Re: Birdbrain: "Damned dirty apes"

On Jul 3, 3:11 pm, Vend <ven...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 3 Lug, 09:48, 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.

I suppose you avoided bad neighborhoods and war zones.


The bad neighbourhoods and war zones don't represent the norm. That's
why we call them "bad neighbourhoods"!

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.

But you'll risk an attack if you go to your neighbor house without his
consent.
In the UK guns are banned, but in other countries you could be shot on
sight for trespassing.

In the USA perhaps, but in few other countries. More to the point, if
you shot someone just for trespassing you'd be prosecuted for murder
even in the USA.


Sure, human social norms are much more complicated than chimp ones.

That's because we can live in far, far bigger communities because of
our extraordinarily low level of intraspecific violence.


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.

Ok, thanks for the information.

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?

In violent crime and war, yes.


In violent crime people are killed for very specific reasons, most
commonly a wife or husband who has been unfaithful. In war people are
killed because they represent the enemy, and soldiers are psyched up
to the point where they *can* kill them by branding them as "Hun" or
"Vietcong" and liable to commit unspeakable acts against the soldiers
or their families. It's a problem for the military to create soldiers
capable of killing other human beings, which is one of the reasons why
military discipline is so important, and why the enemy is demonised.
If you don't think that the people you are killing are truly human it
makes it easier to kill them.

(A country might be in war with another country for a perceived
misbehavior of its government, but this has nothing to do with the
behavior of the soldiers and civilians who actually get killed).

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.

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 avoid bad neighborhoods and I've never been in a war zone.

....and such neigbourhoods are the exception rather than the rule,
which rather proves my point.

If I joined the army or if a war happened to be fought in my country,
or even if I walked alone at night in a bad neighborhood, then I would
have a significant chance to be the target of an attack.

So you'd have to take extraordinary steps to put yourself into a
situation in which you'd run the risk of attack by other humans.


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.

I'm not sure of that.
I think that when a siege was successful, the slaughter of civilians
usually followed.

Historically most people didn't live in cities, and siege warfare was
not all that common. Even in the case of sieges, wholescale slaughter
was not common. Most historic battles were fought by what by modern
standards are tiny armies, even when the relative size of the
populations is taken into account. To the average peasant - and most
people were peasants - the only outcome of the battle would be that
someone different would end up living in the big house on top of the
hill.

RF

.

Relevant Pages

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