What books did you read in 2011?
 

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/lol.gif

To be fair, all Alby knows is Philly, the one place in America where violence will never decline. The animals threw batteries at Santa Claus, for god's sake.

albie, one of the many reasons you're a failure in life is that you have no sense of perspective. The long term trend towards peacefulness is massive and well-documented, and isn't subject to whatever clever quibbles you think you've come up with. There is no argument about it by any other than those, like yourself, who are utter ignoramuses.

State-sanctioned violence is way way way down in the developed world. State policing (probably helped by surveillance and the media) is also far far far more effective than it's ever been in the developed world. The existence of a legal structure for civil grievances in the developed world means no more duels, blood feuds, etc.

But developed world.

18th century Mexico City was probably no more violent than 18th century Paris. Compare them today, though, and the disparity is huge.

I sincerely hope Pinker addresses that while the overall or average violence may have declined, the disparity is greater than it probably has ever been. Which is why I laugh at this concept that 'the better angels' of human nature have triumphed.

You go walk the streets of Bogota and tell us of 'better angels', Mr. Pinker.

Do we count violence in video games? The murder rates in America's Army are often well over 10 per capita per day. I often got my whole team before they could even jump out of the airplane... (saves more of the enemy for me!)

I destroyed an entire planet in a video game last week. A big heavily populated planet filled with aliens. Does xenocide in a video game count as violence?

It's a flimsy house that the peace of the developed world resides in. It is at the mercy of the benevolence of the state, the effectiveness of the legal system, etc.

Basically, KH only reads sci-fi and finance-related books. I guess geeky yuppies do exist, after all.

Pinker's been the center of a lively controversy since that book came out. I'm sure he loves it. His argument, IIUC, is a statistical one; as a percentage of population, violent deaths have declined. The controversy is whether that is meaningful. As one critic I read pointed out, consider a village of 100 where one person dies in a fistfight and a nation of two million that ethnic-cleanses five thousand people. By Pinker's metric, the little village is "more violent," and that's correct in a sense, but not very satisfying.

What the hell are you basing this "Mexico City was probably no more violent than Paris in the 18th century" thing on? Did you just pull it out of your butt? Is your argument "my preconceived notions of the past aren't more violent then my preconceived notions about the present so you're wrong!" ????

I've seen better dodges, Al.

Taken as a sum, I'm sure violence has decreased if only because the State is typically no longer slaughtering the population and instead has become more effective against rogue criminals, but Pinker appears to be making a dangerous presentation that probably hides the high violence disparity between, let's say Western Europe, and the Third World. So you admit he's right but the fact that the developing world has made less progress is supposed to be an objection to what he's saying. I guess you'll also throw a fit if someone claims the world has gotten richer and you'll say that it ignores a huge disparity between the rich and poor.

http://stevenpinker.com/pages/freque...e-has-declined

Personally if you are going to quibble about the man's work, I would be more interested in how he might explain the inherent contradiction between Better Angels and his earlier work Blank Slate

I honestly don't read enough books...I can't remember the books I read last year. Probably around five. It's a bit sad. I did read a book recently that consisted of three of Gilbert and Sullivan's plays (Pinafore and Pirates of Penzance and Mikado).

I also read Red Mars and hated it. Kim Stanley Robinson is clever but needs to never write sex scenes. He's just horrible at it.

Actually, thinking about Reamde...

KH, did you ever read Anathem? It seems like it'd be directly up your alley.

The paradox of Tar Heel politics : the personalities, elections, and events that shaped modern North Carolina
Words and rules : the ingredients of language
Ordinary geniuses : Max Delbrück, George Gamow, and the origins of genomics and big bang cosmology
A call to arms : book one of the damned
Evolution : a very short introduction
Matter : a Culture novel
Nature via nurture : genes, experience, and what makes us human
The haves and the have-nots : a brief and idiosyncratic history of global inequality
Mapping human history : genes, race, and our common origins
Pandora's star
Future babble : why expert predictions are next to worthless, and you can do better
In pursuit of the gene : from Darwin to DNA
Mathematics : a very short introduction
Risk : a very short introduction
Logic : a very short introduction
Acacia : a novel
Coincidences, chaos, and all that math jazz : making light of weighty ideas
Intelligence : a very short introduction
Genius : a very short introduction
Inversions
The hundred thousand kingdoms
Numbers : a very short introduction
The Celts : a very short introduction
Excession
Dark light
Carnage and culture : landmark battles in the rise of Western power
Cosmonaut keep
The ghosts of Cannae : Hannibal and the darkest hour of the Roman republic
The geography of thought : how Asians and Westerners think differently-- and why
A dance with dragons
A feast for crows.
A storm of swords.
Calculated risks : how to know when numbers deceive you
A clash of kings.
A clash of kings.
The black swan : the impact of the highly improbable
Struck by lightning : the curious world of probabilities
A fire upon the deep
Singularity sky
The myth of the rational market : a history of risk, reward, and delusion on Wall Street
The most powerful idea in the world : a story of steam, industry, and invention
A game of thrones
The sky road
Bad science : quacks, hacks, and big pharma flacks
The big short : inside the Doomsday Machine
The stars my destination

Those are books I read from the library. I also read a few on my Ipad.

Yes, in 2010

I didn't keep track of all of them, but my favorite was Death By Black Hole

DinoDoc has no idea what he's talking about, clearly. Just because the book was called "Blank Slate" doesn't mean he was positing such a position. Quite the opposite.



Is it bad that I didn't read any books in 2011? I read forums...

Jesus... literally.