The United States Is Not an Apocalyptic Wasteland, Explains Steven Pinker

SYTFE

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December 6, 2016 // 10:10 AM EST

Donald Trump’s rise to power was driven in part by an apocalyptic narrative according to which, in a phrase, you are in grave danger. This is consistent with many people’s intuitions about the world, given the ongoing threat of global terrorism, the US’s slow recovery from the Great Recession, and a sense that the Washington establishment is corrupt and doesn’t care about the average citizen’s needs. Is Trump’s apocalypticism right? Are we living in an exceptionally dangerous period of human history? Are these the desperate times that call for desperate measures?

According to the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, the answer is a resounding No. In his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker presents a mountain of evidence showing that violence has been declining for millennia—a trend that has continued through the twentieth century and up to the present. For example, since World War II there have been no major wars between the world’s great powers, a phenomenon dubbed the “Long Peace,” and Pinker argues that the end of the Cold War inaugurated a “New Peace” that’s marked by a worldwide decline of “organized conflicts of all kinds—civil wars, genocides, repression by autocratic governments, and terrorist attacks.”

But will this trend continue in a post-Trump, post-truth world? Pinker is clear in Better Angles that it might not—for instance, there could be accessible “weapons of total destruction” (WTDs) that precipitate a global catastrophe, or authoritarian demagogues that misuse and abuse their political power. To understand what Trump’s victory means for America and, even more, what it means for the future of civilization, I contacted Pinker via email.

Motherboard: Trump has repeatedly painted an apocalyptic picture of contemporary America. He has talked about (black) people getting shot while walking down the street, about terrorists disguising themselves as refugeesfleeing the atrocities of Syria, and about Mexico sending its “criminals” and “rapists” across the southern border. Could you briefly explain why this characterization of the contemporary US is factually wrong?
Steven Pinker:
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for newsreaders to believe that apocalyptic picture. The news media give lavish coverage to violent incidents, seldom follow up on negative reportage in the past, and rarely put events in statistical or historical perspective. Worse, they allow themselves to be played by violence impresarios, namely terrorists and rampage killers, who correctly anticipate that they can attract the world’s attention by killing a number of innocent people at once. This is true not just of tabloids and cable news chasing eyeballs and clicks, but of high-quality outlets who feel that by highlighting what goes wrong, they are discharging their duty as watchdogs, muckrakers, and afflicters of the comfortable.

The facts are as follows. The rate of violent crime is lower now than it was at any time between 1966 and 2009. Immigrants have a lower rate of violent crime than American citizens. Terrorists kill just three-tenths of one percent of all American homicide victims. The rate of death from terrorism in the United States was higher in the early 1970s than it is today. And since 2002, more Americans have been killed by right-wing American terrorists than by Islamic terrorists. It’s true that the rate of violent crime went up between 2014 and 2015, most likely a consequence of the retreat of active policing since Ferguson. But it’s a small uptick in the context of the massive downward trend since 1992.

Read rest of interview here: The United States Is Not an Apocalyptic Wasteland, Explains Steven Pinker
-----------------------

Very interesting interview, and refreshing to hear a guy like Pinker echoing the same things that I've said about Trump, but he explains it much better than I ever could.
 
Styfe likes to ignore the fact that people already saw what Trump was talking about and wanted something done.

Bed wetters like Styfe don't have to struggle through spanish lessons to order a coffee at starschmuck's. They don't have to compete in the job market because they're oxygen thieves and don't have meaningful employment. They live in urban bubbles and it's all rainbow farts and unicorn vaginas.

The rest of us live in the real world and have to be productive for at least 30 years of our lives and we'd like to keep most of the proceeds, but Styfe doesn't give a fuck, he needs another latte before his mayan gender relations 101 class starts.


 
They don't have to compete in the job market because they're oxygen thieves and don't have meaningful employment.

What do you do for a living? If you live in the first world, then there is a good change that you live off of someone else's back.
 
No, it's a dystopian hellhole.

Well there's only one easy solution for you. If you aren't American, don't come here. If you are an American, get out.
What in he fuck does that mean?

Well, he's saying America a "dystopian hellhole." If that's the case, he has the option to get out, vacate, expatriate. Or if he isn't an American, he has the choice of not becoming one. He has one very effective means of mitigating his current situation.

I don't have much sympathy for people with that kind of attitude.
 
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Well, he's saying America a "dystopian hellhole."

Lovely strawman.

I'm simply citing what you said, you ingrate. If America is in fact what you say it is, why are you here complaining?

You're like a petulant teenager complaining about the rules his parents set for him at home.

"This place is a hellhole!" you say.

Parents say "if you don't like it, get out."
 
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Well, he's saying America a "dystopian hellhole."

Lovely strawman.

I'm simply citing what you said, you ingrate. If America is in fact what you say it is. Why are you here complaining?

You're like a petulant teenager complaining about the rules his parents set for him at home.

"This place is a hellhole!" you say.

Parents say "if you don't like it, get out."

Because the riots in the cities after Trumps election are over, this is his next assignment by Soros' organization.

Most Americans wouldn't willing try to destroy the nation, would they?
 
While we're on that subject, why do you think America is a "dystopian hellhole"?

The United States. There is a fundamental distinction that your are clearly uneducated on.

Materlialism, henodism, greed, ignorance, savagery, gluttony, vainglory, depression, sycophancy, cowardice, morons like yourself, ect.
 
I'm simply citing what you said, you ingrate. If America is in fact what you say it is. Why are you here complaining?

Why? Because I have a cause beyond serving myself. Criticizing the worlds largest slave state goes hand in hand with my life purpose.
 
December 6, 2016 // 10:10 AM EST

Donald Trump’s rise to power was driven in part by an apocalyptic narrative according to which, in a phrase, you are in grave danger. This is consistent with many people’s intuitions about the world, given the ongoing threat of global terrorism, the US’s slow recovery from the Great Recession, and a sense that the Washington establishment is corrupt and doesn’t care about the average citizen’s needs. Is Trump’s apocalypticism right? Are we living in an exceptionally dangerous period of human history? Are these the desperate times that call for desperate measures?

According to the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, the answer is a resounding No. In his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker presents a mountain of evidence showing that violence has been declining for millennia—a trend that has continued through the twentieth century and up to the present. For example, since World War II there have been no major wars between the world’s great powers, a phenomenon dubbed the “Long Peace,” and Pinker argues that the end of the Cold War inaugurated a “New Peace” that’s marked by a worldwide decline of “organized conflicts of all kinds—civil wars, genocides, repression by autocratic governments, and terrorist attacks.”

But will this trend continue in a post-Trump, post-truth world? Pinker is clear in Better Angles that it might not—for instance, there could be accessible “weapons of total destruction” (WTDs) that precipitate a global catastrophe, or authoritarian demagogues that misuse and abuse their political power. To understand what Trump’s victory means for America and, even more, what it means for the future of civilization, I contacted Pinker via email.

Motherboard: Trump has repeatedly painted an apocalyptic picture of contemporary America. He has talked about (black) people getting shot while walking down the street, about terrorists disguising themselves as refugeesfleeing the atrocities of Syria, and about Mexico sending its “criminals” and “rapists” across the southern border. Could you briefly explain why this characterization of the contemporary US is factually wrong?
Steven Pinker:
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for newsreaders to believe that apocalyptic picture. The news media give lavish coverage to violent incidents, seldom follow up on negative reportage in the past, and rarely put events in statistical or historical perspective. Worse, they allow themselves to be played by violence impresarios, namely terrorists and rampage killers, who correctly anticipate that they can attract the world’s attention by killing a number of innocent people at once. This is true not just of tabloids and cable news chasing eyeballs and clicks, but of high-quality outlets who feel that by highlighting what goes wrong, they are discharging their duty as watchdogs, muckrakers, and afflicters of the comfortable.

The facts are as follows. The rate of violent crime is lower now than it was at any time between 1966 and 2009. Immigrants have a lower rate of violent crime than American citizens. Terrorists kill just three-tenths of one percent of all American homicide victims. The rate of death from terrorism in the United States was higher in the early 1970s than it is today. And since 2002, more Americans have been killed by right-wing American terrorists than by Islamic terrorists. It’s true that the rate of violent crime went up between 2014 and 2015, most likely a consequence of the retreat of active policing since Ferguson. But it’s a small uptick in the context of the massive downward trend since 1992.

Read rest of interview here: The United States Is Not an Apocalyptic Wasteland, Explains Steven Pinker
-----------------------

Very interesting interview, and refreshing to hear a guy like Pinker echoing the same things that I've said about Trump, but he explains it much better than I ever could.


I'm sure the 4000 shot and 700 dead in Chicago this year along with the 100+ million on welfare will find this comforting.
 
December 6, 2016 // 10:10 AM EST

Donald Trump’s rise to power was driven in part by an apocalyptic narrative according to which, in a phrase, you are in grave danger. This is consistent with many people’s intuitions about the world, given the ongoing threat of global terrorism, the US’s slow recovery from the Great Recession, and a sense that the Washington establishment is corrupt and doesn’t care about the average citizen’s needs. Is Trump’s apocalypticism right? Are we living in an exceptionally dangerous period of human history? Are these the desperate times that call for desperate measures?

According to the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, the answer is a resounding No. In his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker presents a mountain of evidence showing that violence has been declining for millennia—a trend that has continued through the twentieth century and up to the present. For example, since World War II there have been no major wars between the world’s great powers, a phenomenon dubbed the “Long Peace,” and Pinker argues that the end of the Cold War inaugurated a “New Peace” that’s marked by a worldwide decline of “organized conflicts of all kinds—civil wars, genocides, repression by autocratic governments, and terrorist attacks.”

But will this trend continue in a post-Trump, post-truth world? Pinker is clear in Better Angles that it might not—for instance, there could be accessible “weapons of total destruction” (WTDs) that precipitate a global catastrophe, or authoritarian demagogues that misuse and abuse their political power. To understand what Trump’s victory means for America and, even more, what it means for the future of civilization, I contacted Pinker via email.

Motherboard: Trump has repeatedly painted an apocalyptic picture of contemporary America. He has talked about (black) people getting shot while walking down the street, about terrorists disguising themselves as refugeesfleeing the atrocities of Syria, and about Mexico sending its “criminals” and “rapists” across the southern border. Could you briefly explain why this characterization of the contemporary US is factually wrong?
Steven Pinker:
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for newsreaders to believe that apocalyptic picture. The news media give lavish coverage to violent incidents, seldom follow up on negative reportage in the past, and rarely put events in statistical or historical perspective. Worse, they allow themselves to be played by violence impresarios, namely terrorists and rampage killers, who correctly anticipate that they can attract the world’s attention by killing a number of innocent people at once. This is true not just of tabloids and cable news chasing eyeballs and clicks, but of high-quality outlets who feel that by highlighting what goes wrong, they are discharging their duty as watchdogs, muckrakers, and afflicters of the comfortable.

The facts are as follows. The rate of violent crime is lower now than it was at any time between 1966 and 2009. Immigrants have a lower rate of violent crime than American citizens. Terrorists kill just three-tenths of one percent of all American homicide victims. The rate of death from terrorism in the United States was higher in the early 1970s than it is today. And since 2002, more Americans have been killed by right-wing American terrorists than by Islamic terrorists. It’s true that the rate of violent crime went up between 2014 and 2015, most likely a consequence of the retreat of active policing since Ferguson. But it’s a small uptick in the context of the massive downward trend since 1992.

Read rest of interview here: The United States Is Not an Apocalyptic Wasteland, Explains Steven Pinker
-----------------------

Very interesting interview, and refreshing to hear a guy like Pinker echoing the same things that I've said about Trump, but he explains it much better than I ever could.


I'm sure the 4000 shot and 700 dead in Chicago this year along with the 100+ million on welfare will find this comforting.

^ And this is why Trump won. Facts don't matter to you rubes. Trump played you guys like a fucking violin.
 

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