[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

We're debating here, but I think his conclusions are flawed. the wars that we saw to close the century were incredibly violent conflicts, but the casualty counts were lower because the technology is better, and battlefield trauma medical care was different.

While you could argue that the last two wars were not on an equivalent level, there were still mass numbers of troops in the field, but one of the great equializers was that civilian casualties for example were greatly reduced because of the advancement of ranged weapons. During WW2, you had casualty counts in the 10's of thousands per day, now you have them in the dozen's tops, but thats not because the war fare is any less violent.

But that's pretty much the heart of his original argument. We are less likely today to die at the hands of another person than at any other time in history. It also states in the article that this isn't because we've evolved into a higher species, but has more to do with our ability to reason. I'd argue that the use of long-range weapons for the purposes of avoiding civilian casualties is perfect example of this.

Plus statistically, I can apply the casualty figures of WW2, and WW1 and the holocaust and compare them to today and say, look we're less violent, but that ignores that we're still getting into conflicts on a more regional basis,

Again, you're kind of making his point here. We get into regional spats (still far fewer than what occured in prior to the 20th centruy) but these generally don't occur between the world's major powers because it's more beneficial to negotiate.
but the conditions for a global conflict haven't been ignited yet, or don't happen, not because peace has broken out or we've evolved , but because of the overall threat of mass extinction based violence by the super powers.

Rocketry, aviation, theoretical physics and math, medical treatment and trauma based treatment and surgery, naval sciences, all went through their greatest periods of acceleration thanks to warfare or the threat of warfare.

True, but the improvements we've seen in social areas such as civil rights, medicare, education, etc. had very little to do with warfare (though in some cases they may have occured at the same time as certain wars).

Yes I read the article, and yes we live in extremely violent times,

Maybe, but I think his point that violence at an individual level has decreased substantially is backed up pretty well by what we know.

and I merely stated that as we see the economies of more nations collapse and resources become even a greater commodity that we'll start seeing the return of super nationalism like we saw in the era between WW1 and WW2.

So I argue that this century will probably be a good one if you're dealing in weapons.

I doubt it, but I know you're a tad older than me and it's pretty common to start delving into millenialism when you get to a certain age

Sure there are examples of co-operative developments in nature, but nature is about the food chain, about territorial dominance, and about parasitic relationships.

Nature is about self-preservation and reproduciton. How that's achieved varies from species to species.

True, I stated thats why his theory of man's violent nature decreasing is wrong. The wars might be smaller but the destructive power is far greater then WW2 for example and the ability to precise target removes the mass casualties of other conflicts.

But we have the Chinese arming themselves and looking at building their ability to project power. We have the Russians doing a crash rebuilding program based around their Blue Water Navy and long range tactical aviation.

At some point the American's will accelerate their military build up because its the quickest way to boost their economy, because we all know that the gun side of the guns and butter argument allows you to buy more butter.

Except that in the past, whoever had the best army would throw their weight around with very little regard for consequences at the human/individual level. This certainly isn't the case anymore.