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There is no way that is not an mp40 lmao they're not even trying with the fascist propaganda anymore

Ironic that this post is trying critize propaganda while being a bit propagandish itself

Their premise is effectively that war consolidates power and minimizes violence at scale inside the unified territory afterwards

So, the fascist "pax Romana" and its contemporary equivalent "pax Americana". Nothing new, does the article call it by its name?

since 2000, the United Nations tells us, the risk of violent death has fallen even further, to 0.7 percent

Oh, so they're only counting violent deaths, of course. You see, when you're killed directly in war it's very bad, but when you're enslaved and starved because of colonialism that doesn't count, because I'm a white author in the west!

Ten thousand years ago, when the planet’s population was 6 million or so, people lived about 30 years on average and supported themselves on the equivalent income of about $2 per day. Now, more than 7 billion people are on Earth, living more than twice as long (an average of 67 years), and with an average income of $25 per day.

Oh no, not the Steven Pinker analysis... This bullshit peddled by Gates is proven to be ridiculous because it only counts forms of consumption earned from income and not from other sources, the latter being the prevalent forms of consumption in pre-capitalist societies... Wherever capitalism arrived in the previous two centuries through colonialism, we can analyze skeletal remains from before and after and it turns out that people were shorter and weaker after capitalism arrived, meaning poorer lives and lower nutritional values... But we surely ignore this because it's not technically a violent death!!

After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, this was precisely what the world got. Britain was the only industrialized economy on Earth, and it projected power as far away as India and China. Because its wealth came from exporting goods and services, it used its financial and naval muscle to deter rivals from threatening the international order. Wars did not end — the United States and China endured civil strife, European armies marched deep into Africa and India — but overall, for 99 years, the planet grew more peaceful and prosperous under Britain’s eye.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, absolute imperialist scum. "Peaceful and prosperous"? Fuck you a million times, genocidal piece of utter shit.

I looked at the premise of his book that this article seems to connect with, and it basically boils down to "History shows that societies becomes a lot more peaceful and productive after periods of war."

Wow, who'd've thought that things get better for the people who survive a war? It's a good thing we can apply survivorship bias to the whole of human history with such confidence like that.

Thanks for sharing the link in the interest of fact and transparency.

WTF this is a real article

He seems like not a great guy.

Artist putting the dove of peace in there should be shamed, too. Mf’er thinks they have some design porn going on there when all it is is selling out to oppressors

Of course it was WAPO

Us, the wealthiest owners of Raytheon and Lockheed shares. Who did you think?

Probably the author of the article and the people who paid him to write it.

Lives. Human lives, no different from yours or mine. Possibly even yours or mine, or a loved one, definitely somebody's loved ones, a lot of somebodies actually.

Also immense financial and ecological cost and minds and bodies that will never recover. But it's your cousin, or your classmate, or the neighbor's kid all cut down in the prime of their lives alongside ordinary people from far away. Innocents and combatants alike.

No sane and moral person desires war unless they feel they absolutely must.

Democracy dies in darkness

This stopped being a warning and started being a mission statement.