angry chimps 2 of 3

ANGRY CHIMPS 2

At first, you wouldn’t think that warfare would be all that effective of a survival trait.  At least half of all activity is given to support the military infrastructure ( I’m not speaking of the nations portion of GNP given to defense, but the fact that pre-agriculture, half the population spent their lives training and practicing hunting and warfare-meat is our species preferred food, but the bulk of the calories collected was vegetable matter done by females.  Hunting only makes sense in the division of labor if it was a precursor to military service.  And no, Politically Correct Polly, men didn’t laze around all day in luxurious dominance.  That makes no sense evolutionarily.  If all men did that, the one tribe that DIDN’T would win and that would become the new survival trait.  Just as the tribes that allowed females to become warriors would be wiped out by an all male fighter tribe.  Just as it makes sense for the tribal male members to be related-more incentive to cooperate in war-but the females to be from outside the group as stealing breeders is a better survival trait than raising them ).

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And while warfare benefits some, it always is far worse for most.  Given that the tribes up to eight thousand years ago, for a minimum of sixty thousands years of modern man which doesn’t include the million years prior to that where mankind evolved, were equalitarian, what would stop the majority who hated war from outlawing it?  Nothing, except survival.  Evolution isn’t a hard concept.  Survival promoting traits are passed on by the winners.  Oh, of course, there is more to it than that.  Sometimes you get a luck of the draw in a sudden cataclysm where the minority trait ensues survival ( which is how some think evolution is mostly structured, not by a slow process but by sudden violent lurches in other directions-like when the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs and suddenly mammals got the run of the place.  That theory might be wrong, but it is a good illustration ).  Sometimes you reinforce a positive trait one procreation at a time.  But mostly, yes, it is survival of the fittest.  Not the strongest but the most adapted to the circumstances.  And while it might suck to admit war is a survival trait, you don’t get widespread universal behavior throughout the ages if it isn’t beneficial to survival.

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While it might also seem that conservation is in the best interests of people, that never happens.  Anthropological studies everywhere prove that those mythical noble savages in tune with nature never existed outside a few White Europeans fanciful notions.  All hunter/gatherer ( along with herding and farming ) groups overexploit their environment.  There are never more than rudimentary efforts at not wasting.  Obviously this is in direct violation of common sense to ones own welfare, and that observation alone has launched tens of thousands of book printings, each author killing legions of trees to spread the word that we must save the Earth because it is in our own best interests.  Well, certainly, writing that book was in the best interest of the author, who spared no natural resource to ensure he and his family ate well.  Which is what each and every human does, today and throughout history.  Immediate survival rather than future resources.  Why?  What makes this a survival trait?  Why save the individuals over the species?  How is that a survival trait?

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Well, think about it.  If you conserve and your neighbor doesn’t bother, what is going to happen?  He runs out of food ( or wood or fertile soil or whatever ) and he comes and takes it from you.  How can he do that?  Because you were living within your means, and had no surplus.  He didn’t wait until he was hungry to attack you, but just until he knew the food was going to start running out, and he had a surplus of population and energy because he mined the principle of nature rather than the interest.  It was in each groups best interest to consume all and then take the neighbors rather than in conserving for the future ( when surplus is widespread, warfare goes from a rolling boil to a simmer.  We can’t turn off the aggression but we can mute it, mostly.  War is NOT because we are aggressive but we become aggressive when it is the best worst choice.  We are trained and bred for aggression but can also rationally control it ). 

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We become warlike because pacifism is a losing strategy, so we live like we must go to war ( and, despite the universal condemnation of Shrub for attacking a currently peaceful nation that MIGHT pose a future threat, he was just displaying his simian roots by preempting a potential future enemy.  This is a sound strategy, even if it wins you no accolades from idiots raised to believe all nurture and no nature.  It was also the strategy used by Hitler, and condemned by the US.  Of course, when we do it it is okay ).  More tomorrow.  I’ll be covering how war indirectly reduces population and how agricultural empires evolved.

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