Frankly many pre-modern, pre-civilizarion humans were assholes. Read many studies or accounts of life in relatively isolated tribal societies and hair curlingy awful accounts of violent and sometimes institutionalised abuse are uncomfortably common. Leave the safety catches off basic human urges for long and it can get pretty ugly.

> Frankly many pre-modern, pre-civilizarion humans were assholes.

While it's somewhat news to me, I'm very glad to hear we've moved past that.

I hope that was irony.

Very much so. Many modern, "civilized" humans are assholes, and now we've got global audiences for it!

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur...

Yes, I know, it's just completely insane to declare that we've somehow qualitatively moved past our brutish origins as long as torture, rape, and murder remain de facto extensions to politics.

I have no reason to doubt that quantitatively we have made some progress - although Pinker's arguments are most definitely not universally accepted in the scientific community.