Earlier quoted context omitted.
orangutans deal with similar and are notorious for being peaceful
orangutans murder eachother too sometimes. Their hand grip is enough to crush another's skull, and occasionally they do so.
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Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
201–210 of 308 posts
Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Important to remember that we as humans no longer compete for resources. We have more than enough resources to go around for 10 billion people. The limiting factor is in intelligence and dexterity. In other words, we get richer when we are more.
We very much do compete for resources. People die of famine, thirst, exposure, and other lack-of-resources-related causes every day. That we could theoretically feed everyone doesn't matter when people compete for more than their fair share.
Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Important to remember that we as humans no longer compete for resources. We have more than enough resources to go around for 10 billion people. The limiting factor is in intelligence and dexterity. In other words, we get richer when we are more.
We very much do compete for resources. People die of famine, thirst, exposure, and other lack-of-resources-related causes every day. That we could theoretically feed everyone doesn't matter when people compete for more than their fair share.
These are distribution problems. Usually intentional.
There is enough food to feed everybody.
Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Important to remember that we as humans no longer compete for resources. We have more than enough resources to go around for 10 billion people. The limiting factor is in intelligence and dexterity. In other words, we get richer when we are more.
Emm, what? You are aware of all the wars going on right now?
Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
#205Earlier 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 really did some extremely dumb things in my twenties that I'm extremely lucky didn't kill me.
Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Important to remember that we as humans no longer compete for resources. We have more than enough resources to go around for 10 billion people. The limiting factor is in intelligence and dexterity. In other words, we get richer when we are more.
Emm, what? You are aware of all the wars going on right now?
Yes and? They are not about natural resources.
Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
Most predators have a well delimited territory.
Inside their territory, they will attempt to kill any other predator who could compete with them and who belongs to a weaker species. This is a necessary strategy, because any territory has a limited productivity and it cannot sustain too many predators that want to eat the same kind of prey. Thus predators either specialize into separate niches, e.g. some eat mice, some eat rabbits and some eat deer, or they kill each other if they want the same food, to eliminate the competition.
They will also attempt to repel outside their territory any predator of the same species with them. They will seldom attempt to actually kill a predator of their own species, but that mainly because this would be risky, as in a fight to death they could be killed themselves, so ritualized harmless fights are preferred.
The difference with some primates like chimpanzees and humans, is that competitors of the same species may be treated as other predators treat only predators from different, weaker species.
The reason might be that when you cooperate within a bigger team, you may have the same advantage against competitors that a stronger predator has against a weaker predator, e.g. a wolf against a fox.
Thus a fight to death may be chosen, because the bigger team has good chances to win the fight. So chimpanzees start wars for the same reason why Russia attacks Ukraine or USA attacks Iran, those who have more weapons and more money believe that they can win the war, so they start it.
Most other predators do not start wars against their own kind, because in a balanced fight the winner is unpredictable.
Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
#208Earlier 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…
This is simply not true, in time of severe distress and survival pressure humans are clearly capable of mass killings. It happened so many times throughout history. For example a famine forces a human group to take over rivals resources or when defending own group against agressive rivals.
Of course it's true, and that there are 'acute moments of distress' doesn't disprove the claim.
'Murder' is nearly a universally negative social concept.
There zero cultures wherein arbitrary killing is considered acceptable
Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
If one tribe's men kills all the men in the other tribe, that's double the number of women, and double the number of children. A large, permanent improvement in genetic fitness. Not temporary at all.
Re: Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is simply not true, in time of severe distress and survival pressure humans are clearly capable of mass killings. It happened so many times throughout history. For example a famine forces a human group to take over rivals resources or when defending own group against agressive rivals.
Of course it's true, and that there are 'acute moments of distress' doesn't disprove the claim. 'Murder' is nearly a universally negative social concept. There zero cultures wherein arbitrary killing is considered acceptable
Nobody ever said that these murders are arbitrary. They're the opposite of arbitrary. They're coalition-based murders against men in the opposite tribe. Highly targeted and intentional. Not random.