Are You Still Living in a Safer Time?
Our history is plagued with human violence. The author Steven Pinker, lists several atrocities:
- World War II (20th century)- 55,000,000 dead
- Mao Zedong (20th century)- 40,000,000 dead
- Mongol Conquests (13th century)- 40,000,000 dead
- An Lushan Revolt (8th century)- 36,000,000 dead
- Fall of the Ming Dynasty (17th century)- 25,000,000 dead
- Taiping Rebellion (19th century)- 20,000,000 dead
- Annihilation of American Indians (15th– 19th centuries)- 20,000,000 dead
- Josef Stalin (20th century)- 20,000,000 dead
- Mideast Slave Trade (7th-19th centuries)- 19,000,000 dead
- Atlantic Slave Trade (15th-19th centuries)- 18,000,000 dead
Pinker writes, "People are safer now than they were several hundred years ago and there are examples of how society can change even though human nature hasn't."
According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development's World Population Data Sheet 2022 Highlights Excess Deaths Due to COVID-19, nearly 15 million deaths occurred globally in 2020-2021. If you are basing safety on the number of people who have died, then I guess people are safer now than they were several hundred years ago.
But are you slowly losing your safety? Is the fascist story making a comeback? You only need to read the newspaper titles:
- COVID-19 pandemic
- The war in Ukraine
- The volatile political climate in the US and Brazil
- The new far-right Italian prime minister
Do you think this might be a test of the democratic process?