We are living in the most moral period of our species’ history. Ever since the Enlightenment, thinkers have consciously applied the methods of science to solve social and moral problems, and in the process created the modern world of liberal democracies, civil rights, equal justice, open political and economic borders, and prosperity the likes of which no human society in history has ever enjoyed. More people in more places have greater rights, freedoms, liberties, literacy, education, and prosperity—the likes of which no human society in history has ever enjoyed. In this provocative and compelling talk—that includes brief histories of freedom rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and animal rights, along with considerations of the nature of evil and moral regress—Shermer explains how scientific ways of thinking have moved us ever closer to a more just world.
Watch this lecture for free, recorded live at Caltech, on February 8th at 2pm (PST).
The advert for this book includes the statement:
“If you’d been born a few thousand years ago, before the invention of the state, every decade you’d have stood a 1-in-20 chance of a violent death. ”
While it is true that life is safer today, giving credit to ‘the state’ is completely wrong. Just ask millions of Jews, Soviets, Chinese, Cambodians, murdered by their governments, not to mention all those killed in the wars of the 20th C, including America’s recent wars.
Life is safer not because of states, but because individuals have adopted better attitudes towards each other. Citizen murder rates are down, state murder rates are up.