Even your statement hints that our cities are in a state of societal collapse with increased crime - implying that things could be better. And in fact I don't think we're living in good times; rather, like pollution, we've outsourced violence out of sight. Consider:
- We are electrifying our cars off the labor of kid slaves in Congo.
- The US border is an orgy of sexual exploitation, the ravines cutting through ranchers' fields littered with bloodied children's underwear.
- Half a million soldiers have died in Ukraine over the last one and half year (be they 90% Ukrainian or Russian is irrelevant)
- A war in Congo at the start of the century killed 5 million people without much of a mention in the West
- In Europe, a human tsunami of despair breaks against the shoals of human indifference.
- In the US almost 100 000 die from opioid addiction every year caused by alienation and neglect from their neighbor. Does our low murder rate really count victims among these folks? If a pusher decides to get rid of a client that's become too annoying and laces his drugs, would anyone notice?
No, I don't think we're living in an
No, I don't think we're living in a peaceful era at all.
Not the GP commenter, but I don’t see how their comment hints at this. Could you clarify?
> No, I don't think we're living in a peaceful era at all.
This appears to respond to a different claim than that in the parent comment based on my reading, unless I’m misinterpreting the “no” here?
I think there a little hint there that the OP doesnt think American cities are in their golden era.
As to my peace comment, it must be put in context of the precious statement that, as violent as our cities are, we have have achieved some pacification by exporting violence.
If the Congo-US city link is too abstract, consider American jails. They are brutally violent to the point where it is suspected male-male rape might be more prominent than male-female. All of our would be urban violence that we have warehoused in our jails occurs multiple fold in our jails.
It appears to me that, as brutal as it is to stab a man for exposing himself and dispersing his bodily fluids (not obviously sterile if he frequents brothels), it is far more uncivilized what we do: enslave children and exploit them until they drop like flies so we have the minerals necessary to upgrade our phone and greenwash our souls.
I mean are we seriously comparing the stabbing of a man who sexually exploits women, to the slow and painful death of a child that mines cobalt for our phones and EVs?
No we're not, eg Tesla batteries don't contain cobalt anymore.
> be they 90% Ukrainian or Russian is irrelevant
This is pro-Russian "anti-imperialism" propaganda, it's Russia's fault that Russia decided to do that and not anyone else's.
Ukraine was explicitly rejected last time they tried to join NATO. Although they will get in now, and so will Finland and Sweden, so it was obviously counterproductive!
But Russia doesn't even care about that. They're just ideologically opposed to Ukraine existing and want its industrial resources back. They don't even say it themselves, you just make excuses for them.
As it stands, Mexico doesn't even bother with significant defense spending because they know that the US isn't all that interested in invading and no one else is going to try to invade a country which shares a land border with the US.
On the other hand, the various Russian neighbors who have joined or have expressed interest in joining NATO have done the same calculus and determined that Russia is cannot be relied on to not threaten their borders.
2. I didn't mention batteries. Cobalt is used in many components in EVs
3. Clearly my example was illustrative, generally, of the exploitation of children for mineral resources the country didn't use. The children in Congo is child exploitation writ large.
The kids in Congo are mining something for some application and for someone and that someone is us.
> Russia vs Ukraine
I think you misread my comment. I did not pass judgement at all on the war (on this comment at least). I was just pointing out that whether you take Kiev's numbers as true (450 000 dead Russians + 50 000 dead Ukrainians) or Moscow's (450 000 dead Ukrainians + 50 000 dead Russians) the number of dead is curiously the same.
Half a million dead souls in Donbas, no matter their nationality is a tragedy being comprehension.
Citation? The US border is a humanitarian and policy disaster, but “littered with bloodied children’s underwear”?
Nobody said we are. The claim is that we're living in a more peaceful era.
I don't think we're living in a more peaceful era at all
People may not have any particular 'impulse' to violence in a stable, safe society, but may be all too ready to participate in violence in a violent society. Society does not solely reflect the people in it, people also reflect the society they're in.
Also this would seem like a highly nihilistic attitude hardly compatible with the social values of the day. I doubt this could’ve been a significant reason on a societal level.
> A Thursday night in 1298 saw an argument between students in an Oxford High Street tavern result in a mass street brawl with swords and battle-axes
…
> "Knives were omnipresent in medieval society," said Brown. Many cases feature a knife called a thwytel, later evolved to the word "whittle."
> "A thwytel was a small knife, often valued at one penny, and used as cutlery or for everyday tasks. Axes were commonplace in homes for cutting wood, and many men carried a staff," Brown continued. Some 12% of London's homicides were committed with a sword.
Also living conditions were poor and urban populations were highly concentrated and lived in close quarters.
In universities specifically you had very high concentrations of socially highly privileged young men (generally they had legal immunity and could only be prosecuted by the church courts) with a lot of time and energy on their hands.
Steven Pinker's 2011 book "The Better Angels of our Nature" is a detailed examination how less violent societies across the world have become, and the reasons for it.
If you like videos, here's a talk he gave on it [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur...
I think this is a big difference.
The substitute for clean drinking water was "small beer", a brewed ale with about 2% alcohol. Much safer than drinking water from the pump; or, heaven forbid, from the River Thames, which in those days was even more of a sewer than it is now. You'd have to drink a lot of it to get drunk.
TFA describes a murder that happened in "the parish of St. Aldates". St. Aldates Street runs from the centre of Oxford downhill to the Thames at St. Ebbes. St. Ebbes itself was a slum; wealthy people wouldn't live next to a disease-ridden open sewer. The side-streets off St. Aldates are all narrow, dark mediaeval alleys.
Also alcohol in beer does nothing to 'clean' the water (how would that even make any sense?) it's the boiling that kills the bacteria, parasites etc. (and people have understood that boiling makes water safer for thousands of years if not more).
Because alcohol is toxic. This is also why there's a maximum alcohol concentration above which you need distillation: the alcohol kills off the yeast that makes it.
2% may not be enough kill off everything (I'd be surprised if it was), but in the absence of better training on my part (I'm not a biologist), I would assume it would still make a difference.
Alcohol and low pH might significantly slow down the risk of bacteria spreading. Which is relevant if you want to store.
Obviously it's not really that relevant if were talking about making the water safe to drink in the first place because boiling is much more effective.
And again the claim that medieval people drank beer all the time because all the water they had access to is dirty is a myth..
Ensuring access to clean water was something medieval people took very seriously with very severe punishments for those who polluted or tried poisoning sources of drinkable water.
People drank beer because it tasted good and was full of carbs (energy for the day). They even had small beer for breakfast.
Hypothesis: violence is effectively monopolised to a degree it has never been before. So it is used far less frequently but when it is used, is far more destructive (see world wars).
The last duel was like early 1900s maybe end of the wild West era...
What's made the world so much more peaceful? Improved material conditions?