memory, and was by far the most deadly conflict in human history. Nuclear war is still a threat and could extinguish the species.

We are not less violent, just more organized about it.

of the 20th century - If adjusted proportionally to world population - World War II would be the 9th most violent conflict in known world history - the number of deaths in proportion to the population of people at the hands of other people of the 20th century even considering the two world wars is a fraction of what it was in say the Middle Ages and in the Middle Ages it was a fraction of what it was a thousand years before that and that was of course a fraction of what it was and still is in traditional hunter/gatherer societies. I would say that although, I would not have believed this until recently - there is no question but what people today are far, far less violent than their ancestors and infinitely less cruel.

or of population. Usually the losses of the vanquished in ancient wars were vastly inflated by the winners ("the victors write the history" is probably as old as Herodotus). It stands to reason that there is no accurate way to quantify the assertion that wars and private conflicts and local violence are less costly of human lives in the 20th Century than in the Second Century, BC.

high percentage of the population compared to later periods died from violent assaults. We no longer live in a world where torturing people to death publicly is good, fun entertainment. We no longer live in a world where we fear that at any time an invading horde might sweep through killing all the adult men and stealing away all the women and child to be sold as slaves. We no longer live in a world in which simple travel would mean a very real possibility of being taken as hostage, robbed, raped or murdered. Until relatively recently - almost everyone - almost everywhere in the world had those very real possibilities as their life experience. In spite of the commonly believed cliche, there is simply no evidence whatsoever that proportional to the population that the 20th century was the most violent century and overwhelming evidence to suggest otherwise. And most of violence that did occur in the 20th century occurred during the span of 1914-1945. Numbers of violent death in each decade after 1945 show a significant decline - however homicide rates in the western world did increase in about 1960 and started a dramatic fall in about 1990.

Dr, Pinker speaking at a conference lays out a number of charts with specific data to prove his findings:

...even if I sometimes don't completely agree with a premise of his, his arguments and the information surrounding them is fascinating and he presents them well. He is brilliant, IMO.

I would surmise that he is a liberal with pacifist leanings guided by old fashioned optimistic humanism. I doubt that he is a leftist. But he is no doubt a liberal. Up until now, I had a very gloomy and dark view of the future. Of course he makes it clear that it is not inevitable that the trend away from violence will continue. But, in the big picture it does appear to be the trend. Maybe my dark assumptions were wrong? I have never in my life been so happy to find out that I was most probably so wrong.

He seems passionately 'scientist' more than anything else. I always suspected that since he's in academia and is intelligent, he's likely a liberal.

I listened to that TED talk of his a while back. I was also amazed with it - with his research on the subject. Still far too much violence in the world, particularly from certain groups - and it's *really* hard not to get cynical about it. But in the bigger picture, there is obviously historically less than there used to be.

All our domestic animals were made "domestic" by culling out the violent and uncooperative ones and encouraging those that wouldn't savage us or each other to multiply

Whether deliberately or as a by-product of other trends, we've been doing the same thing to ourselves. Violent young men tend to kill each other off before they get much chance to reproduce. All those destructive wars also preferentially kill off the most violent and hot-headed. And meanwhile, men who can accumulate wealth in more stable ways are enjoying reproductive success.

My suspicion is that this began at the start of the Neolithic, when instead of being a successful hunter it became important to be a prosperous farmer. That is also when animals were being domesticated, which is why it seems possible that people may have gotten the hint and deliberately adopted social norms that led to self-domestication. For example, the custom of choosing mates on the basis of physical attractiveness -- with lots of romantic myths and fairy-tales to encourage the idea -- may have weeded out the wild-and-wooly in favor of the suave and couth.

But one way and another, we haven't just been "learning better." We've been breeding for the ability to get along together, even in highly stressful man-made environments, and doing a pretty good job of it.