Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: What was the most peaceful time in history?

Episode Date: September 30, 2017

In this week's SYSK Select episode, there is a lot of debate about whether pre-agricultural humans existed in a more harmonious state than we do today. Did we slip out of Eden when we began to build large scale societies and pay the price for technological advancement by suffering increased violence? Or is it possible that the most peaceful time in history is right now? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host on the podcast. Hey, dude, the 90s called David Lacher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces We're gonna use hey, dude as our jumping off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s

We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it Listen to hey, dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hi there, it's me Josh and for sysk selects this week I've chosen what was the most peaceful time in history which originally came out in March 2013 There's a big discussion about Steven Pinker and if this kind of thing floats your boat check out reality denial Steven Pinker's apologetics for Western imperial violence Which was a public intellectuals project article makes kind of a good companion piece to this episode at any rate? Enjoy it. It's a good one

Welcome to stuff you should know from how stuff works calm Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. We're being very professional And this is stuff you should hurry. I just decided you know all we're saying Josh. Let's give peace a chance Who says that me and John Lennon? Nice, and you know the follow-up. I think to that line was if it doesn't work out Kill someone But then he's Yoko said you should take that part out. Thank God for Yoko. Yeah, that's what I always say Well, I think that was a nice little intro Chuck. I just made it up

That was off the cuff clearly on the fly Um, I have you ever heard of the group vision of humanity? I have I wonder where groups like this get their cash because this is kind of um, I Mean they make a social statement, but how are they are they selling ads on their annual report? What's going on here? I don't know. They may be an NGO. I guess I mean, I'm sure they are. I think it's valuable research. I agree because it brings into focus like you know what we're going toward What I should say what they do is they they use an at 23 different indicators and Crunch some numbers from all over the world to determine. What is the most peaceful countries on earth? Yeah, and it's fairly predictable

The top and the bottom yeah, sort of what were you surprised by did you look at 2012? Yeah, okay We'll go ahead and go with the top and bottom 10 and then we'll talk about surprises. Okay, that's not it sounds delicious The number one most peaceful country was Iceland. Yeah, and then you got Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Austria, Ireland, Slovenia, Finland and Switzerland are the top 10 most peaceful countries. I could have guessed all those maybe not Austria. Oh Yeah, yeah, dude. There's like super chill very peaceful people got you

Anything in Western Europe basically is very peaceful Yeah, I mean Western Europe typically is very peaceful But it's the most peaceful region according to this list in the world. I I'm I'm just a little out of okay I feel like I'm not ironic though. I'm surprised by one. Okay, so I picked Austria. All right. I was surprised by oh I'll I'll go with Slovenia Yeah, I don't know much about Slovenia. That's why I'm surprised. Yeah, so the worst is Somalia and then Afghanistan right Sudan Iraq Republic of Congo here's where I was surprised Russia. I was too Russia is just slightly better than Congo as far as peaceful countries go

Yeah, and slightly worse than North Korea Then the Central African Republic and then Israel and then Pakistan is the 10th worst I was also surprised by Israel and then once I thought about it's like man, that really stinks. Yeah, I was surprised by Russia Yeah, I was too and This one tends to fluctuate a little bit more depending on These little civil wars that crop up in some of these countries Because like a place like Syria had the biggest fall they fell 30 places in a year And then Sri Lanka rose 30 places because their civil war ended right so oh, yeah

I mean if you want to like change big time in this rating to start or finish a civil war 30 points right there one way or the other So yeah, I think the United States tends to rank pretty much somewhere in the middle usually about the 80s. Yeah, we were 88 And the UK was 29 just to you know, that's another notable That is very notable country or region and You could probably guess one of the things that one of the reasons why the UK is higher than the United States is because I think one of the Indicators has to do with access to guns

aka ease of access to weapons of minor destruction. Yeah, the UK's access to guns is far more restricted Number of jailed inmates Yeah for 100,000 people military capability. Hey U.S. has got that an aces. Yeah. Well, so does England a potential for terrorist acts Yeah, I take that to mean like maybe being a target for it That's what I took it as yeah, and then some of the other indicators they use our number of homicides per 100,000 people How you get along with your neighbors country-wise, right?

Number of deaths from organized conflict respect for human rights and And number of heavy weapons. So not just guns and things but Skud missiles and like bunker busters. That's the global peace index and again, it's vision of humanity and NGOs Annual data that they crunch together, which is pretty sweet And that was there's just like a little cheat sheet that we were working off of but there's a whole publication That really goes into depth if you're interested and they pretty much have a lock on What the most peaceful country in the world is? Yeah, but the question still remains

What is the most peaceful time in history? A lot of people ask that yeah, and there's been several candidates Probably the the the most readily identified is the Pax Romana. Yeah, which means the Roman peace This gets a lot of press at least. Yeah Um, thanks to a seven. I'm sorry an 18th century historian named Edward Gibbon who wrote the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire Pretty light reading. Yeah, I'm sure and Gibbon was the first to really say hey There was this thing called the Pax Romana or he's the first one to popularly write about it and actually try to date this period It was about 150 years and it started Was it 180 years? I'm sorry

Yeah, well they rounded up to 200 Yeah, 200 years. Thanks, man. He puts it at 27 BC is beginning when Octavian who is gay is Julius Caesar Augustus the great nephew of the stabbed one Julius Caesar, right and he was like, you know what I'm in office now And I'll know what all we've always done is just conquer conquer conquer conquer and spread the empire Spread the empire we got enough junk now. Can we work on our? What we have and just like quit conquering and work on our Infrastructure and just being more peaceful and getting along within our own

Land bounds, right making our people happy. Yeah, we've got a bunch of people Let's start focusing on them and actually had a really big impact there popular rebellions Dropped off pretty quickly in the Roman Empire No, they point out but they I get the impression that they were a lot more frequent and widespread than they were during the Pax Romana Yeah There there are these things called the gates of Janus and they were built by the second emperor of Rome I can't remember his name. Yeah, I looked it up to I can't remember he He built these things and left them open and while they were open somebody noticed like Rome was at peace

And then another emperor later on closed them and Rome was at war And these gates would stay open or closed for hundreds of years at a stretch mostly open for hundreds of years at a stretch Because they were always at war. Yeah, and they became the symbolic I guess kind of indicator of how Rome was doing right then as far as war and peace went Yeah, and so during the Pax Romana the gates of Janus were ceremonially closed and stayed closed for a couple hundred years Which is a big deal. Yeah, it was opposite of how I thought it would be I thought you would close them during times of war But I couldn't get to the bottom of what I think it's more symbolic

It was definitely symbolic but is it symbolic of Rome had troops out there that they needed to leave the gates open for Maybe that would make sense Or if the gates were closed Rome was focusing inward rather than outward See you thought more much more about it. I just thought if you're a war man, you better close the gates You know you guys could come in exactly there is also something called the Arapasus the altar of peace that was built during this time as well Yeah, and then the whole thing came in and thanks to a guy named Commodus Yeah, he was more into conquering

Yeah, he was Marcus Aurelius's son and Marcus Aurelius was a really great general We should say during this time during the Pax Romana like you said there were still some popular rebellions Yeah, there was one in Hispania which is now modern-day Spain in Portugal There was there's a border between the Roman Empire and Germania which is modern-day Germania And then also during the Pax Romana Rome invaded England and subjugated it So depending on who you were the Pax Romana could have been very violent You may have come to a violent end but if you're if you look at the Roman Empire as a whole Yeah, this was a very peaceful time and Rome was pretty much running the world at the time

So this you could say was the most peaceful time in world history I think compared to how Rome usually was it was pretty peaceful Yeah, but it wasn't all like you said daisies and honeybees Did you know? I had no idea where I was going Did you that was good where you ended up Daisies and Honeybees We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it

It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy Blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Ah, okay, I see what you're doing Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help, this I promise you

Oh god Seriously, I swear, and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you Oh man And so my husband, Michael Um, hey, that's me Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life Step by step Oh, not another one

Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy You may be thinking, this is the story of my life Oh, just stop now If so, tell everybody, ya everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts Um, did you know, you know Vomitorium? Yeah

That's a popular misconception Oh, really? Is that not true? Well, Romans actually didn't really use feathers to vomit up their meals Vomitorium was like a place of ingress and egress into like a form or a coliseum or something like that Huh It's basically the place where everybody walked in and they called it Vomitorium So all those stories about eating to excess, binging and purging are not true? As far as I know, the purging part is a misconception

Interesting Yeah, they definitely went to excess, especially followers of Bacchus Yeah, I mean, can you believe that? Like, can you imagine? I'm just gonna eat so much like lamb and beef and drink mead till I can't move And then I'll throw it all up and I'll do it all over again Right And that'll honor the God that I follow Which is why I follow this God

Have sex with like 18 people at once Ancient Roman, that place was a party Roddy McDowell, huh? Yeah, and Helen Mirren, a young... Was she in that? She was in it and naked Crazy Quite a bit

I never saw it Caligula? Yeah It's really not very good It's long Plot-wise Well, it's just long and dull and you expect way more than you get as far as like when I was a kid Caligula was like the dirtiest thing ever

Oh, yeah You know Yeah And then you watch it and you're like, God, what a bore Is that right? It's like Clash of the Titans without the good fighting Without pants Yeah

You're jaded, Brian Uncle Caligula? Yeah I am Alright, so that is the Pax Romana We put it up for consideration and we're striking it down That's the sound of it being stricken down Up next we have a time that you might not think was the most peaceful

And that was the time of Genghis Khan What? Genghis Khan What? Who we've talked about murdering like a million people 1.8 million people in an hour In an hour We put that one to rest

Yes, we did But We should probably go over it real quick The reason he was known for killing 1.8 million people in an hour Is because in just one particular city, Nishapur He had his people sack it And then he went in and said cut everyone's head off and stack it into a giant pyramid Everybody's man, woman, child, baby, dog

You got your head cut off and stacked That was Genghis Khan's orders Genghis? That's how you say it I saw the thing at Fernbank They kept saying Genghis Khan So that's how I'm saying it Not Genghis?

No Okay Genghis Well, I'm going to go with Genghis Khan Genghis Khan Geng-Geng-Jus Alright, so sure there was a lot of conquering of peoples When you were bringing together the Mongol hordes

You got to do some killing But apparently, once all the killing was accomplished, or not all of it, but enough of it He was like, you know what? I think now we really need to take care of folks Yeah, kind of like... And protect people Kind of like when who started the Pax Romana? The great nephew of...

Octavia Yeah, Octavius Octavius, yeah It was very much like, okay, you're under our control now Which means you're now protected by our laws Which was good for a lot of people Especially the Mongol hordes that he basically brought under his kingdom, I guess Kingdom chip, whatever

And some of the innovations that Genghis Khan came up with were things like freedom of religion What? Yeah, women's rights He devised a postal system Not the first, but he devised a postal system Yeah, sort of like the Pony Express that we talked about, they had stations and horses And they would go from station to station delivering mail And if you listen to the Postal Service episode, you know that that is something that is intended to create culture

And spread information, share information easily Kubla Khan, 200 years after Genghis Khan, he established a system of printing presses 200 years before Gutenberg Subla Khan, it's pronounced Subla So there is a lot of really great innovations as far as like promoting individual and human rights And they protected these things using really, really strict punishment So much so that there's a very old legend that a woman is saying I love this legend That a woman could walk from one end of the Mongol Empire to the other about a million square miles

Holding a sack of gold and be just completely left alone That's awesome It is, because there was a lot of, you were going to be punished pretty severely But a lot of people would point out if the state doles out capital punishment or physical punishment pretty easy, pretty strictly And can you say that's very peaceful? Yeah, and can you say it's peaceful even though like millions of people potentially were killed in order to establish that huge area of land? You know? Yeah

I mean I guess afterward maybe, but we're going to say no on Genghis Khan So no to the Pax Romana, no to Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire founded around 1200 AD When then Chuck? I am going to put up a vote along with our buddy Stephen Pinker That says right now my friend are the most peaceful times in world history Man that is crazy Chuck, because think about it, there in the 20th century we had two world wars Countless civil wars We've had genocides

Yep, terrorism We've had a lot of lynchings Lots and lots of death, like violence, like how can you call it peaceful? Homicide, patricide, matricide Yeah Brother and sister side That's a philly side Is it?

I think so So yeah, there's a lot of killing going on, but evolutionary psychologist Stephen Pinker Who I think we talked about before, haven't we? That sounded really familiar Yeah, we talked about him in emotion and art, he said that music is auditory cheesecake That's right He said you know what, things seem violent now for several reasons One reason is because of media coverage and you hear about everything and you're inundated with it

So it's going to, you know, if you watch the evening news, it's violence upon violence upon violence He says if you go to the hunter gatherer days where you think they're all just out hunting and gathering 20 to 60% of the men died at the hands of violence Compared to 2% of men today dying at the hands of violence During the 20th century Yeah, which is Even with all the wars, all the genocides A lot more people, a lot more dudes, of course

So take that into account But compared to like the Middle Ages and times like that, much, much more peaceful and less violent today He makes the point that Thomas Hobbes, not Calvin Hobbes, which is what I always want to say That he was correct in his whole idea that life was brutish, nasty and short before government And that he points to times of like anarchy or a failed state like in Guinea-Bissau or Somalia Where you have huge escalations of violence And he said the rise of the state and the state monopoly on violence Which means like the state is the only one that can execute somebody

Has created this way for people to get redressed for wrongs against them In court At least And the government does it for you, you don't have to go kill that man And then he doesn't come kill your family and blah, blah, blah And back and forth So that was one thing, one reason why we've gotten more peaceful Yeah, he thinks technology, which makes a lot of sense, has a lot to do with it

Because we are connected now, like we never have been in world history And connected to other countries And I think people, and this is me talking, I think people fear what they don't understand And there's a better understanding now than there ever has been So there's not as much fear and people often times react from fear with violence Yeah, and what a guy named Peter Singer came up with is called the expanding circle It initially started with your family and then clans, tribes, whatever And as we got bigger and bigger and societies got bigger and bigger

This circle of who was okay in our book expanded more and more until it was like one culture warring with one culture But then as we came to understand other cultures a little better, that circle got bigger and bigger Until now, not only does it include basically all humans, but other species of animals as well Like they're okay, maybe we shouldn't kill, maybe we shouldn't eat octopi Right You know, because they're intelligent And we know they're intelligent because we understand them a little more We've gotten closer to them, we've been hugged by them

That's a good point And he goes on, Pinker does, to talk about healthcare, sort of along those same lines Not only can, are we better at saving people, but it also has given us more value about saving people That's the notion of saving human lives through medicine has increased or decreased violence That one kind of like didn't quite click with me, it seems like Not super for me either If you're going to die at 30 or 35, that would make life even with no chance of reviving you If you like fell in a puddle

Yeah That would make life more valuable in that sense Like if people are walking around like, well a doctor could probably fix them if I hit them over the head with this lead pipe It might make people a little more prone to use a lead pipe on somebody I don't know that lead pipe hitters think about that stuff Well, but think about this, like let's say we got to the point where you had a 99% chance of being fully revived and restored within a couple of days Yeah After being shot

Yeah Medicine advances to that point I'd be shooting people all over the place Exactly, so that's my point Yeah You know what I'm saying? That seems counterintuitive to me and I've been trying to wrap my mind around it And I'm also really worried that I've just given myself away as a complete sociopath somehow No

By not understanding that No, that one didn't hit us home as much with me either I also want to say too with the government monopoly on violence Yes, the government used to have a monopoly on violence in other ages as well But that didn't have the companion of protecting individual and human rights like we have today Right To where it's not just like, yeah, kill them for next to nothing Pinker points out that during the middle ages when violence peaked by his estimation

Like stuff that a government would find someone for today You would be killed for Yeah, that's a good point Right He also makes some good points about things like the United Nations Like the cooperation between countries these days is unparalleled The EU sharing responsibility for international conflicts like teaming up with other countries to go peace keep I guess Or conquer depending on which way you want to look at it

Common currency, I guess it was a lot more violent back in the day when you had everyone trading different things Sure Well sure Common currency would sort of bind people together Yeah, at the very least different currencies maybe promote a sense of otherness too, you know Yeah In-group out-group stuff I took an anthropology class once, I don't know if I've talked about it before

It was the first one I ever took, it was a great class And the instructor challenged the class to go a full day without using any in-group or out-group language Like us, them, we, they Wow, I bet that's stuff It's impossible You can't do it, but just paying attention to it, trying just for a day Really kind of brings out how much you see other people in other groups is different in other Right

And that's not necessarily a good thing No, I would like to strive to be more open-minded and inclusive like that I would say try that then Yeah, I think everyone should though I agree You got anything else? No, there's a pretty cool thing called Stephen Pinker on the Decline of Violence by Ethan Zuckerman, I can't remember the name of the site it was on but if you search that it'll bring it up

It's from 2007 and it sounds like Stephen Pinker was like preparing his notes for Angels of Our Better Nature that book he came out with where he argues what he just talked about That's a pretty cool little primer, a little brief rundown of it Yeah, I love Pinker And if you want to read this article, you should You can type in a peaceful history in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com and it will bring it up And I said search bar, which means a time for word from our sponsor Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces

We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Ah, okay, I see what you're doing Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help This I promise you Oh god Seriously, I swear And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you Oh man And so will my husband, Michael Um, hey, that's me

Yep, we know that Michael And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life Step by step Oh, not another one Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy You may be thinking, this is the story of my life Oh, just stop now If so, tell everybody, ya everybody

About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts It is time for Listener Mail Alright, we're gonna call this more on Condoms in New York Because you just can't get enough of that Apparently In one of our podcasts, we talked about the fact that you find condoms just laying around on the street in New York And I was kind of like, where are those coming from?

And we had one dude right in that worked for the ferry, I think, that all that stuff gets washed out down there Yeah And what do they call them? Oh, Coney Island White Snakes or something Coney Island White Fish Yeah, I think White Fish White Snake Yeah

So, this guy Aaron listened to that and he has a theory here About New Yorkers Generally, we tend to engage in otherwise private behavior in public For many of us, privacy is hard to come by Remember, this was the birthplace of the tenement, the whole family is living in one room Unfortunately for some, this remains a reality For most people, however, even living with one's family in separate rooms or roommates in a cramped apartment means little privacy Going outside doesn't help, it might in the suburbs

But here in New York, there are always people walking around everywhere all the time Once in a while, I will see if I can find a place where there is no one around and no one can see me and it's pretty tough Huh So people adapt to this reality by blocking out reality, so to speak, pretending as if no one is around That's why New York has a reputation for having a lot of crazy people Because a lot of us talk and sing and laugh and gesture to ourselves I believe this goes on all across the country, it's just that everyone else does it behind closed doors I like what he's saying here, by the way, I totally agree

So while some people merely talk to themselves in public, a few people engage in more vulgar behavior From picking one's nose all the way to having sex Not only have I witnessed three separate acts of public sex in my youth I engaged in public sex three times All of these acts witnessed and engaged in occurred in public parks and all except one occurred during the daytime Personally, I remember trying to minimize the chances of being seen, somewhat, but not too hard If someone saw, they would be unlikely to A, know me or my girlfriend Or B, do anything but ignore it and keep on walking, which is the great thing about New York

You can really do anything and you'll be completely ignored Because no one wants any part of that, you know So that is exactly what I did, guys, as a witness I hope this helps explain why your chances of stepping on a used condom while out on a stroll is higher in New York City than anywhere else in the country It is certainly the wrong way to dispose of condoms, to be sure And that's because we're a bunch of self-centered, selfish people for whom littering is a way of life Please don't judge us for public sex, Aaron I liked Aaron

Thanks, Aaron. What a level-headed approach to explaining things Yeah, I like that sort of armchair psychology about stuff like that Yeah, that was armchair Dr. Ruthen Yeah You know? That's all I got about that one It's good for you, Aaron If you want to explain something that we've talked about and couldn't quite get to the bottom two, we're always happy to cross all of our T's and dot our I's, if you will You can tweet to us at SYSK Podcast, you can join us on facebook.com slash stuffyoushouldknow

And you can send us an email at stuffpodcastediscovery.com But wait, you should first also join us on our website Our website, Chuck Yeah, lots of cool stuff there It's called stuffyoushouldknow.com For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com We're going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it

Listen to HeyDudeThe90sCalled on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts I hope you through life tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts