[extropy-chat] Origin of wars (was origin of faith)

[Lee Corbin]

Keith writes

> [Robert writes]
> 
> >Wars are due to the desire to get resources to have more
> > sex and produce more children thus spreading ones genes.
> 
> I don't think that is exactly the case.  Wars among hunter gatherers are 
> mostly when the situation is such that wars are the least awful avenue 
> available.

Yes, but many HG tribes engage in war (a) for sport  (b) to secure
more mates (c) to expand their dominance over other tribes, and
 (d) for economic reasons.  And these are just the conscious, rational,
deliberative mechanisms!

In addition, we have the descriptions from another, teleological
level: wars result from competition over economic resources,
over women, and simply over prestige (e.g. Greek city-state
contests sometimes fell into the latter category).  Note that here
I'm emphasizing the unconscious explanations, the more
"systemic" explanations.

I gather from Keith's post that Azar Gat wrote

> email me [Keith] if you want a copy.
> 
> Published in Anthropological Quarterly, 73.1 (2000), 20-34.
> THE HUMAN MOTIVATIONAL COMPLEX :
> EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND THE CAUSES OF
> HUNTER-GATHERER FIGHTING
> Azar Gat
> Part I: Primary Somatic and Reproductive Causes
> At the centre of this study is the age-old
> philosophical and psychological inquiry into the
> nature of the basic human system of motivation.
> Numerous lists of basic needs and desires have
> been put together over the centuries, more or less
> casually or convincingly.

That's what I'm suggesting too

> The most recent ones show little if any marked
> progress over the older, back to Thomas Hobbes's
> Leviathan, 6 (e.g. Maslow 1970 [1954]; Burton 1990

Rather surprising, especially in light of your claim that
Robert's anthropology is out of date. But you and the
author do seem to refute the "moving on" notion. But
anyway, the newer teleological memetic and genetic
explanations were not available to Hobbes.

Most what Azar Gat writes seems right on

> Cultural diversity in human societies is stressed
> by social scientists and historians for excellent
> reasons, but all too often to the point of losing
> sight of our easily observed large core of
> species specificity.
> 
> It has long been assumed... in these disciplines
> that people may be moved to action - including
> fighting - for practically any reason. However,
> as this study will claim, hunter-gatherers, and
> other primitive societies, manifested a remarkably
> similar set of reasons for fighting, regularly observed
> by anthropologists everywhere they went. ... the
> great motives that move people to social activity - 
> including fighting - are hunger, love, vanity, and
> fear of superior powers.

Hmm, yes, one or two of  those was not among
my examples, but should have been.

> It is the intricate interactions and manifold refraction
> of these reasons in humans...that are responsible for
> the staggering wealth and complexity of our species'
> behaviour patterns, including that of fighting. Although I 
> shall now go through the reasons for warfare among
> hunter-gatherers (as observed by anthropologists)
> seemingly one by one, it is not the intention here to
> provide yet another 'list' of separate elements.

Yeah?  Well, it looks like another list  :-)

> Instead, I shall seek to show how the various 'reasons' come 
> together in an integrated motivational complex...
> ...
> Subsistence resources:
> hunting territories, water, shelter, raw materials
> 
> Resource competition is a [!] prime cause of aggression,
> violence, and deadly violence in nature.

Notice carefully that he says "a" prime cause of aggression, 
by no means a sole cause of aggression (or, I may add, of
war).

> ... food, water, and, to a lesser degree, shelter against the
> elements are tremendous selection forces.

He then explains that, for example, once unleashed from
the old world, human numbers greatly multiplied in the new
world. (He doesn't mention that this was because of European
agro-technology that supported more people per unit area.)

Snipping a great deal,

> The basic question, then, is what are the factors that act
> as the main brakes on human populations in any particular 
> habitat; what the main scarcities, stresses, and hence
> objects of human competition, are. Again, the answer
> to this question is not fixed but varies considerably in
> relation to the conditions.

Thank you!  That is *exactly* right.

He then gives many examples, culminating in 

> In conclusion, let us understand more closely
> the evolutionary calculus that can make
> the highly dangerous activity of fighting
> over resources worthwhile.

I reiterate his concession that this is only "a"
prime cause of aggression.

> The benefits of fighting must also be matched against
> possible alternatives (other than starvation). One of
> them was to break contact and move elsewhere. This,
> of course, often happened, especially if one's enemy was 
> much stronger,  [e.g. Huns] but this strategy had clear
> limitations. As we have already noted, by and large,
> there were [usually] no 'empty spaces' for people to
> move to.

Keith ends with

> Evolutionary psychology and its applications is, IMNSHO, utterly critical 
> for any group such as Extropians who want to know *why* things happen 
> (perhaps in the hope we can guide them or at least stay out of the jaws of 
> death).

EP is vital to anyone's understanding of human nature.

Lee

> My article EP memes and war is based on this kind of background.  I highly 
> recommend reading Gat's paper.