> Do we have a survival strategy?
If one frames organized violence as a means rather than an ends, then it is possible to see an answer other than the survival strategy of “be the best at organized violence.”
If one frames organized violence as a means rather than an ends, then it is possible to see an answer other than the survival strategy of “be the best at organized violence.”
Now, all this would be just the normal human history (and as per the article, pre-history). What changes the dynamic is the advancement of science and technology. If we assume that it is accruing monotonically (which has been the case for several centuries), then if the same social dynamic or emergent organized violence continues, at as some point even a small group that drifts into a state of feeling aggrieved could prompt vast destruction.
This isn't surprising at all given that "absolute monarchy" was more of a marketing term than a description of reality.
England, which rather decisively cut off their monarchs' pretensions at absolute power, was far more centralized than whatever the fuck the different parlements (sp?) of France or the Spanish cortez were doing during the absolutist age.
Or are you proposing a genetic breeding/selection program to weed out such tendencies? A "final solution" to violence, perhaps?
Murdering Cluster B people might be a little extreme, and most non-Cluster B people will feel uncomfortable with that idea.
But most violence is demonstrably driven by certain personality types who lead the violence and normalise it.
Excluding those types from leadership positions of all kinds as soon as they show evidence of toxicity is unlikely to make things worse.
The alternative is on a scale from small cults to megadeaths. (Perhaps gigadeaths on a bad day.)
And we already exclude most of the population from leadership and power anyway, using other reasons as an excuse.
I’m guessing whatever criteria that was decided for filtering would conveniently exclude the one making it?
It also seems likely to be problematic human survival wise, as it’s not like those traits evolved in a vacuum.
At all times look for the motivators of behavior (such as "slaughtering people") and address them proactively.
And at least right now, wouldn’t that require massive, global, overwhelming force?
No matter how objectively correct or convincing, I could see no way China or Russia would take any such proposal seriously, or take any such action voluntarily, let alone a large chunk of the rest of the world? And they certainly have enough might to not take it lying down.
For example, it wouldn’t have mattered one bit how peaceful Ukraine was when Russia started on its rampage.
Near as I can tell, the only reason Ukraine still exists is because Western Europe and the US had massive stockpiles of weapons they gave, Ukraine had enough angry (and murderous) Ukrainians, and Ukraine and the US had been preparing to murder a bunch of Russians for years after the last move Russia made before Russia made it’s move this time.
And even then it is no small, certain, or cheap endeavor. Horrible destruction has been wrought.
But compared to it’s women and children taken (and raped or ‘married off’/‘adopted’ within Russia) and the men slaughtered, conscripted, or imprisoned, and everything that made them, them destroyed, it’s still the better outcome no?
And that is exactly what would have happened, and has been happening in the area they did take.
Which is pretty normal for these kinds of things. NOT having it happen is definitely the notable exception.
So seems to me, these traits, while irritating/disruptive in peacetime, are essential at some level during times of conflict. And conflict inevitably comes, always. Just as death is a part of life.