[extropy-chat] 'a process of non-thinking called faith' 2 (2)

[Robert Bradbury]

On 11/17/06, Keith Henson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
>
>
> Faith is a manifestation of the psychological mechanism that (in
> appropriate conditions) leads to wars.  Wars were the evolved hunter
> gatherer mechanism for keeping the human population in bounds that could
> be supported by the ecosystem.
>

Keith, I think the evidence for prehistoric "population control" were slim
to none.  As the dominant and migratory population in ancient times if
humans exhausted the local resources they just got up and migrated (which is
why we are all over the planet).  Wars are more fundamentally about
spreading ones genes.  You can cite everything from the current situation in
the Sudan where the Arabs are specifically raping the non-Arab women to (a)
impregnate them with their genes and (b) make them undesirable to non-Arab
men.  Men do not like to dedicate resources to children which are clearly
not theirs or at least not closely related to them (children of brothers or
sisters).

Another example is the recent evidence that American Indians may have
engaged in hunting parties for the purpose of capturing women.  Indeed in
war one general outcome for the losers is that the men are killed but the
women are broubht back to make *more* babies.  This is entirely a
consequence of the fact that men have greater abilities to go out and get
resources and making babies is cheap while for women making babies is both
resource intensive and tends to diminish their ability to care for children
they already do have.

Wars are due to the desire to get resources to have more sex and produce
more children thus spreading ones genes.  If one has ever watched two males
(elephants, lions, etc.) fighting for dominance one realizes its all about
who gets the harem.

Robert
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