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“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” – Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

Fresh Reads from the Science 'o sphere!

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Unitary Violence

The most curious question about humanity is not why people can somehow unite into groups of millions but yet still have deadly conflicts between groups - it is why people cannot unite into groups of millions without deadly conflicts between groups.

4 Comments:

cc said...

that's just how it is, no?

The Key Question said...

To CC:

Quite often the case. The dynamics of unifying people routinely involves exaggerating the differences between groups and vilifying adversarial groups.

It would be interesting to know if this is uniquely human, or tends to occur in social organisms. Maybe it can be traced all the way back to slime molds?

Mike Hunt said...

There are two reasons. Religion and human nature.

"God" created a system of predator and prey and religion seeks to exploit that human nature.

There is a need in humans for cooperation but most humans suck and they will only take it so far. There were cultures that were more humane but they vanquished by the cruel and greedy. Hopefully humanity will put itself out of it own misery sooner rather than later. When that happens God will have to get his jollies torturing animals.

Mike Hunt said...

There are two reasons. Religion and human nature.

"God" created a system of predator and prey and religion seeks to exploit that human nature.

There is a need in humans for cooperation but most humans suck and they will only take it so far. There were cultures that were more humane but they vanquished by the cruel and greedy. Hopefully humanity will put itself out of it own misery sooner rather than later. When that happens God will have to get his jollies torturing animals.