(June 24, 2014 at 12:23 am)Rhythm Wrote: Ah, but now that we've expanded, now that all those wonderful resources are snatched up (the situation that makes peacefulness pay, after all -excepting the natives)? Granted that we've been sitting pretty for awhile, but with the destructive power that modern violence has under it's thumb, what would it really take to make our current happy situation seem like a very temporary hiccup in the data? Pinkers book leans heavily on accumulated historical data, but should it surprise us to find a decline in violence over recorded history? Keep in mind, that by "recorded history" we were -already- all over the globe (so it makes little sense to claim that we learned to be peaceful in doing so, or that doing so helped with the same..givin that expansion is likely to be the most violent aspect of any history...we're putting the cart before the horse imo). One could just as easily assume the reading that our decline in violence has been due to our decline in potential victims. The environment is no longer target rich, especially after having eradicated so many "others".
I am not contending that the decrease in violence in societies is permanent or some sort of absolute good though it is good for me. It just is. During the European expansion into the rest of the globe, there was effective dehumanization of the indigenous populations with resulting genocides. In my youth, there were holdovers from the American western expansion and the phrase 'the only good Indian is a dead Indian.' was still in use. We have toned that back but it could be temporary no matter the sincerity of its current adherents. What I'd like to see is some control over the sociopaths who become world leaders. Unfortunately, you have to have a nastier sociopath to throw the other sociopath out of office. (No, Mr. Locke, elections won't do. See: Egypt, N.Korea, Iraq, Syria) You just get the sociopaths gaming the electoral system.
I was part of the 'duck and cover' generation where we thought we were going to be nuked at any time. It wasn't until the '70s when the 'superpowers' figured out, with the help of their respective boffins, that nuclear winter wasn't a good idea for anybody. There are still plenty nuclear devices out there waiting for someone, perhaps who we would consider demented, but who considers himself a patriot or devout (fill in your favorite apocalyptic cult here) willing to throw the first megaton.
What I wanted to point out was that the common, not universal, proscriptions against murder are a result of societal evolution in response to current conditions. Eyes can be grown or lost to an organism depending on their current requirements. The 'goodness' of murder is specifically dependent on the requirements of the society in question at the place and time in question. Your lack of targets point simply is one of the factors involved in the current conditions. As murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a human by a human, we can always call it illegal or even bad (If unlawful things are generally defined as bad.) But the envelope which restricts the unlawful killing is particularly elastic and quite dependent on whose ox is being gored.
Although I do contend that crossing the streams is BAD in an absolute sense.
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