[extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat

[Keith Henson]

At 10:35 PM 25/12/04 -0800, Reason wrote:

>-->  Joseph Bloch
> > Sent: Saturday, December 25, 2004 10:20 PM
>
> > Some ends, such as the abolition of slavery, justify almost any means,
> > including (to use historical example) the waging of an arguably
> > unconstitutional and inarguably vicious and vastly destructive military
> > action. You've doubtless heard of it... the Civil War? Or, since you
> > live south of the Mason-Dixon line, the War of Northern Agression.
>
>Not a very good example - slavery was a convenient fig leaf in that case.
>The war was fought over resources and centralization of power, as are most
>wars. The people of Great Britain managed to put slavery behind them without
>any comparable violence several decades earlier.

This list is one of the few where evolutionary psychology is accepted 
background.  Evolutionary psychology states that every one of our 
psychological traits including those leading to wars are the outcome of 
millions of years of evolution living in small tribes as hunter 
gatherers.  "Centralization of power" wasn't a fact of life in those days, 
but resources were since human populations have always grown beyond the 
ecological limits.

"War" (more like genocide) is a substantial factor in keeping chimpanzee 
population within the local ecological limits.  So the trait has probably 
been under evolutionary selection pressure since our line split from the 
chimps.

Further, the big thing in human development has been the ability to 
anticipate the future.  So traits for going to war with neighbors when your 
group can anticipate a crunch would be favored.  (There is an advantage in 
attacking first if you are going to do it at all.)

High labor farming in the South was deeply dependant on slaves.  In fact, a 
substantial fraction of the entire white population's income was dependant 
on slaves, and this was not just for those who owned slaves.  Before the 
Civil War it was obvious to the southern whites that slavery was going to 
go, one way or the other (buy-outs and freeing children were under 
discussion).  The analysis was correct.  Once slavery did end, the former 
slaves continued to work the farms, but the amount of labor they put into 
farming for export fell between 1/4 and 1/2 and the Southern whites 
underwent economic privation (compared with the North) for the next century.

Evolutionary psychology makes the case that a population of humans goes to 
war either because "war memes" build up on a population looking at bleak 
prospects or they are attacked.  The two modes are additive and there are 
complicated feedback paths in the post hunter gatherer world.

Unfortunately, knowledge of the psychological traits and conditions leading 
to wars does not seem to lead to solutions.

Keith Henson