OUR OPINION: ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature’
December 31, 2012 at 2:00 pm in Grand Forks Herald
True, it’s anybody’s guess where politics and the economy are headed. But there are other measures against which the prospects for 2013 look more upbeat. Continue Reading
Pinker’s book sounds interesting for sure but other scientists are warning us about the impending violence that will make Pinker’s thesis irrelevent. When global warming accelerates during this century mass migrations will cause huge conflict worldwide for control of resources. If we count the deaths from weather related catastrophe violent death will be huge in comparison to Pinker’s analysis of a peaceful modernity. These weather related disasters can be blamed on human inducement of violent death by industrialization over the past 300 yrs and subsequent warming of the planet. With man’s disconnect from nature due to the Enlightenment’s obsession with science and progress we have entered the phase of human history that is described by paleontologists as the 6th great mass extinction of species. This is the 1st to be caused by human hubris. At least the killing in hunter gatherer societies was in a sort of balance with nature that didn’t cause mass extinctions of other species that aren’t counted in Pinker’s equation.
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The authors of “Freakonomics” credit abortion with the decline of crime and violence.
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