> One example: Torture was recently brought back in the leading liberal democracy of the world.

True, but a) highly controversially b) condemned by much of the rest of the world c) only allowed outside US territory and d) claimed to be legal only due to the allegations that it was carried out on people falling outside the protections of the Geneva Convention.

Compare to much of history, where torture was widespread, uncontroversial, and legally sanctioned.

I don't think Pinker's thesis that overall violence is decreasing dramatically can be disproved by counter-examples, any more than climate change can be doubted due to occasional colder days. For a solid rebuttal to Pinker I'd want to see disagreement with his extensive statistics, and I don't see much of that in Gray's article.