[ExI] A Paranormal Prediction

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
...

>...It is worth remembering that most of the genetic selection for war and related happened before agriculture, much less nation-states or presidential elections.  So if the result does not seem well adapted, that's no surprise.

>...Another deep psychological trait is that people are insanely optimistic about winning a war.  On average going to war is rewarding to genes but half the time you lose.  If people recognized reality, they would know that going to war is a chancy business, but our psychological traits lead us to be far more optimistic about going to war than is rational.

Keith





Keith allow me to offer an alternative way of looking at the war meme.

In our times, war is not against the neighbor tribe.  War is initiated halfway across the planet by the political leaders, who do not themselves go to war.  Their immediate offspring do not go to war either.  So they are most optimistic about the order of battle.  They cannot lose.

The soldiers on the other hand, are not so eager to go to war, even though some of them may benefit personally.  Most lose, even those on the "winning" side.  So, our military training system has ways of influencing their "thinking."  This is far easier with younger men of course, which is why the focus of recruitment is toward 19 year olds who have not had time to form attitudes and are not adept at reasoning.

All of this is in perfect agreement with the concepts of evolutionary psychology.  The behavior of both the leadership waging the war and the teenage grunts doing the dirty work is in agreement with EP.

spike