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ThePrussian comments on The outline of Maletopia - Less Wrong Discussion
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" War was not so costly in human lives and suffering when it was about a tribe raiding another with arrows and bows." I simply cannot agree. If you make the adjustment for per capita deaths, then the kill rates of primitve tribes are far higher than that of modern armies. The Mongols only had ponies and bows and arrows, and look at what they did. When Tamerlane lead an Islamic jihad of the Indian subcontinent, he may well have killed 5% of then existing humanity.
In World War 1, the casualty rates for Germany, Austria, and Russia were about 75%. Probably not much different in World War 2; possibly higher in the Napoleonic wars. I haven't checked.
World War I also enabled the 1918 flu pandemic, which was arguably more costly than the war itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic
Admittedly, it is difficult to know how severe the pandemic would have been in the absence of war.
You're comparing two different measures, military casualties versus total casualties. For a reasonably good apples-to-apples measure of wartime violence over time, Better Angels of our Nature is one that I found readable and informative.
IIRC, overall per capita violent death during the world wars was roughly comparable to living in a tribal society during a typical time- of course, for us, those were the exception and not the rule.
I am deliberately looking at military casualties, to highlight that tribal "military" casualties couldn't possibly be that high. I would guess that the fraction of deaths that were civilian was higher in both world wars than in tribal conflicts. Tribal conflicts are, AFAIK, almost always strictly men killing other men. Per capita comparison is distorted by the longer lifespan of people in the 20th century. Just having more people live past the age of 40 shouldn't, I'd think, make your age look more peaceful.
I've heard the claim that in some areas, 60% of the death rate for tribal men was due to homicide.
Wikipedia gives the German death rate as about 4% of the population, giving 8% of men. I suppose one major difference is that in a tribal conflict perhaps everyone fought (because the conflict might be over in one short clash), whereas in more modern wars many work to sustain the war effort, and others are too old to fight, given longer lifespans.
This is very low compared to tribes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization