remains relevant in the dangerous age in which we now live (Amazon description)
Put that next to the convincing arguments Steven Pinker makes in 'The Better Angels of Our Nature' about this being the safest times ever. Makes it sound a bit cheap.
Pinker has explicitly said that is a misinterpretation of his book:
> The upshot is that each of the following two
assertions can be true: (1) the chances of war are lower than they were before, and (2) the damage
caused by the most severe imaginable war is greater than it was before. That makes it meaningless—an
issue of semantics—to speculate about whether the world is “safer” overall; in one sense it may be
safer, in another sense, less safe. That is exactly why Better Angels does not claim, contra Taleb, that the
world is “safer” across the board.
Whenever someone tells me that they believe the world is going to end on a specific date, or during a specific period of time, I offer them this bet:
I will bet you my house and land against your car. If I'm right, and the world doesn't end, you owe me your car. If I'm wrong, you can have my house and land.
Put that next to the convincing arguments Steven Pinker makes in 'The Better Angels of Our Nature' about this being the safest times ever. Makes it sound a bit cheap.