No we cannot. A small percentage of humans are wired with a strong territorial mind and/or a greedy personality. It's in the gene. Some of them eventually become leaders.
A small percentage of humans are wired with a strong territorial mind and/or a greedy personality. A large percentage of humans are wired to view those traits as favourable and attractive and view such persons as charismatic "leaders" to follow and identify with.
My suspicion is, this is in the genes too, and I feel this is almost the bigger part of the problem.
The issue observed over millennia, is that if you get rid of -all- the greedy people in your land, the greedy person in charge of next door sees opportunity.
> My suspicion is, this is in the genes too, and I feel this is almost the bigger part of the problem.
My more specific suspicion is that some of it is that those who can 'go with the flow' are more likely to survive various 'cleansing's over the ages, and perhaps in fact the most 'opportunistic' (i.e. those that are not -quite- megalomania tier) find those opportunities and become that sort of 'old money bottom feeder' type.
> The issue observed over millennia, is that if you get rid of -all- the greedy people in your land, the greedy person in charge of next door sees opportunity.
I don't see why that necessarily follows. What you describe is the ability to defend oneself: If you become so weak and/or pacifist that you can't even employ violence against attackers, then, yes, someone else will take your lunch.
Whether or not the ability of effective defense also requires the drive to attack others out of greed is, I'd say, still an open question, even though lot's of people have their own preferred answers.
I'd argue, evolution iself shows lots of counterexamples: If the assumption would be true, then only predators should have survived until today. But that's not the case: We have lots of herbivores that can defend themselves against predators but aren't ones themselves.
Whether or not this holds for humans is a different question and the current "experimental evidence" isn't exactly encouraging: Attempts to build a different society were either not strong enough to defend themselves (paris commune, spanish republic) or were strong enough but got corrupted once again by the drive for greed and power (christianity, the soviet union).
Still, on the other hand, I think overall, humanity has become less aggressive and the social value of war has changed: It used to be a virtue in itself (as discussed in the OP) and today is mostly outlawed and, if at all, seen only as a valid tool for self-defense. That could at least make one hopeful, even though enough decidedly nondefensive wars are still being waged in the world.
> My more specific suspicion is that some of it is that those who can 'go with the flow' are more likely to survive various 'cleansing's over the ages, and perhaps in fact the most 'opportunistic' (i.e. those that are not -quite- megalomania tier) find those opportunities and become that sort of 'old money bottom feeder' type.
That's the darwinist explanation. I still think there are some specific psychological mechanisms that facillitate those social dynamics (and I'd be interested to know if they have a neurological/genetic origin - which might have evolved due to the selection dynamics you derscribe)
Some of those I can think of:
- Ingroup/outgroup bias:
That one is well known, basically the tendency to sort the people we interact with into two groups - often by completely arbitrary attributes. Our sense of empathy and compassion for both groups is wildly different.
(In reaction to this tendency, I actually find the cheesy "we're all brothers/humans/citizens of Earth/children of God/etc" calls actually quite smart: In essence, they try to trick the ingroup/outgroup mechanism by just defining everyone as the ingroup. It's a simple strategy, but there is no obvious reason why it shouldn't work.)
- "Groupthink" (when interacting with the ingroup)
The tendency to judge decisions differently if you do them as part of a group or for someone else within that group instead of yourself - and it has the unfortunate tendency that it lets you do far more morally questionable and risky decisions without appearing as morally questionable.
A harmless example would be buying christmas presents: There is lots of stuff that you would never buy for yourself, because it would seem like selfish and frivolous spending - but you readily buy the same thing for someone else as a gift, even if the purchase would objectively be just as unnecessary.
A more serious example would be conquests: Everyone understands that just breaking into the house of another person and taking their stuff for yourself is morally repugnant. But if your group violently takes land, it's suddenly justifyable, because it's for the good of the group and not for any individual person.
(Thanks to ingroup/outgroup bias, both sides of the conflict will experience and judge this in a radically different way: The conquering group will be quick to justify and forgive itself while the group that was being attacked will see it as a grave injustice and breach of moral)
- "Sadomasochism" (when interacting with the outgroup)
I don't mean that in a sexual or deviant sense, but just as the property that knowingly causing harm to others or imagining how someone else is being harmed can sometimes feel good - which really is odd if you think about it: We're well aware of how bad harm feels and usually we avoid it at all costs. So, naively, we would think that there is a simple connection in the brain that says "(things that you know causes harm) -> stay away from". But in reality, the relationship is much more complex and depends on the context and who is experiencing the harm.
- "Leader worship"
One example I have seen of this that came to my mind was when a new pope was elected: Some relatively unknown (outside church circles) and colorless cardinal went in; then it was announced that this person would become the new pope; when he showed in public the next time, millions of people around the world already had made an intense emotional connection to that person and were ready to take their word as law - only by announcement of his new office and without actually knowing him.
I think you can see the same psychological effect in many parasocial relationships, bei it for streamers, celebrities, royalty, politicians or religious gurus.
I feel as if those mechanisms form some of the "environment" in which a "dark triad" person could actually gain and realize power. They also form an environment in which millions of people would be ready to do something as paradoxical and self-destructiva as to wage war.
>We strive for peace today with conviction and intensity, for great wars must cease if we are to pursue further the path of progress.
As soon as you stop striving with all your might, you could be screwed.
There's still too many people who are greedy, hateful, and power-seeking. That kind cannot be allowed to gain power and run amok, that's what war is.
Every decade, as more of those who were alive then have passed, the less force remains of the kind that's needed to prevent running amok at large scale.
The standard today for world leaders now, as we have seen, is much lower than needed. The whole of society has declined in lockstep so it can't be perceived as an outlier. There are now such defective chains of command all over the place where those with false leadership ability are most likely to rise through the ranks. And these are ones who would have never been worthy of consideration after World War II, whether it was the winning or losing side rebuilding afterward. Everybody wanted real prosperity, not that fake leadership thing any more. Now too many people can't tell the difference again.
Everyone who went through World War II knew instinctively they had to keep up even more challenging work (non-military instead) under peacetime every year for the rest of their lives, just to avoid another war. Even though "total world peace" had not 100% been achieved, the effort must strongly be concentrated on avoiding another world-destroying war first and foremost while some of the same efforts will help to top off peace on their own.
>And our striving is by no means hopeless.
Speak for your own generation kind sir, I remember what you're talking about, it's difficult to be so sure any more :(
I had a look one time, there are tons of alternatives (in all countries) They all have youtube channels and facebook pages.
Beyond the top of the list they have so few viewers, subscribers, likes and followers that it doesn't account for direct family. It means not even journalists bother to watch a video or read a post let alone read the election program. Usually there is a single news article about a person without much if any coverage of the program.
People love to pretend their circular argument is not a fallacy.
Plenty of people would bother to look at other candidates if they got a lot more attention and a lot more votes. Someone will have to start voting for them before that will happen.
This someone is you.
If you refuse to vote for a candidate that has no chance to win they wont have a chance next time. One extra voice or vote is actually a big deal for them.
The search engines are full of articles about "most significant candidates"
You can help gather signatures, promote write in candidates.
I just imagined all those countless election programs should be loaded into some LLM, make it question the humans and point them to the text that fits them best.
Which suggests that an impulse to territoriality may have had a strong survival benefit during our evolution. It may still be correlated with creating more viable zygotes, it isn't obvious to me either way. Likely there's a sweet spot and both too much and too little reduces reproductive fitness.
Luckily, such innate drive and desire to dominate can be funnelled into something more productive and less detrimental to others.
Instead of becoming a president and starting wars of aggression, why not try sports? How about becoming an academic, an expert in some esoteric field, and spend your days acquiring intellectual territory and terrorising your intellectual opponents?
Or use your greed to start a business that somehow ends up benefiting us all even whilst making you richer than all of us.
Por que no los dos? Plug into the MIC, get into politics, get into constant "police actions", scratch other's politician's backs, and make bank.
War is good business. Political power is absolutely something worth being bought/sought. Long as that is the case, the power hungry gonna seek power to wield, and they'll wield it to to their own ends; and realistically, once they're locked in as having it, it isn't for you or anyone else ultimately.
Being good at athletics requires specific good genetics.
> acquiring intellectual territory
Analytical intellect is not a valued trait in the current society. It will not increase your status in most cases. It actively works against you in certain social structures. Unless your intellectual territory grants you significant material benefits, there's no use out of it.
Not feeling threatened is the keyword. Modern society has many complacency triggers. Dangerous situation, drive away. Feel unsafe, call police. Injured physically or spiritually, seek compensation through the law. The interesting question is what happens when these safety systems become stagnant and less responsive
Especially when other social norms 'get in the way'.
Someone that actually hired me at a past job, at her next job wound up hiring someone who performed a very intentional set of revenge porn acts on me. [0]
Of course, I dare not speak up on social media, as it would impact my ability to find a job in the future. At 'best' I would be a drama magnet, at worst claims could be made and it would be a mud-slinging fest.
I still have siblings that dislike when I speak up about how at my first high school, a starting basketball player slammed my head into a locker a half dozen times, I was told afterwards that I was not allowed to go to the school nurse, with no regard given for anything I slurred post-concussion... and that my parents didn't do anything about the injustice because it was a catholic school and mum was so catholic she dressed like a nun.
So, I just have to let it sit.
And it all works out, because Carhartt is shit now anyway.
[0] - Which gives me the dubious claim of having someone blocking me on LinkedIn, lmao.
Helps when you're willing to bank Nazis gold while the rest of the continent was being conquered or trying to resist. Also helps to have US led NATO provide cover against the Soviets.
They also banked plenty of English gold too :-) That's what "neutrality" means; you are not neutral if you refuse to do business with one of the warring parties.
The evidence points to an uninterrupted stream of human violence throughout all history. Meanwhile, you speculate --without basis-- that this will be solved via education, positing some pedagogical or cultural breakthrough that somehow has evaded humanity for all of its existence. What do you think that will be?
There is a particular amount of hubris in your statement that reeks of ignorance. Violence is an innate behavior of all mammals. We can choose to do it less, but it will always be an option. Take people that get brain damage and are otherwise functional but have issues with violence.
