Summary

Key Quotes

Democracies tend to avoid wars because the benefits of war go to a country's leaders whereas the costs are paid by its citizens

Escalating sensitivity to new forms of harm

Violence has declined at every scale — from 50-100x drops in homicide rates to the near-elimination of interstate war. This isn't luck or cycles; it's driven by the civilizing process (states monopolizing force, shifting from zero-sum to positive-sum mentality), the humanitarian revolution (printing press → empathy → rights), and expanding circles of cooperation. Violence is hardwired — predation, dominance, revenge, ideology — but our better angels (empathy, self-control, reason) have been winning. War follows a power law distribution with no cycles, just randomness — and the trend is unmistakably downward.

Key Takeaways

Notes

1: A foreign country

• Gruesome torture of Christianity, religion
• Anecdotal evidence of violent early culture

2: The pacification process

• Cost-benefit analysis of violence and evolution, survival of genes, species
• State vs non-state violence
• Primitive tribes: 15% violent death rate
• Hunter gatherers: 14% (4-30%)
• Most violent state periods: 2-3%
• American Indians: 13.4% vs 2.7%
• Gov’t: laws to protect bystanders
• Three reasons for violence:
  • Gain: predatory raids
  • Safety: preemptive raids
  • Reputation: retaliatory raids

3: The civilizing process

• 50-100x drop in homicide rates
• Manners: avoid animalistic tendencies
  • Long term > impulse, consider others
• Zero-sum → positive-sum mentality
  • Division of labor, specialization
• US homicide rates flat across 1900s (1962)
  • White: 4.8/100k, black: 36.9
  • South’s culture of honor → violence
• 1960s: Boomer teens outnumbering parents
  • Pushback on civilizing culture
• Not linked to economy, inequality, abortion
• Optimal rate of incarceration: US too high
• Broken windows theory: social norms
• Consistent, predictable enforcement

4: The humanitarian revolution

• Secularism didn’t increase violence
• Value of souls → life
• Capital punishment, animal cruelty
• Slavery, trafficking, prison, seizure of assets
• Peaceful gov’t: separation of powers
• “Democracies tend to avoid wars because the benefits of war go to a countries leaders whereas the costs are paid by its citizens”
• Multinational organizations
• No desire for suffering of other living things
• Cooperation, autonomy, cleanliness
• Printing press: perspective, fiction, empathy
• Letters, cities, travel: marketplace of ideas
• Science: age of reason, rationality
• Psychological commonality

5: The long peace

• First vs second half of 20th century
• Escalating black swans vs final crescendo
• Believes WWII might be final crescendo
• Long-term trends in war:
  • No cycles
  • A big dose of randomness
  • ↑ destructiveness (recently reversed)
  • Declines in war as a whole
• Even spread in war over past 2.5k years
  • Historical myopia, availability bias
• War follows Poisson distribution, no memory
• War has flat / slight decline over 200 years
  • Less frequent but more lethal
• War power law of 1.5: 10x size, 3x less likely
  • Escalation, attrition
• Preferential attachment: power law of communities, accumulated advantage
• Ruinous situation: game theory auction, war
• Sunk cost, loss aversion
• Romantic nationalism, militarism
• Violence in relation to destructive potential
• Declaration of universal human rights
• Nuclear, MAD, laws of war
• Three causes for reducing war:
  • Democracy, trade, humanitarianism

6: The new peace

• New wars: low intensity, fueled by hatred
  • Direct vs indirect death: 90/10 → 10/90
• Mass killing of ethnic, political groups
• Terrorism
• State-based conflict:
  • Interstate war: typical war
  • Extra-state war: imperial, colonial
  • Intrastate war: civil, internationalized
• Correlation b/w GDP/c, civil war: 0% → 15%
• Non-state conflict: terrorism, genocide
• Utopian ideology → genocide
• Middlemen breed contempt (eg. Jews)
• Gov’ts cause 3x fewer deaths than anarchy
  • Totalitarian: 4%, democratic: 0.4%
• Terrorism: asymmetric warfare
• Kin selection: perceived sameness
• 4 threats to world peace:
  • Civilizational clash with Islam
  • Nuclear terrorism
  • Nuclear Iran
  • Climate change

7: The rights revolutions

• Rights → remove all adversity, no “others”
• Mass violence → riots, rights → intimidation
• Humanitarianism → rights revolutions
• Political correctness: “escalating sensitivity to new forms of harm”
• Remedial discrimination: affirmative action
• Rape is genetic: property, power
• Infanticide: free rider problem
• Child rearing and corporal punishment
• 0.52 correlation between spanking, murder
• Reduced child autonomy, exploration
• Animal rights
• Vegetarianism: 2% → 7% in 20 years
• Cause of rights revolution: communication, transportation, literature

8: Inner demons

• Most violent during “terrible twos”
• Violence, gore brings curiosity
• All about point of view, stories we tell
• Aggression is hardwired into brain
• Violence has multiple psychological roots
• Four types of violence:
  • Predation: means to end, exploitative
  • Dominance:
  • Revenge:
  • Sadism: craving violence
  • Ideology: group think, obedience
• Positive illusion of self
• Lake Wobegon effect: all better than avg.
• Study: overconfidence in war / conflict fared worse
• Dominance hierarchy and public knowledge
  • Zero-sum game if in private
  • Be a member of multiple arenas
  • Overlap of interests
• Tribalism, social dominance
• Prisoner’s dilemma, tragedy of commons
• Benign masochism: risk taking (eg. skydive)
• Network externalities: eg. QWERTY layout
  • Matthew effect: herd behavior
• Pluralistic ignorance: majority reject norm
• Cognitive dissonance reduction:
• Escalation game, diffusion of responsibility

9: Better angels

• Age of empathy
• “Empathy” only coined in 1904
  • Projection: being in others’ shoes
  • Perspective: taking external viewpoint
  • Theory of mind: reading thoughts, emotions
• Mirror neurons: effect, not cause of empath
• Oxytocin: sympathy, generosity, cuteness
• Circle of empathy → rights is too far
• Self control: optimal future discounting
  • Self indulgence is okay
• Self control as a muscle
• 8% of genes subject to modern natural selection (eg. cognition, emotion)
• Morality and reason (why immoral?)
• World’s moral concerns:
  • Autonomy: freedom of choice
    • Fairness, reciprocity
  • Community: duty, respect
    • In-group loyalty, authority / respect
  • Divinity: virtue, purity, sanctity
• Relational models:
  • Communal sharing: unity
  • Authority ranking
  • Equality matching
  • Market pricing
• Relational mismatches:
  • Sacred, routine, taboo, tragic tradeoffs
• Politics: reframing ↑ tradeoffs
• Morality, community → utilitarian, rationality
• Rationality, reason reduces violence
• Flynn effect, G score: cognitive environment
• Escalator hypothesis: rational → ↓ violence
• Intelligence → cooperation
• Integrative complexity: (of speech)

10: On angels’ wings

• Resource determinism theory
• Resources, affluence: weak link to violence
• Ideologies: strongest link to violence
• Pacifist’s dilemma: prisoner’s dilemma but for violence, negative sum Nash equilibrium
• 5 developments for peace:
  • Leviathan: violence costly (police)
  • Gentle commerce: cooperation
  • Feminization:
  • Expanding circle of sympathy:
  • Escalator of reason:
• Liberal humanism