Re: Birdbrain: "Damned dirty apes"

On Jul 3, 12:48 am, richardalanforr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Jul 2, 12:39 pm, Vend <ven...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On 2 Lug, 09:24, richardalanforr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Jul 1, 11:18 pm, Vend <ven...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 1 Lug, 21:09, Jason Spaceman <notrea...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

And remember, if you disagree with Birdnow and reply to him, it means your
obsessed with him. . .

From the article:
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So, we are now just one ape among many.  Does it surprise us that our young
people act like animals, when we are telling them that they are just one of
many beasts?

Non-human apes are less intraspecies aggressive than humans.

What nonsense! Humans are far less aggressive towards other members of
their own species than any other ape. That's one of the reasons why we
can live in enormous conurbations, and why it is possible for me to
walk down a street in Beijing or New York without much risk of being
attacked. The image we get from the popular media is very distorted,
and most of us do not live our lives in constant risk of violence.

Perhaps not most of us, but many do.

How many non-human apes live in a constant risk of lethal violence by
members of their species?

I don't live in constant risk of lethal violence by members of my own
species. In fact, I've rarely encountered violence from other members
of my own species. I've walked down streets in strange cities all over
the world and not encountered any violence.

That's true. But your "tribe" generally dominates the towns where you
would walk. Walk thru poor districts of Rio de Janeiro and tell me how
you feel, or Newark, New Jersey in the USA.

Ask a black man if he feels OK in all parts of South Carolina.

While middle class British society is admirable in most ways, is it
more natural than Kosovo?

When different tribes impose themselves on overlapping teritory, there
is potential trouble. And I fear that middle-class civilization is not
yet robust, and may be unstable under pressure. If the near future
sees global warming and overpopulation cranking up the pressure, we
may see the seamier side of humanity again, where it seems to have
been largely banished to the past.




A chimp which moves into the territory of another group of chimps runs
a very high risk of savage attack.

Like an human who moves into the private property of another human.

I don't run the risk of attack if I go to the next town. A chimp which
did so would.

A chimp in the next town would be in another tribe's turf.


Male orangs are fiercely
territorial, and if they encounter another male in their territory
will quite literally fight to the death to defend it.

I don't know about orangs, but if I remember correctly, gorillas and
chimps rarely kill individuals of their respective species.

Chimps do. Males kill each other over territorial disputes, which
given the far smaller social groups of chimps compared to humans
happens pretty regularly.

We have a complex arrangement of overlapping tribes, and each of us
belong to several. They are not usually tribes which dispute
territory, however. I am a martial artist, a gardener, a geek, an
atheist, and a US liberal. My martial arts community includes an Anglo
fundamentalist plumber, an Hispanic scientist, and a business manager-
soccer mom.




Anyway, these are examples of territorial defence, where the
aggression occours in response to a perceived misbehavior of an
individual.

So what?
Are you telling me that humans kill each other for reasons which have
nothing to do with "perceived misbehaviour" of others?
We have elaborate social systems to deal with such misbehaviour by
methods other than violence. The simple fact is that as a human, I can
do things which in a chimp society would lead to extreme violence
without a qualm.

Yes. But you can also be attacked from across the Channel while simply
quietly walking a path.


Humans, in addition to that, also relatively often actively initiate
aggression towards individuals who weren't misbehaving. I don't think
this happens frequently in other apes.

Very, very rarely. How often have you suffered a random, unmotivated
attack out of the blue when going about your normal day-to-day
business? I haven't, and I've traveled widely for over 50 years.

I have had numerous encounters through the years, but I've managed to
extricate myself without violence - mostly by negotiating from a
position of strength.

The odds are pretty good that a dozen of the 3000 kids I went to high
school with have been murdered. Look at the graph near the middle of
this page:
http://www.netwellness.org/healthtopics/domesticv/violenceUS.cfm

Rape, robbery, and assault for those over 12 years of age in this
country are about 20 per thousand per year.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm

While I don't approve of this, and we all have opinions on the
multiple causes, it is not obvious to me that the 21st century UK is
more natural than the USA.




Paradoxically, it's the fact that we are not aggressive towards other
members of our own species that allows us to build huge populations
capable of warfare. Even so, for most of human history warfare was a
ritualized activity involving a small proportion of the population.

I don't think this is completely accurate.
For some part of human history, battles were ritualized and limited to
well-defined armed forces, and they still are to some extent. However,
war is not and was never just a series of ritualized battles. Armed
forces usually exploit, harass and sometimes massacre civilians.

Historically, violence against civilians has been very limited. It
only became widespread during the wars of the 20th century.

Is this true? I am not an historian, but reading the history of
martial arts and warfare, it seems like "The blood running in the
streets" has been common enough through the centuries. There are kung
fu techniques for women fighting while babies are strapped to their
backs. This development is not the result of women in some past
culture joining the army; it's because bandits / the Emperor's army /
the tribe over the hill had broken thru their village defenses often
enough in the past that mothers and grandmothers trained - just in
case.

It's only recently that the Hebrews wiping out the Canaanites and
other rivals in the Jewish mythologies have been seen as especially
distasteful. I've never heard it said that this was considered
unusual. Armies whose soldiers killed by hand, over and over, would be
largely unresponsive to pleas for mercy which would sway our modern
sensibilities.

Of course modern tools make the process more efficient.

Kermit

.

Relevant Pages

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