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Notes -
I think this, combined with much stronger deterrents against violence like virtually omnipresent surveillance & a much stricter identification system, actually suggests that as a society we are actually more violent than before, at least on the long tail of extreme violence.
It does certainly seems true that low level violence like fist fights or domestic abuse seems to have lessened, but that seems to me a function of deterrence against relatively rational actors. Extreme violent actors are less easy to deter, maybe near impossible.
I think the desire and ability to conduct extreme levels of violence has plainly never been easier, and I think on a memetic / psychological level the desire for violence is through the goddamn roof.
I think in ways that are difficult to point to statistically, we very well might be in the most violent age of man since we lived as hunter gatherers and the most likely cause of death for men was murder.
A forum / memeplex founded by rationalist quokka types are going to be logically one of the last places to really feel this in their gut. I applaud the pro-social nature of some of the puzzled faces around here but the heat just got turned up a whole lot and I’m nervously looking at the clock tick up towards midnight.
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