Copyright © 2014 by Gun Lap
We think that we live in violent times, and of course, to some extent, we do. The evening news regularly carries stories and images of war, terror, or murder. But the big question is whether violence is going up or down. Because if violence is not going up, how can we be in the end times?
Stephen Pinker, author of the 2012 book The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined has studied the trend of violence in history and his data shows, surprisingly to many, that violence is going down!
According to Pinker, whether we believe it or not, we may be living in the most peaceful time in human history. People who think violence is going up don’t realize how much violence there was in the past.
The bible does not say that we are in the end times now; it does not give a date. It only gives us signs to look for. One of the major signs is that of violence. (“You will hear of wars and rumours of wars”—Matt 24:6). The Churches of God have been telling us that violence has been going up. Herbert Armstrong lived during the time of two major conflicts: World Wars I and II. In such a time it was easy to conclude that violence was going up, and for those few years, it was. But we need to look at the whole picture (we were always told to “get the big picture” in any situation) and do the math. We must not assume. The second world war ended a long time ago (69 years ago, in 1945). Since that time violence has gone down, not up. We might now be living in the most peaceful time in history! This comes as a great surprise to people who live by impressions and short-sighted data rather than by historical trends. People rely too much on sensationalist daily news, which focuses on current events and other short-term trends. Some people will refuse to believe that violence is in decline. They will not look at the actual data. The two world wars of the early 20 century were temporary “blips”. They did not lead to the end, and they were not signs of the end. And there are no conflicts in the world today even close to that scale.
More HERE.
“You supply the pictures, I’ll supply the war” – Citizen Kane
There’s always bad news when you need it. If trends are down, there are always isolated incidents that can be generalized.
“There’s always bad news when you need it. If trends are down, there are always isolated incidents that can be generalized.”
Like the Obama administration and the war on weaponry.
I say if someone is knifed, take and ban all knives! If their clubbed, ban all baseball bats!
Then there is the political opportunities…..children gassed in Syria….NOT!
So yes Hoss, your right. Opportunity. Never allow a crisis to go to waste and exploit everything for political purposes. Has that for honesty?
No thought is ever given to what caused violence in the school system in the first place: Some of those bullied in 6th grade finally find a way to take revenge in high school.
Mexico is a country rich in resources, so the right thing to do is for the President of the United States to do the right thing and insist that the leaders of Mexico take responsibility to provide for their own people, for to do otherwise is to be an enabler who invites the ruling families in Mexico to keep their people poor, oppress them, subject them to dangerous drug lords and then send their problem to the United States replete with criminals.
The big problem here is that nobody in government is competent to recognize long term consequences of badly structured ill-thought-out programs to solve a problem of minorities in the short term and leave everybody in dysfunction in the long term in a long slide to empathy where the end result is that there won’t be resources to deal with any problems any longer.
And they lie with statistics as a method to achieve their goals in an end justifies the means ethic when no one can be sure that the end is appropriate in the first place, rather than be an unworkable high-concept.
“…nobody in government is competent to recognize long term consequences…”
Years ago I read an article in an IT journal of an incident in Australia. A researcher was demonstrating a simulation package that modeled the country’s economy. He asked a Member of Parliament in the audience to tweak a few variables; he did, and the short-term predicted outcome was favorable. He was reported to have said, “That would be enough to get me through the next election…”
“The big problem here is that nobody in government is competent to recognize long term consequences of badly structured ill-thought-out programs to solve a problem of minorities in the short term and leave everybody in dysfunction in the long term in a long slide to empathy where the end result is that there won’t be resources to deal with any problems any longer.”
The basis of government action under Obama is the Cloward and Piven strategy. Its not that they are incompetent, it is full-front sabotage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy
If you know much about Hillary (the next Democrat prez runner), she was a student of Saul Alinsky. So guess what your in for when she occupies the oval office? The same shit as Obama!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky
“Mexico is a country rich in resources, so the right thing to do is for the President of the United States to do the right thing and insist that the leaders of Mexico take responsibility to provide for their own people”
Never happen. The USA needs the people around the world to be dependent on them in order to promote American hegemony. For those who REALLY follow politics, it is an attempt by the USA to control the world. It will end badly for all of us and I ain’t talking about some meat-hook wielding Germans coming over here.
It should be pointed out that Columbia University has produced quite a few who have sought to “break” the system.
Of course the leaders of the United States government will never insist that other countries take responsibility for their own people, but it should — just like the Pope is advocating.
The poor are always with us because the rich use them as cash cows to stay in power, the same way the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia milk their cash cows for all they can get to keep them under subjection. Dave Pack, Rod Meredith, Gerald Flurry and Ron Weinland spring to mind.
The CoHAM has adopted the worst of the governmental model and implemented it badly.
@Douglas
Speaking of bad government, I think you will like this (15-20 minute) video about a troop of baboons who were a lot happier after all the alpha males died. Lots of lessons there. For one, if alpha male Armstrong had died at 70 instead of living to 93, a lot of people would have been saved a lot of misery. For another, we would be better off with fewer hard-driving rich dudes!
http://www.church-of-god.info/media/html/Sapolsky.htm
The Kevin Drum studies published in Mother Jones, and referenced in Forbes Magazine blame the violence on lead. It’s a topic Douglas has written excellently on as well. Obviously, people raised in inner city environments would have been affected more seriously than country folk because of the higher concentrations of exposure.
This does provide a typical example as to how a person with a severe agenda can use an ominous trend to “prove” that we are living in the end times, only to have science identify and ameliorate the problem.
BB
Lead might be a factor but there are many others, like poverty, upbringing, culture, temperament, etc.