imposter 28:02 you are lost if you forget that the 28:04 fruits of the earth belong 28:05 equally to us all and the earth itself 28:09 to nobody
Interesting video. Thanks. It does feel as though Pinker has done for human violence something like what climate change deniers do with temperatures, focus on conveniently specific portions of the data that support a particular narrative. Indeed, this Occam's Broom approach seems to be increasingly common and takes a lot of unpacking by actual specialists (or dedicated amateurs) to unpick.
You've outdone yourself this time, Then & Now. Brilliant analysis and the presentation just keeps getting better. I look forward to the next video as well watching the channel grow. Thank you for helping out us grad students with your accessible but thorough work, it's appreciated ❤️
Objection: The distinction between "human nature" and "civilization" is a faux binary; civilization is ALSO the product of human nature. Surely what we're really comparing here is how "human nature" operates in different social and historical contexts? Also, aren't we in this analysis placing undue emphasis on war specifically? The idea that organized or semi-organized warfare was rare or nonexistent before the widespread practice of agriculture is one thing--but we don't need war to break out for people to die violently. For example, we can well imagine the ancient equivalent of a highwayman waiting around all day for some unlucky hunter to come by, dispatching this fellow quickly, making off with his catch for the day, and--this is critical--leaving the body behind. In short order, those remains will be set on by scavengers, and little or no archaeological evidence is likely to remain. Now of course you may rightly point out that this is an entirely hypothetical scenario. But so too is almost everything else we're discussing here: An ancient burial with an arrow in it might be a murder victim or might be a hunter laid to rest with his prized possession, but surely this is all speculating whichever way? It seems to me that if we're going to criticize Pinker for too much speculation and fabulism, we can't pepper those criticisms with an equal amount of guesswork. The worst thing we can say for Pinker's conclusions is that they're based on too little evidence because simply too little evidence exists--which, if true, should invite fewer conclusions in reply, not additional ones.
"civilization is ALSO the product of human nature" -- No. Civilization is what happens when people settle down. You forgot that part of the equation. It's like saying "an animal going insane in a cage is due to the animal's nature." I think it has more to do with the cage.
@@Tamlinearthly Neither did we the people. The ruling class of every age did. The capitalist cage we're in right now was built by the capitalist class. It's actually the only thing they ever built.
Great analysis. I contacted Noam Chomsky when he had spoken out against the data in Pinker's book and he gave me contact information for an anthropologist that wrote a critique of it. There are several professors that have found Pinker's book misleading and factually incorrect. Even Matt Dillahunty has been referencing Pinker's book...sad.
Adam Curtis has a great doc about social engineering where he (gently) confronts Napoleon Chagnon about the flaws in his ethnography of the Yanomami tribe... and Chagnon walks out of the interview lol.
Your entire "oh, it was the imperialists!" is just as cherry picked and misleading as Pinker's anecdotes. Anybody that has done some reading on the hunter gatherers of Papua New Guinea will be aware of how perpetual tribal warfare can be the modus operandi of such a society. Now, I am not sure if it is matter of there being less competition for territory 10000 years ago, due to lower densities of people, and thus an argument could be made for less violence in general - but as soon as the capacity of the land are reached and the tribes are competing for hunting grounds, as in PNG, warfare ensues. I have no interest in defending neither Pinker nor imperialism, but your cherry picked examples to answer the question of "could hunter gatherer societies have been more violent than ours" is muddling the picture by implying that a) we cannot know because we don't have data of pure hunter gatherer societies and b) if there is data of violence, it is because civilisation, colonisers, caused it. We do have data that is not muddled by civilisation and violent imperialism. There are countless studies made by social anthropologists of PNG - societies that to this day are largely isolated from outside factors.
Blame shifting, this is how evil is done. First someone commands evil be done to improve circumstances, then underlings just do what they are told, committing the acts. No one has to carry blame this way, the commander didn't do the deeds and the underlings were just following orders..
I was arguing against his idea....12 years ago. Human behavior is linked to the environment. Change the environment (have lobbies fighting for capital and profit) and you endorse violent behavior
Let me venture a hypothesis about the origin of war: War - organized inter-group violence - emerges as a possibility wherever and whenever the activity of other human groups, as opposed to a hostile nature or one's own intrinsic limitations, has become a significant factor limiting one's own group's ability to acquire, or hold on to, resources you consider necessary for your well-being. Low population density, high mobility and the inability to store large amounts of resources which would be easy targets for raids would've made such scenarios comparably rare in the paleolithic.
There is a missunderstanding about the change from real hunter gatherer to farming-culture: To be a constant famer in a world, which hunts and gathers, you have to be very strong and powerfull, to defend your famrland and fruits. So, the first farmers absolutly weren´t getting farmers, because of weakness. And already mostly, that was a process of doing both over generations, befor the farming-skills would be sufficient enough to live. Just, as it seems to be in several south-american tribes usual: sort of half-farming, half hunting/gathering and.,..half sedentary, because if the field is getting bad, they go away. But: the first farmers had initiated the disconnection from the real nature and its capacity to support food. And could let grow even more human, as befor in a hunter-gatherer tribe-culture. Albeit also that did needed some thausends of years to let realy effective happend. But that also did the situation for the lasting hunter-gatherers getting realy bad, because the farmers also hunted further on. Thats the point: You have to be so strong and powerfull (with your group), that you can occupy your farmland, to not get overthrown by haunter-gatherers, because they didn´t know the concept of fields and planting and steel the friuts of the farmers. You must defend all that effectivly. Whats not gonne happend, if you are a weak group. Weak groups are always fleeing, not fighting. And that strongness comes out from quantity, not from quality. As it is until today (maybe as we can see at Pinkers theory... sic...later more about that) I am also the meaning, that hunter gatherers are sort of very peacefull, because.... if you are in a situation, where only your capability to hunt and walk every day holds you alive, you cannot fight all day. You not only can fight once in your live. Because when that goes very bad, you are dead anyway, because you canot search for food anymore. First possibility to making warfare first evolved out of the typical situation of sedantary cultures, where the food support is higher, and more humans could be feeded with it. So they are more peoples and also can fight dangerus wars, because... they already more, as they need to work and farm food. So, that farming-/sedantary-cultures have exactly that flaw: They breed more humans, as hunter-gatherers. And that excess will be used as recource for warefare. It maybe has exactly that reason, why they not used data out of real hunter-gatherer-culturers or times. Because that would be realy contraproductive to his theory/account. The other reason may be, that hunter gatherers didn´t have such graveyards, as later sedantary culturtes have. So to find such from hunter gatherers isn´t very productive. Because they mostly buried one or maybe sometimes two or more. And then they migrated further on elsewhere. There is an analoge situation in animal-spheres: I belief, that in most species they didn´t fight against their others until death. Because its not worth it. They are "free" and no problem with property or living-space. They almost go away, if the problems with another exemplar of the species came by. If you have to defend a lifestyle, and Farmland (and with the fruits also your work), then you may be more willing to fight for it to death. But animals didn´t have that. They live in the real paradieses.... not the modern human (as they always will make us belief). With animals itis, as like with the unter-gatherer, who must be carefull to not getting hurt or so sick, that you cannot search and hunt for food. And that is the reason, why hunter-gatherers more likely not killing each other. Its sobering, tha modern "intellectuals" do such failures in their theorys. And its very harmfull for their fellowmen, who aren´t so intellectualy giftet (and can make a show to make a living out of it). Because these "simple creatures/fellowmen" will be the soldats, that will be send to war, that the intellectuals thought out in their biased and confortable bubble. That is a uge problem for modern civilisations/societys, because those intellectuals are the elites of the societys and... make such failures without a twitch. Simply, they are more save and lucky in these modern civilisations, as anyone else. It seems to have somewhat of bolcheviki, that were upset over the modern state "bourgeoisie" ...that are becoming neccessary for organisating bigger and bigger societys. And becoming arrogant over their dirty fellowmen, who did actualy all the work, that the society can exist. So they tryed to get rid of them... what is not easy. And wasn´t succesfull and also not a ethical praiseworthily idea at all. But they were right with that: the modern "Service-class" in the societys didn´t see their own existance-condition right. They are replaceable...much more, as every street-cleaner or specialized craftsmen. And espacialy, if they speak stupid stuff. And, as youtube and other social media got mainstream, there is also an exponentialy reprography of nonsense and false information. And i mean not the fakenews. That is another complication, and isn´t limited to rightwing-propagandists. The modern AI will solve that problem ...maybe. Not the problem with Intellectual "nosnense"-information, rather the problem with that intellectuals with to much habits and ego´s (and no real life-experience and insight in the real basics). And that fact, that the modern western civilisations had succesfully decreased the "violence" in their societys, is right, but that concerns only the extrinsical violence/coercion, not all the other possible variants of doing harm to peoples. That is espacialy valid for highly advanced technology and knowledge-civilisations, who can kill, without to kill someone (viewable). There are unknown poisons, other technics of killing someone else (or even hole groups of humans). And even political propaganda can kill - by splitting peoples communitys and ideas of living and existing and provocating rage and hate. But, all that does not kill viewable for all others, so they never see that. And belief, their own civilisation is very peacefull and non-violent. Albeit, that isn´t the fact, because most modern civilisations do violence: They go to war without any end. That wars doesn´t happend in the garden of the nation, rather far away. For that reason, i plead to abolish that modern western democracy, because therein peoples have votingrights, that not even have the minimum intellectual wisdom for some realy complicated problems. You know, even scientists will explain (and proof) that we have "free will" with an example of a big shelfs of chocolate, where we can "chose" from diferent sorts. Such studipness should be restricted. Think about: If we have a will, there is no freedom anymore, because our will is the force against. And you then stand in front of an choclate-shelf and have to chose out of 100 sort of choclates, that is absolutly strange situation and puts the situation upside down. Your will is immediatly undermined. Ok, big shelfs in supermarkets are normal and.. not bad. But they didn´t qualify for philosphical (or even scientific) proof-strategys of that sorts. If for usual scientists such shelfs are proof enough for free will, they should get put in gulac or in psychiaty/therapy. Because thats a strange thinking with neglects, that reach to the end of the universe. Such intellectuals no civilisation need as elite identitys, which lead the politics and nation. Even the reasearch shouldn´t led by them. They are the specialists in discipline - not more. They can use formulas or whatever. But to led the research for the benefit of civilisation? That didn´t bring any advanced profit (not for the peoples, only for them). the other side of stoneage hunter-gatherer-cultures is, that if a catastrophic failure happends, the hole tribe will die... and that happend realitvly often, because... there is a problem with making experiences and learning out of failures, if that failures are deadly as hell. Most of breedet descendants are send in that "freedom" of that paradise and contemporaneous to death. Just, as it is in animal-spheres, where evolutional selective factors decide, who is surviving, and who not. Its sort of the rate of hunting-accidents in stoneage times (that today maybe often be hidden homicides). You get harmed in a cold and live-unfriendly region, then you almost will die. And no human is capable to compensate aging and getting "unfit"...and makes failures, just, as it maybe was with Ötzi....So it wasn´t a truly unusual finding, with that mummy in the glacier. There maybe will be more to find in the future, when these glaciers will melt away.
Rather than looking at ancient hunter gatherer tribes who are totally different socially from us it is better to look at situations where the state completely breaks down. If there was some kind of natural "state of nature" we would revert to that in these conditions but instead all the evidence shows Hobbes is a lot closer to being right than wrong about human nature.
I think that it's important to not that "there's nothing about being a hunter-gatherer that makes you peaceful" doesn't mean that a hunter gatherer is or is not peaceful. Merely that this would be determined by other things. If there is not enough food for everyone and there are two tribes of hunter gatherer, then the population surplus is going to be brought down. Is this violent? Yes. But is this caused by *innate* violence? Well, in a word, no. And that's leaving out other options such as some some people splitting off and leaving for greener past... hunting grounds, etc. I'm not an anthropologist, and this is just a thought experiment of course. But you could be a person whose nature is not very violent, with an upbringing that is not very violent, yet end up in a situation that forces you to be very violent. The fact that after the green revolution, wars in Europe stopped, and before the green revolution, Malthusian crunches were pretty much a guarantee that scared the bejesus out of people should tell us *something*. I'm not sure what, but "humans don't want to die, and if it's you or me, we're all gonna look out for number 1" shouldn't tell us to kill our neighbours and build a pyramid of their skulls. It should tell us that we should build societies where we don't have to face that choice. And it's weird how people don't get that.
"The fact that after the green revolution, wars in Europe stopped, and before the green revolution, Malthusian crunches were pretty much a guarantee that scared the bejesus out of people should tell us *something*" That's really shaky logic. Europe was relatively peaceful only as a consequence of the geopolitical balance of forces following a military conflict that exhausted all the continental powers, even the USSR. Then there's the obverse which gives the whole thing away: precisely because of the geopolitical balance of forces, the so-called Third World was embroiled in a constant series of proxy wars and wars of independence. This, mind you, precisely in the part of the world where the Green Revolution we are told over and over in mainstream discourse is supposed to have had the greatest impact.
what the evidence shows is that for immediate return foragers, if there was a situation where there wasnt enough food for everyone the most likely response wouldn't be violence it would be the group splitting and moving to a place with more food. Its a choice thats not only peaceful but also rational. Whay risk injury and death when you could just split off and move?
This doesn’t make any sense! When ecological conditions are more harsh, fewer wars break out between tribes, and when ecological conditions are prosperous, more wars break out between tribes. This is because, in most hunter-gathering societies, the people with your tribe are most likely more related to you than the people of other tribes, meaning if ecological conditions are harsh, hurting people within your tribe not only hurts your uncertain future but hurts the identical alleles of the genes you share with that person. On the other hand, when ecological conditions are prosperous, you can afford to take more risk
Considering we live in modern agricultural societies it’s a bit apples to oranges to compare the behavior of our Paleolithic ancestors to modern humans. It doesn’t provide much benefit to say before agriculture we were more peaceful. A comparison in different agricultural societies is much more enlightening to how we should structure our society.
What a shame then, that we didn't stay closer to our bonobo cousins. Just imagine our wars then, when everyone involved is frotting everyone else, problems solved and no weapons or blood.... Well, unless someone gets a little frisky and there's a bit of rug burn.....
There's good reason, Bonobos were heavily astroturfed coinciding with the "poly" agenda, it requires splendid isolation and the selection metric is unfit. Human females select for more, you get no where by selecting for less.
I think Pinkers idea that we are progressing is a good antidote to the feeling that a lot of us can get stuck with, including myself- that everything is going to sht. Sure, he makes some leaps of logic, and nothing's all peachy no problems, but it is good to recognise that we have pretty good lives. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to make things better, it's just an acknowledgement that it's nice we won't have to decide which children can survive because we don't have enough food stockpiled for winter. We have to be realistic. That means acknowledging all the bad things about the society we live in. But it also includes acknowledging the good, which so regularly gets overlooked from all types of people. Just to be clear, video still gets a 👍from me, this is incredibly well done, and very informative. I just wanted to point out that books like Better Angel's of our Nature and Factfullness provide us with alternative views that break the depressive cloud of pessimism that seems to permeate so easily throughout our culture. It's more important to find accurate views, but sometimes that takes a book like Pinker's to start the wheels turning.
Our material needs may be met fairly well here in the west but for the majority of this planet this is not the case. In fact there are more people living in dire poverty today than at any other point in human history! Of course this is mostly due to overpopulation thanks to fossil fuels and technology but it goes in complete contrast to the fallacy Pinker desperately tries to promote. What people like you and Pinker really don't understand though is that our material needs may be well met for the 20% of us lucky enough to be born in the global north, we actually have more psychopathologies now than ever before.... Clearly our emotional needs are in fact NOT being met and no amount overcomsumption of useless consumer products is ever going to change that fact.
@@j85grim4 we have more people now than ever before, so counting the total number isn't really giving us an accurate representation of anything, because of course there will be more of everything. I'm also not sure where you get 20% for people living with their material needs meet, I guess that depends on how you define those words, but I wouldn't say 80% of the world is living without basic material needs being met. That would have been more true in the 1800's than it is today, if we look at data. There are plenty of problems in the world, we are certainly not doing ourselves any favours by continually destroying the ecosystem that sustains us, we are pretty miserable, and we clearly need to do better as a society to provide for everyone. All I'm saying is - there are things to be grateful for. The majority of people on earth today are leaving in situations their ancestors would likely prefer over their own. That's not saying today's world is great, just that they've always been pretty bad
Have you looked at the reference section of Better Angeles? Its like a 1/4 of the book and its not a small book. I love this channel but the amount of research Steven did for this book is impressive. This argument might have truth but for calling out Pinker on cherry picking and making a 30 min video of cherry picking yourself is disappointing.
(Ending credits) "I really enjoyed this video learning about so much Stuff I had no idea about".... You should have started with that in the beginning of the video. That you pretty much knew nothing about the subject but than makes a video debunking years of research in 29mins.
I have been considering the impact of the development of technology on the future of violent conflict between humans and am very happy to have found this well researched and presented piece. Thank you.
Interesting take. But like Pinker makes assumptions and simplifications so do you. It would be interesting to examine violent deaths relative to interactions between tribes with other variables like population, area, and resources. One could argue that 1% of violent deaths in a few interactions/year among a few or several 100-members tribe interactions/year to 1% in daily multi-million-sized states interactions is a far more impactful percentage.
The whole point of the video is made on the basis of comparing a more careful and more extensive data set than Pinker does, so you have all your work ahead of you to demonstrate how it is that this video simplifies in roughly equal measure to Pinker. Pinker isn't the first person to make these sorts of grand claims, and isn't the first to do this on the basis of some shaky methodology, and honestly, some shaky ideological premises. It's not for nothing that the anthropologists who actually study this stuff don't take him or others like him seriously. Even Hobbes himself was not trying to make a literal historical argument and it's no surprise that his ahistorical thought experiment is not particularly persuasive in the field.
Sadly the world makes being nice difficult because everything has costs and being nice can be interpreted as weakness by many making you a target so it not easy being good
Right On! Thanks so much for this defense of Jean-Jacques. A pleasure to view in form & content.
Such an undervalued channel, and it just keeps getting better.
A true gem!
I find Steven Pinker even more cringeworthy than Peterson. He's just an apologist of the status quo and the neoliberal order and he's doing that with awfully bad science. As Monbiot put it nicely "Pinker's poor scholarship and motivated reasoning insult the Enlightenment principles he claims to defend".
I agree with that comment 100%
And what makes your view unapologetic? To you anyone who presents any kind of evidence that even hints at status quo being a normal outcome is neoliberal apologist. Because in you conviction this is simply not possible. And you believe a writer an political activist more than a professor at Harward - which is shameful. You deny science because of your political views.
@@matejkleni6295 well here you just presented a bunch of logical fallacies like appeal to authority and straw man. The main problem with Steven Pinker - if you ever really considered critiques of his work - is that he uses bad science and skewed evidence in order to prove his ideologically charged thesis. His reasoning is, by his own standards, underwhelming to say the least. It is shameful that you deny this just because he is a professor or says something that is politically appealing to you. In fact, you are projecting and doing exactly the very same thing you are accusing me of, that is denying science because of your ideology and/or political views.
Luckily you have no credibility what so ever.
Luckily, what you have here is an impressively intelligent response to an argument. Not. :D *cringe*
If half the babies die during birth or before their first birthday and everybody else gets to live 100 years, the average life expectancy is 50...
I'm always baffled how many people seem to ignore how averages work when talking about life expectancies in past times
the average life expectancy doesn't become 50, the average lifespan does. the life expectancy is still 100
@@francesatty7022 That's actually right, my point is still true though: "“There is a basic distinction between life expectancy and life span,” says Stanford University historian Walter Scheidel, a leading scholar of ancient Roman demography. “The life span of humans - opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct - hasn’t really changed much at all, as far as I can tell.”
I agree that it’s shameful people don’t understand (nor do they seemingly care) how averaging/statistics work, but look around… those same people don’t know what temperature water boils.
In more mobile HG societies women could only care for children that were four years apart. That means a woman who was likely to give birth by the time she was 15 and remain fertile into her 30s (if she lived that long) might have to terminate or or kill at least 5 foetuses or babies bringing ave life expectancy down to single digits. BTW no-one in HG societies lived to 100.
Pinker himself argues that human nature is 'elastic': there are better and worse angels of our nature. The fact that small societies have tended to be more peaceful than Pinker claims does not mean that large societies haven't been pacified by state rule paired with change in sensibilities and trade exactly as Pinker claims. if you take the number of whatever society and added to it the population of a nation like Britain even with the population embracing their customs (in a thought experiment) then it's hard to imagine they'd stay as peaceful or have solidarity as the anthropology studies and archaeological studies bear out for smaller societies.
His thesis, moreover, that violence has declined proportionally to population size is correct. Taking the later part of human existence in thousands of years may make more sense than the whole span of Homo Sapiens, since before then the population size isn't representative at all of humans living in large genetically diverse societies that are qualitatively more comparable to our own.
The video also missed that the rate and danger of violence have become more efficient - so violence can be quicker and have more impact than previously. So the danger of violence is greatest whilst it's rarest. That's the biggest critique contribution to Pinker's book, in my view.
Your first paragraph was exactly my thaughts whilst watching the video. I found the video very interesting but it's nothing like the "debunking" of Steven Pinker that some people in the comments seem strangely eager to belive it is. It's more of a light critique.
Your comment does not parse well, but at best it seems misguided. Pinker is infamous for inconsistently flipping between raw and proportional numbers, whichever case better serves his neoliberal agenda. Egalitarian societies were not all isolated as you suggest, and we have an understanding of the mechanism behind why we transitioned away from egalitarian societies, which has little to do with population size, and is more a function of transitioning to surplus and commodification based societies, from which emerged personality traits centered on an obsession with hierarchy and dominance, aka right wingers. Furthermore, “genetic diversity” smacks of either ignorance or racism. This video does a pretty thorough job of debunking Pinker’s nonsense on violence, largely by presenting the work of actual scientists, experts who debunked Pinker with real research and data, as opposed to cherry picking data to write a pop science book skewed to give cover to those in power (and those with airplanes that fly to a certain island). Other research has demonstrated that Pinker is wrong about poverty as well. Pinker is not a serious academic, he’s an opportunist.
I'm curious: have you rethought any of this in light of the release of The Dawn of Everything by Davids Graeber and Wengrow? Specifically, does their complicating the idea of there having been a "state of nature" subsequent "fall from grace" complicate your argument here?
Curious about this too! Such an interesting book, though incomplete as well, as anything concerning an undertaking like that would be.
Asking whether humans are nasty or nice is like asking if zebras are black or white.
indeed!
The problem is that there is actually a concise answer to whether or not the zebra is black or white. I get what you’re going for, but it’s not analogous if we’re trying to be precise
One of my gripes with people like Pinker is that they only talk about explicit violence while ignoring the implicit violence that permeates our everyday lives in civilization. It's true that it's only on rare occasions that the police and military actually kills people, but it's this threat of violence that keeps the masses in line living lives that they are not necessarily happy with. Pinker's argument that the state monopolization of force reduces violence is therefor disingenious - what it really means is that the power of the state is so overwhelming that few dare to defy it. Now, think about the extent to which a modern state dictates our lives and ask yourself how you believe that compares to life in a primitive tribe.
The state is the most violent gang there is. It is based on violence and kept at power by violence. It can be much more than that: it can promote good moral values, help poor people and provide schools and hospitals. But there cannot be a state without ability and capacity for violence.
Basic question about violence in prehistoric times: since almost every study mentioned in the video has probably been conducted on bone remains, how can we account for violent deaths that did not involve bone fractures?
Death by ZnooZnoo?
My thoughts exactly. And even for fractured bones, unless there was some sort of weapon embedded or surrounded by weapons suggesting a battle field, how on earth could any archaeologist reliably say whether the person fell out of a tree or was bludgeoned by somebody? If no skeletons found in an archeological dig were declared to have died by strangulation, that doesn’t mean that none of them were murdered by strangulation.
I like the detail in this video. A lot of this is covered in Civilized to Death. But, in this video, the visual graphs are really a good way to understand the points being made.
That was excellent. A reminder to use our academic tools to question statements and seek verification and indeed perhaps ask better questions. Pinker has achieved significant acclaim for this book as has Malcolm Gladwell for his books. I wonder if you’ve done anything on the 10,000 hour myth, that gets quoted frequently.
Only if you believe this horse shit?
This channel is the most bias bunch so socially constructivist, nonsense ever.
Pinker is the typical status-quo apologist : "Everything is alright, nothing to see here".
All the libertarians love him. His postulates help to underpin a "meritocratic" conucopia vision of capitalism.
I think Chomsky was right when he said Pinker cherry picks his data. No mention will you see of the most brutal wars in the history of humanity in the 20th century, in his books.
@@bibo2445 there's video of some Harvard thing where eminent scholars meet up for a kind of annual Alan Dershowitz appreciation pow wow. Pinker is one of the members . Wonder if they're still convening those get togethers post Jeffrey Epstein.
Yep. He's blind to objective/systemic violence as conceptualized by zizek. Violence has simply adapted and changed its form throughout history. Pinkers conception of violence is incredibly rigid and one sided. I'm not surprised the right wingers love him.
@@greenguy2372 fck knows how many peoples lives were ended prematurely in the 20th century. The assumption of a historical onwards and upwards to liberal consumer Nirvana is laughable. History isn't over.
I agree with most of what is put forth in the video, however Otzi was murdered by another group, there is ample evidence of this. DNA evidence as well as different technologies in the arrows (that he carries in the quiver and inside his back). His arrows also had DNA from his attackers, so he drew blood...He also had injuries that were tended to before he died, so he was probably not alone. #justiceforotzi
This is still being debated pretty heavily within archaeological circles so id be careful about making any definitive statements. All of the evidence you cited is true, but there are also theories that he was with a party and it may have been an accident, or animal attack gone wrong. Among others.
I think the most charitable interpretation of pinkers take is that
1.) yes, interpersonal violence seems to have decreased as society has developed technologies.
2.) this does not negate the intrapersonal violence of humanity at large. The scale of violence has grown significantly.
And finally 3.) pinker is driven by idealogical forces that seek to reinforce his neoliberal biases.
@@AshiwiZuni
Or Steven Pinker could be correct. I have read a lot of Streven Pinker's work as well as those who oppose his views, and though I have issues with some of what he writes, I have never got the impression that he is driven by ideology. Every writer is influenced by their paradigm and Pinker is no exception. On this particular topic I have not come to a conclusion one way or another.
@@AshiwiZuni you’re making a big claim about his being driven by “ideological forces”, without of course, any evidence at all
@@alst4817 go tell someone who cares
@@AshiwiZuni great point, I take back what I said, you obviously know your stuff
One of the most informative video essays I've watched in a while! I never knew findings like this existed. Great job
ok, that's an undervalued channel, from now, it's one of if not the favourite of mine
Interesting video. I'd like to see Pinker respond.
Watch Pinker’s car crash interview with Medhi Hassan from 3 years ago where he fails to refute or even engage with challenges from leading academics about both his data and his methodology
ruclips.net/video/BkM2wiOwerc/видео.html
Pinker’s work is ideologically driven. That’s how he ended up on Epstein’s private jet…
Why, you do know he's been called out on his intellectual dishonesty before and he doesn't respond. He is not honest so will not accept anything other than the status quo and you know that.
In "The Biology of Peace and War", Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt presents some compelling evidence, suggesting that territorial disputes between human-groupings, are precisely what catalyzes human conflict.
land and women main causes just like animales too
And being territorial is a trait of many species.
Steven Pinker cherry picking and misunderstanding data? I'm utterly chocked!
Have you actually read the book ?
It would seem intuitive to me that violence in primitive societies is zero-inflated and right skewed; In many societies violence is a huge taboo and doesn't appear almost at all, but in a few it might have become normalized through a vicious cycle.
This would make estimating the average difficult and perhaps a bit meaningless
Great video and congrats on 100k subscribers!
"In the forest we had everything we needed and life was good. Now everything is expensive and life is stressful."
Elder of the Mentawai people in an interview
Really? You think life was great, wonderful and idyllic living as a hunter gatherer? Ok, go live in the woods no one will care. But don’t take anything with you but what you can pick up off the ground. Go for it.
"We lived in harmony with rainforest, because we had to. Rainforest is hell. Now we have chainsaws, we no longer have to live in it."
- member of Papuan tribe
@@Zmok “Hell Is Other People” - Sartre
But we have chainsaws, we no longer have to live in it. From now on when i hear "machine gun" i will think "people chainsaw" LOL
Did the Korowai have chainsaws to build those fake treehouses for western documentaries?
“War made the state, and the state made war.” -Charles Tilly
Jared Diamond has extensive documentation of the violence of hunter gather tribes in Papua New Guinea. (Tribe on tribe violence, not involving modern colonists.)
One might counter that the Western half of the island having developed over time has placed strain on the tribes, squeezing them into a smaller territory. I still think JD would assess that there are ample resources. He even documents retributional murder. So, killings not involving scarce resources.
Yes, there cases where hunter gatherers do.kilñ each other, what does that prove? That Pinker is right and that colonialism and slavery, poverty is just the natural order of the things. You want to confirm your world view and you know that. If you have an ideology that promotes the idea that human beings are inherently evil, violent, rapists and that everything is the way it should be, then you will not be open to any other perspectives, simple as that ñ.
And yeah, you answered your own question, the Western conquering of papa New Guinea obviously had an impact on these people. It's not like Westerners haven't created tensions between groups of people.
@@alvodin6197 wow 😮 what crazy pills did you swallow?
You are telling me that Otzi was likely accidentally shot by an arrow of another hunter on the top of a mountain in a time where the number of humans on the planet was below half a million?
people hunted in bands and visibility was very low due to snow
Do you think they just hunted alone....?
Great video summarising this topic. Also worth noting that how we measure violence now is different, like how we call war different from crime different from deaths totally not caused by that company that dumped their waste in the river. Millions starve each year because we don't share, is that needless death any less violent just because it used a pen and not a spear?
that's a good point, I'd bet most hunter-gatherers would consider very violent to let people starve when there's plenty to go around
you understand that now we share more than ever, and now people die less than ever because of these "needless deathes"
@@smotretvseru, the 9 million who will starve to death this year and the currently 900 million going hungry would disagree with you. Those numbers have stayed pretty consistent for quite some time now.
@@tim290280 no, it literally was 2 times more 20 years ago. Do you understand how incredible those numbers are?
Just 200 years ago 99% of people was going hungry(for the last 10000 years+), now only 10.
And those small percentage of people that starve to death - its sad, but we can`t help them with "sharing", we already tried, it makes things worse in a long run.
Just google how food charity to some African places killed local farmers.
Its far more complicated problem than "just give them food". But it will be fixed in 21-st century if current trend stays.
@@tim290280 Even Pinker's biggest critics have to agree there is a trend to reduce global poverty. It is much slower than Pinker thinks, and he's wrong about some other stuff, but he's right about the direction of things.
Thank you for hunting and gathering all of that information so we can consume it from our cozy homes! - Ahh, the wonders of civilisation.
Under rated comment
And the comfort of your heart disease, obesity, cavities, autoimmune diseases, flat feet, chronic pain, diabetes, near sightedness, scoliosis, cancer and so on. Do you want me to go on?! NON OF THESE DISEASES existed before your "cozy" home.
Very good work as usual. I always appreciate how careful you are with your videos, a lot of other people who talk about Pinker don't put enough work in.
The title of the video is incorrect or at least incomplete by this guy's own account. Steven Pinker is right about the decline of violence at least in the last 1000 years. This is pretty much glossed over but it's probably the most important thing to me. I suspect violence will continue to go down over time.
I agree with the Hobbesian/Pinker view of the Leviathan. If you actually had a global government, there could be no war. Nor would you have terrorism(at least not organized terrorism like ISIS). Maybe the lone-wolf who hates society, but even that could be largely diminished/controlled through an expansive police-state. Although I wouldn't call this the "Better angels of our nature". We're not becoming better people. We just have better systems of control.
we have extensive records of aboriginal society in Australia. They were pre-agricultural people so they fit into your long-range view of history. Convicts ran away and lived with these people and wrote accounts of their lives living with them. They show an extremely violent society where people were always at war and murder was common.
The majority view is that Ötzi was murdered and while it might have been "friendly fire", I would say most evidence leans towards murder.
Have you heard of the observer effect?
A post-colonial image is not a pre-colonial image. The fact of Europeans in the 1800s means guns, germs, liquor and competition, all of which meant social disruption.
@@MalcolmPL I do not see the relevance of this response. There is no evidence of these runaway convicts then causing an observer effect. They certainly did not bring guns, germs, liquor or competition to the aboriginals.
@@WagesOfDestruction The convicts existed in a context in which this disruption had already occurred prior to their arrival. They existed in a post-colonial world.
I repeat, information from the post-colonial world is not information from the pre-colonial world.
@@MalcolmPL nonsense please you have clearly not read these convicts account
@@WagesOfDestruction Given as you haven't named them or otherwise cited any sources, I can't say whether I've read them. But answer me this. What year were the convicts shipped, who did the convicts sail with and why were the convicts being transported?
Just one thing to note, I've been listening to a podcast on human civilization and how it got started from its most ancient beginnings called Tides of History by Patrick Wyman, and one of the things he points out is that we should not think that hunter gathers societies from 10,000 years ago are the same as hunter gather societies today. Basically, all peoples have evolution and changes to their societies, even if by our eyes they look the same.
I found Pinkers critique that societies with less government and more anarchy are more violent much more compelling (when looking at more modern societies). He points out the wild west and its high amount of violence for example. But we can just look at our world today, societies where government is weak and fragmented, and people have to take the law into their own hands are extremely violent and full of armed gangs of all sorts. Another compelling argument (to me) is that societies which are younger are more violent, since most violent crime is committed by young men. And that when a certain percentage of a society is made out of young people that chance for revolutions and violence increase. This information is off the top of my head, so I might be misremembering. HOWEVER, I think the points you showed are true, his graphs can be quite lacking, and Pinkers arguments about poverty, inequality GDP getting better over time are too simplistic and quite laughable. I would take you to watch this video by Unlearning Economics where he points out the fallacy of that argument ruclips.net/video/fo2gwS4VpHc/видео.html and how GDP information from our own time can be missleading and it is probably impossible to figure out GDP from past societies.I do want to point out I have only gone through about 1/3 of the book, its quite massive, but it does give you some things to think about and others which I just don't think have enough evidence in any way to form an opinion on, as PInker has.
The wild west also had a populas of drifters. People who needed to get away from something or someone else. If we are within a set of ideas that include high amount of ownership the wild west already had those ideas and the goal was to own a piece of land if needed by gun. Colonisation is a giant take over of another land Its basicly a war. So yes it was violent
The ownership meme combined with the relation to an group identity thats bigger than 100. Nationalism, christianity, etc. more than you can know. In combination with scarcity Will get you war.
The GDP argument is based of cherry picked data no matter how you look at it, there is quite a lot of unaccounted production as well as simple cultural transferrance of the likes of art/thought/language that cannot be quantified (unless pressed into the service of capital),
and thus there is no means to account for GDP other than by analysis of externalities (such as material or labor used), which must ultimately always amount to less value than a final product when forced into a capitalist environment
Subsequently, any developing/impoverished nation/culture is exploited at the whims of imperialist/developed nations who define the price of any product no matter how scarce..
Thus GDP of any nation can be manipulated in order to either weaken uncooperative nations or inflate willing governments
The thing about the Wild West is thst it wasn't "anarchic" or without government, rather the power of government was vested in people for significantly different purposes and with a much larger emphasis on individual discretion. That's not anarchy, rather it's a form of government that gives power based on somewhat arbitrary criteria. If there were true anarchy, the law would not have its monopoly of (often corrupt) force that creates the narratives we now attach to.
It's also worth mentioning the massive genocide of native people's in order to steal their land. That contributes a lot to the violence.
pinker-ass comment lol.
The violence of organized warfare is not the only kind of violence that afflicts modern Capitalist societies. Pinker seems to ignore that poverty, inequity, and racism are all modern forms of violence that plague present society.
Do a vid on Pierre Clastres, Marshall Sahlins or James C. Scott, or all of them for like a 'further reading' on early human/HG societies etc
Scott and Sahlins. Never read Clastres though.
@@dionysianapollomarx I know Scott cites him in 'Seeing Like A State' or 'Against The Grain' I forget which but Clastres was the first anarchist anthropologist.
His work 'Society Against The State' is mostly a study on south american indigenous tribes, specifically the Tupi and Guarani peoples. But at the heart of it are several scathing critiques; one a thorough debunking of anthropology's ethnocentrism (this runs throughout the book where Clastres compares erroneous statistics wrt population etc left behind by the jesuits and anthropologists of the past and systematically eliminates them by comparison/imparity, sometimes with a sense of humor much like Then And Now's), and the other a strong denunciation marx's conception of history and the state:
"The political relation of power precedes and founds the economic relation of exploitation. Alienation is political before it is economic; power precedes labor; the economic derives from the political; the emergence of the State determines the advent of classes."
This is an excellent channel, worth following. A few things appear to be off track, the concept of "Hunters and gatherers" appear to only have been valid in the northern portions of the planet and those experiencing the worst of the ice age. So, Meso-american tribes had agriculture since their migration to the American continent and from Mexico to Argentina without having to constantly migrate. Some sociologists such as David Graeber appear to have considered the birth of the "civilized world" linking it to the Indo-European migrations since these migrations appeared to have carried the concept of Hierarchy and the stratified society. The word Slave and Robot both are indo-european in origin.
Even the Meso-american tribes, only those linked to pyramids had a hierarchy all others had horizontal forms of government and cooperation. Consider reading Howard Zinn and the other history of the united states ...read about the paradise lost...upon Columbus arrival to the American continent. Greetings from Chicago!
"Let's look at plonker's...uhh Pinker's evidence"
"Wars are fought for two reasons, survival or advantage" - Kratos
Agreed, the need for war probably depends on a specific socioecological environment (pan troglodytes (chimpanzee) proactive political games over status (Goodness Paradox), fertile females and offspring compared to pan paniscus (bonobo) society based playful prosociality/sociosexuality for promotion of group stability regardless of age and gender), or human society after the agricultural/pastoral revolution leading to competitive possessiveness over private property (marriage, amatonormativity), inheritance, virginity, fertility cults and maximization of birth rates regardless of ideologies such as antinatalism based on consent. Not sure about Trobrianders, Kaluli, Sambia people, !Kung San, Mosuo, Batek , Etoro and all the extinct undocumented more or less egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies with different effects on epigenetic expression.
@@uvwuvw-ol3fg Sounds like the greatest tragedy of the past few million years is that bonobos weren't the ones to take the evolutionary steps leading to technology. It was we violent competition and dominance oriented hominids that did.
Ötzi's DNA analysis revealed blood from at least four other people on his weapons and equipment. He was killed in a fight.
And so fucking what?
Matt Cartmill has a book that can shed some light on why Pinker and others write what they write - it's called "A View to a Death in the Morning" and the first chapter is called "The Killer Ape" about how a theory created on observing two skulls was widely accepted for 30 years. There are also 3 lectures from Yale (available on RUclips) by William R. Polk - as in Pres. Polk - about the American Empire. Those lectures may explain why Pinker would have a particular tendency to write what he wrote. The best explanation I found is from Colin Powell's chief of staff, Col. Lwrence Wilkerson: (paraphrasing) "Americans don't care about other people - they don't even know they exist".
Col. Wilkerson deserves respect and I respect him. I should not put words on his mouth so here's his interview on the DW documentary series "Iras: Destruction of a Nation" - the part I tried to quote:
ruclips.net/video/UStz5tSwaSM/видео.html
Vaguely related, I'm curious if modern studies have shown whether violent media (video games, comics, movies, etc.) actually have any affect on people's inclination towards or away from violence. From what I am aware, most studies on the topic seem to fall apart on deeper inspection, and there isn't an conclusive proof one way or another...
Good work, somebody had to do this. Better you than anyone else, I'd say.
Ahhh! The joy I get from trampling over the seriousness with which Plunker takes himself. Great work as always
I’m amazed each time I (occasionally) come across an educated person who say they are a fan of Steven Pinker. This video (also Noam Chomsky) debunks the loose claims.
I think robert sapolsky also had an argument against Pinkers assessment of human violence in the book behave.
It would be so unlikely to accidentally shoot someone back then . The bows didn't shoot far , so you would have a good look at what you were aiming at . Another factor is the arrows would've been too valuable to shoot blindly .
@@keithjackewicz8423It wouldn't be impossible, especially if Jack Black was part of the group.
I know for a fact that many crimes in the UK aren't written up, which means they don't add towards crime statistics. Many court cases are postponed indefinitely too, which also adds to the impression that violent crime is on the decline. People constantly argue that statistics don't lie, but they can and are being falsified and misrepresented.
So far all i've seen from the video is how pinker got his data on violence wrong about the prehistoric era and H/G tribes but what about data on historic/medieval violence?
Also have you taken into account violent deaths that do not originate in head trauma such as stabs?
This is such a good late modern follow up to your Hobbes video. I wholeheartedly agree with the alternate take on this whodunit. There's more to human nature than violence in a stateless world. Prior to that, there's more cooperation because it is inherently more effective for species survival, genetic proliferation, and cultural stability.
Yes, this reminds me of my frustration with the "human nature" arguments against left wing forms of government - firstly because as mentioned in the video, human nature is malleable, but far more because human nature really isn't just to be greedy and selfish in an individualist manner. We're a highly social species and capitalism is only a few hundred years old. Some of humanity's most spectacular achievements predate not just capitalism, but even currency! The way we behave under capitalism isn't "human nature" - it's just the way we behave under capitalism. Personally I'm inclined to think there's not a lot of value to the concept of human nature under any circumstances.
I love your vibe in the scenes in front of the white background XD
Thanks so much for the work!
Pinker's book on Language is a great read, but gradually I've become suspicious of his character, now I see he is really devious.
Others may say that human civilisation has been in a period of rapidly increasing instability since the neolithic revolution. Funny to think of the advent of farming and citystates as the end of the human story.
I liked the video. It is a good contrapoint to Pinkers book. I still suspect that you make hunter gatherer life more rosy that it was in reality.
You said that prehistoric hunter gatherers didnt have war as we know it. Of course they didn’t. They didn’t have guns and tanks so they didn’t have war as we know it. They still had war. Intertribal conflict is war for them. If one band of 100 hunter gatherers wars with another group of 100 that is war for them.
I agree and the dawn of civilization led to more war and worse health for thousands of years, but it is better now. It’s nice to romanticize about the lives of prehistoric hunter gatherers but who would want to live that way now? Who is going to go without modern medicine, electricity, feminine hygiene products, etc.
You didn’t mention the most infamously violent group of hunter gatherers today. The Sentinelese have killed Christian missionaries, and many would argue they deserved it, but I have a feeling they would act the same way towards other indigenous groups. I have a feeling that Sentinelese-like tribes have existed throughout prehistory.
This is a good video. I don't think we can dismiss that humans did kill or fight amongst each other in prehistorical time... most animals that are territorial do compete and at times individuals do die. That being said an estimate of 2 - 4% deaths due to group conflict sounds reasonable. Some may have died in a fight, others could have suffered and died from infection due to injury, and still others could have died much later but the cause of that death could be attributed to long term complications from an injury suffered in a fight. I wonder what the archeological record says about these sorts of deaths. We also have to consider that not everybody involved in a small scale competitive conflict would have died as a result of a conflict and simply gone on to live to a relatively ripe old age. Many would have survived such small fights and battles. So there could have been more conflicts but with relatively fewer deaths from those conflicts ... that is the archeological record may speak more to the overall deaths due to conflict but not the rate that conflicts occurred at.
One thing not mentioned would be that small hunter gatherer groups would want to avoid conflicts that see large numbers of people killed or severely injured because the losses would be far more impactful to group survival. Why foolishly risk losing your hunters in an unnecessary and avoidable fight when that loss might mean that many more starve in the winter. I am also not surprised conflict increased as we civilized, farming and population centers would have provided a larger surplus population to draw combatants from and thus reduced the risk of conflict to group survival. Just my thoughts on the subject.
Steven Pinker is a "Celebrity Scientist." He simply isn't credible. He is an example of the worst thing a human can do with his or her intelligence. As well, Keeley's book and hypothesis is abysmal.
I've studied this for over 35 years. Overlaying Marija Gimbuta's discussion of the Kurgan Hypothesis onto this discussion is also very insightful.
Good job, these videos you produce are a great deal of work. Thank you for making them and sharing them.
When anyone argues civilization is less violent than the past, I just think of two world wars. But no, people don't want to kill people. An entire science was created partly to stop soldiers firing above rather than at the heads of "the enemy".. Soldiers return from war traumatised not triumphant.
I’ve been seeing a lot of Steven Pinker critiques on my feed. I need to read his book and decide if its accurate, then rewatch these critique videos lol
I like your work, it seems well researched, presented in an engaging way. enjoyably informative. it blows the dust off history and it is obvious that you work very hard on producing your videos. However, I dont want to be that guy...but if I didn't mention it after noticing it that would feel disrespectful to the quality of your content. The nit I'm going to pick concerns imagery used in the evolutionary bit from 16.26 -16.50. the more primitive the example the darker the skin. We get to the first homo sapiens - modern humans and we see a very white slightly gormless looking youth. Thing is its called unconscious bias for a reason. Otherwise you would have remembered that its pretty widely accepted that the first modern humans would have probably had dark skin, coming from Africa as they did. It only matters because it helps perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes.
All my homies hate Steve Pinker
He so obviously has an agenda. Whenever there is a debate or documentary on some “uncomfortable truth” the Left doesn’t want to swallow, his giant powdered wig looking dome shows up.
@@spectralv709 yeah, he's a loser. Psychologists should be banned from any opinions out of their field tbh
@@twoforcesinbalance1543 yeah they have a bad tendency of generalizing psychological data onto society. Gabor Maté isn’t that bad tho, from what I’ve heard. At least he seems critical of capitalistic institutions
@@spectralv709 ill have to check him out. I dont mean it too seriously, there is just a weird tendency with them to have really bad opinions.
Stephen Taylor’s well researched book ‘The fall ‘ makes the very clear point that pre 10000 years ago there is little or no evidence of war or murder amongst humans. It started with farming and the development of the ego. It’s a good read.
Amazing work on this video. I quite love your multi-disciplinary approach you take. Well done.
Its definitely in my nature to make "balloon animals", or soft robots..... same difference really.
I think our ancestors were like cats, cats meet in the night but don't fight usually ( they have the carnivore thing of remembering to preserve their fighting ability to take down prey ) but hunter gatherers woudn't so attached to one place ( unlike later agrarian societies ) only with the rise of the state whos default stance is to attack any other intruder that wide scale conflicts and deaths occurs
War and violence is a concequence of civilization not functioning. While Paleolithic people, had the capability for violence lived relatively peaceful lives due to the abundance of space, common resources, and mutual threats to survival like predators. But once civilization started, it limited space because the need for permanent farmland led to property as a concept. Stratification of society began. This made for more short term stability but transitions between hunter gatherers as well as environmental pressures led to increased violence and anxiety. War is a mechanism for societies to externalize that violence. the only reason for the decline in violence in modern society is that technology, globalization, and international laws and norms have addressed many of the instabilities that society creates. My fear is that with globalization breaking and climate change beginning to cause problems all over the world that a return to violence is right over the horizon.
Your comment about art is important, I feel. We seem to view ancient art as some form of accurate and literal pictorial diary rather than as storytelling and a manifestation of myths, symbolism, allegory, flights of fantasy, etc. I think, essentially, we view our forebears as simple minded bufoons with no capacity whatsoever for abstract thought. Drawing and painting as an activity in itself requires advanced cognitive abilities.
I have Pinker's book but i was never able to get into it... maybe I should try again sometime.
Just finished the video, amazing work as always.
I thought I remember Pinker saying that Niether Hobbs nor Rousseau were completely correct. In chapter 2 somewhere. I found it he does. He says that both were "talking though their hats. Niether kew a thing about life before civilization." Granted I am still reading this book.
I think you'll be interested in this essay "Industrial Society and its Future". Hoping you can make video about it.
Best thing is: if you take his violence graph and flip it around it could easily represent the great acceleration
His graph is pseudosciencitific mumbo-jumbo but were it true you would be absolutely correct. I want to see where his graphs on animal populations, soil health, forestation, clean drinking water etc, etc are....
Perhaps I've misunderstood Pinker or my reasoning is off. I've always considered him as an evolutionary psychologist, who believes that our nature is principally governed by our genetics. So, how does he get from there, to 'civilization is making us less violent'? If he believed that our genetic makeup drove behaviour and our genes are pretty stable, then wouldn't our aggressive tendencies also be relatively static across time?
Well one of the common complaints many anthropologists have had with a lot of work in evolutionary psychology is that they use models of pre historical societies and paleolithic groupings which contradict their own findings. Their claim is that these models use a lot of assumption about levels of violence and scarcity that are not justified, and then these are used as evolutionary pressures that give rise to this or that modern behaviour and how they may have evolved.
Pinker (IMO) holds this contradictory position that you point out because the Hobbesian view is central to his discipline and secondly he is interested in showing that modern liberal capitalist societies are really not that bad and to assure people that they don't need any radical transformation. He does write Enlightenment Now, which makes a similar but broader case.
That is why his book is called The Better Angels of Our Nature. He is claiming that circumstances can allow our better side thrive. No contradiction here.
@@plinden But from whence the circumstances? That takes us back to the methodological square Pinker tries to circle that arjun points out.
@@janosmarothy5409 A) He is using several different methods to determine that the paleolitic past was more violent including forensics (signs of violent death on skeletons), and studies of recent or contemporary primitive societies. His conclusion is that you are less likely to meet a violent end today. B) The circumstances he mentions include i. The monopoly of force (Hobbesian pacification that lessens small scale conflicts like vendetas, highway robbery etc. ), ii. Increasing living standards that make us value life more, iii. The increase of trade and plus-sum games replace plunder and other zero-sum games, (the pro free market capitalist argument) iv. Education and literacy increases our capacity to know the other (also arts and lit.), v. The expanding moral circle due to the Kantian logic of not thinking that we are so special that we obey different laws, universal value thinking... These were some of the reasons he gives. Obviously the fact that you have a neglible risk of dying, and a high chance of reaching 90 years old, may have something to do with the aformention developments. NO does not say that things are perfect, and he does think that progress is a bumby ride with huge setbacks, still today nearly everyone on earth is living with less of a risk of dying a premature death. Life span has doubled in 100 years only. Clearly we are doing something right, he says. Does not mean that they cannot be improved. But not everything is wrong, and some grand scale revision may lead to worse outcomes. That is obviously undeniable.
Ive seen a couple videos now highlighting Pinker's "arguements" on the matter. This is the first one that used the word "plonker" and im here for it. I appreciate your thoroughness and the fact you translate that into an easily digestible format. Well done m8
Is nobody gonna talk about the fact that "Ötzi" was in fact found in Südtirol (Italy) ...?
So, yes - Pinker's assertions are cultivated around evidence that has been cherry-picked. On one vector we might suggest that this is an act of enlightened self-interest and that strong positions sell more books than less certain ones, but then - the counter-arguments to Pinker remain equally as strong. In Pinker we find a brilliant mind that has been bewitched by notions of political necessity and difference that inflate and shape or colour and influence his conclusions. The long-game he plays is that of valourising capitalism, conservatism and seeking a tautological self-validation for the ideological and sociocultural position he occupies. Politics is as hard to extract from his position as is a metastatic tumour from a body.
Pinker is worth reading as an exercise in learning how to assert a position, just as Nietzsche is worth reading in order to learn how to think, or playing Bach for learning how to understand and inhabit music agnostic of instrumental context. We should still differentiate the man, his intellect and aptitude from his conclusions regardless that an implicit political undercurrent is a rationally polluting factor that notwithstanding his own enlightened self-interest in making a profit, hints at deeper, underlying causal and motivational patterns here.
Jordan Petersen is similar. Brilliant but bewitched by a belief in the normative difference and reflexively aspirational psychological and social self-determination and certainty that a bipolar ideological world brings. Being able to argue a strong point does not, however, make a person more correct - as we should see in law and legal decision-making; the argument appears as strong as its selling and its symbolic purchase but is only ever, as are all systems of belief, partial, incomplete and profoundly uncertain. Pinker is of a similar ouvre.
It is true that we should debate ideas, not personalities, but I wonder if they are ever truly separable.
You’re talking about the guy who voted for Joe Biden?
27:29
from jean-jacques russo first man
27:34
who after enclosing a piece of ground
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took it
27:37
into his head to say this is mine and
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found people
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simple enough to believe him was the
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true founder
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of civil society how many crimes
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how many wars how many murders how many
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misfortunes and horrors
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would that man have saved the human
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species who pulling up the stakes or
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filling up the ditches should have cried
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to his fellows
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be sure not to listen to this imposter
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you are lost if you forget that the
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fruits of the earth belong
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equally to us all and the earth itself
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to nobody
24:15 sounds like these days. Violence seems to be sharply increasing over the past few years.
Interesting video. Thanks.
It does feel as though Pinker has done for human violence something like what climate change deniers do with temperatures, focus on conveniently specific portions of the data that support a particular narrative. Indeed, this Occam's Broom approach seems to be increasingly common and takes a lot of unpacking by actual specialists (or dedicated amateurs) to unpick.
You've outdone yourself this time, Then & Now. Brilliant analysis and the presentation just keeps getting better. I look forward to the next video as well watching the channel grow. Thank you for helping out us grad students with your accessible but thorough work, it's appreciated ❤️
Objection: The distinction between "human nature" and "civilization" is a faux binary; civilization is ALSO the product of human nature. Surely what we're really comparing here is how "human nature" operates in different social and historical contexts?
Also, aren't we in this analysis placing undue emphasis on war specifically? The idea that organized or semi-organized warfare was rare or nonexistent before the widespread practice of agriculture is one thing--but we don't need war to break out for people to die violently.
For example, we can well imagine the ancient equivalent of a highwayman waiting around all day for some unlucky hunter to come by, dispatching this fellow quickly, making off with his catch for the day, and--this is critical--leaving the body behind. In short order, those remains will be set on by scavengers, and little or no archaeological evidence is likely to remain.
Now of course you may rightly point out that this is an entirely hypothetical scenario. But so too is almost everything else we're discussing here: An ancient burial with an arrow in it might be a murder victim or might be a hunter laid to rest with his prized possession, but surely this is all speculating whichever way?
It seems to me that if we're going to criticize Pinker for too much speculation and fabulism, we can't pepper those criticisms with an equal amount of guesswork. The worst thing we can say for Pinker's conclusions is that they're based on too little evidence because simply too little evidence exists--which, if true, should invite fewer conclusions in reply, not additional ones.
"civilization is ALSO the product of human nature" -- No. Civilization is what happens when people settle down. You forgot that part of the equation. It's like saying "an animal going insane in a cage is due to the animal's nature." I think it has more to do with the cage.
@@CC3GROUNDZERO: But the animal didn't build the cage.
@@Tamlinearthly Neither did we the people. The ruling class of every age did. The capitalist cage we're in right now was built by the capitalist class. It's actually the only thing they ever built.
@@CC3GROUNDZERO:
"The ruling class" are humans.
Great analysis. I contacted Noam Chomsky when he had spoken out against the data in Pinker's book and he gave me contact information for an anthropologist that wrote a critique of it. There are several professors that have found Pinker's book misleading and factually incorrect. Even Matt Dillahunty has been referencing Pinker's book...sad.
Adam Curtis has a great doc about social engineering where he (gently) confronts Napoleon Chagnon about the flaws in his ethnography of the Yanomami tribe... and Chagnon walks out of the interview lol.
Can you please send a link or something about this doc???
@@TheMar320 It's all available on RUclips! Search "The Trap" by Adam Curtis. The interview with Chagnon is in episode 2.
Yes, Adam Curtis hints at some good stuff but ultimately is more bourgeois neo-liberal claptrap.
I like what you did there at 12 .28
You're my favourite secret anarchist
Your entire "oh, it was the imperialists!" is just as cherry picked and misleading as Pinker's anecdotes.
Anybody that has done some reading on the hunter gatherers of Papua New Guinea will be aware of how perpetual tribal warfare can be the modus operandi of such a society.
Now, I am not sure if it is matter of there being less competition for territory 10000 years ago, due to lower densities of people, and thus an argument could be made for less violence in general - but as soon as the capacity of the land are reached and the tribes are competing for hunting grounds, as in PNG, warfare ensues.
I have no interest in defending neither Pinker nor imperialism, but your cherry picked examples to answer the question of "could hunter gatherer societies have been more violent than ours" is muddling the picture by implying that a) we cannot know because we don't have data of pure hunter gatherer societies
and
b) if there is data of violence, it is because civilisation, colonisers, caused it.
We do have data that is not muddled by civilisation and violent imperialism. There are countless studies made by social anthropologists of PNG - societies that to this day are largely isolated from outside factors.
Blame shifting, this is how evil is done. First someone commands evil be done to improve circumstances, then underlings just do what they are told, committing the acts. No one has to carry blame this way, the commander didn't do the deeds and the underlings were just following orders..
I was arguing against his idea....12 years ago. Human behavior is linked to the environment. Change the environment (have lobbies fighting for capital and profit) and you endorse violent behavior
Let me venture a hypothesis about the origin of war: War - organized inter-group violence - emerges as a possibility wherever and whenever the activity of other human groups, as opposed to a hostile nature or one's own intrinsic limitations, has become a significant factor limiting one's own group's ability to acquire, or hold on to, resources you consider necessary for your well-being. Low population density, high mobility and the inability to store large amounts of resources which would be easy targets for raids would've made such scenarios comparably rare in the paleolithic.
There is a missunderstanding about the change from real hunter gatherer to farming-culture: To be a constant famer in a world, which hunts and gathers, you have to be very strong and powerfull, to defend your famrland and fruits.
So, the first farmers absolutly weren´t getting farmers, because of weakness. And already mostly, that was a process of doing both over generations, befor the farming-skills would be sufficient enough to live. Just, as it seems to be in several south-american tribes usual: sort of half-farming, half hunting/gathering and.,..half sedentary, because if the field is getting bad, they go away.
But: the first farmers had initiated the disconnection from the real nature and its capacity to support food. And could let grow even more human, as befor in a hunter-gatherer tribe-culture. Albeit also that did needed some thausends of years to let realy effective happend. But that also did the situation for the lasting hunter-gatherers getting realy bad, because the farmers also hunted further on. Thats the point: You have to be so strong and powerfull (with your group), that you can occupy your farmland, to not get overthrown by haunter-gatherers, because they didn´t know the concept of fields and planting and steel the friuts of the farmers. You must defend all that effectivly. Whats not gonne happend, if you are a weak group. Weak groups are always fleeing, not fighting. And that strongness comes out from quantity, not from quality. As it is until today (maybe as we can see at Pinkers theory... sic...later more about that)
I am also the meaning, that hunter gatherers are sort of very peacefull, because.... if you are in a situation, where only your capability to hunt and walk every day holds you alive, you cannot fight all day. You not only can fight once in your live. Because when that goes very bad, you are dead anyway, because you canot search for food anymore.
First possibility to making warfare first evolved out of the typical situation of sedantary cultures, where the food support is higher, and more humans could be feeded with it. So they are more peoples and also can fight dangerus wars, because... they already more, as they need to work and farm food.
So, that farming-/sedantary-cultures have exactly that flaw: They breed more humans, as hunter-gatherers. And that excess will be used as recource for warefare.
It maybe has exactly that reason, why they not used data out of real hunter-gatherer-culturers or times. Because that would be realy contraproductive to his theory/account.
The other reason may be, that hunter gatherers didn´t have such graveyards, as later sedantary culturtes have. So to find such from hunter gatherers isn´t very productive. Because they mostly buried one or maybe sometimes two or more. And then they migrated further on elsewhere.
There is an analoge situation in animal-spheres: I belief, that in most species they didn´t fight against their others until death. Because its not worth it. They are "free" and no problem with property or living-space. They almost go away, if the problems with another exemplar of the species came by. If you have to defend a lifestyle, and Farmland (and with the fruits also your work), then you may be more willing to fight for it to death. But animals didn´t have that. They live in the real paradieses.... not the modern human (as they always will make us belief).
With animals itis, as like with the unter-gatherer, who must be carefull to not getting hurt or so sick, that you cannot search and hunt for food. And that is the reason, why hunter-gatherers more likely not killing each other.
Its sobering, tha modern "intellectuals" do such failures in their theorys. And its very harmfull for their fellowmen, who aren´t so intellectualy giftet (and can make a show to make a living out of it). Because these "simple creatures/fellowmen" will be the soldats, that will be send to war, that the intellectuals thought out in their biased and confortable bubble. That is a uge problem for modern civilisations/societys, because those intellectuals are the elites of the societys and... make such failures without a twitch. Simply, they are more save and lucky in these modern civilisations, as anyone else. It seems to have somewhat of bolcheviki, that were upset over the modern state "bourgeoisie" ...that are becoming neccessary for organisating bigger and bigger societys. And becoming arrogant over their dirty fellowmen, who did actualy all the work, that the society can exist. So they tryed to get rid of them... what is not easy. And wasn´t succesfull and also not a ethical praiseworthily idea at all. But they were right with that: the modern "Service-class" in the societys didn´t see their own existance-condition right. They are replaceable...much more, as every street-cleaner or specialized craftsmen. And espacialy, if they speak stupid stuff. And, as youtube and other social media got mainstream, there is also an exponentialy reprography of nonsense and false information. And i mean not the fakenews. That is another complication, and isn´t limited to rightwing-propagandists.
The modern AI will solve that problem ...maybe. Not the problem with Intellectual "nosnense"-information, rather the problem with that intellectuals with to much habits and ego´s (and no real life-experience and insight in the real basics).
And that fact, that the modern western civilisations had succesfully decreased the "violence" in their societys, is right, but that concerns only the extrinsical violence/coercion, not all the other possible variants of doing harm to peoples. That is espacialy valid for highly advanced technology and knowledge-civilisations, who can kill, without to kill someone (viewable). There are unknown poisons, other technics of killing someone else (or even hole groups of humans). And even political propaganda can kill - by splitting peoples communitys and ideas of living and existing and provocating rage and hate. But, all that does not kill viewable for all others, so they never see that. And belief, their own civilisation is very peacefull and non-violent. Albeit, that isn´t the fact, because most modern civilisations do violence: They go to war without any end. That wars doesn´t happend in the garden of the nation, rather far away.
For that reason, i plead to abolish that modern western democracy, because therein peoples have votingrights, that not even have the minimum intellectual wisdom for some realy complicated problems. You know, even scientists will explain (and proof) that we have "free will" with an example of a big shelfs of chocolate, where we can "chose" from diferent sorts. Such studipness should be restricted.
Think about: If we have a will, there is no freedom anymore, because our will is the force against. And you then stand in front of an choclate-shelf and have to chose out of 100 sort of choclates, that is absolutly strange situation and puts the situation upside down. Your will is immediatly undermined.
Ok, big shelfs in supermarkets are normal and.. not bad. But they didn´t qualify for philosphical (or even scientific) proof-strategys of that sorts. If for usual scientists such shelfs are proof enough for free will, they should get put in gulac or in psychiaty/therapy. Because thats a strange thinking with neglects, that reach to the end of the universe. Such intellectuals no civilisation need as elite identitys, which lead the politics and nation. Even the reasearch shouldn´t led by them. They are the specialists in discipline - not more. They can use formulas or whatever. But to led the research for the benefit of civilisation? That didn´t bring any advanced profit (not for the peoples, only for them).
the other side of stoneage hunter-gatherer-cultures is, that if a catastrophic failure happends, the hole tribe will die... and that happend realitvly often, because... there is a problem with making experiences and learning out of failures, if that failures are deadly as hell. Most of breedet descendants are send in that "freedom" of that paradise and contemporaneous to death. Just, as it is in animal-spheres, where evolutional selective factors decide, who is surviving, and who not. Its sort of the rate of hunting-accidents in stoneage times (that today maybe often be hidden homicides). You get harmed in a cold and live-unfriendly region, then you almost will die. And no human is capable to compensate aging and getting "unfit"...and makes failures, just, as it maybe was with Ötzi....So it wasn´t a truly unusual finding, with that mummy in the glacier. There maybe will be more to find in the future, when these glaciers will melt away.
I love this channel. You are amasing❤
Rather than looking at ancient hunter gatherer tribes who are totally different socially from us it is better to look at situations where the state completely breaks down. If there was some kind of natural "state of nature" we would revert to that in these conditions but instead all the evidence shows Hobbes is a lot closer to being right than wrong about human nature.
I think that it's important to not that "there's nothing about being a hunter-gatherer that makes you peaceful" doesn't mean that a hunter gatherer is or is not peaceful. Merely that this would be determined by other things. If there is not enough food for everyone and there are two tribes of hunter gatherer, then the population surplus is going to be brought down. Is this violent? Yes. But is this caused by *innate* violence? Well, in a word, no. And that's leaving out other options such as some some people splitting off and leaving for greener past... hunting grounds, etc.
I'm not an anthropologist, and this is just a thought experiment of course. But you could be a person whose nature is not very violent, with an upbringing that is not very violent, yet end up in a situation that forces you to be very violent. The fact that after the green revolution, wars in Europe stopped, and before the green revolution, Malthusian crunches were pretty much a guarantee that scared the bejesus out of people should tell us *something*. I'm not sure what, but "humans don't want to die, and if it's you or me, we're all gonna look out for number 1" shouldn't tell us to kill our neighbours and build a pyramid of their skulls. It should tell us that we should build societies where we don't have to face that choice.
And it's weird how people don't get that.
"The fact that after the green revolution, wars in Europe stopped, and before the green revolution, Malthusian crunches were pretty much a guarantee that scared the bejesus out of people should tell us *something*"
That's really shaky logic. Europe was relatively peaceful only as a consequence of the geopolitical balance of forces following a military conflict that exhausted all the continental powers, even the USSR. Then there's the obverse which gives the whole thing away: precisely because of the geopolitical balance of forces, the so-called Third World was embroiled in a constant series of proxy wars and wars of independence. This, mind you, precisely in the part of the world where the Green Revolution we are told over and over in mainstream discourse is supposed to have had the greatest impact.
what the evidence shows is that for immediate return foragers, if there was a situation where there wasnt enough food for everyone the most likely response wouldn't be violence it would be the group splitting and moving to a place with more food.
Its a choice thats not only peaceful but also rational. Whay risk injury and death when you could just split off and move?
@@stemcareers8844
Yes, I agree. That presupposes that we can split off peacefully. Therein lies the challenge in the modern world.
This doesn’t make any sense! When ecological conditions are more harsh, fewer wars break out between tribes, and when ecological conditions are prosperous, more wars break out between tribes. This is because, in most hunter-gathering societies, the people with your tribe are most likely more related to you than the people of other tribes, meaning if ecological conditions are harsh, hurting people within your tribe not only hurts your uncertain future but hurts the identical alleles of the genes you share with that person. On the other hand, when ecological conditions are prosperous, you can afford to take more risk
@@seanhagan1435
I mean, you're hurting the other tribe, not your own.
Considering we live in modern agricultural societies it’s a bit apples to oranges to compare the behavior of our Paleolithic ancestors to modern humans. It doesn’t provide much benefit to say before agriculture we were more peaceful. A comparison in different agricultural societies is much more enlightening to how we should structure our society.
Pinker been awfully quiet since this mix-tape dropped.
The sound of the marker is unbearable.
Why in the hell would ancient man go on raids way up in the mountains? There is not that many resources up there and it is hard to fight that high up.
What a shame then, that we didn't stay closer to our bonobo cousins. Just imagine our wars then, when everyone involved is frotting everyone else, problems solved and no weapons or blood.... Well, unless someone gets a little frisky and there's a bit of rug burn.....
There's good reason, Bonobos were heavily astroturfed coinciding with the "poly" agenda, it requires splendid isolation and the selection metric is unfit. Human females select for more, you get no where by selecting for less.
You need to do this as a Ted talk
“C’mon Steven!”
I think Pinkers idea that we are progressing is a good antidote to the feeling that a lot of us can get stuck with, including myself- that everything is going to sht. Sure, he makes some leaps of logic, and nothing's all peachy no problems, but it is good to recognise that we have pretty good lives. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to make things better, it's just an acknowledgement that it's nice we won't have to decide which children can survive because we don't have enough food stockpiled for winter.
We have to be realistic. That means acknowledging all the bad things about the society we live in. But it also includes acknowledging the good, which so regularly gets overlooked from all types of people.
Just to be clear, video still gets a 👍from me, this is incredibly well done, and very informative. I just wanted to point out that books like Better Angel's of our Nature and Factfullness provide us with alternative views that break the depressive cloud of pessimism that seems to permeate so easily throughout our culture. It's more important to find accurate views, but sometimes that takes a book like Pinker's to start the wheels turning.
Our material needs may be met fairly well here in the west but for the majority of this planet this is not the case. In fact there are more people living in dire poverty today than at any other point in human history! Of course this is mostly due to overpopulation thanks to fossil fuels and technology but it goes in complete contrast to the fallacy Pinker desperately tries to promote.
What people like you and Pinker really don't understand though is that our material needs may be well met for the 20% of us lucky enough to be born in the global north, we actually have more psychopathologies now than ever before.... Clearly our emotional needs are in fact NOT being met and no amount overcomsumption of useless consumer products is ever going to change that fact.
@@j85grim4 we have more people now than ever before, so counting the total number isn't really giving us an accurate representation of anything, because of course there will be more of everything.
I'm also not sure where you get 20% for people living with their material needs meet, I guess that depends on how you define those words, but I wouldn't say 80% of the world is living without basic material needs being met. That would have been more true in the 1800's than it is today, if we look at data.
There are plenty of problems in the world, we are certainly not doing ourselves any favours by continually destroying the ecosystem that sustains us, we are pretty miserable, and we clearly need to do better as a society to provide for everyone. All I'm saying is - there are things to be grateful for. The majority of people on earth today are leaving in situations their ancestors would likely prefer over their own. That's not saying today's world is great, just that they've always been pretty bad
Have you looked at the reference section of Better Angeles? Its like a 1/4 of the book and its not a small book. I love this channel but the amount of research Steven did for this book is impressive. This argument might have truth but for calling out Pinker on cherry picking and making a 30 min video of cherry picking yourself is disappointing.
(Ending credits) "I really enjoyed this video learning about so much Stuff I had no idea about".... You should have started with that in the beginning of the video. That you pretty much knew nothing about the subject but than makes a video debunking years of research in 29mins.
I have visited Glasgow Scotland 12 times, been mugged every single time.
Beatiful video, especially the ending 💓
I have been considering the impact of the development of technology on the future of violent conflict between humans and am very happy to have found this well researched and presented piece. Thank you.
Interesting take. But like Pinker makes assumptions and simplifications so do you. It would be interesting to examine violent deaths relative to interactions between tribes with other variables like population, area, and resources. One could argue that 1% of violent deaths in a few interactions/year among a few or several 100-members tribe interactions/year to 1% in daily multi-million-sized states interactions is a far more impactful percentage.
The whole point of the video is made on the basis of comparing a more careful and more extensive data set than Pinker does, so you have all your work ahead of you to demonstrate how it is that this video simplifies in roughly equal measure to Pinker. Pinker isn't the first person to make these sorts of grand claims, and isn't the first to do this on the basis of some shaky methodology, and honestly, some shaky ideological premises. It's not for nothing that the anthropologists who actually study this stuff don't take him or others like him seriously. Even Hobbes himself was not trying to make a literal historical argument and it's no surprise that his ahistorical thought experiment is not particularly persuasive in the field.
Sadly the world makes being nice difficult because everything has costs and being nice can be interpreted as weakness by many making you a target so it not easy being good