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Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

bbc.com

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Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#171

Post by michaelmrose »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #118
EA-3167 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder is a crime, homicide is the act. A lion doesn’t murder because it isn’t capable of breaking human law, but it can sure commit a homicide.

An act is composed of object (the act itself), intent (the purpose/end motivating the act/toward which it aims) and circumstances (the context). Thus, murder is a species of homicide. The specific differences of murder relative to homicide is that it is voluntary, premeditated, and malicious. The law merely recognizes this distinction. It doesn't construct some convention around homicide. Indeed, law in general is a…

A lions actions are voluntary and premeditated

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#172

Post by michaelmrose »

missedthecue wrote: post #116
mothballed wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might also depend on mating dynamics. If females mostly prefer to all mate within the top few percent of males in a community, there might not be much to lose if some of the lower status males of them take their chances going on a war party to conquer/steal some females.

This is one theory for crime. You could think of crime as a high variance high risk strategy to improve mating status. You might then expect most criminals to be young men, and for the straight crime rate to be higher than the gay crime rate. And indeed both of these are true.

Well now you are talking about humans and human females don't actually only mate with a small minority of high status males.

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#173

Post by BrenBarn »

fsckboy wrote: post #42
pavel_lishin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which side is the bottom?

> Which side is the bottom? i'll tell you this if it helps, for the cohort he wishes to join he meant to say top.

Are you saying this was a case of top-whistling?

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#174

Post by [deleted] »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #79
bluegatty wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but war is worse for all parties generally. Lions murdering prey to eat is a stable equilibrium. Primates fighting each other is not. Murdering for acquisition of a resource is short term advantage. We are strongly, strongly evolutionary oriented away from 'murder' - it's the original sin. It's not something we even argue over. Murder = Bad. No disagreement across cultures. Murder = social cheating. No disagreem…

I would caution against the use of "murder" so loosely. Lions don't murder their prey. They kill their prey. Murder occurs when one entity with personhood intentional kills another entity with personhood, where personhood is rooted in the ability to comprehend reality (intellect) and the ability to make free choices among comprehended alternatives (free choice). "Murder" thus has a moral dimension that mere killing d…

[deleted]

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#175

Post by throwaway290 »

dlcarrier wrote: post #124
nradov wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence is limited but orcas might also do that to great white sharks. The orcas seem to sometimes work together to exterminate sharks from an area in a way that goes beyond just hunting them for food.

Killing off another species isn't that much like genocide, which involves killing off a rival genetic line of the same species, but orcas do that too: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29559642/

I don't think this falls under definition of genocide

> we suggest that infanticide is a sexually selected behaviour in killer whales that could provide subsequent mating opportunities for the infanticidal male and thereby provide inclusive fitness benefits for his mother.

I can see gene fitness benefit but mating opportunities, how?

"hey, me and maman uh killed your baby, wanna pump out a replacement real quick?"

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#176

Post by rurban »

What they don't tell here, but a german researcher told yesterday on radio, was that the initial conflict arose in the 90ies, when one large group of Ngogo chimpanzees raided a nearby group and killed all males. Thus they came later to that insanely large number of 200 members, which a decade later lead to this conflict with the two groups already seperated. Similar to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War observed by Jane Godall.

Also missing is the Killer Ape theory of the sixties which led to the research that chimpanzees have much higher lethal conflict numbers than humans.

Also, this Ngogo group is highly researched, and many many films where made about them.

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#177

Post by hetman »

londons_explore wrote: post #38
OgsyedIE wrote: post #32

The primatologist Richard Wrangam once advanced the theory that tribe vs. tribe conspecific homicides - what he called coalitionary killing - are an evolved trait that was selected for in primates by some kind of pro-homicide selection pressures in the ancestral environment (where homicide reliably grants an advantage to the expected relative gene frequency of the perpetrator's genes). I haven't kept up with biology…

It seems obvious to me - it's the combination of two ideas: 1. When competing for resources, killing your neighbour frees up resources, which you can take. Most species of animal and even plants do this to some extent. 2. By collaborating in a group, you can achieve more than individuals acting alone. This is the idea behind teams, companies, countries, etc. Combine the two ideas, and you get war.

Except in this instance the conflict erupted after the population size was reduced due to disease so it's not entirely clear this was caused by the scarcity of resources. Nor is it clear what selective advantage mutually destructive wars would have assuming plenty of resources. The researchers posit group relational dynamics being the primary factor.

Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers

#180

Post by bryanrasmussen »

bawolff wrote: post #148
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I guess dying because you think you’re going to impress’s a mate and stay alive is quite common. based on my memory of readings in the matter I don't think so, most animal species "impress a mate" is either 1. do mating ritual better than others 2. actually directly compete with rival who has mate to win mate. In the second more rare scenario the actually directly compete with rival tends to be very ritualized, and…

In fairness, i dont think dying to impress a girl is particularly common among humans either.

I was just thinking, perhaps all the fiction that has this as a plot point chooses it because of the man bites dog nature of the incident.
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