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You have be able to communicate with your slaves.
It’s highly unlikely that a small nomadic hunter-gatherer band would have had the food surplus and hierarchical organization needed to control and keep slaves. It’s as likely that ancient humans outcompeted Neanderthals for resources as killed them off directly.
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> Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species. You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei. Nature has no concept of any of those. But the clumping is repeatable enough at everyday energies so that it's useful to think about it in those terms.
My point is that it isn’t really unexpected from a biological perspective that humans are violent towards “their own species”, because our instincts don’t know about the concept of species. My impression is that people who bemoan man’s inhumanity to man typically act as if all humans should be interpreted as family members by our instincts and somehow they aren’t due to culture, and I don’t think that line of thinkin…
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Why wouldn't they learn to communicate, like all other humans do?
For the same reason that chimps don't (contrary to some earlier work) learn language.
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So no evidence, just more of the cutting edge, widely followed, paper-thin theory of inevitable evil. > There are indicators, for example, the neanderthals and all other human like great apes have mysteriously disappeared except for us. (Or gotten assimilated, I mean, we have a tiny bit neanderthal DNA) That's not an indication at all. It's an outcome. > Also look at how violent humans are to their own species. Human…
We have means to wipe out those 8 billions in a matter of seconds. And we continuously select the biggest psychopaths to control those means. The evidence shows that we are fucked up species and it's only matter of time when we are going to blow the whole thing up.
Biden, Obama, GW Bush, Clinton, G Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, ... we've only chosen one 'psychopath', assuming I know what you refer to.
Nobody in the world has used them beyond that one pair of events.
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You have be able to communicate with your slaves.
Do we have to be able to communicate--in the sense of language--with our pets?
Watch some some videos if you haven't seen it. It's baffling.
How much depends on the "language" vs training and breeding, I can't say.
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This is not true, as evidenced by the slave taking exhibited by nomadic peoples in North America. It was a pretty routine practice, well documented in history. Losers in battles would often be assimilated by the winner as slaves.
I think you are talking about a far more modern period, in a much more complex, socially stratified society. The Neanderthal period was 50k-100k years ago.
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We have means to wipe out those 8 billions in a matter of seconds. And we continuously select the biggest psychopaths to control those means. The evidence shows that we are fucked up species and it's only matter of time when we are going to blow the whole thing up.
> we continuously select the biggest psychopaths to control those means Biden, Obama, GW Bush, Clinton, G Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, ... we've only chosen one 'psychopath', assuming I know what you refer to. Nobody in the world has used them beyond that one pair of events.
It’s interesting how you narrowed it down to the “land of the free” when the gp speaks of a “species”.
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> we continuously select the biggest psychopaths to control those means Biden, Obama, GW Bush, Clinton, G Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, ... we've only chosen one 'psychopath', assuming I know what you refer to. Nobody in the world has used them beyond that one pair of events.
> Biden, Obama, GW Bush, Clinton, G Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, ... we've only chosen one 'psychopath', assuming I know what you refer to. It’s interesting how you narrowed it down to the “land of the free” when the gp speaks of a “species”.
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> You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei. You could say it, but they are real things that interact with the environment. DNA is a real thing that interacts with the environment. Species, the periodic table, etc. are constructs. They are useful because they help us understand the world.
It's just clumps of matter. Ssme way species is just a clump of individuals. > Species, the periodic table, etc. are constructs. They are useful because they help us understand the world. My point exactly.
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My point is that it isn’t really unexpected from a biological perspective that humans are violent towards “their own species”, because our instincts don’t know about the concept of species. My impression is that people who bemoan man’s inhumanity to man typically act as if all humans should be interpreted as family members by our instincts and somehow they aren’t due to culture, and I don’t think that line of thinkin…
I think it's compared to other animals who fight a lot (for mates for example) but it rarely ends with death.
I’m arguing that the inference is invalid because other humans aren’t their friends, because the human system goes from kin :) to OUTSIDER pretty fast. I’m not aware of evidence that it intensifies beyond OUTSIDER, and if anything I would imagine that it would diminish. If it diminishes, then humans could treat human-like species further away from them better than they treat rival humans, if their niche isn’t threatened by the human-like (but-not-human) species.
So the inference has a hole in it. I’m just pointing out that this man’s inference has a flat.
But really I’m just interested in engaging people on this topic, so I poke holes in the comments of people who seem interested, to get a reaction. Sometimes they knock over my argument and I learn something new.