[ExI] ai is the easy road

[Keith Henson]

On Thu, Oct 15, 2026 at 3:25 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 12, 2026 at 3:37 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> *> I am sorry to say, but slaughtering each other is functional and
>> rational from the viewpoint of genes.*
>
>
> *That's an oversimplification. Genes** "want" to get into the next
> generation, and slaughtering everybody would not be a good strategy *
>

Of course. But in a resource crisis where the options are to kill the
neighbors and take their resources versus starving, war can be good from
the gene's viewpoint. The simple model gives you a number of how much
better.

>From Genetic Selection for War in Prehistoric Human PopulationsPage 125Journal
of Big History

The Model
A paraphrase of Hamilton’s rule reads:“. . . a hypothetical gene that
prompts behavior which enhances the fitness of relatives but lowers that of
the individual displaying the behavior, may nonetheless increase in
frequency because relatives often carry the same gene.” (Hamilton, 1964,
pp. 1-16, pp. 17-52)To analyze the spread of genes that lead to war
behavior, we need to generate a model from the “viewpoint” of such genes in
a typical warrior 50,000 or 100,000 years ago in the EEA. At that time,
hunter-gatherer tribes were limited in population by the ability of the
environment to provide food. This model assumes that nearby tribes
were approximately
the same sizes. (The model is not very sensitive to this assumption.)In the
model, if two tribes fought, each had an equal chance of prevailing. The
winners typically killed all the adult losers and their male children. The
winners incorporated the female children of the losers into the winner’s
tribe as wives. This is a widely recognized cultural trait, although there
is not much literature about it. The most detailed account in early
historical times (late primitive) may be an account from The Book of
Numbers, The Holy Bible, King James Version Chapter 31, verses 17 and 18.17:
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman
who has known man by lying with him. 18: But all the young girls who have
not known man by lying with him keep alive for you.This was discussed in
detail in an earlier paper. (Henson 2006)A more recent event, the Crow
Creek massacre, is dated to 1325.“The bone studies tell us a great deal
about the victims. Among the remains of 486 people, women from 12 to 19
years of age were notably scarce, as were very young children of both
sexes. They were probably taken captive to be absorbed into the villages of
the victors.” (Zimmerman 1980)How far back this practice goes is not known,
but the model indicates that the psychological traits for war would not be
selected without the gene flow through the daughters of the defeated
warriors. It is not clear when or if this practice ended (consider “War
Brides”), but the nature of warfare changed with the rise of states and
large armies. Of course, the effects of genetic selection persist long
after the conditions that gave rise to selection ended.
Wars in the EEA came about due to a resource crisis. For this model, we
will assume 50% of the tribe will starve in the crisis, the alternative
being to attack neighbors and try to take their resources. How often such
events happened is not part of the model, but they probably averaged about once
a generation depending on population growth, disease, and variation in the
weather.Turning to the mathematical analysis, the warrior himself has one
copy of genes for war. He typically had six children, half males, and half
females. (From what we know, that is about the minimum for a stable
population in the EEA. (Volk & Atkinson, 2013) Each child has a 1/2 chance
of carrying the genes for war behavior. (The model is not very sensitive to
the number of children.)If war behavior is to be evolutionarily favored,
the number of gene copies must be greater (on average) after the war vs.
after starving in place.For the winners, the count of war genes for a
warrior is four, one for himself plus 1/2 times 6 children. This number is
reduced to two after 50% starvation. This makes two gene copies the number
to exceed if the behavior for war is to become more common than starving in
place.For the losers, the gene count is 1.5 from the female children of the
losers that the winners incorporated into their tribe. That makes the
average count of the number of war genes per warrior after a war 2.75,
using (4+1.5)/2 and a 50% chance of winning. Whereas not going to war
(starvation)
results in 2 copies. Since 2.75/2 is 1.375, this means that going to war is
approximately 37% better from the gene’s viewpoint than starvation (in this
simple model, of course). In evolutionary terms this is a large number which
indicates a strong selection force if this model is close to reality.
^^^^^^^^
If you want to argue I am wrong in this analysis, please do. I can make
logic or math errors like anyone else.


> *for doing that. Cooperation is just as an important a strategy as
> aggression,*
>

In normal times, yes. But it depends on the conditions. Humans can go into
killing modes of incredible ferocity. For recent examples, consider
Cambodia or Rwanda. What do you think would happen in the US if food
deliveries to stores stopped for a month?

* and humans are FAR more peaceful than our nearest genetic cousins,
> chimpanzees;*
>

Don't forget we are equally close to Bonobos.

* and we are also FAR more successful from a gene's point of view.  We may
> even be more peaceful than Neanderthals were because like chimpanzees there
> is evidence that there social groups didn't get larger than a few dozen,
> but with humans it typically runs into the millions. *
>

It may be possible to put time limits on the selection for wars. Since wars
are common both in Africa and the rest of the world, we can probably date
the start of the selection to before "out of Africa." The Bushmen who do
not seem to have wars (check this) branched off the main stem of humanity
maybe 300,000 years ago. That might bracket the selection time.

The Bushmen lifestyle where women have extremely low fertility is likely
the reason they don't have wars.

In any case, selection for war genes happened long before huge populations
developed.

Keith

>
> * John K Clark *
>
>
>>
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