Once again, a brilliant lecture by Steven Pinker. He presents us with a fresh, level-headed and well-informed perspective on a subject that most of us feel gloomy about.

Whenever I'm feeling pessimistic I put on a Steven Pinker video. Truly uplifting.

I am a history buff and am both amused and frustrated when people complain about how bad things are today. In fact humans are more humane, tolerant, and free than we have ever been. Part of the reason is, ironically, this trend itself. Many people have no memory of past violence...e.g. it has been seventy years since a single shot was fired between the nations that now constitute the First World. And of course the news media. Peace and stability don't make for good headlines, they are just par for the course in many countries.

This should be taught in schools.

Pinker's book is a remarkable swing through the history of the world as he presents a perspective that turns much of our conventional wisdom upside down. To give his ideas the attention they deserves would take months of analysis and discussion.

That was amazing. Thank you sir.

Greetings Dr. Steven Pinker, You have been a most influential bastion for me over the past 13 years. You have helped me put things in a perspective that encourages more thoughtful action and has granted me much more wisdom than otherwise. You are one of the best of us in this world! Best regards, Emmanuel

I have been an admirer of professor Pinker ever since I read his book The Blank Slate, it was a logical fact based and well annotated work. Now if only we could require our politicians and news outlets to reference any violence committed and repoted currently to Pinker's and his sources work. antiguajohn

Excellent talk at my old University, and a very interesting book. I've learned a lot from it. One key point jars with me, though: his habit of using 'anarchy' to mean lawlessness and chaos. While most people think of the word in that way it has the very unfortunate consequence of making people think that anarchism, the serious political theory or approach, is also about lawlessness and chaos and violence. And it is NOT. Its a system: 'advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups', which would involve a great deal of organisation and order.

Steven Pinker wins the internet

Great talk and book mr Pinker, gotta love social progress.

Pinker's talk begins at 3:43

Very enlightening and inspiring lecture. I feel like whenever we are brought to believe that things are worse than ever, we need to zoom out, like a trading chart and see the general trend of civilization.

Boom! every point made is backed up with so much evidence that no one could possibly ever deny. He is a legend

Violence is more controlled by modern warfare stayegies. Violence has increased to point where humanist are desensitised.

Hope is real.

I love Pinker's term on page 310: "Crappy governments". He mentions it as a term he overheard at a conference! Hahaha!!! (from you own lips, Dr. Pinker?) I am thoroughly enjoying the book, and I'm nearly halfway through.

its right thing

Could someone in academia answer this question: If I was to walk in to a humanities dept today what percentage of the professors would be in agreement with Pinker's analysis?

That aged well. Darn when reality wont play ball with your big theory.

While I agree with the overarching point here, there seems to be a major weakness in Pinkers argument. He didn't control for modern medicine, better nutrition and better sanitation. That by itself could bring the violent death statistics a lot closer. A second weakness is his focus on western and industrialized countries, I feel that if he included the rest of the world the picture would be much more accurate.

I think Steven Pinker is right with this but I need to look more into his comments on music having been listening to Oliver Sacks.

We take so much for granted... We should demand ourselves to always check our beliefs if they correspond with reality... And facts.

Excellent presentatiom, tthanks. One remark, thopugh. Many of the impressively convincing graphs seem to have been based ob interviews that hardly gave the occasion to the people interviewed to avoid the scare of astepping ooutside the lines of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. O just wonder how reliable the account is then considering the recent changes. Simmilarly, the woman asking the question about violence in schools was not ecpecting to hear the happy stpry of spanking etc being forbidden by law. Peer violence and the psychic violence, ("no dark sarcasm in the classroom! - teacger, leave those kids alone!" - PinkFloys) seem to fall ouside the statistics chefly based on LEGAL realities than what we actually live through. How can we avoid asking whether less window dressing is not wanted?

For half an hour this contains only graphs indicating the decline of violence. At 33:15 it becomes more interesting, searching for the causes.

Love Planet Earth and be an Eco Hero! 🌍❤️

What an encouraging reading this book is, and how entertaining! It´s like a christmas cake- filling and stuffed with yum yum^^

Not really just failed to mention the importance of the nuclear weapons and everyone being to scared to rage wars after 1945. The numbers will soon balance out with the devastation of a nuke to make up for the sagging numbers, or due to the fact that everyone is still bankrupt after WW2 still.

Sophistry

The Precession of the Equinoxes determine intelligence and consequently the intelligence of humans in each era and consequently their behavior. We are on the ascent from the last Dark Age to an age when electricities and forces will be fully discovered and understood. The Great Year is a good film that explains this. It is likely that Prof. Pinker has not seen it.

21:00

This due to fighting for human right humanity right,.

"Believe it or not and I know most people do not. Violence has been in decline for long streches of time and today we are living in the most peaceful era of our existence." (is it right?)

I would love if Pinker would update the stats to reflect the Trump effect on hate crimes in America. I'm curious to know the impact of these kinds of leaders on increased aggression.

nullius in verba it never rang truer

I question the approach of rates of violence vs. actual numbers. Each death is a human being, and if we don't consider the actual death count vis a vis the counts per 100,000, are we not missing something critical here? That is to say, the non-participatory portion of the population is lumped in with the participatory part. For instance, the raw death counts of the World Wars I and II are in the 10s of millions. If you then, say, "norm" that against the global population at the time, you are counting many people from many nations that did not participate or were involved in the violence. Does it make sense to reckon this way? I am not sure how to answer this question, but it does merit discussion. The reason I raise it is because I would like to see the actual raw numbers reduced to zero. Am I being unrealistic in this assessment? Is the value of a single human life worth less because there is now 7 billion humans on this planet vs. a time where there were only, say, 2 billion? If that is true, then doing percentages will serve as a dis-justice to the individual victims. Perhaps a more sophisticated model is indicated here.

'Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.' - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Can someone from this university (or has relevant knowledge) please tell me whether the long clapping is a tradition of the school or they clapped really long because this was an excellent lecture? I really think the lecture was excellent, but I'm curious still :D

Boosie Badazz

I would argue that the Native Americans would object to some of this data

Any body else noticed a cute dog sleeping in the aisle ? 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Step aside, I shall commit a medium-sized atrocity!

Doubtless significant parts of Pinker's analysis are correct. But there are serious flaws with other parts. Anyone interested in a serious critique should check out this article. It is highly readable and worth your time. publicintellectualsproject.mcmaster.ca/democracy/reality-denial-steven-pinkers-apologetics-for-western-imperial-violence/

His talk is very interesting. But, his constant lip smacking is irritating.

He sounds like he’s forcing himself to say simpler words when clearly he’s wanting to speak his natural super advanced words lol.

"Arab Spring and Color Revolution" - precipitated by the CIA.

I haven't watched the video yet...so this is just my 2 cents. Our benchmark for most peaceful time is against world wars. So I'm sure it is peaceful in comparison to our history of unbelievable levels of violence.Peace itself is an idea I don't think pu can quantify with numbers. Chicago is the most violent it's ever been and the violence continues to rise. I have no evidence but gang and cartel violence seems higher, like in Mexico. So most peaceful it's ever been isn't that peaceful in my mind now. Again, haven't watched the video but I want to hear the perspective.

Steven Pinker has twice tweeted his 175,000 followers about a documentary I've made that will reduce violence and crime. It - One Punch Homicide - is getting great reviews. You can watch it free at www.onepunchhomicide.com.

#1 Reason for decline in violence : Decriminalization of cannabis

Natural theologian? What? Since when?

This is pretty funny in a post-CHAZ world.

I'm troubled by Pinker's failure to mention the genocide of the indigenous peoples of North and South America. He specifically mentions other genocides but none of the huge and highly organized ones perpetrated on this side of the planet. Maybe it's mentioned in the finer print of some of those graphs? Or did I miss something he said?

He obviously believes in government, which is failing us massively.

Interesting presentation. Left-wing bias is obvious and, thus, causation and correlation get to swap places a few times.

wow! I do not know what is most astonishing the sided perspective of this professor or the comments that praise him. Seriously nobody sees how bad this is? nobody sees the circular argumentation? Nothing?

Lupus est homo homini, non homo, quom qualis sit non novit

Qualified bullskit! Missleading to the extent of vomiting!

26:34 “No nuclear weapon has been used since Nagasaki.” What a bizarre statement. Why doesn’t he count then the fact that never an atom bomb was thrown in the middle ages, or as a matter of fact, not once in the history of mankind until 1945, as evidence of violence increasing over time? Why does he count as positive that the bomb has not been used when the analysis is made towards the present but not when applied towards the past? The ways in which men have been killing each other have been perfected for a really long time, to the point that now they produce much more potential for massive destruction than ever before, so how doesn’t this fact undermine his entire argument?

oh the good days before Trump, Yeltsin, Macron, Modi election.

biased

41:47 Islam.

This guy needs a smack.

So in the Trump era...

I wonder what anarchists would say to this

dont talk about this this is divine authority and blasphemy we will never love humans beyond our own nation or race. period humanity doesnt deserve a shared future. animals deserve even less rights theyre not conscious entities. dont talk about animal rights.

Total bollocks.

The guy is so flawed. Sorry the dude does not do history. He makes some shit up, ignores other stuff. Bull dozes with statistics. What he omits is more telling than what he is trying to say. Who are his audience? He gets to chatter about pseudo science for over an hour unchallenged. Ironic his figures end in 2008 for a talk in 2013. He what about those revolutions etc. Or using Hobbes without any real reference to the English Revolution and Kant without giving a nod to the French Revolution. Despite all this millions have been killed in war over the last 50 years by 'leading' democracies... History has a horrible habit of pointing out the bits that were omitted.