I’ll be covering this in the next post, but the very short version is that it isn’t his reasoning, it’s that the 20-60% number is derived in an incredibly misleading way; there is substantial anthropological and fossil evidence that he is off by at least an order of magnitude.
Much less than 2% to 6% of modern people are murdered. If, as you claim, the numbers were an order of magnitude lower than Pinker’s claim, the number of homicide deaths would still be an order of magnitude higher than the current global average of about 8 per 100,000 per year.
ETA: Thats a good point FAWS, thanks. I changed it.
8 per 100,000 would be per year, not per lifetime. Assuming an average life span of 70 years that would be about 0.56%, just about one order of magnitude lower.
there is substantial anthropological and fossil evidence that he is off by at least an order of magnitude.
It was a one sentence comment. I’m starting to worry about this community’s ability to argue in good faith.
(This criticism is not necessarily directed at you, knb; it’s not a preposterously unlikely mistake, and I know I’ve made errors of this type. It’s their frequency on LessWrong that’s starting to get to me.)
I’ll be covering this in the next post, but the very short version is that it isn’t his reasoning, it’s that the 20-60% number is derived in an incredibly misleading way; there is substantial anthropological and fossil evidence that he is off by at least an order of magnitude.
Much less than 2% to 6% of modern people are murdered. If, as you claim, the numbers were an order of magnitude lower than Pinker’s claim, the number of homicide deaths would still be an order of magnitude higher than the current global average of about 8 per 100,000 per year.
ETA: Thats a good point FAWS, thanks. I changed it.
8 per 100,000 would be per year, not per lifetime. Assuming an average life span of 70 years that would be about 0.56%, just about one order of magnitude lower.
Me:
It was a one sentence comment. I’m starting to worry about this community’s ability to argue in good faith.
(This criticism is not necessarily directed at you, knb; it’s not a preposterously unlikely mistake, and I know I’ve made errors of this type. It’s their frequency on LessWrong that’s starting to get to me.)