[depricated]

The problem with comparing humans to animals is that no other animal sits around and schemes of ways to kill others of its kind

[modi123_1]

depricated, on 29 January 2013 - 09:10 AM, said:

The problem with comparing humans to animals is that no other animal sits around and schemes of ways to kill others of its kind

Riiiight.

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The nature of chimpanzee war, in which males patrol their group's territory and violently annex the territory of other groups in pursuit of land and resources, is startlingly similar to the warfare that has consistently emerged throughout human history.
...
The chimp warfare described by this study, and previously by famed primatologist Jane Goodall, includes all the behaviors that we as humans consider to be the very worst: killing, torture, cannibalism, rape, and perhaps even genocide.
...
They will often kill any male or young chimpanzees they find, sometimes eating or physically brutalizing their victims in a manner that some researchers liken to torture. In some instances, one group will "invade" and annex the territory of another, killing all but the adult females, who are forced to incorporate into the dominant group. The idea of chimp genocide may sound strange, but they are one of only three animals that has been observed wiping out entire social groups. The other two are wolves and humans.

cite

[h4nnib4l]

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no other animal sits around and schemes of ways to kill others of its kind

I'm sure some would if they could. Don't mistake humans for anything other than highly-evolved animals with opposable thumbs, excellent pattern recognition skills, and good memories.

This post has been edited by h4nnib4l: 29 January 2013 - 08:23 AM

[lordofduct]

Yep and only humans love, have sex for pleasure, kill for sport, and any other myth about humans vs animals that have been debunked time and time again.

[depricated]

psh, it's a quote on the nature of humans, or a paraphrasing really, don't take it for more than that. Point being that anarchy fails because of human nature.

Anarchy can only really exist in a void. Humans will impose structure without fail, it's what we do. We find and enforce patterns. It may return to feudalism, tribalism, despotism, or whatever - but an oligarchy will arise.

[lordofduct]

Your quote was not in quotes, which one usually does when quoting.

Furthermore, if you're quoting someone, usually it's because you want to convey the message in the quote.

You didn't point out that you're just commenting on the "nature of humans". You just spat out the quote which was inaccurate.

What because you're taking it back after the fact we should ignore you said it in the first place?

Psh.

[supersloth]

Choscura, on 29 January 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

Also, @sloth, betcha $5 I can use anarchy as a tool to get people to do the right thing when they don't have to before June this year.

i thought programmers dealt in specifics. you're gonna do this with your wife and kid? two people does not anarchy make.

[WolfCoder]

Choscura, on 29 January 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

...anarchy works pretty well sometimes...

I agree.

but

I disagree. The whole final point against anarchy in the end for me is the fact we're advanced social animals. An average human understands the benefit of numbers, so out of chaos we would form these groups. We're perfectly willing to sacrifice personal liberties in order to work together and gain more survival. Whether or not you prefer being in a small group with weapons all pointed outwards to hold what they want to keep, or to become part of an even more complicated society is irrelevant to the fact most of the human population on this planet belong to larger societies. Other animals (like ants) exhibit this parts of this behavior sometimes, and have been known to form megatropolis-sized ant colonies.

If you're willing to accept that nature settles into configurations and larger more complex emergent systems appear (which you specifically do, Choscura), then you must accept that our modern civilizations is the sort of thing humans specifically settle into naturally as complex social animals. Re-applying anarchy can help maintain a balance, but realize we only do it in small amounts. If this were not true, we would not be sitting in aforementioned large societies right now bitching on our inter-network of computers.

This post has been edited by WolfCoder: 29 January 2013 - 10:01 AM

[depricated]

No, it's still relevent, and I can't remember where it's from off the top of my head (Orwell's Animal Farm maybe?) - at any rate, I simply mean don't assume it's accurate of my view on nature. I clarified, didn't take back. I'm anthropocentric, sure, but there's no mysticism to it (where suggesting that I would believe we aren't animals ourselves would imply mysticism).

Would it make you more comfortable if I simply said that chimps and wolves don't drop atomic bombs on eachother?

[modi123_1]

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psh, it's a quote on the nature of humans, or a paraphrasing really, don't take it for more than that. Point being that anarchy fails because of human nature.

If you happen to have it on hand - where is the original text and/or author? I would like to see how mangled the paraphrasing has come.

edit: never mind - it seems you answered my question about the source.

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Would it make you more comfortable if I simply said that chimps and wolves don't drop atomic bombs on eachother?

Though this makes it interesting - why do you think the means of attack makes a different?

This post has been edited by modi123_1: 29 January 2013 - 10:05 AM

[h4nnib4l]

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Would it make you more comfortable if I simply said that chimps and wolves don't drop atomic bombs on eachother?

No, it wouldn't make me more comfortable, but it wouldn't make you right, either. You're still trying to attribute something to humans that you claim doesn't exist in the animal kingdom. How do you substantiate the claim that chimps (perpetrators of many exciting forms of atrocities against each other) wouldn't use a weapon like a nuke if they could? They'd certainly understand the implications even less than we did in the 40s.

This post has been edited by h4nnib4l: 29 January 2013 - 10:25 AM

[WolfCoder]

depricated, on 29 January 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

...Would it make you more comfortable if I simply said that chimps and wolves don't drop atomic bombs on eachother?

We've threatened to in history and will continue to threaten each other until the end of time, but there have only been two bombs specifically dropped to destroy targets, and this was to end war. It was either going to be a horrific exercise in the darkest of human nature upon two cities, or a horrific exercise in the darkest of human nature in a bloody campaign across the entire island.

[modi123_1]

Except for Virgil. He knew what was up with those damn flight simulators.


Project X

[Python_4_President]

[depricated]

modi123_1, on 29 January 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

Quote

psh, it's a quote on the nature of humans, or a paraphrasing really, don't take it for more than that. Point being that anarchy fails because of human nature.

If you happen to have it on hand - where is the original text and/or author? I would like to see how mangled the paraphrasing has come.

edit: never mind - it seems you answered my question about the source.

Quote

Would it make you more comfortable if I simply said that chimps and wolves don't drop atomic bombs on eachother?

Though this makes it interesting - why do you think the means of attack makes a different?

h4nnib4l, on 29 January 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

Quote

Would it make you more comfortable if I simply said that chimps and wolves don't drop atomic bombs on eachother?

No, it wouldn't make me more comfortable, but it wouldn't make you right, either. You're still trying to attribute something to humans that you 4claim doesn't exist in the animal kingdom. How do you substantiate the claim that chimps (perpetrators of many exciting forms of atrocities against each other) wouldn't use a weapon like a nuke if they could? They'd certainly understand the implications even less than we did in the 40s.

Going to reply to both of these together. Hope you two don't mind. And lets give my original comment its appropriate context - it was in reply to this:

Choscura, on 29 January 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

Anarchy!

Anarchy is very underrated, when you think about it. Well, OK, maybe not when people HERE think about it, but the remaining functional areas of my brain can't help but draw a comparison between the selfish disinterest for its fellows piranha have when they strip all digestible matter from any unfortunate cows they happen to encounter- by cooperating out of selfish self interest. It doesn't take a lot of brains, fortunately for me, to point out the same parallels in wolves pack-hunting, or thresher sharks corralling schools of fish cooperatively. Even pigeons will cooperate and mob a predator that gets too close. All of these examples of selfish "accidental altruism" are by relatively simple species- even wolves are only fractionally as socially complex as the dogs we might compare them to.

My point is that it is disingenuous to compare humans to a pack of pigeons or sharks, as an indicator for natural social complexity. The art of Drama is all about conflict within the social structure, we have entire paradigms of thought on the impetus of our actions. I can't speak to what dolphins think, or how aggressive another of the great apes may be able to become, but the point is that they haven't established a great library or a weapon of mass destruction. Squirrels don't get emotionally close to their enemies as a means to destroy them - hell as far as I'm aware I've never heard of chimps or wolves employing such subterfuge such either. The idea is to convey the weight of human history - the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, World War 2, Gulags, Concentration Camps, the Great Library of Alexandria, Magellan's Circumnavigation, Binary Arithmetic, the Moon Landing, the Internet - the many many wonders and atrocities that have occured as a result of human society.

I think certainly we're above chimpaneez and wolves. I saw a man fall 9-12 stories to his death inside a man-made building a couple weeks ago. Ever heard of anyone falling 10+ stories to their death in a wolf-made building? Not that they couldn't have become dominant had evolution taken a different turn, but that they didn't. We did. I never said chimps wouldn't use a nuke, I said they haven't. As it stands, their foresight does not include eradicating a potential threat on the opposite side of the globe - it involves securing land and food that the neighbor tribe has. Our scope is broader, as a civilization, and our societal development is to the point now that abandonment to anarchy would only mean assured self-destruction, as any neighboring society would be able to easily claim the territory for their own.

I think humans are awesome - and I mean that quite literally. When I think of what we represent as a species, I am filled with awe. And horror.

If this admittedly rambling response hasn't answered your questions, I'll try to give a concise answer now:

Why do I think a means of attack makes a difference? Advanced technology represents a significant difference between humanity and the lesser animals - Mutually Assured Destruction represents a point of no return for civilization. We cannot turn back to tribalism, because there are enough people out there ready to be the next Pol Pot, gleefully using that technology to establish their rule. Yes, there are tribes still, like the San, and their structure works for them - but a great state like Canada or Brazil collapsing into Anarchy would by necessity lead to another governed society. Even the San are not Anarchists (they're Communists...sort of).

The only thing I'm claiming is that we're the dominant species. We sit around and dream up more destructive ways to kill eachother. Individual humans seek distinction and glory by committing atrocities - killing 20 children while they're in school, blowing up an office building to make a statement, religion. I'm not aware of any other species known to do these things, and I think it's a result of how many of us there are and the way our societies function. Make more sense? In other words, "wolves didn't invent the a-bomb, we did." For why this is relevant, see the rest above.

There are appropriate comparisons to animal populations, such as John B. Calhoun's research on overcrowding in rat populations, or Jane Goodall's observance of Chimpanzee society, but a simple "humans are like piranhas, we have selfish altruism" is...inane. By that standard, humans are like a can of Amp - they have liquid inside them.