Science Suggests That Humans Are Not Innately Violent And Vicious

Skarekrow said:
Personally, part of me feels that the human race is doomed and that we have reached the crux of mental-mastubation as a society of unearned pleasure and apathetic selfishness.
But, part of me feels that we could also be at the tipping point to where it will fall on the side of realization that we must evolve as a society, race, and as people.
I also though think this will not happen until there is a destructive crisis for humanity...when the true nature of our souls can be brought to the surface...when we reach that understanding that NO ONE should benefit at the expense of another.
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I think the tipping point will fall on the side of realization that we do not evolve anything. You don't evolve society. Evolution makes you social - or not.

The only way to unify is to let go of the idea entirely and let go of individuals. This is because if you have even ONE moral compunction, even ONE personal vision for direction, and somebody else differs from that by even a modicum of a hair, you have a spark in the haystack.

Thinking that there's been some mistake and that we have to correct it is our downfall. The paradoxical mistake of consciousness is believing that consciousness lets you even know what a mistake is and that you somehow know better because you can think.
 
Many of you seem to be offering deep cerebral physiological reasons for why we should be one way over another. Yes a thinking mind can contemplate changing or being something different but why we have found ourselves to be what we are is much simpler than that.

We are animals. We have evolved yes, but we are still animals.
 
Flavus Aquila said:
Isn't the occupy movement just an expression of resentment against civil authorities? It sure doesn't look like an attempt to build a better society, so much as vandalise the one we have.
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There has been a great deal of work in the mainstream media done in the attempt to make the Occupy Movement appear to be nothing more than a bunch of crazy, lazy, entitled, hippies and punks....this couldn’t be farther from the truth...I can dig up some really good video if you like on how the media twisted this if you like?
 
Eventhorizon said:
I wasn’t trying to suggest that because we kill for food we are aggressive. We are aggressive because we began killing for food. Think about how meat became part of our diet. Perhaps before we as a species began killing we lived off berries? I wouldn’t be able to tell you when this changed, perhaps when we stepped out of the ocean either here or on another planet, we were eating other life forms from the beginning. But lets assume we were not and that one day, an ape like creature found some meat an ate it. Finding meat just laying around is not enough to cause the changes in the body and brain over 100s of thousands of years. It was the sustained intake of meat that did this. For this, you cant just find meat laying around, we had to begin actively killing. Whether we were grateful in obtaining the meat is irrelevant. The act of killing in itself is an aggression and violent towards life.
So, I have to assume the person that was able to kill easier had a better time of passing on their genes compared to the person who sat around and felt bad about every kill they made.
Play out the scenario in your head. I think you will come to the same conclusion.
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We probably learned this by watching predatory animals hunt and kill and tried it perhaps when food was short....but surely we did not do it because of the normal reasons for violence - hate, jealousy, fear, etc. So does that make humans violent because they have killed to survive? Do we call the mold growing on a slice of bread...essentially destroying the bread as it feeds...do we call mold violent?
There is a difference.
 
Skarekrow said:
We probably learned this by watching predatory animals hunt and kill and tried it perhaps when food was short....but surely we did not do it because of the normal reasons for violence - hate, jealousy, fear, etc. So does that make humans violent because they have killed to survive? Do we call the mold growing on a slice of bread...essentially destroying the bread as it feeds...do we call mold violent?
There is a difference.
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There for sure is a difference and that difference is attachment.

No amount of tree hugging or prana or chakra or Buddhism or vegetarianism or whatever you like will fix attachment unless one knows that it is there and that it is the source. Moreover, just because one finds the way out of this does not mean they now have a moral right to force everyone else to comply. It can't be forced because it doesn't work on the unaware.
 
sprinkles said:
There for sure is a difference and that difference is attachment.

No amount of tree hugging or prana or chakra or Buddhism or vegetarianism or whatever you like will fix attachment unless one knows that it is there and that it is the source. Moreover, just because one finds the way out of this does not mean they now have a moral right to force everyone else to comply. It can't be forced because it doesn't work on the unaware.
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Then I will violently force them at knife-point and make them be nonviolent!!!
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Skarekrow said:
We probably learned this by watching predatory animals hunt and kill and tried it perhaps when food was short....but surely we did not do it because of the normal reasons for violence - hate, jealousy, fear, etc. So does that make humans violent because they have killed to survive? Do we call the mold growing on a slice of bread...essentially destroying the bread as it feeds...do we call mold violent?
There is a difference.
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No but if early ancestors knew they could kill creatures for food they had to put two and two together and realize that if they killed say "Bob" over there, Bob wouldnt come back. That if Bob didnt come back, Mary would be alone or, there would be less hassle in the group for me than if he was still there. Hey let me take this spear over here and do the same-thing to Bob that I do to the creatures I kill for food. With Bob no longer around to spread his genes, my genes would have a better chance to propagate. And of course the person who had the easier time killing in this way, well that would get bred into us as well.
 
Eventhorizon said:
No but if early ancestors knew they could kill creatures for food they had to put two and two together and realize that if they killed say "Bob" over there, Bob wouldnt come back. That if Bob didnt come back, Mary would be alone or, there would be less hassle in the group for me than if he was still there. Hey let me take this spear over here and do the same-thing to Bob that I do to the creatures I kill for food. With Bob no longer around to spread his genes, my genes would have a better chance to propagate. And of course the person who had the easier time killing in this way, well that would get bred into us as well.
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If you consider them being able to have the same capacity and feelings of love that we are able to have now, then I am sure there were those in the group that perhaps had such thoughts, and in contrast there were probably those who would abhor such a thought...so then the question is still not answered - innate or learned behavior?
 
sprinkles said:
Some times I feel that way. Get along, or I will kill you!!

So ironic it makes me giggle.
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It WOULD be so much easier....MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
 
Skarekrow said:
If you consider them being able to have the same capacity and feelings of love that we are able to have now, then I am sure there were those in the group that perhaps had such thoughts, and in contrast there were probably those who would abhor such a thought...so then the question is still not answered - innate or learned behavior?
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Not sure. I am indicating I believe it is bred behavior. Those that felt "love" in the group would be less likely to take action to remove a threat from the group. Say, someone willing to kill to get what they wanted out of life. So again, its more likely that a person willing to be violent or actually being violent would have more opportunity to breed. More opportunity to breed means a much better chance of spreading your particular characteristics to include capacity to do others harm.
 
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There is a gene variation nicknamed 'the warrior gene' which I believe has an influence on why some people are more prone to violence than others.

http://dna-explained.com/2013/06/16/the-warrior-gene/

However, it is triggered by environmental factors.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...riggering-the-warrior-gene-in-villain-or-hero

Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) has earned the nickname “warrior gene” because it has been linked to aggression in observational and survey-based studies. However, no controlled experimental studies have tested whether the warrior gene actually drives behavioral manifestations of these tendencies. We report an experiment, synthesizing work in psychology and behavioral economics, which demonstrates that aggression occurs with greater intensity and frequency as provocation is experimentally manipulated upwards, especially among low activity MAOA (MAOA-L) subjects. In this study, subjects paid to punish those they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of unpleasantly hot (spicy) sauce to their opponent. There is some evidence of a main effect for genotype and some evidence for a gene by environment interaction, such that MAOA is less associated with the occurrence of aggression in a low provocation condition, but significantly predicts such behavior in a high provocation situation. This new evidence for genetic influences on aggression and punishment behavior complicates characterizations of humans as “altruistic” punishers and supports theories of cooperation that propose mixed strategies in the population. It also suggests important implications for the role of individual variance in genetic factors contributing to everyday behaviors and decisions.
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I think it's a combination of nature and nurture which causes aggression, just like many other things including mental illness.

I think agression can stem from a need for self-preservation. Agression happens when people feel threatened, wether it is a real or imagined threat. Periods of stress like famines caused agression between groups in the past by causing people to fight for meagre resources, and many acts of agression are caused by perceived threats or slights.
 
Eventhorizon said:
Interesting. I personally believe through what I have learned that the universe is a hostile place and that in order to survive in it, we as humans have had to be aggressive. Its been bred into us by the universe. In fact, our brain power would not be possible without the added energy that comes from eating meat as opposed to plants etc.

http://greatist.com/health/eating-meat-build-brain-121112

Given this, we might want to be a little worried should aliens show up on our doorstep.
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The people of the subcontinent of In
 
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