Check out the latest blog post in "The Ratchet" and find out why I believe Stephen Pinker did a great job explaining global trends in levels of violence throughout human history.
I've heard the statistic that war has never occurred in a country with McDonalds. I wonder if that is true. However, I do think that corporations probably stabilize regions for many reasons (excluding the extraction of natural resources).
I never realized that Chicago McDonald's is their flagship location. It's near the Chinese Consulate, and I went there a couple of times when I would get a visa. It was pretty gritty for a flagship location.
Democracy or not, I have a difficult time seeing any G20 countries going to war. Economic intwinement makes war so inconvenient.
- Although I personally believe that the most significant and least appreciated fact of human history is the improvement of our species standard of living throughout history, I definitely agree with the author that most people today fail to comprehend just how violent a world our ancestors lived in and how much progress our species has made.