I would postulate that, especially in the last 200 years, communication has been a significant or, possibly, most significant agent of change in terms of violence. Even in the prestate societies (whatever that means), some if not most people would not see a violent death or the results - 500 per 100,000 means you would have had a 0.5% chance, all things being equal. As people collected together into larger communities and, eventually, states/countries, the all things being equal would change - even if you didn't see the violent death you heard about it.
In the last 200 years, there has been a significant change in communication. Knowledge of violent death has become increasingly accessible. Early telegraphs and newspapers of the early 19th Century showed violent deaths to more people than had ever previously seen it or heard about it through oral communication. Henry Crabb Robinson, for example, contributed war news from Napoleons Spanish and German campaigns to The Times of London. With the advent of wired telegraphy, violent death literally came home to people. William Howard Russell was able to send his dispatches to The Times from the Crimean War via submarine cable to Varna, Bulgaria, and from there through French circuits to Austria in weeks after battles. People at home in England were exposed to violent death in the war zone in a relatively short time and in more detail. The addition of photography made violent death during the US War Between the States more real to the folks back on the farm - real pictures of real death along with written accounts were delivered within days of occurrence. The trend has only continued, with movies (who remembers the newsreels at the cinema?), radio, television, and now Internet videos bringing violent death to viewers in near real-time. I postulate that the effect of seeing and hearing of violence more often and in greater and greater detail has led to the reluctance of committing violence. Presumably, prestate societies had on the order of 1000 or so people involved with the 500 per 100,000 violent deaths. As more people saw or heard about violent deaths in graphic detail (rather than a sterile announcement), that number of people has increased. Nowadays, I would expect the number of people who have seen the details of violent death to be on the order of 10,000 out of that 100,000, even though the number of such deaths has decreased. In my personal experience, people who have seen (or, especially, caused) violent death are reluctant to cause it again. Thus, my hypothesis that exposure to violent death through improved communications is a major factor in the reduction in the rate of violent death. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Old-Timer V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov<mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov> SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov<mailto:rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov> (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov<mailto:dopa...@doe.ic.gov> (send NIPR reminder) On Jul 6, 2015, at 7:09 PM, Curt McNamara wrote: http://m.gapminder.org/videos/200-years-that-changed-the-world/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-decline-of-violence/ Curt
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