Monday, August 17, 2015

Evolution of War

Aug 16, 2015 -- 12:35PM, onefreespirit wrote:
When the popes led their faithful to war, they didn't do it by changing human nature to suit their purpose. Warlike behavior satisfies the human need to prove ourselves superior to others.

A totally unsupported and probably false assumption.  Nothing in human evolution indicates warlike behavior.  See aforementioned fragile skull.  Humans evolved by cunning not force.  Selecting agricultural crops so they were not dependent on dangerous foraging, domesticating food animals rather than hunting dangerous game, coopting follower wolves for predator warnings, (not exclusive to humans by the way)  breeding aggressive "sheepdogs" to protect the herds and domesticated small feline predators to control small rodents that domesticated themselves. 

The only significant predators were anti-social exploitive humans who raped, pillaged and burned those who had a sustainable agricultural society.  Even those sustainable societies used aggressive war as a last resort preferring to expend extensive resources on defensive structures to protect their cultures.  See the Great Wall of China, and Castles atop sheer cliffs. A few defenders with projectile weapons spears, rocks and fireworks (another cunning invention to avoid proving ones tribe superior.) could hold off invading hordes almost indefinitely. 

It took Abram, the God he created in his own image, and baby factories to make war and pillage a viable cultural strategy.    

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