[QUOTE]Sorry, peaceniks. New research that takes an innovative approach to charting the evolution of lethal violence has found that Homo sapiens evolved from a particularly brutish branch of mammals. A proclivity for smashings and bashings is in our DNA. Before you punch something because this news upsets you, though, take heart: the researchers also found that our propensity for killing each other can be mitigated.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/deadthings/2016/09/28/violence-are-humans-bad-to-the-bone/#.V-v_pCErLIU[/url]
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("rules: no blogs, still didn't read the sticky" - Orkel))[/highlight]
Wait... Hold up... People are capable of killing each other... But also[B] not[/B] killing each other?
[editline]28th September 2016[/editline]
Holy shit
well, we're predisposed to violence considering that morality exists because we invented it; the concept of killing each other for food and survival was only really something we 'grew' out of due to finding that food was more easily producible elsewhere and that not-killing your neighbor made domestic life a little less lonely
EDIT:
so yes, i'd say that humans are bad to the bone, whatnot with our docked instincts still gearing us towards surpassing "things". people, prey, our own ideas of greatness. that's of course just what i think
If we were truly evil, morality could never have been invented. I think the biggest problem is fear
[QUOTE=SIRIUS;51122811]If we were truly evil, morality could never have been invented. I think the biggest problem is fear[/QUOTE]
I agree with the fear bit. I doubt we are evil or good. We just are.
The concept of evil and good is basically a thing we created to justify our actions.
I think the more better idea were humans ever meant to be civilized as we are. Instead of being a bunch of primitive creatures beating, killing, or raping the shit out of each other.
Morality and civility is all spook. Humans are not destined to be good nor evil, but we have conditions in our mental and physical bodies which push us to survive. When that end goal is meant to be met, humans just do.
it makes sense that we're the most likely creature to kill each other. once we proved ourselves as being at the top of the foodchain, our biggest competitors for food and territory became ourselves.
[editline]28th September 2016[/editline]
we may eventually evolve the inherent propensity to violence out, but we're barely a blip away from our hunt and gathering days on an evolutionary scale. it will take some time
I tend to believe Thomas Hobbes on the subject.
[quote]The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.[/quote]
[URL="http://qz.com/566579/most-violence-in-the-world-is-motivated-by-personal-morality/"]This[/URL] is also a good read, that touches on this topic a bit. Basically it explains that almost all crimes can be traced back to an outburst of emotions, combined with our own personal moral compass.
There's also a pretty interesting book written about this, "The Seductions Of Crime", that goes in more depth about this concept.
The best two chapters are the first two. One, "Righteous Slaughter", is about this very thing. It's about how all these everyday events can lead up to violence. How fights over parking spaces and chicken wings can escape into murder. Saying they're about morality simplifies the process (probably to include things like ISIS), but in homocide so that Katz is describing, it's a movement of feelings of humiliation, to rage, to murder, all morally justified to perpetrator (at least in that moment). It's fascinating, he goes through it case after case. Though obviously statistics aren't collected on this precisely, aside from perhaps murders committed in the course of robberies, he argues that this sort of "righteous slaughter" is likely the modal form of homocide. [URL="http://www.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Katz_88.pdf"]Here[/URL]'s a PDF of the first two chapters (the second chapter begins on page 52) and you can judge his argument for your self.
The second chapter, "Sneaky Thrills", is even better. It's all about shoplifting, and all these shoplifters who steal for the thrill of it, rather than because they need or want the item they're taking. Again, it's not something that fits a convenient rational choice/economic or Marxist or mental health or any other major school of criminology. It's certainly not how most of us are used to thinking about all the crimes we read about in the newspaper.
The book is a fascinating look on crime, one that really makes you think. We normally think of people either being "forced into crime" or somehow "bad" or "broken", but Katz argues that's not necessarily the case. There are certain things that can make the crime attractive, and not just for simple material gain. It's a damn good read.
But yes, we all are intrinsically prone to violence, some more than others, but it's there and will always be there. "Peace" will never be a constant and is just an illusion of restraint between us, but it's never meant to last.
[editline]28th September 2016[/editline]
The more you read on the subject, the more you find out that the whole "all we are saying, is give peace a chance maaaan" can never happen. We're all savage in nature, we'd be lying to ourselves.
[QUOTE=archangel125;51122968]I tend to believe Thomas Hobbes on the subject.[/QUOTE]
You believe that mankind needs a strict authoritarian unquestionable dictator that rules by rule of fear?
[quote]But the researchers found that the more social and territorial a species was, the more prevalent lethal member-against-member violence.[/quote]
Why we're more violent is right there in the article. More interactions = more chances we'd fight.
The article also points out that violence has been decreasing across the board every year for the last 500 years. And in many places is well below the average for animals.
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