[extropy-chat] 'History' and the fulcrum of 1945

[Keith Henson]

At 09:08 AM 30/01/05 +0100, you wrote:
>Keith Henson,
>
>Hi! (and thanks for your nice words)
>
> >And *why* hasn't there been another major war in Europe in
> >the last 60 years?
> >I think I know why.
> >What are your suggestions?
>
>I don't have a theory to test, only some thoughts after many
>conversations with my family and the people arouund me and living
>in Europe now ~7  years. Hubert Mania filled in for me some of
>the holes of German perspectives (since WWII) that I didn't
>understand yet, as well. (Extropes, consider for a moment _why_
>he is so sensitive regarding facism; his salvos, then, might be
>easier to understand, moreover, might actually be _useful_.)
>
>I think that the horrors of WWII (events leading to, during, and
>after) reached so deep into the consciousness of those people who
>experienced it (directly, indirectly), that one psychologically,
>unconsciously, needed to perform a kind of cauterization to stop
>oneself from going mad.
>
>At first glimpse, the psychological effect looks like when you
>burn yourself on the stovetop, it is enough to teach you to jerk
>your hand away when you are close to the flame again. In this
>situation of what humans faced in WWII, I think it is much more.
>
>You are familiar with some ideas of Jung of the shadow-self? We
>are most upset by those aspects that we recognize in ourselves
>and our impulse is to reject it, sometimes violently. I think
>that it was numbing to see the 'beast-within' expressed to the
>magntitude that was expressed in WWII. Probably it rendered
>psychologically mute a layer of people closest to the ground zero
>of the horror, the next layer closest could maybe express a bit
>more, and so on. In any case, if faced with something approaching
>that kind of horror, you did whatever it took to not be there
>again, war-avoidance, to the extreme.
>
>Now you, being the meme-guy, probably have a meme-explanation,
>yes? Maybe those people carrying the meme-of-great-beastliness
>usually died, and left those carrying memes-of-less-beastliness
>survived and reproduced?

While memes are in the causal chain leading to wars, any xenophobic meme 
will do to work the population, particularly the warriors, up onto a 
killing frenzy.

The key point is that a long time ago predators were no longer effective in 
limiting the population of hominids in our line.

Ultimately  we were forced to become our own predators.   War is the result 
when the population exceeds the resources, or more correctly, war happens 
when  hominids who are good at anticipating the future see things looking 
bleak.

Perception of a bleak future activates a psychological mechanism that 
increases the gain on the class of xenophobic memes.  *Some* meme will get 
enough influence to motivate the population.  In the case of Easter Island, 
it was the "long ears" vs the "short ears."  (All of the people were 
related having come from a founder stock of perhaps 20 people.)

So, why has Europe stay in "war off" mode for the last 60 years?  Because 
population growth stayed below economic growth.

That's also why the IRA lost the support of the Irish population.  About 30 
years ago the birth rate in Ireland took a major drop.  Eventually economic 
growth got ahead of population growth.  Rising income per capita maps into 
good times for our hunter gatherer ancestors, time to hunt and raise kids 
rather than attempt to kill off the neighboring tribe.

I recently finished a 20 page paper on this depressing subject.  Since is 
it for publication, I can't just post it, but I can send people who want a 
copy.  It would be ok to quote short parts and comment on them if you want.

Keith Henson