600 years of war and peace, in one amazing chart

[Recursion]

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-casualties-600-years

What you basically see is a pretty consistent amount of war over the centuries — but with some of the highest highs and lowest lows in the 20th century.

The red line stops at 2000, which is right about when global conflict was on its way to a plunge toward historic lows. You can see that in the blue line's drastic decline.

If you zoom in a little bit on the 21st century, this trend becomes much clearer. At the dawn of the 21st century, according to both Roser and some more recent data from Steven Pinker, battle deaths appear to drop to close to zero per 100,000 people:



That's pretty extraordinary: periods with five or 10 battle casualties per 100,000 people look like they've been pretty common throughout history, in addition to huge wars such as the Thirty Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, or World War II. By historical standards, humanity today is extraordinarily safe from war.

[OnlinePoker]

1. Stop in 2000...Ignore Afghanistan and Iraq and their aftermath

Not to mention all the civil wars and terrorism in Africa, the conflicts Russia have started or acts of terror in Europe. Yep, everything is just peachy.

[Recursion]

2. Did you skip the part about after 2000?

Yep, everything is just peachy.

In terms of peace? Yes, it's probably the best time in human history, or at least since the invention of agriculture.

[ShrimpPoboy]

3. Not all deaths in war occur in battle

But I don't doubt the general conclusion that humans are more peaceful now than in the past.

What we should not do, however, is allow that to influence our decision making or slow down calls to end the wars we do have.

[AngryAmish]

4. Seems very eurocentric

The year 1400 is interesting. Tamerlane died in 1405. The deaths of the Mongol and Turkic expansion are omitted. Tai Ping Rebellion is undercounted.

[Igel]

8. It's obligatorily records-centric.

And that means centered on one of several centers of civilization. Europe's one. China's another. Muslim world's a third, with India mixed in there. Which is what the documentation behind the graph says has to be the case.

There have been fairly consistent genocidal wars in some parts of the world, but no records were kept. Can't include what you don't know, but it pays to remember that there are unknown knowns--conflicts that almost certainly occurred but which we don't know about and probably can't know about.

[FBaggins]

5. That first graph is deceptive

What you basically see is a pretty consistent amount of war over the centuries

This statement isn't even close to being true. It looks like a fairly "consistent amount of war", but that's because the data is inappropriately graphed on a logarithmic scale (and with a larger range than necessary).

Take a look at the first half of the 17th century. The rate fluctuates between 2 and 200 and back down to about 5. On a linear scale running from 0-250, that wouldn't look "pretty consistent" at all. Note that when they wanted to make a different point, they switched scales.

[Igel]

9. Yes and no.

The log scale is inappropriate, but necessary to make it fit nicely on a limited-size page so you can see the lower amounts fairly clearly. We're expected to read the scale and know what it means before even looking at the curve.

However, there's a jump in the best fit curve I'd draw in over the admittedly incomplete data, and that probably coincides rather nicely with (1) larger geo-political entities, so that wars can be larger, more widespread, and of longer duration at higher intensity given available resources, and (2) better technology allowing fewer people to kill greater numbers in relatively built-up centers of population.

As for the "consistent amount" of war-related fatalities for some centuries, we use a best fit curve. On average, over the course of a century, things are fairly consistent for fairly large swathes of time. The question is should that best fit average continue to the present or should it bend downwards?

Incomplete data for now. Check back in 100 years.

One could also quibble in that it's adjusted for population, so that while the death rate is fairly consistent (on average) for the last couple hundred years the absolute quantity of death-dealing has increased. That would make a different point, one no less valid but not invalidating the point made in the OP.

[Bucky]

6. it looks like the Manhattan skyline

[Octafish]

7. What about war through other means, such as finance?

The Dark Age of Money

by JAMES C. KENNEDY
CounterPunch Oct. 24, 2012

EXCERPT...

Monetary Fascism was created and propagated through the Chicago School of Economics. Milton Friedman’s collective works constitute the foundation of Monetary Fascism. Knowing that the term ’Fascism’ was universally unpopular; Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics masquerade these works as ‘Capitalism’ and ’Free Market’ economics.

SNIP...

The fundamental difference between Adam Smith’s free market capitalism and Friedman’s ‘free market capitalism’ is that Friedman’s is a hyper extractive model, the kind that creates and maintains Third-World-Countries and Banana-Republics, without geo-political borders.

If you say that this is nothing new, you miss the point. Friedman does not differentiate between some third world country and his own. The ultimate difference is that Friedman has created a model that sanctions and promotes the exploitation of his own country, in fact every country, for the benefit of the investor, money the uber-wealthy. He dressed up this noxious ideology as ‘free market capitalism’ and then convinced most of the world to embrace it as their economic salvation.

SNIP...

Monetary Fascism, as conceived by Friedman, uses the powers of the state to put the interest of money and the financial class above and beyond all other forms of industry (and other stake holders) and the state itself.

SNIP...

Money has become the state and the traditional state is forced to serve money’s interests. Everywhere the Financial Class is openly lording over sovereign nations. Ireland, Greece and Spain are subject to ultimatums and remember Hank Paulson’s $700 billion extortion from the U.S. Congress. The $700 billion was just the wedge. Thanks to unlimited access to the Discount Window, Quantitative Easing and other taxpayer funded debt-swap bailouts the total transfers to the financial industry exceeded $16 trillion as of July 2010 according to a Federal Reserve Audit. All of this was dumped on the taxpayer and it is still growing.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/24/the-dark-age-of-money/

Perhaps there are more deaths from poverty than from bullets.

[Igel]

10. Depends on your default hypothesis.

There's the default hypothesis in the OP that in the absence of war these people wouldn't have suffered early, unnatural deaths at the hands of another. It's not a bad default, to be honest. Okay, we can quibble. Strictly speaking, the numbers should be adjusted for the homicide rate at the time, but at some point data cleansing becomes absurd. Let's assume (as a default hypothesis) that homicide rates may not be constant in all societies over 700 years but that they average out worldwide.


If you assume that longevity, low infant mortality, and good health and nutrition are the default, natural state, then there's a point. But overall, during the "war" fatalities due to poverty have decreased, so it's a tough point to make.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Yet, we fancy our species to be the very peak of evolution.

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy of liberty or democracy?” Mohandas K. Gandhi

[malaise]

12. Thanks

Rec

[smirkymonkey]

13. Very fascinating, but it would be a lot better if it was larger and

interactive.