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Comment by s_q_b | Hacker News Reader

I look towards our closest relatives, Chimpanzees, at least one subspecies of which carries out organized troupe-based raids that echo much of what we see in human warfare. Troupes of young males patrol the perimeter of a territory by night, and periodically raid neighboring groups, killing adult males, seizing females, killing male offspring, and conquering their territory.

I have a hard time believing that warfare is a pure invention, given its (near) universality across space, time, and our most closely related genetic relatives.

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Humans are also literally the apex hunter on the planet. We can successfully hunt and eat any other predator if we choose to. Even nearly perfectly evolved hunters like sharks, lions and tigers are merely food and decorative pelts to us. A right of passage for some human children to be considered adults is to track, hunt and kill other apex predators.

Humans have no natural predators. Zero. Think about that. Anything that may have once threatened us, we've out organized, out planned, and out thought on the way towards global dominance. Even superficially similar co-inhabitant species like Neanderthal could not survive in a world with Humans. Today, only microscopic creatures threaten us, and we once again organize, plan and think about ways to defeat these creatures.

Even with stone-aged levels of technology we spread to every corner of the world, in every known climate and ecology, in large numbers, and thrived. The only thing that is dangerous to humans is other humans. And we've even arrived at the point that, with no considerable effort at all, we're capable of wiping out every living thing that inhabits the surface of a world.

Despite having poor biting power, diminished canines, running (poorly) on our heels, lower than average strength and no claws. We are the the most dangerous creature in the known universe.

Thats true, but I just wanted to point out that humans are actually one of the best species on Earth at distance running

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2012/06/long...

We are extremely good at throwing things with precision as well.

The combination of unusual tricep structure (also found in cats and the extinct great sloth), remarkably mobile shoulder structure (inherited from our primate ancestors) and grippy hands (thumbs!) gives us remarkable downward thrusting power useful for smashing, grabbing and throwing.

One of the earliest inventions, the spear-thrower, enhanced that ability even more, giving us the ability to kill big game from a distance with near impunity. (It works by increasing the lever arm. Think of a lacrosse stick.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower

My professor once told us that we were thinking of Australopithecines, a recent hominid, all wrong.

While we thought of early human ancestors as less intelligent versions of ourselves, the correct analogy was to a modern Velociraptor: fast to the point of running animals to death, fiercely intelligent, and with unparalleled group coordination.

Arguably the last of the giant dinosaurs was the Moa, a bird with claws that could eviscerate a human with a single swipe, and our species wiped them out as a prey animal.

We are a terrifyingly effective species.

> we're capable of wiping out every living thing that inhabits the surface of a world.

Oh come on now, dont flatter yourself so much.

No, humans cant wipe out all living things that inhabig the surface of the world.

I think you might need to look into what the Russian and USA nuclear arsenal might do if used evenly across the world. If this does not convince you let me introduce you to the cobalt bomb [1].

1. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb

I laugh I your General direction: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterbear note there is a lot of surface area on the planet. A 1MT nuke per sqare mile would come fairly close but not quite get to where you suggest and we don't have close to that many nukes.

I have to say I love Tardigrades, but without a food source they are not going to survive. Nuclear winter is not too conducive for moss growth.

More seriously I suspect that short of a massive high altitude cobalt bomb detonation that some small life will survive on the surface even if all the current nuclear weapon were used.

Well they can go without food for 9+ years so that's more of a long term problem. As to nuclear winter they already live in Antarctica so there food source can also survive fairly harsh conditions, and it only takes one (or 2 depending on species).

Not that we have a lot of spare planets lying around but IMO it would be an interesting experement. Also, there is a fairly interesting ecosystem living inside the chernobil building which just goes to show how hardy some things are. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus Gama radiation as food... Yea that's a thing.

A cobalt bomb will keep the background radiation level on the surface lethal for nearly 100 years.

There is no way we can yet destroy all life on earth - microbial life is too tough for that, but we could destroy all macroscopic life on the surface.

Excluding caves. Also, rain drastically reduces how long radiation stays in an area. And again cobalt produces Gama radiation which some things use as food.

Even if we take 1985 levels of nuclear warheads - the maximum, I believe USSR had 40 000 back then, and fuck it, lets say for even numbers, 100 000 nuclear warheads.

Land-surace is about 150 square million km. Take 1.2Mt the biggest yield in US arsenal currently. That would require around 270 000 nuclear warheads to cover every square km. We dont have that many and never had.

Also that wouldnt even scratch the oceans.

And the cobalt bomb, it hasnt been built, and anyway wouldnt work its not a doomsday device.

There are also way too many caves and cave systems with ecology in them which would be largely unaffected by civilized weapons.

Sure, the earth wouldnt look like it does today, but life would still prevail - and civilization isnt really that powerful to exterminate all life.

"...to cover every square km. We dont have that many..."

One does not have to rake every piece of soil in order to wipe out the entire life. The oceans would get the radioactive lavement of the soil and cycle that back on the land over and over though radioactive rains. This affects especially the bottom layer of the food chain, which cause chain's partial (if not total) collapse. In the end there is the possible nuclear winter that may render almost the entire planet inhabitable for all life forms. (Spores, bacteria, algae or other microscopic life forms may resist in hibernation to thrive again someday, but that is not called "living" through the event.) The reality is that there wasn't in our planet history any extinction event that involved nuclear contamination of every available living habitat (among other hostile-to-life effects), and speculating about it and about if it would or not be destructive enough, feels to me a little bit like playing with madness here.

Yep, we sure can. Don't underestimate our lunacy.

"We" arent that powerful, the best we could do is exterminate our selves, but life would continue, and adapt.

We sure are. We can blacken the sun, wipe away the ozone layer, irradiate and poison the earth, freeze the oceans, we can drill down to nearly the mantle, introduce plagues that can ravage continents and over time, we can fracture the earth's ecosystems so badly that a meteor strike will look like a pebble drop.

Every living thing on the planet will die as a result.

If we dedicated ourselves to wiping out the biosphere, I'm sure we could. But the current nuclear arsenal wouldn't cut it.

At best we could destroy civilization, but probably not even humanity.

> The only thing that is dangerous to humans is other humans.

And microbes. And other parasites.

I agree with pretty much anything you said, but I disagree on humans being poor runners. We are amongst (if not THE) most endurant runners on the planet. Humans have been known to defeat horses in long races [1]. As for running on the heel, this is more of a modern shod runner curse than a natural instinct or predisposition.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon#Winne... (might be anecdotic, but still somehow revealing)

That's what happens when you're a biped

Paradoxically, this skill only becomes really apparent when humans act in the role of hunters. As prey, it's more likely a sneaky tiger will spring forth from the jungle and run us down for dinner.

But yep, we can actually run other animals to death.

Humans are terrifying unbalanced creatures.

"Humans have no natural predators. Zero."

As a group yes. As individuals - no. Go in alone somewhere where other big predators like wolves, bears or whatnot and hold your ground for a few weeks. I bet that unless you build some kind of fortress for yourself to sleep at night, not even firearms will help you in the long run.

"Even with stone-aged levels of technology we spread to every corner of the world, in every known climate and ecology, in large numbers, and thrived."

Actually, we've managed to thrive only in the places where there was enough air (no underwater humans), water (not many thriving communities in the deserts), food (which was a hard limit for the level of development, famine was a regular regressing factor), warmth (no people in Antarctica), and other such useful things. In this regard we are no different than other animals.

Any human trait observed across cultures, time and languages must be considered a universal human trait in the same way all make dogs lift their legs to pee on things.

The writings of Shakespeare are relevant today as the day they were written. That's because they cover the human traits of love, jealousy, war, gossip, pride and others.

The reasons humans go to war is plainly evolutionary. Those ancestors that raided other tribes and stole their resources (and women) left successors who also had those traits. The peacenik human ancestors are all in the earth, never to be heard of again.

That's not to say its hopeless - human traits can be tempered through society - such as limiting murder to that explicitly sanctioned, and introducing laws and concepts around monogamous marriage to prevent single ruling families introducing polygamy and dominating the genetic results. Those things promote peace and harmony but war will always be with us.

I used to be a lot more starry eyed about this but I've come to realise how temporary and fleeting peace really is.

The only societies that have really prospered are those that have established walls and dedicated resources to making sure they are effective. And I don't mean actual city walls - I mean barriers to conquest.

Murder is not (supposed to be) explicitly sanctioned, only killing is. Murder as a word is supposed to designate specifically unsanctioned, immoral killing. We don't need another word for kill, we already have that word.

Don't let murder steal kill's job!

Bonobos are about as close and they are hedonistic little buggers. Judging by the internet, I have a hard time believing that sex is a pure invention, given its universality across space, time, and our most closely related genetic relatives.

Human war is not some local territory thing though is it? It's far more complex, as are human social interactions.

People love to make the war-chimp-humans-shrug connection, but aren't willing to make the sex-bonobo-human-wink connection??

There is a form of hipster-like love for the "authenticity" of humans as they were tens of thousands to millions of years ago. Just because we want to believe something is baked into our DNA doesn't mean that those tens of thousands to millions of years can be waved off so easily.

Chimps have evolved over the same time as humans. That we don't party like chimps implies that this line of reasoning with zero "war-DNA" evidence is bogus. Show us the genes. Which part of the tiny % difference btw bonobos, humans, and chimps explains all of this?

I can't speak to the DNA, as I don't believe that's established scientific knowledge yet, but there are a few details worth noting.

Bonobos' reputation as make-love-not-war pacifists is quickly becoming undermined by recent research. They hunt for meat, go months without sex, and engage in (albeit more limited) intergroup conflict.

Examining Pan paniscus and Pan troglodytes are like looking at exaggerated aspects of our own nature. But in looking at the behavior of humans, organized group warfare appears to be the norm, rather than the exception.

Organized group warfare? Do you mean bar fights or nation-states and insurgents? What proportion of humans take part in acts of organized group warfare? Saying war is natural to humans is to selectively ignore that the vast majority seem to prefer peace and/or don't have time for the war games.

The decisions and designs of organized group warfare are in the hands of an extremely small few and they are constantly trying to balance the application of their wealth between keeping domestic subversion at bay while clumsily dumping bombs and bodies around the world to "preserve peace."

War is not an undeniable urge, it's a choice. It's proven morally corrupt in most recent applications and this searching for some innate reasoning is an attempt to give hawks a way out of their cognitive dissonance. It's killing for duty, profit, and fun. You always have a choice.

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Stray-Modern-Relationships/dp...

War is a completely predictable consequence of (a) our intelligence, which recognizes (b) the existence of scarce resources and (c) the fact that violence is sometimes an effective strategy for obtaining them. Organizing into groups to do so is just matter of thinking about tactics for a second, especially since we're already pretty group-oriented. There's no reason that war shouldn't be constantly, independently re-invented.

To be fair, there are also various counterarguments that a rational being should take into account before going to war:

- The likelihood of being killed (IMO big these days, even as a non-combatant)

- the likelihood of suffering from indirect negative consequences via redirection of economic output (IMO high)

- the likelihood of warriors benefiting from the seized resources in a significant way (IMO small, unless you're also part of the ruling class)

So, yes, I agree with your conclusion but there are additional premises at work.

Ditto.

Ants have also practiced warfare against one another, for perhaps a longer time than any other species: http://www.wired.com/2010/08/gallery-ant-warfare/ (Sorry for the wired link, I couldn't find the original primary source I read concerning the subject)

On a side note: I feel like the title crosses "not too or interesting", goes past "interesting or revolutionary!", and somehow winds up in "just plain wrong/easily dismissible". His subtitle makes it even worse: "Many evolutionists believe that humans have a drive for waging war. But they are wrong and the idea is dangerous."

Less an attempt to persuade, and more like preaching to the choir, who ever that maybe.

After the subtitle I had dismissed the article, quite frankly.

Anyone who dismisses legions of scientists offhand is going to have a hard time convincing me.

So, you're assuming Chimpanzees are acting on instinct, rather than culture?

This is the fundamental distinction every other comment here is missing.

Chimps have culture. The question is why have the chimps with a culture of war been so successful?

The reason chimpanzees are indicative of an inherent propensity towards warfare rather than it being a learned culture trait is that chimps do not have an observed unified learned culture. Their habitat ranges from Guinea on the west coast to Uganda, and the bahavior is observed in chimp communities that have no contact with each other.

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