We live in the safest period in human history*. Your chances of meeting a violent end or of being kidnapped, raped or force to take arms are a fraction of what they were 1000 years ago. Is it a complete coincidence that this safe world exists at the very time that games and film are able to portray violence so vividly?

*Its true. Statistically we adults and our children have never been safer. Our intuition that the world is less safe or that children need to be constantly watched and protected are due to the preponderance of reporting in our media of rare events that are actually getting rarer.