[Gordian Knot (OP)]

GN

Recent evolutionary pressures include, as you point out, potentially deleterious forces as well.  You specifically mention basic IQ. 

I have two responses. First, you don't need to be a smart person to be good and contributing citizen. Second, I suspect Marx, Engels, Lenin et all were way above normal intellectually speaking. They seem to have believed it themselves and worshiped their own intellects to the point of killing anyone who might have an inferior thought.

Actually I never mentioned IQ! IQ is an artificial (and I would suggest arbitrary) measure of intelligence. And many of us know people with very high IQs that are incapable of functioning in day to day society. A high IQ, in and of itself, is not a good measure.

And I never mentioned being smart either. In fact I pointed out that people who are "learned" can be college grads, or people who are self taught.

Let me use myself as an example. I have 3/4ths of a four year college degree. So I never finished a bachelor's degree. Yet I have read extensively all my life, and continue to do so. Learning is important to me so I go out of my way to do that.

It is shocking to me how many people in the U.S. do not have a high school diploma, or worse, have one that is essentially worthless. The majority of these people, from my observations, do not value learning, and are not going to take it upon themselves to do so.

As to your responses. No, one does not need to be smart to be a useful, contributing citizen. There has to be something there though, call it wisdom, street smarts, whatever.

Secondly, yes learned individuals have been led down the wrong paths like the Communists you mentioned. Learning IS a two edged sword. Still, overall, I believe someone who is learned has a better chance of being a useful, functioning member of society.

As a matter of fact, it is the learned ones who follow an "evil" path that are so dangerous when the society in which they live is predominated by people who do not value learning. The examples of this in America the last decade are too numerous to mention. Our supposed leaders make the most asinine claims, and too many people accept those claims without question.

One cannot run a civilized society this way, and we see the negative results all around us.

[Gordian Knot (OP)]

PS

The planet is in the most peaceful and prosperous era in its entire human history. Read "Better Angles of Our Nature". http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0670022950/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link

In this book Plinker points out that violent deaths per 100,000 population today could not even be shown on his timescale chart since it is less then one pixel.  In  some hunter/gatherer societies it sometimes approached one third of all deaths.

Light, I'm not picking on you. Promise! LOL.

I DO have some real issues with this guy's book, but cannot make much in the way of statements without having read it (which I fully intend to do!). Just looking at his premise though, that violent deaths are minuscule today compared to past centuries, seems to me to be a huge over simplification.

Of course hunter/gatherer societies would have a very high violent death rate. When one is hunting animals that can kill you, that will lead to more violent deaths.

When groups of people are completely dependent on the fickleness of nature, violent death is going to be higher.

Finally, when these people have no medical knowledge to speak of, any injury that would be considered mundane today would likely have meant death in primitive societies.

Modern industrial society has progressed to the point that most of us acquire our food already slaughtered, slabbed and packaged for us. Advances in agriculture has allowed us to feed huge populations that never would have survived in earlier times. And medicine has advanced to the point that many life threatening situations of even a generation ago are no longer necessarily fatal.

I haven't even started on violent death by warfare, which I cannot until I read what the author has to say. Seems to me that survivors in Rwanda, Somalia, Angola, though, would have a different opinion!

[CliffordK]

The planet is in the most peaceful and prosperous era in its entire human history. Read "Better Angles of Our Nature".
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0670022950/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link

Here is the main figure from the preview of the article.
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Figure 2.2
Percentage of deaths in warfare in non-state and state societies.

Now, there could be somewhat of a bias for the archaeological digs depending on what was actually dug up. 

For example, if you did an archeological dig at:
Gettysburg,
Arlington National Cemetery,
or Little Bighorn,

You might conclude that we are a far more violent society.

However, considering the effects of the Iraq war on the USA.  While many people may know someone that has been deployed, maimed, or killed.  However, the vast majority of us are relatively insulated from the battles. 

Industrial accidents have been minimized in the 21^st century in Western nations. 

How violent was the "old west"?  Certainly most people aren't packing 6-shooters anymore.

One of the big differences in "Modern Society" is the ability for mass destruction.  Two bombs dropped in 1945 killed over 100,000 people in Japan. 

With some estimates of WWII deaths being in the range of 60-80 million (but, still only 3-4% of the global population.  However, some countries lost between 10 and 20% of their population, and some locales loosing far more.

I would agree that much of the world is in a period of "prosperity".  The life expectancy in many countries is now around 80 years.

Yet, depending on the estimate, the life expectancy in Swaziland, Angola, and Zambia is still in the 30 to 40 year range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
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