[ExI] War article

[efc at disroot.org]

On Wed, 11 Dec 2024, Keith Henson via extropy-chat wrote:

> https://arelzedblog.wordpress.com/2024/12/01/berserk/
>
> I think we found a place to publish this.  It is a very difficult meme
> to spread per the last sentence.  Comments are welcome.
>
> Keith
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>

Very interesting! Two thoughts...

1:

"Religions seem to be rooted in xenophobic memes, and the ability of humans 
to have religions at all may be due to the selection of psychological 
traits for war. (4)"

I think you need to clarify here. You have personal mystic religion, and 
religion as a tool for social control. Looking at the origins 
of christianity there were plenty of mystic and idealists sects, and 
eventually power was centralized, and religions virtue as a tool for 
consolidating power and increasing control was discovered.

Religion in the second meaning, perhaps the more evolved or later stage 
meaning, means an in-group and an out-group. Many religions see the 
out-group as foreign and some see them as infidels. But this might not be 
true of all religions. Or at least it might not be equally common when it 
comes to propensity for wars and persecution.

I guess what I mean is that you are not wrong, but that maybe, if space 
permits, you could clarify it a bit, to avoid readers going off 
speculating along the lines above.

2:

"For humans, the circulation of xenophobic (dehumanizing) memes seems to be 
a step between perceptions of bleak times approaching and an attack on 
neighbors. A substantial fraction of current-day humans seem to have this 
psychological trait. For example, times of economic depression have been 
correlated with the popularity of xenophobic neo-Nazi memes."

This is very interesting. I wonder if xenophobic memes on social media can 
be used as a tracker for recessions? Does anyone know the correlation or 
perhaps this has already been done?

Nice read, thank you!

Best regards,
Daniel