Violence in decline?

Recently published is a book by Steven Pinker called The Better Angels of our Nature in which he states that life has got steadily better over hundreds of thousands of years. He systematically examines data and quantifies violence in relation to the population size at the time it took place and concludes that over the millenia the chances of an individual being a victim of violent attack, enforced starvation or human sacrifice has fallen.

Looking at the world as a whole I agree. On top of the painfully slow move towards a more peaceful world we have developed increasingly powerful means of destruction to the point where we could wipe out the whole human race many times over by nuclear or possibly biological warfare. Yet today, with a population of 7 billion, only a tiny fraction of individuals are engaged in killing each other.

The most violent episodes by far originated in China and Mongolia. Around 15% of the world population were wiped out in each of two vicious conflicts. (See table.)

• The Al Lishan rebellion, a civil war in 8^th century China, in which 35 million died.

• The Mongol and Tatar invasions over 1207-1472 AD, resulting in some 50 million dead.

15% of today’s world population would amount to 1 billion fatalities. Torture, enforced starvation, massacres, ethnic cleansing, large scale human sacrifice, cultivated cannibalism and random acts of robbery have all  greatly subsided.

Pinker points out in an interview in the New Scientist (Oct 15) that, according to Lawrence Keeley’s book War before civilisation (1996), modern states at their worst (France in the nineteenth century and Germany in the twentieth ) ‘had rates of death that were dwarfed by those of hunter-gather and hunter-horticultural societies.’ Evidence includes bashed-in skulls, arrowheads embedded in bones and fortifications. The romantic idea of the noble savage seems to be in retreat.

In Europe, despite the two mechanised world wars of the 20^th century, life has become in the main prosperous and peaceful. Even in Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mexico, while parts seem like hell on earth to most westerners, the carnage and brutality do not compare with previous eras.

Pinker lists the reasons (the italics are mine):

• Governments, with police and courts having a monopoly on the use of force and incarceration (but what made people start wanting to form governments?)

• Expansion and consolidation of kingdoms (could this not have been a consequence of less violence, rather than a cause?)

• Commerce, trade and exchange made people more valuable alive than dead through reciprocal altruism (but was this not the case for previous societies?)

• Expansion of literacy, journalism, history and science (could not any of these have caused a rise in violence?)

Pinker says the changes in human behaviour were environmental rather than genetic (he believes genetic evolution has not occurred since homo sapiens appeared, in defiance of modern epigenetic findings). But is this valid? The social environment is surely the result of human behaviour. So what caused human behaviour to change? Here I believe Pinker and other materialist psychologists who think we are neurologically hard wired are stuck. The only way a materialist can attempt to explain the improving morality is by continuing genetic evolution. And why do our genetics change?

 It is my own belief that our nature, with its awareness of good and evil, is evolving spiritually over the ages and that Christian influence itself, where it is not forbidden or distorted for power purposes, has evolved and continues to evolve, with ups and downs, in dialogue with our Creator.

Whatever the reasons for the world being a better place I thank Steven Pinker for the good news.  But there are dangers to be aware of.

In the twentieth century there have been signs of a reverse. Wherever societies have been without a belief in a transcendental deity a human one has sprung up in its place in times of hardship: Mao Tse Tung (Mao Zedong) in China, Hitler in Germany and Stalin in Russia. These three people were collectively responsible for around 100 million deaths and perhaps ten times that number of ruined lives. Russia even today is suffering a profound identity crisis after 70 years of enforced atheism, with Putin being turned into a god as faith in the real one continues to be undermined.

The socio-economic system in Europe and America is built on sand, a giant Tower of Babel. I leave to your imagination what might happen if it collapses and a significant proportion of people do not even pay lip service to human decency. Hopefully the financial system can be restructured before it is broken down by debt.

We also have to be aware that while most of us are more humane, the future of humanity could be at the mercy of violent, power-seeking minorities should the wrong technology get into their hands.  

This is a central theme of my book.

John

Author, 2077 AD

cosmik.jo@gmail.com

Mobilising and kick-starting Africa

Africa is a big continent with  1 billion people (15% of the world population). The growth rate is large, the average age is low, the population having multiplied 5 fold since 1950.

What at a material level does Africa need to mobilise itself towards prosperity? Young people are coming out of universities and schools with little opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge they have acquired. Most are trapped in areas with insufficient food and water or tribal warfare or invasion by religious extremists or exploitation and pollution by large multinational corporations or endemic corruption and discrimination.

Africa needs hope.

The aid organisations are doing their best and need our support. E.g. Christian Aid are doing their utmost to tackle local problems at source, with the emphasis on helping people to help themselves and tackling corruption. They also have a campaign to force western companies operating in Africa to pay a fair tax to the host countries.

However, a grander scheme is called for to really make a difference.  What in my view is needed is a focus on big projects financed globally, especially by Europe, the Americas, Russia and China, subject to them solving their own debt problems. I suggest a concentrated effort on just three areas:

Mobile phones network

Electricity grid

Water grid

If Marshall Plan scale investment went into these projects Africa could actually become a source of employment for the western populations and allow the African peoples to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

MOBILE PHONES 

This is already happening in a big way. Over 2005 to 2010 mobile phone ownership doubled to 41% of the population (the world average is 76%). Even smartphone use is significant. See New Scientist 8 October, p.21-23.

Rapid growth stems from 4 factors: no need for land lines; World Bank, charity and corporate investment; falling hardware prices; and immediate benefits such as the following:

• Pest control. Smartphone cameras enable crop pests to be located quickly and for diseased plants to be removed or replaced. See e.g. a system for monitoring disease in cassava (tapioca)  in Uganda.

• Agricultural market. Buyers and farmers can communicate for the best prices and delivery arrangements. Previously farmers and buyers had to travel large distances to communicate or rely on messengers.

• Health. Symptom checkers, medical advice and locators of local health facilities. E.g. MedAfrica.

• Forgery detection. An Android smartphone is connected to a USB microscope to form an authentication system (PaperSpeckle) which examines the microscopic patterns in paper.

• Technology and skill base. Smartphone applications, accessories and the infrastructure which goes with the installation of phones are becoming increasingly indigenous. This creates jobs and careers. See e.g. mlabs . Much of the training already takes place in African countries.

WATER AND ELECTRICTY GRIDS

Partly through climate change driven by carbon emissions from the developed world and partly through local corruption (local officials selling off stores of grain intended for lean years) millions of lives arebeing ruined by drought. Water is essential for food production, drinking, hygiene and sewage disposal. So we need a continent-wide water grid.

Electricity is needed for lighting, air conditioning, electric and hybrid cars, trains, manufacturing, sewage and drainage pumps, irrigation systems, production lines, mines, power tools, electrical equipment, information technology and much else. Local generators can be used for, say, hospitals and pumping stations, but it is often better to have these as backups to a grid supply. Modern power grids are far more efficient than the old ones and can also be used to carry broadband signals.

The area to be covered is large – several million square miles; but the technology for building these networks is well developed, the rudiments of a power grid exist in most areas and investment goes a long way in Africa. It is primarily a problem of money, commitment and encouraging a spirit of honesty.

Where would the water come from? Large lakes could provide a lot but there is much potential in desalination powered by the sun. Desalination is becoming much cheaper and can be combined with solar thermal electricity generation. No doubt some nuclear power would be needed and possibly wind or tidal or wave power would be feasible in parts.

There are over 50 different countries to be considered; and corruption, conflict and power mongering are major obstacles but once the vision is promoted and a momentum is established Africa could grow in a sustainable way. Probably new ways of living and doing things would be found by necessity and these could spread planet-wide, which could be a blessing if our present ailing system needs to be rebuilt for sustainability and to provide a meaningful way of life for its citizens.

It is easy to forget how our economies and societies depend on communication, power and water. Installing them over the African continent would provide immediate meaningful employment and hope for Africans and for the developed world as it struggles to redefine itself.

SEE ALSO
http://worldpeace2077.blogspot.com/2011/09/wanted-loads-of-water.html

John, author 2077 AD

cosmik.jo@gmail.com

Cyber attacks on power grids - how they can happen

One often hears about the possibility of electricity grids being blacked out by cyber attacks but until coming across an article in the Financial Times (Oct 12) I was not sure how this might happen. 

An electricity grid, such as the UK’s National Grid or various regional grids in the USA, comprises a network of power stations connected by very high voltage cables. Houses, corporations and public service all depend on the electrical power distributed by the grid.

 The essence of a power station is

• A source of heat, be it the burning of fossil fuels (gas, oil or coal) or the splitting of atoms (nuclear).

• A boiler to provide super-heated steam.

• A turbine which rotates as the steam is fed into it.

• A generator comprising coils of copper wire in a magnetic field.

The rotational energy of the turbine causes the wires of the generator to be rotated through the magnetic field and this induces an electric current in them. It is this current which is fed into the grid.

So how is this system susceptible to cyber attacks? The answer appears to be in the turbine control unit which governs the speed of the turbine. If malicious data gets into this control unit the turbine blades can rotate too fast and be damaged or completely destroyed, which means no power. When these control units are part of an electronic network which is connected to the internet they are vulnerable to hackers hell bent on sabotage.

There are of course measures to counteract such attacks and many power stations are not connected to the internet, although even these could be affected by personnel with direct access to the turbine control units. The problem is that the security people are in a kind of arms race with the hackers, so that our domestic, corporate and public electricity supplies are dependent on the security programmers winning this race as well as on thorough vetting of power station staff by employers.

A recent survey indicated that 85% of the world’s utility networks have been infiltrated by criminals and spy agencies. In a way you could say this is encouraging because despite the infiltrations no serious widespread black outs have occurred but nevertheless I hope there is no relaxing of vigilance.

John

Author, 2077 AD

cosmik.jo@gmail.com

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