[extropy-chat] Forbes Magazine on Robotics

Martin Striz mstriz at gmail.com
Wed Aug 23 02:11:45 UTC 2006


On 8/22/06, Keith Henson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:

> >1) I don't deny that the EP model of tribal warfare in the face of
> >predicted hardship is [plausible/likely].  However, even if blights are very
> >likely to cause war, that doesn't mean all war is caused by blights.
> >People go to war for religious and other philiosophical reasons, or to
> >plunder other people's resources even if they are not facing a blight.
>
> The argument runs this way:  All war is ultimately caused by anticipation
> of economic crisis, usually resource related.  The anticipation turns up
> the gain on xenophobic memes so religions or philosophical "reasons" for
> wars are the *outcome* of the meme amplification process tripped by
> anticipated hard times.  I.e., a step in the causal chain rather than an
> origin.

Then, no, I don't accept that model.

> >  Some tribes during the Middle Ages made it their profession.  That's
> >why I say that blights only account for a percentage of the variance.
>
> It makes no sense for human to switch into war mode when it is not called
> for by the environment.

But you didn't say "environment," you said "blight," which is a small
subset of possible environmental causes of war.  If ALL war, as you
suggest, is caused by predicted economic crisis, then you are saying
there's zero probability that any other environmental (or genetic)
phenomenon could cause war.  That's absurd.  Sociopathic leaders can
go to war for no reason.  I just disproved your argument.

And as for tribes who constitutively plundered, utilitizing a
permanent war strategy is another way of testing the behavior space.
There's no reason why it shouldn't happen.

> War is worse for your gene if the future prospects are bright.

Not if you're a militarized and highly trained band that's good at
fighting, going up against nonmilitarized, poorly trained bands who
spend all their time farming.

Marauding bands essentially took on the role of parasites, which exist
in any ecosystem.  It would have happened whether or not they were
running out of resources.

> Rising kids is *much* better for your genes than fighting with
> strangers where you stand a good chance of being killed.  That is unless
> the prospects for not fighting are worse.  If you look at the groups in the
> middle ages who were fighting most of the time, I think you will find that
> they were facing starvation if they just stayed home.

The marauding groups in Europe in the Middle Ages had the same
resources available as the non-marauding groups:  Europe.  They could
have settled down and started farming, but didn't.

> >2) I am calling into question the very premise of a future blight,
> >which is one argument that the "dire future" you predict won't happen.
>
> The point of the model is that the xenophobic meme gain is turned up just
> by the anticipation of hard times a-coming.  So even if the dire future is
> averted by some last minute discovery, we may get a war anyway.

True, but the problem right now is that people aren't scared ENOUGH. :)

--Martin



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