[godelski]

It's often forgotten how much conflict there was in Europe (and most of the world) in the 18th and 19th centuries. How this was fairly "normal"

It's really forgotten how relatively peaceful our time is. I'm not complaining, in fact, I want to protect it. And that means we can't forget what was.

https://youtu.be/UY9P0QSxlnI?t=10m5s

[somenameforme]

I would not ignore the 20th century here. WW1 and WW2 may have not taken up that many years, but their death tolls and overall impact were tremendous. Millions were also killed in Vietnam and Korea as well. Then there's things most people in the West are not so familiar with like the Indonesian mass killings [1], Nigerian Civil War [2], Chinese Civil War [3], and so on with numerous other major events with millions to tens of millions killed.

I also think it's clear that the reason that we call the Cold War, the Cold War, and not WW3 is because of nuclear weapons. If anything the general trendline seems to be for conflicts of far greater violence, intensity, and instability over time, but this is currently being masked by nuclear weapons among developed nations. Although the current trend of nations picking ever more idiotic 'leaders' is suggestive that even mutually assured destruction will likely give way as a deterrent, sooner or later.

It's a great time to support life becoming multiplanetary!

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Civil_War

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War

[JumpCrisscross]

Less the 19th century. The Congress of Vienna achieved a lasting peace after the Napoleonic wars.

[godelski]

Sure, but still quite a lot of conflict compared to now (my point about "relative"). Levels that I think people greatly underestimate. And those first 15 years were VERY bloody. (Napoleonic Wars was 1803-1815 for those that don't know and killed between 3.5m and 7m people)

But bloody European wars still include the Caucasian War, the First Carlist War (where 5% of the Spanish population died), Austro-Prussian, Franco-Prussian, the Third Carlist War, and Russo-Ottoman wars. Not to mention some very bloody revolutions: Greek, Hungarian, Italian, French (which cascaded), and so on.

I think it's also important to remember that Europe in 1800 had about 195 million people and rose to a bit over 400 million by the end of the century. Which should significantly influence how one thinks about the causality levels when considering today's >740 million.

Not to mention all the conflicts outside of Europe (many including European powers). The Dungan "Revolt" and Miao Rebellion were some of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. It was an especially bloody century for China.

I'm not sure I'd say that Congress of Vienna achieved lasting peace and I think we both know that either side of that argument can be argued. Especially on the distinction of how you consider peace (people killing one another or conflicts between nations?) and locality (conflicts between European powers on European soil or conflicts involving European powers outside Europe?). Either way, the body count is very high.

Independently, the Napoleonic Wars, (and outside Europe) Red Turban Rebellion, Mfecane, Miao Rebellion, Dungan Revolt, and Taping Rebellion have higher death tolls than all of the global conflicts since 2000[0]. These numbers aren't even normalized to population change[1]. So while maybe not as bloody (in Europe) as the 18th century, I'd still claim it was extremely bloody in the relative sense (which was my point)

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace?insight=conflict-de...

[1] Recognizing that world populations were 1bn in 1800, 1.2bn in 1850, 1.6bn in 1900, 6.1bn in 2000, and 8bn today. This represents a monumential shift and should significantly affect how one interprets casualty numbers.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-populat...

[p1esk]

2024 is not peaceful.

[godelski]

No one claimed 2024 was peaceful. Nor that any time is. The statement was

  ***relatively*** peaceful our time is

Relatively is an important qualifying word here. Qualifiers are important words that can dramatically change the meaning of sentences and can easily be missed. I think you have missed this specific case.

[p1esk]

2024 is not *relatively* peaceful.

[godelski]

2024 is not relatively peaceful for the 21st century is indeed accurate. But relatively peaceful in terms of (the explicitly stated context) of human history is unambiguously accurate. There are multiple wars in the 19th century that have death tolls greater than all global conflicts since 2000.

I'm not sure what you are trying to argue or if you're just trolling or being flippant. No one is trying to dismiss the wars in Ukraine or Israel/Palestine. No one is trying to even diminish the atrocities in these conflicts in any way. But you are in fact being dismissive of the tens of millions who passed away in just the 1800s and even more in the other centuries. We can compare things without diminishing things and not recognizing the successes and failures of the past will only lead to greater intensity in the future.

If you cannot recognize context nor qualifying words, we are done here. Engage in good faith or not at all.

[p1esk]

If we look at 1800s, and take any single year in terms of causalities, how would it compare to 2024? Would 2024 be closer to the top or bottom ten deadliest years of 1800s?

[godelski]

> Would 2024 be closer to the top or bottom ten deadliest years of 1800s?

Top 10? It's _maybe_ in the bottom of the top 50...

Forgive me, but I'm going to make a simplification because I don't feel like spending the time to dig deeper. But I think that's fair because you're not even willing to spend the effort to go to wikipedia. So the simplification is just looking at the war casualties instead of singular years. Fair? If not, I'll leave it to you to gather the data. I'll even give a decent estimate by averaging some but don't think all wars started in January and ended in December.

Either way, it won't matter because the 19th century is so much bloodier

  War                                     Estimated Casualties
  Palestine–Israel War (2023-)                 41,529–51,418 (let's say ~9mo, so 55k-68.5k/yr)
  Russian-Ukranian War (2022-)                 Wiki says 300k+ other sources say that's just Russia (let's say 2.5yrs, so 120k+/yr)

So let's say 2024 is (projecting) 175k-190k

Here's a reduced version of the wikipedia entry. I'll let you guestimate for each year to figure out where exactly 2024 sits.

  Saint-Domingue expedition (1802-1803)        135k+
  Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815)                  3.5M - 7M (290k - 583k/yr)
    Peninsular War (1808-1814)                   1m+
    French Invasion of Russia (1812: <6mo)       540k+
  Spanish-American Indep (SPWI) (1808-1833)    600k - 1.2M (24k - 48k/yr)
    Colombian Independence (1810-1823)           250k - 400k+
    Venezualan Independence (1810-1823)          228k
  Mfecane (1810s-1830s)                        1M - 2M (~50k - 100k/yr)
  Carlist Wars (1820-1876)                     200k+
    First (1833-1840)                            111k-306k+ (15.9k - 43.7k/yr)
    Third (1872-1876)                            7k-50k
  Greek Independence (1821-1831)               170k+
  French Colonization (1830-1895)              110k+
  French Algerian Conquest (1830-1903)         600k - 1.1M
  Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864)                20M - 30M (1.43M - 2.14M/yr)
  Crimean War (1853-1856)                      356k - 615k
  Red Turban Rebellion (1854-1856)             1M+
  Miao Rebellion (1854-1873)                   4.9M (258k/yr)
  Punti-Hakka Clan Wars (1855-1868)            500k - 1M+ (38k - 77k/yr)
  Panthay Rebellion (1856-1873)                890k - 1M+
  Indian Rebellion (1857-1858)                 800k - 1M+
  American Civil War (1861-1865)               650k - 1M+ (162k - 250k/yr)
  Dungan Revolt (1862-1877)                    8M - 20 M (533k - 1.33M/yr)
  Paraguayan War (1864-1870)                   300k - 1.2M
  Austro-Prussian War (1866)                   40k+
  Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871)              433k+
  Cuban Independence (1895-1898)               362k+

So it doesn't even break the top 10. In fact, the first 15 years of 1800s had a higher death toll than 2024. All of the 1850's, 1860's, and 1870s was even bloodier. So 2024 might make it into the top 50.

It's even worse if you consider that the global population was only a billion (compared to the 8 billion today)[1]. 1808-1815 was breaking 300k/yr which was 0.03% of global population while the current conflict is 0.0023%. More than a whole order of magnitude greater when normalizing to population. If we look at the 1850s when there were a whopping 1.2bn people, we'll guestimate 1854 as being nearly 0.17%-0.24% of the global population being killed. Whole providence in China were nearly wiped out during those decades. The Taiping Rebellion was the third bloodiest conflict in history (the second was the Ming-Qing transition, in the 17th century)

So... I hope you can see why I'm calling you out. Again, this doesn't mean the current atrocities are anything less than atrocities. It has no relevance to them at all and I think it's dumb to compare if we're concerned with morality or human lives. All this data says is that past humans were very blood thirsty. You shouldn't be using it to make any meaningful statements about the current atrocities. So... don't bring it up next time. Especially if you're unwilling to do... literally a google search... It suggests you care more about signaling that you care than your actual care of those lives. I hope the signal is wrong.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll#Mod...

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-populat...