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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
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Is that military men or does that also include women and children?
I still think the order of magnitude difference is too big between the two groups. 90% of women had children historically, and had kids for basically the entire time they could bear them. Men would be conscripted for war, true, but there were also long periods of peace and war wasn't constant unlike childbirth.
The male subset is naturally smaller and more sporadic.
The female subset is larger, encompasses 90% of women, and was constant until menopause.
Every man able to hold a spear. Is going to hold a spear. When enemies are knocking at your gate. Every man is a military man. The concept of "Military" and "Civilians" is a very modern concept. There was no distinction between the two.
What do you consider a "long period of peace"?
War has been pretty damn constant throughout the ages. England and France had a war lasting more than 100 years. Famously called "The hundred year war". The USA have since their inception had roughly, 20 years of peace. Total. Africa has been a clusterfuck of warlords and infighting since (at least) the end of WW2. (Yes, I know why that's the case. But that's another topic for another day). The Middle East have always been good at war long before the brittish started drawing lines. And as for Asia. Well, we covered part of that with Genghis Khan. Not to mention the various Chinese dynasties and their conquests, infighting and rebellions. Japans recorded history is absolutely filled to the brim with wars.
Wars and fighting have been pretty much non stop for the vast majority of our history. The longest time of "peace" in Europe is considered to be either 1815-1914 or 1945 to 2022. But even those have the asterisk of "Peace among major powers in europe". Since there's been plenty of armed conflicts in Europe even during those years.
That being said it's still not a convincing argument that more men die from war than women die from child birth. The Mongols also administered a massive empire with a massive chunk of the Eurasian population. It was said you could walk from one end of the Mongol Empire to the other with a gold plate on your head and never fear for your life or belongings. That period lasted for decades...
I think for your position to have any merit you'll need to refute my point that (let's use the numbers you gave of 2-4 billion female deaths from childbirth) over the total span of humanity more people have died from childbirth than war