[ExI] Religions and violence

[Keith Henson]

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 11:45 AM,  Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2 Aug 2010, John Clark wrote:

snip

>> Maybe maybe not, who cares. Let me say yet again, explaining why
>> something sucks does not stop it from sucking.
>
> Let me explain again, too. It is important to know what sucks and how to
> stop it. Just yelling that it sucks does not stop it from sucking. If you
> think there is a problem (like I do) than you should try to understand
> what it is about. Otherwise I don't get how do you plan to solve it.

As a bet, John has no plan to solve it, beyond the "wired in to our
genes" approach of getting worked up by memes till we kill all the
males in the other tribe.  Incidentally, understanding the problem may
not help at all.  My understanding of what was the root cause for the
IRA going inactive was cultural changes where Irish women reduced the
number of children to replacement level.

If that model is correct, then Iran (which has reached replacement
level) could become a stable country in the next few decades.  None of
the Arab Islamic countries I can think of have reached that point,
though some may be approaching it.

World wide we may be overdue for a war that causes a major population
reduction.  The dropping grain stores that carry over may be an
indication of how close we are.

The only reason we have not had one since WWII is that engineering and
farming have kept ahead of the population.

Actually, it is a wonder we don't have cultural clashes and wars more
often.  Humans have been shaped by evolution to overpopulate and get
worked up about it just as John demonstrates.  And he may be right.
It may be easier to off a billion people than to get a few hundred to
understand what is going on.  And even if we did understand, can we do
anything about it?  I have no idea of why the Irish women reduced the
number of kids they had.  And even if I did, I have no suggestions as
to how the same could be done in Arab countries.

Keith