The History Of Violence: From The Stone Age To The Present Day

In this episode, we delve into the remarkable decline of violence and abuse over the past centuries, including reductions in rape, battery, and hate crime. We'll celebrate the transformative effects of humanitarian efforts like the women's liberation movement and the children's revolution. What principles have tamed our darker instincts? Consider this belief in the human culture for compassion, to be a glimpse into the work of my book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
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[@onepcwhiz6847]

People refuse to believe it when I tell them we live in the most peaceful and safest time in history.

[@mitchkahle314]

Except for the omnipresent, hair-trigger risk of sudden nuclear annihilation.

[@PaulTheBeav]

@@mitchkahle314 Nations that have had nukes for 50+ years don't scare me. New nuclear powers scare me.

[@pkabza]

A set of politicians who rely on fear as a wedge issue continue todo their best to keep this idea from taking root.

[@cipaisone]

Tell to Palestinians, I mean those have not been murdered yet by the Zionist

[@FranFerioli]

In my part of Europe, intentional homicide rates decresed by a factor of 2 or 3 since the 1990 and are now at the lowest point in history.

[@mattc5937]

An optimist believes we are living in the best of times. A pessimist fears that this is true.

[@rnedlo9909]

I live in rural USA and I am shocked how many of my neighbors are afraid of the violence in some big cities, like it is happening right here among us. Could it be that "news" outlets are amplifying things for nefarious reasons?

[@kellydalstok8900]

It’s the same in The Netherlands too, while some of the most horrendous murders have happened in rural areas. Rural people don’t realise just how many people live in big cities, and while the numbers seem high the actual percentage is not.

[@kellydalstok8900]

My comment wasn’t saved by YT for some mysterious reason, so here it comes again: It’s the same in The Netherlands; rural people think big cities are more violent, but the most horrendous murders happen in rural areas too. Rural people just don’t realise just how many people live in big cities, so the percentage isn’t that high. And yes, the media love to report on crime and exaggerate how much there is.

[@westswell2757]

@@kellydalstok8900

[@MrBitflipper]

You once said that just because you're a psychologist doesn't mean you're the kind that makes people feel better. Sorry, Steven, this made me feel better.

[@NicholasWilliams-uk9xu]

Stevens like "The world is getting better" meanwhile reality shows, we are going through the greatest mass extinction of biodiversity, climate change, accelerated compute increasing the capabilities of these destructive market forces to hide themselves, wars in the middle east, great power competition leading to global instability. He only cherry picked stats that fills his narrative, reality paints the more accurate picture.

[@Bloozguy]

It's interesting no doubt. But ask anyone who's been a victim of violence how much those stats matter? Like Reagan said: _Recession is when the guy next door gets laid off._ _Depression is when YOU get laid off_

[@t5kcannon1]

​@Mr._Fit_Atheist Yes, but you have raised a point different from the one made by the original poster.

[@Bloozguy]

@@t5kcannon1 That's how ideas are spawned. It's called 'dialogue'....if everybody is singing the same note, where's the harmony?😎

[@maghurt]

I agree, even with all the apparent craziness, we are living in a golden age. A nitpick: domestic violence happens to men as well and is largely unreported.

[@kellydalstok8900]

Domestic violence against men are negligible compared to violence against women. Even in a supposedly civilised country like Spain femicide is still really bad.

[@tedclemens4093]

This scaling down of violence over the centuries goes to show the effectiveness of law and order. And yet, we've never been closer to midnight on the doomsday clock.

[@PaulTheBeav]

Game theory shows that cooperation for mutual benefit is the superior strategy.

[@revolutionaryhamburger]

Game theory always fails to consider the fellow who comes along and shoves the game and its pieces on the floor.

[@willmercury]

​@@revolutionaryhamburger No, it doesn't. It shows that that approach is effective only once, then the opponent will be punished. Tit for tat. There is no outside the game. Forgiving tit for tat is the most effective strategy as it leads to the most secure and continuous cooperation.

[@PaulTheBeav]

@@willmercury A little extra forgiveness is actually better than tit for tat. It avoids endless retaliatory cycles based on a mistake or misunderstanding. For example, tit for tat 2/3 of the time and forgiveness 1/3 of the time scores better than tit for tat all the time.

[@ronagoodwell2709]

Do Not Answer Do Not Answer Do Not Answer

[@motina10]

@@PaulTheBeav In the Selfish Gene, Dawkins goes into Robert Axelrod's tournament. The first tournament did not have forgiving tit for tat. This first tournament had tit for tat winning. He did an analysis of tit for two tats (forgiving tit for tat), and it would have won. But only with the strategies submitted to that tournament. A second tournament would be held and forgiving tit for tat was enter and a bunch of new nasty strategies were entered. Again, the most (14 of 15) of the top score were nice strategies and most at the bottom (again 14 of 15) were nasty strategies. Those nasty strategies would counter the effectiveness of the tit for two tats, and the standard tit for tat came out on top.

[@bobs182]

I think the overall rise in better economic conditions over the past centuries is a large factor in the decrease in violence. When people have less struggle for food, shelter and clothing, there is an overall decline in violence. This is about the big long-term picture as there are many instances that would seem to contradict the general picture.

[@ChuckSilva]

Excellent! Thank you.

[@cecillekinnear4585]

I wish I could make similar observations about the modern decline of violence as a South African. Sadly we suffer from a persistently high crime rate.

[@krokigrygg]

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a great book. Read it. Thanks!

[@bitey-facepuppyguy2038]

Just a thought here. One of the greatest accomplishments that made life less violent was the enlightenment. In 2024, the values of the enlightenment are under threat to a greater degree than perhaps since about 1939. We are at a critical junction in history right now. I hope the values of the enlightenment ultimately prevail.

[@waterfallfaerie]

The enlightenment will not prevail because many humans don't even know what that is or why they should fight for it, and the powers that be probably like it that way. A new, emotionally salient movement of thought that redistributes the knowledge both of the enlightenment and of what has come since will have to emerge

[@bitey-facepuppyguy2038]

@@waterfallfaerie Interesting take there.

[@emmanuelsibug8405]

Steven is a really cool dude.

[@FranFerioli]

Better Angels of Our Nature is a great book with some glaring missteps, notably on the purpose of terrorism and islamism. Pinker states that terrorism is self-defeating and at the same time that Gavrilo Princip (a terrorist) was the person that most influenced the course of the 20th century. Right before the rise of Isis, the book states that there is no sign of extremism in the now-failed Arab spring. Rather than lowering the value of the book, these examples show how blinding cultural biases can be, making it twice as useful.

[@PromisingPod]

I agree that we are in relatively peaceful times. I still feel that here are forces of aggression and people who are aggressive that still want to promote aggressiveness. It's a tug-of-war. If society doesn't properly explain altruism and kindness, the trends could start skewing another way. Also, not every instance or idea of aggression gets documented. Sometimes it can be a mindset. So, it matters that a society promote altruism directly. In modern societies, people have become more secular and we don't have the same moral explanations that previous cultures had. This means the minds of modern people, especially young people, are up for grabs. Like I said, people who are aggressive promote aggressiveness, because it is self-serving and to also teach others to tolerate aggression, but on the other hand, this aggression could be used against people who are innocent. So, it really is about competing interests. We are for the most part peaceful, but I actually think things coule be even more peaceful, and also things could get worse if we don't pay attention to trends.

[@clivedarwell5732]

Let see how it all works out now we're well into the realm of breached ecological planetary boundaries with associated resource scarcity and trends towards totalitarianism - those graphs look more like volatility than trustworthy trends

[@vibecollector8805]

One just have to look at ISR to disagree with what was said about the "new peace" and declining violence ...it seems the chosen ones will make sure humans don't forget about our violent nature

[@michaelyagodmorris]

Odd, I thought the exact opposite. As bad as things are there, I think it would have been a lot worse 50 years ago. Warning civilians to evacuate, providing food to the enemy, enabling polio vaccination programs for the enemy civilian population, providing field hospitals for civilians because the enemy is using their hospitals as military bases. To me, these all seem examples of reduced violence during a war. Unless you are referring to the October 7th massacres. But I don't think that Jihadi violence is typical of the whole world.

[@dp0004]

People don't have to be violent, but they are. This can never dissappear. Where do you fit in? The whole of societies have to change.

[@JeremyHelm]

4:53 intuitions about society driven by vivid images and anecdotes

[@JeremyHelm]

6:51 civilizing process. 6:57 Name drop. 6:59 enlightenment

[@JeremyHelm]

7:27 WW3 never happened, yet

[@mikitz]

'There was no catastrophic volcanic eruption of Mount Krakatoa yesterday' has to be the lamest news headline ever.

[@gking407]

If our perceptions are so wrong, and our perceptions are driven by information from the media we consume, shouldn’t we make more strict rules about the operation of media?

[@bradsillasen1972]

Definitely, you lie, you die.

[@mapleext]

Good luck with that one.

[@philosophicalmixedmedia]

Although a caveat of being in an era of world political modernity is when moral panics take hold of populations. This may result in psychological harms as a form of entrenched ostracism. This correlation may be due to national forms of moral realism within complex interdependent international institutions that construct forms of national identity.

[@AndreyBogoslowsky-sk9kf]

😊😊😊

[@2bittesla]

Resources, its all about abundant resources. Humans with full bellies and warm cozy homes are not particularly hostile. You can thank free market capitalism's industrial revolution for that.

[@Richard-od7yd]

Fighting for Survival is not violence . Violence is an act of physical confrontation, sometimes planned , sometimes inevitable. Violence is cruelty just for the sake of cruelty .

[@medianmack]

@Steven Pinker many people claim to debunk your claims could you please do a full length discussion of the statistical criticisms of this chapter.

[@xtiannoregisteredsurname5124]

GREAT! (wasn't really from the stone age though)

[@hfyaer]

If you really want to be honest when saying there is no debate in the decline of the rate of homicide you will have to account for missing persons in your number.

[@Chris-fn4df]

And _you_ will have to account for missing persons _not_ being included in past numbers.

[@marilynnusbaum7564]

Richard Wrangham, anthropologist and primatologist, has some very interesting thoughts regarding the violent behavior of modern humans and their closest living genetic relatives - chimps … - …

[@oobrocks]

His book was released before the Russian/ Ukraine war and Israel/ West Bank war. Overall I concur however. Life in the Middle Ages were living hell for the average person

[@PhilRounds]

The history of violence goes WAY back before the stone age....millions of years back. Violence is not just human nature, it's ingrained in nature as a whole. Most hominins show violent behaviour including our closest relatives, chimpanzees. The tendency to use violence has worked in favour of evolution for millions of years. It might seem that violence has declined, but it remains to be seen if we've permanently entered a general decline in violent behaviour. Today it may seem that violence is less tolerated socially in most western civilizations, but i think what we're seeing is more like a pendulum swing than a linear progression of declining violence. Also, i think when you state that "world war three never happened" you might want to add the caveat, "yet". Nuclear weapon proliferation and the aggression of armed nations still exists to a very large extent. You might also want to check out the right wing movement in the US that stands a very real possibility of becoming the law of the land. This would bring us directly back to the bad old days of apartheid, misogyny, antisemitism and homophobia (as well as other undesirable things), and tens of millions of Americans support it.

[@juancitoarania7508]

How funny that you don't mention economic violence

[@joseramonrodriguezgarcia207]

the present day is violence on social media in my country spain it has increased a lot since this year. But is a new phenomenon where podcasters are referencing one another and topics of the news anti feminism and other things

[@TheCompleteGuitarist]

Violence is physical force. Words are not physical force and as much as you want them to be (by the sounds of things) words are not violence, yes I know, someone told you they are. But they are not! I have been the recipient of violence many times in my life. It never came in the form of words. Words (even though I have recieved my fair share of cruel ones too) have never hurt me.

[@iviewthetube]

We should be fighting our battles with words and not resort to physical violence.

[@DLYChicago]

I think that the advent of social, media and the trends occurring on social media, are too recent to draw any statistical conclusions. Whenever something new comes out people experiment with it and it takes time for people to establish protocols for what is and is not socially acceptable.

[@babooshka7601]

@@TheCompleteGuitarist You choose not to be hurt by cruel words. So do I but still they can have consequences beyond your consciousness. In the long run racism, discrimination and exclusion can have negative influence on your health.

[@andrewthomas695]

​@@babooshka7601While true, the definition of violence is the use of physical force to cause injury.

[@kavorka8855]

is this official channel?

[@tchaivorakfauresohnsieg9532]

Yep

[@kavorka8855]

@@tchaivorakfauresohnsieg9532 thanks 🙏

[@marledddyymmens5957]

Interesting that you do not mention abortus provocatus which is a form of violence against humans

[@danmimis4576]

I gave up at 4:27, I just can't take that abomination any more ...

[@mb123tdt]

Well, this is partly true (probably globally), but we must rather add a lot of relevant information. In Europe these things have actually increased in recent years and the increas is quite stable... For scandinavian countries: Norway, between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 women have been raped in Norway which is absolutely shocking, so they ran the study again, and it actually went from 1 in 4 to 1 in 3 women.... it was even worse....We have more killing this year already than for the whole 2023. Sweden has almost twice the amount of rape per 100.000 than the USA..... 184 per 100.000, 106 if I remember correctly for US. Norway 84 per 100.000. Women are afraid of going in the streets, and we are talking about liberal women who supported most of the left dogmas... We are observing decadance, we try to fix the problem with basically promoting hedonism which ofc decreases the level of self control and societal responsibility, recommend reading Alfred Adler about this...

[@PhilipHood-du1wk]

Violence is a fact of life. Even the plants fight each other.

[@bitey-facepuppyguy2038]

Did you even listen to this clip ?

[@thecount1001]

Russia enters the chat....

[@AnBreadanFeasa]

I can readily agree that most humans are "good". However, that does not apply to the leaders of countries or peoples.... two examples being Putin in Russia and Netanyahu in Israel. If it were up to the average citizen of each country conflict might either have been avoided, or alternatively brought to an end by now.

[@user-ej5gx7ph7q]

A marketeers, not a scientist

[@stevendaniel7555]

Let's examine a tiny sliver of our history and draw sweeping conclusions about them. Yawn.

[@ConradSpoke]

The 21th century is the beth!

[@redmoondesignbeth9119]

I had to laugh as I am Beth. :)

[@iliyakuryakin4671]

Pinker's argument may be right but he doesn't have the evidence to back it up. Data on crime levels before the 19th century are poor. He doesn't distinguish between violence within societies (ie crime) and violence between societies (war). He also fails to note that the biggest factor against war is democracy; democracies don't fight each other.

[@jumptoit3812]

I’m guessing you didn’t hear the part where he’s saying they have good data from half a dozen European countries from the medieval times to modernity. Data might be poor but even if it’s off by a lot it still shows the trend of violence going down (in those places).

[@iliyakuryakin4671]

@@jumptoit3812 I heard it but I don't believe it. For example, Britain did not begin officially compiling crime statistics until 1857. So any trends before then must be subject to high margins of error.

[@jumptoit3812]

⁠​⁠@@iliyakuryakin4671James Sharpe gathered the historical homicide rates in medieval England from court records, coroner’s inquests, and other official legal documents of the time. They had detailed accounts of the crimes, punishments and trials. It’s pretty fascinating, have you looked those up yet? If anything, there’s a great chance the crimes were UNDERreported.

[@AlmostEthical]

We live on a planet where almost all beings must kill, exploit or out-compete other beings - or we die. Today, most of us do our killing and exploiting as a group. This allows us to maintain our genteel facade. The groups that succeed the best are those that are most internally cooperative. That is the reason for the trend towards less homicide. Divided or internally violent groups will tend to be out-competed by more cohesive groups that are otherwise about equal in power.

[@devos3212]

Steven Pinker likes to cherry pick data. For a complete history of humans, violence, and war I recommend On Wars by Michael Mann. He does an excellent job looking at all of the evidence or lack of.

[@ArijalmariMxllr]

His semi-fictional analysis on globally networked, urban violence in Collateral is also worth a read.

[@colinhaun2790]

Your completely wrong, the only person who understands the history of violence from the stone age to the present day is Pamela Smith who lives at 23 east Wallace street in trailer lot 17 in Bumblesburg Utah, But because the stamp act only allows people from Oxford to publish History, we will forever be lost in incorrect historical interpretation.

[@redmoondesignbeth9119]

It's going to bug me all day knowing there is a story behind this.

[@colinhaun2790]

@@redmoondesignbeth9119 The story is Corporations like KZbin and all other corporations, are simply the "Stamp Act" of the English Empire, reworked and camouflaged. The stamp act was a major cause of the Revolution because it was really this stupid thing the English Empire came up with to pay for their debts with regard to their victory over France. In the act basically all paper products and other products had to have a stamp of the English monarchy on them in order to be bought and sold. After the loss to the US in the American revolution during the mid 1800's the stamp was just disguised as a few different stamps with friendly likable names like uncle Ben's magic toilet paper and it's competitor aunt Debbies softer more magical toilet paper, but all the tax revenue from the 2 companies still goes to the English Common Law legal system through this deception just as it did back then. Corporations make no sense, they shut down all local skilled labor and consolidate it to a few corporations thinking this will make them rich. But world wide Corporations are hundreds of trillions of dollars in debt, and they have no plans of even thinking how to pay for it. Jeff Bezos is worth negative 2.7 Billion dollars. But he doesn't know this because his accountants got through his paperwork and change all the minus signs to plus signs before he sees them. In a world where photography was given to the human race for free by the chemists who invented it, there are no such things as movie stars, or professional photographers. They're just the dopes that were dumb enough to pay the stamp tax to "get in"...,debt.

[@krinker4907]

Steven Pinker,...an apologist for Hell & Dystopia, using statistics.

[@F1ct10n17]

No, i dont know war, not everyone is the same thats why i hate old people still wanting to be right even if it is wrong.

[@willmercury]

Diaper change?

[@F1ct10n17]

@@willmercury no toilet paper.

[@geoffreydawson5430]

How handy all your info is for those who wish to put us all in boxes and enjoy eating bugs and owning nothing and enjoying it. The only pattern I see is your commitment to your financial backers.

[@willmercury]

Those are slurs, not arguments. Either back up your claims, or go shitpost elsewhere.

[@geoffreydawson5430]

@@willmercury Oh, such a warrior. Personally did two tours of duty. You? Oh, a semester.

[@secretgoldfish931]

@@geoffreydawson5430again, just slurs….no argument.