reminded of that study of some tribe in papua new guinea or whatever that commented offhand that 25% of men in their society had killed someone
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This seems right but I wonder if this is a function of who's doing the warring and with which weapons. I think Iraq/Iran was the last real one?
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I have no numbers handy though about how bad that actually was.
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(I should preface this is mostly speculative, not something I hold strongly [in fact I just thought of it now])
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but if I was coming up with a heuristic I'd probably look at tech level over time (ie, third-world or first-world devastated into third-world conditions -> more deaths)
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germany and russia both lost like 10-15% of pop in WWII, though it's hard to judge how much is infrastructural failure and how much the infamous barbarism of the eastern front
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deadliest post-WWII was the second congo war I think. quick googling they probably lost 10% of their pop, mostly starvation and disease
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but this really isn't all that much compared to like, the thirty years war, which wiped out 20%+ of the holy roman empire
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an lushan rebellion is reputed to have been the worst by percentage but there's controversy over whether it was more that the census machinery broke down, but easily many millions
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On the flip side, battles like Cannae are absolutely horrifying. I’ve seen convincing theories that pre-modern combat was so often short and low-casualty because it was terrifying
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It seems to have been all about who can convince the enemy to run away first, then cut down as many as you can
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Yup. Disciplined battle lines were either unable to kill each other effectively (phalanx) or meatgrinders (legion)
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Maybe? Better medicine means troops no longer die like flies in camp. But WW II featured some impressive casualty rates in the Pacific.
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