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The greatest luxury we live in today is a freedom from violence so total we barely even register it. In antiquity, violence was so common, so total and such a fact of life that we can't even imagine it.

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I can't really imagine violence in everyday life, but if you live in Northern Nigeria, or in certain parts of Mexico, or in all of Syria or Iraq the people there definitely can imagine it. That said, I consider myself exceptionally lucky to live in a hemisphere that is mostly free from war, religious persecution, and slavery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_war#/media/File:Ong...

I was implying the Western First World. Large swathes of the world still teem with violence as common and inescapable as daybreak.

I grew up on the South Side of Chicago dodging bullets and torture cops to get back and forth from my segregated grade school. 30 years later it's the same but the school is worse.

I thank Oppenheimer Atomic bomb every day for this. Also the violence in those 3rd world factories and resource operations - and the self destructive violence of religion harasses a little more then two thirds of humanity.

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