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

[kevinfreels.com]

I have to agree with Robert. I studied this a great deal and found no evidence to support such a population control idea. It's all about the women. At the time resources were plentiful and human over-population has never been a problem. Even now, there are more resources than there are people. Get a window seat on your next cross-country flight to see what I mean.  You would think that material wealth would play a role such as buildings and tools, but village burning (or bombing) is far too common for that to be a factor. When you remove all the things that don;t work out, all you have left if the competition for mates. You can see similar behaviour in wild dogs and cats. 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Robert Bradbury 
  To: ExI chat list 
  Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 11:39 AM
  Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] 'a process of non-thinking called faith' 2 (2)




  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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