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Utopia Talk / Politics / Stone Age big game hunters
jergul
large member
Wed Nov 25 15:31:31
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/45/eabd0310

"Early subsistence economies that emphasized big game would have encouraged participation from all able individuals. Alloparenting, which appears to have deep evolutionary roots in the human species (14), would have freed women of child care demands, allowing them to hunt. Communal hunting, which also appears to have deep evolutionary roots (15), would have encouraged contributions from females, males, and children whether in driving or dispatching large animals. Moreover, the primary hunting technology of the time—the atlatl or spear thrower—would have encouraged broad participation in big-game hunting. Pooling labor and sharing meat are necessary to mitigate risks associated with the atlatl’s low accuracy and long reloading times (16). Furthermore, peak proficiency in atlatl use can be achieved at a young age, potentially before females reach reproductive age, obviating a sex-biased technological constraint that would later intensify with bow-and-arrow technology (17). Last, the residentially mobile lifestyle entailed by big-game specialization is quite conducive to human reproduction and, thus, female hunting—contrary to previous thinking—because it reduces net movement relative to central-place foraging strategies (18). This hypothesis is consistent with high population growth rates among early hunter-gatherer populations (19)."

===============

Still incredibly ageist.

What is actually true is that the old and infirm were the primary keepers of knowledge in pre-literate societies.

The best division of labour is not between genders, it is between age groups.

The elderly are most effectively used, not only as knowledge resevoirs, but also for minding camp, children and fire.

habebe
Member
Wed Nov 25 16:47:45
http://ear...s-melted-out-of-1845756357/amp

Thought this could go in this thread.

Apparently they found a shit tonne ( as compared to a metric shit ton) of ancient hunting equipment in melted ice field.

Thank you global warming.
sam adams
Member
Wed Nov 25 22:24:37
Yes jergul, women make great drivers, decoys, and other servants of the hunt.
sam adams
Member
Wed Nov 25 22:25:24
Servants of the hunt... thats a cool name though. Would make a great scifi name.
habebe
Member
Wed Nov 25 22:39:12
Servants of the Cunt-The lesbian porn parody.
jergul
large member
Thu Nov 26 00:00:06
Sammy
What other jobs were there? Big things are inevitably killed by gravity. For the several times a year that was done.

The actual important things like honey and honeycomb filled with larvae (the sugar-fat-protein mix of that combo is unbeatable)...

Also, everyone was black at the time. Just so you know.

Habebe
That sounds more like a domatrix theme.
habebe
Member
Thu Nov 26 00:03:03
Can't it be both?

Not much more to do with the title.

Cervix of the hunt....thats sounds horrible.
Forwyn
Member
Thu Nov 26 01:01:25
"Also, everyone was black at the time."

> Peru

Lulz
jergul
large member
Thu Nov 26 03:07:37
Forwyn
Try to keep up. We are discussing early social evolution, so more than 100k years ago.
Forwyn
Member
Thu Nov 26 10:26:30
Okay Lulzgul

"Excavations at the Andean highland site of Wilamaya Patjxa reveal a 9000-year-old human burial (WMP6)"
sam adams
Member
Thu Nov 26 10:46:13
"Big things are inevitably killed by gravity."

Wrong.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Nov 26 11:04:05
Basically, in some ancient societies some women also hunted. Arguably this finding comes with a lot of fashionable hyperbole over what this means and what theories ”upsets”.
jergul
large member
Thu Nov 26 14:30:44
Forwyn
Let go of the hatred, bro. The article was a springboard for a larger discussion on ageism.

Sammy
Oh yes. Cliffs, pits, rocks and stones. That is how big things were killed in volume by humans in evolutionary times.

Nimi
In any camp that survived in an evolutionary sense, the o9lder knowledgekeepers were tasked with looking after weaned kids and camp, the adults with all other, mainly cooperative, tasks.

A simple time use analysis will tell you that is the most effective use of any small community's resource.

The divide is not between gender, it is between age groups.
patom
Member
Thu Nov 26 15:47:07
Plains Indian Tribes in N. America would drive buffalo herds off cliffs. The women were part of the hunt in that pre horse tribes would need to process the meat at the point of the kill. They didn't have horses until the last 3 or 4 hundred years.

http://www.texasindians.com/horse.htm
Forwyn
Member
Thu Nov 26 15:50:23
"Let go of the hatred, bro."

> Posts article about 9k year old tribe

"Try to keep up. We are discussing early social evolution, so more than 100k years ago."

lol
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Nov 26 16:14:44
"The divide is not between gender, it is between age groups."

This isn't a dichotomy, we divide into many groups for different task and problems.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Nov 26 16:36:47
Historically men have primarily been the ones to form small bands that go around killing stuff, perhaps rape and pillage a little bit. And I don't think you can separate the martial and warlike nature of hunting. It is an activity well suited for the way men compete for social status. The way any football team, is a team with a common objective, but everyone is also competing with each other for the fame and glory, being the top dog. I think the same applies to a hunting party.
patom
Member
Thu Nov 26 16:38:56
Forwyn, there were societies that hadn't progressed nearly as much as others. Geography and climate, along with the type of food available had a lot to do with it. Exposure to other societies or tribes with different or winning methods of survival had a lot to do with the evolution.
werewolf dictator
Member
Thu Nov 26 18:39:42
"Plains Indian Tribes in N. America would drive buffalo herds off cliffs"

plain1
a large area of flat land with few trees.
Forwyn
Member
Thu Nov 26 20:04:26
Sure. I haven't really debated anything in this thread, except this retardation:

"Also, everyone was black at the time."

This is in a thread spawned with a 9,000 year old Peruvian burial site.

When pressed on this, jergul pretended it was a discussion about 100k year old "societies" (aka nomadic extended familial units) the entire time.

Lulz
jergul
large member
Fri Nov 27 01:04:49
Forwyn
You fucking relate everything to the wet dreams you imagine the founding fathers had about the intent of the constitution, so take your fucking lulz and shove it up your ass.

The point with the thread is to discuss ageism as explanation to the missing understanding from human evolutionary history.

The division of labour is age based, not gender based.

I was clear on that in the initial post.

We have to use 9000 year old studies because its fucking hard to get robust data on tribal camps 150 000 years ago.
jergul
large member
Fri Nov 27 01:12:09
Habebe

"“scaring sticks” used to drive reindeer into locations more opportune for hunters" to drop rocks on them or stab them with stick after they entered abbatoir style slaughtering lanes created by stone walls and pits.

Fixed.

That is how larger game was killed. Channel them somewhere then kill them enmass using gravity for the most part.
jergul
large member
Fri Nov 27 01:13:45
Stone or flint anything is for special occassion use for animals not herdable to their deaths.

Time use analysis. It takes forever to make stuff, so you cant waste stuff.
Habebe
Member
Fri Nov 27 01:47:06
Jergul, Uhm, I think that was meant for someone else.
jergul
large member
Fri Nov 27 03:24:39
Nah, meant for you. I checked the article you linked to.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Nov 27 03:54:23
I think what Jergul is saying pretty clear. He made an argument regarding the division of labor, that for tens of thousands of years of our prehistoric evolution we did this and that and one piece of evidence is this study based on a tribe from 9000 years ago.

As the study argues that when our prehistoric ancestors were using tools like this spear contraption, that did not require the upper body strength that a bow requires, it didn't discriminate the sex with weaker upper body strength.

I would just add that this spear throwing thingy majiggy was itself an innovation at some point, prior to that you had to throw the spears with shear upper body strength or spike whatever you are hunting (getting into melee range). Hunting is violence and I think there is no discussion over which sex excels at externalizing violence.

I think it is reasonable that in ancient societies, just like we see today, there were women who also enjoy violence and "team sports". There are just fewer of them and these women you will find, are very often lesbian. i.e there is a fundamentally atypical behavior going on.

God bless them too.
habebe
Member
Fri Nov 27 03:58:49
Jergul, Oh, ok. I only skimmed it, seen Norway and yada yada.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Nov 27 04:10:07
"Time use analysis"

Maybe this is true, I don't think prehistoric people were well versed in resource management concepts, but I know hunting still carries risk of death or injury. You know the equation for human procreation, generally you don't put the only people who can make more people in harms way. In addition to that, humans are known to create elaborate and resource consuming social systems that serve other purposes or come to serve their own purpose and certainly produce effects beyond the core mission. Then it becomes tradition and perhaps even religious. My point is, I think more goes into the making of tribe and society than the optimal use of labor.

Even if at some point more women engaged in hunting, that point in history isn't the totality of our social and biological evolution. Then perhaps this division was reinforced over time for the reason I have previously mentioned and also because new better technology came and natural competition rewarded individuals with stronger upper bodies and better spatial and hand-eye coordination.
jergul
large member
Fri Nov 27 07:55:19
Small camps of perhaps a few dozen individual were the primary societal building blocks for most of human existence. These blocks died at almost exactly the pace they succeeded and split off a new group.

Evolutionary pressure at that level dictated optimization.

The elaborate specialization you are looking for are the keepers of knowledge caring for kids, fire and camp. Grandparental doting we know today became hardwired.

Bees killed more of these early humans than bears did. But for dangerous activities, there is strength in numbers, not only decreasing risk to each individual, but also lowering the total risk for a group as a whole.

The value of redundancy cannot be overstated for these small groups. Neither can the value of providing well rounded, valuable youngsters to exchange with neigbouring camps (prehistoric humanity was not alabama after all). Among the advantages of prowness regardless of gender, is to assure that a larger portion of a neighbours fight capable individuals would not be inclined to fight with you due to family ties.

These things matter given the high rate of camp extinction. The margins count, for only camps that can play them survived over the long term.

Child bearing capacity is not the factor that limited camp population growth. That capacity is exponention while other factors are geometric at best (yay Malthus).
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Nov 27 13:49:36
>>Evolutionary pressure at that level dictated optimization.<<

Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Nov 27 14:54:29
"Evolutionary pressure at that level dictated optimization."

I said, there is more to the make up a tribe, than the optimal use of labor. And optimization in this sense is survival, crazy elaborate social systems emerged robbing resources and trampling the concept of optimal division of labor, because they provided evolutionary benefits in other ways. Religion is a prime example of that. Though I think hunting ultimately has more to do with physics, we can see the social aspects of hunting in contemporary tribes and historically as well. An instance where culture reinforces nature.

"The elaborate specialization you are looking for are the keepers of knowledge caring for kids, fire and camp."

And there was male and female specializations, rituals, wisdome passed down male lineages and wisdome passed down female lineanges. I don't agree that age was the only division, it was one division. Division within division.

"Bees killed more of these early humans than bears did."

I have no date on prehistoric bee vs bear deaths, but did bees kill more than all the aprey and predators we dealt with? I find that hard to believe. Bee are harmless for people who are not allergic, while everyone is allergic to bears.

"there is strength in numbers, not only decreasing risk to each individual"

Absolutely, but lions still get kicked in the face by giraffs. It is still a physical activity with risks that rewards and punishes. There is not a single physical activity where women outperform men, not even long distance running. Men have denser bone and are more resilient towards physical stress and injury etc.

We could also look to the hunting behavior our closest cousins for clues, as we are talking about our prehistoric evolution. Females participate at a lower rate and engage more in low cost prey. The article argues it is due to risk aversion. That also makes sense, human females are more risk averse than males.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5570454/

"Child bearing capacity is not the factor that limited camp population growth."

Most people this era are dying due to disease as children, that means women are spending more time pregnant just due to the fact that you need to have more kids in order for some to survive. I have no doubt it limited growth and female movement. There were very few humans during this time with an abundance of land and food resources. You mostly had to compete with the other predators, which were hunted as well.

I think most evidence suggest this division of labor happened quite a long time ago. Inherently it may be caused by female risk aversion and go back to the common ancestor we share with chimps. Obviously in humans is also grew to be of social importance among men and it integrated with other forms of violence that men engage in.
sam adams
Member
Fri Nov 27 15:04:57
"Oh yes. Cliffs, pits, rocks and stones. That is how big things were killed in volume by humans in evolutionary times."

These were certainly used at times.

But so were spears, especially thrown spears.

Thus your use of "inevitably killed by gravity" is entirely wrong.
jergul
large member
Fri Nov 27 17:24:39
Sammy
Toss a spear in space. Will it kill? Nope. Inevitably killed by gravity. Hence the strength of my wording.

Nimi
I am sure humans tried all kinds of models. The camps that did not optimize died out over time.

Camps of a a few dozen people do not warrant the term tribe. Speialization of knowledge means lack of redundancy which eventually means a dead camp.

Hunting low cost prey = 95% of hunting activity. Its why we make such a spectacle of big game kills even today. We are not really evolutionarily primed to do that, so it seems remarkable.

Bees become quite irate when you steal honey. The honey-grub energy mix is likely as important for human development as fire.

Child mortality to disease was most definately lower in camp based existence. Covid-19 of that era emerging from animal contact would perhaps infect a camp or maybe two before dying out. The desire to avoid continual pregnancies also became hardwired.

The picture of continual competition is not true. What kills of camps and prides are disasterous events, not the run of mill life. We also know that we fend off predators mainly by being noisy and yelling at them.

My point is not that humans never tried your ideas. Its that the camps that did, died.
jergul
large member
Fri Nov 27 17:28:29
Our direct hunting competitors were other animals that can access bone marrow from large bones. The others always left something energy dense for us to salvage.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Nov 28 10:15:42
”I am sure humans tried all kinds of models.”

Not sure what to make of this, considering the model that survived is that most hunting is done by men.

”Hunting low cost prey = 95% of hunting activity”

I have no data on this, but a chimp female would destroy a human male. Low cost hunting for humans is trapping.

”Its why we make such a spectacle of big game kills even today”

This is in support of what I have argued about the social aspect of hunting where men band together in coalitions and how that integrates with war and other forms of violence. i.e a social system built on top of the natural proclivities and physical attributes of men.

>>Bees become quite irate when you steal honey. The honey-grub energy mix is likely as important for human development as fire.<<

And yet we steal their honey ALL the time, tribes have symbiotic relationship with birds and badgers for this purpose, I am sure you have seen natural documentaries where the men of the tribe climb rocks and tree to steal honey. There is no time and place where bee posed a threat to us, the way predators. We domesticated the bees.

>>Child mortality to disease was most definately lower in camp based existence.<<

All the evidence I have read contradicts this claim. Citation?

>>The desire to avoid continual pregnancies also became hardwired.<<

I didn’t say continual, let’s say you needed 5 births for 3 to survive, today you need 2.2 births for 2 to survive.

>>The picture of continual competition is not true. What kills of camps and prides are disasterous events<<

Not sure what you mean, individual bags of genes die and don’t pass on their genes. That is a potential disaster for that lineage.

>>My point is not that humans never tried your ideas. Its that the camps that did, died.<<

Which ideas? That most hunter today and historically were men? That hunting parties served and do serve as ritual and rite of passage for men, that it is a way for men to gain social status? That we engage in elaborate schemes that doesn’t hold the optimal division of labor as primary importance? All of these things are documented.

The societies that had significant number of women on hunts, clearly did not survive. So I am preplexed as to what you mean, ”my ideas” didn’t survive. That is what I am saying, when I say ” Even if at some point more women engaged in hunting” I am accepting your central claim based on this one study and explaining how we still ended up in a world where virtually all hunting is done by men.

These are not my ideas btw, but the central hypothesis ”man the hunter” that the study you posted is claiming to upset.
jergul
large member
Sat Nov 28 11:14:50
Nimi
Brute force came into its own as soon with bronze. Finally - huge logs could be moved about and used to move huge rocks.

The period I am looking at coverse most of human existence. Small, camp based societies of a dozen or so individuals.

Humans just make noises and wave sticks. Other animals run away. So, no, a female chimp would not destroy a human male. It would dash up into the trees.

We had not domesticated bees for most of human existance. And the fuckers do sting if you have yet to figure out how to render them docile with fire.

No citation, just common knowledge on how infections diseases do not flourish in small, isolated communities. The diseases would burn themselves out before spreading.

I meant that camps do ok under normal circumstances, but perish due to disasterous events. Same as for prides of lions.

The margins for survival were very small. For each camp that spun off a new camp, another camp perished.

Things changed once there was a point to brute strength due to the emergence of bone crushing drugery (woe the day the first human felled a large tree using flint enforced tools). Man the lifter and mover of things too heavy for him to move without damaging himself over time.

Funny how that role is never celebrated. Though its what most men ended up spending most of their time doing.

The great divide for most of human existence was not between genders, it was between age groups.
TJ
Member
Sat Nov 28 11:23:13
"render them docile with fire"

Smoke not fire. You will kill them with fire. :)
sam adams
Member
Mon Nov 30 11:18:55
"Toss a spear in space. Will it kill? Nope. Inevitably killed by gravity."

Oh wow. Jergul physics.

Sadly shakes head.
jergul
large member
Mon Nov 30 11:35:53
Sammy
You are arguing spears would kill without gravity?

Oh wow. Sammy physics.

Sadly shakes head.
Forwyn
Member
Mon Nov 30 13:05:57
There are multiple ways to conceive of a spear delivering killing blows in a zero G environment.
sam adams
Member
Mon Nov 30 14:18:48
"You are arguing spears would kill without gravity?"

Bwahahahahahahahaha.

Please tell me how a spears momentum has anything to do with "gravity".

This is going to funny.
jergul
large member
Mon Nov 30 15:21:32
Never mind :D. I will conceed your initial point on hyperbole.

The point still stands.

Pits, cliffs and herding fences combined with waving sticks and shouting killed "Oh yes. Cliffs, pits, rocks and stones. That is how big things were killed in volume by humans in evolutionary times."

obaminated
Member
Mon Nov 30 17:18:51
the common misconception is that men have historically ruled and women were subservient. this is not true. there is a reason why the narrative trope that women are more cunning than men exists. men have always bent to accommodate their wives. it isn't anything new.

this is more a response to nim earlier in this thread.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Tue Dec 01 07:32:04
>>Brute force came into its own as soon with bronze. Finally - huge logs could be moved about and used to move huge rocks.<<

We were plenty of violent, chimps are violent, violence is a part of the natural state whether it is with in the specie or across species. I just hope no one here is trying to draw moral inference from the natural state or what can be proven with prehistoric archeology.
>>The period I am looking at coverse most of human existence. Small, camp based societies of a dozen or so individuals.<<
I am not at all convinced looking at the evidence and the diversity of environments that humans inhabit that this was the case everywhere. But even so and I repeat, the period you are looking at is not the totality of our evolution. Clearly, things diverged from the state that this study is arguing, I have just tried to explain why. Rather I have conveyed what the hypothesis it argues it “up-ends” is saying. And the hypothesis does _not_ argue that women never hunted, but that men with few exception hunted and that this was not primarily for subsistence. We have modern day examples of female hunter-gatherer hunters, who indeed engage in low cost prey, while men did the risky business. Primarily as a way to gain favors and build coalitions, a social game. This activity integrates then perfectly with war and systematic violence towards others.
>>So, no, a female chimp would not destroy a human male. It would dash up into the trees.<<
It is a reference to the physical ability of chimps vs humans, why a chimp female would do things (bare handed hunting) that a human male cannot, not a human vs chimp battle royale.

>>We had not domesticated bees for most of human existence.<<
Not what I was arguing, but that this was the ultimate “fate” of bees, meanwhile bears are still dangerous to everyone with the misfortune of stumbling across one. Bees have never been a danger to humans. Predators pose strong selection pressures on their ecology, bees don’t.
This is plenty documented:
https://slate.com/technology/2012/10/evolution-of-anxiety-humans-were-prey-for-predators-such-as-hyenas-snakes-sharks-kangaroos.html
“Of the 120 men whose stories were considered for the study, six had been killed by a python. That’s a death-by-python rate of 1 in 20.”

>>And the fuckers do sting if you have yet to figure out how to render them docile with fire.<<

Precisely and humans have been using fire systematically, for well over 100 000 years, and evidence of usage in other hominids stretching millions of years. Yet still only a fraction of people are allergic to bees that it poses an existential threat to them. Bees were thus not a stronge selection pressure, their cute little warning colors did not work on humans as soon as we discovered smoke rendered them completely harmless.

>>No citation, just common knowledge on how infections diseases do not flourish in small, isolated communities. The diseases would burn themselves out before spreading.<<

Ah, I see. Well the evidence indicates this is wrong. You are focusing on acute infectious disease that indeed only became a problem in larger settlements. However the reality of our existence in Africa is a never ending flora of disease and parasites. Malaria for instance, theorized to have killed more people than anything else. This is just flat out wrong, the primary ways people died was (in no order) predation, accidents, disease, famine. Children have very weak immune systems. Consider that a broken bone or a cut could be lethal in a world without penicillin. Dear god, the birth itself is a high risk situation for the mother and the baby. I don’t want to get stuck “disease”, since my original argument was that a lot more children were dying (especially from disease) so that meant women were spending more time pregnant and giving more births.

This parental investment provides a natural foundation for a division of labor and this is observed in other species as well.

>>I meant that camps<<

You keep saying camps, but the jury is still out on group selection. Camps do not have to be wiped out for natural and sexual selection to work.

Anyway, as interesting as these tangents are, I can’t really engage with them without any facts or data, despite the common sense of present company ;)

You presented a study, I assumed the premise and simply explained how and why we ended up in a world where men do (and have done) the vast majority of hunting. Hunting as defined by you and the study as the “big game hunting”, not the low cost “hunting” of animals that pose no real threat to the hunters. It probably comes down to risk aversion and parental investment to a great degree, and that we on top of that hardware built social software that cemented the roles and likely acted as selection of themselves as our societies evolved from small camps to bigger settlements. I don’t believe culture rises arbitrarily, there is almost always hardware underneath the fuels the social system on top.

>>The great divide for most of human existence was not between genders, it was between age groups.<<

You have now modified this to “the great divide”, I disagree with this characterization, that there is “a great divide”. We divide and coalesce into many different groups. There is an age divide, there a sexual divide, there is a political divide, there is a divide in proclivities and abilities etc., and all these things criss-cross and intersect in multiple places. This is a false dichotomy of divides. Something can also be said about why we divided in the world place, you mentioned survival earlier, that is why we divided labor. Pregnancy and birth was a very important labor (no pun intended) for our survival.

I think I know what is going on. You are drawing moral inference from prehistoric data to say “look men and women are not so different because women also hunted”. I don’t believe the evidence is saying anything of that sort, but more importantly we don’t need archaeological evidence to realize that men and women of any age should be able to do whatever they want.

13% of modern-day Swedish hunters are women, in the US the same figure is 10%. Even if zero prehistoric hunters were women, that fact would have no bearing on how we should organize our society today. I know we both agree on that.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Tue Dec 01 07:37:54
Obaminated
"the common misconception is that men have historically ruled and women were subservient."

Not sure anyone has argued that, let alone me. I was very specific in saying that men were the main externalizers of violence. I think women are just as savage, but that men were the one's expected to preform it. Violence is ultimately about resource management, whether that be food, status, money or whatever have you. Women like money, food and status just as much as men.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Tue Dec 01 07:40:44
I see that word really fucked up the layout of my wall of text...
jergul
large member
Tue Dec 01 07:56:39
Nimi
Humans are remarkably non-violent within species. I am not sure how the term applies outside of species.

I am arguing that the divide goes between age groups, not gender.

A natural multi generational structure would see the oldest generation caring for the youngest one.

Camps being wiped out end other forms of selection for those camps. The camps died at almost exactly the same speed they split off for a stable population.

I disagree on the using the term "hunter". It implies specialisation that is incompatible with camp survival over the medium term.

Everyone as you say could do what ever they wanted.
jergul
large member
Tue Dec 01 08:03:04
My moral thing here is how people completely misunderstand human nature when you view it in evolutonary terms.

We are highly cooperative, deeply social omnivores that might perhaps predate opportunistically, but were generally just scavengers and gatherers.

We had our place in any ecosystem. Cracking bones very few other animals could. Spreading seeds coincidentally and with purpose. But mostly just preferring to hang out at the beach at places were rivers and streams met the sea.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Tue Dec 01 08:06:08
>>Everyone as you say could do what ever they wanted.<<

While I don't think you have adressed any of my points or presented any data, I think this is a good ending note.
jergul
large member
Tue Dec 01 10:03:12
Fair enough. Though these discussions return. What does it mean to be human is rather an eternal question.

I find the "designed by evolution to chill on the beach" to be as compelling a theory as any.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Tue Dec 01 10:59:53
http://www...Paleolithic%20human%20remains.

"While only about 0.3 percent of all mammals die in conflict with members of their own species, that rate is sixfold higher, or about 2 percent, for primates. Early humans likewise should have about a 2 percent rate—and that lines up with evidence of violence in Paleolithic human remains.

The medieval period was a particular killer, with human-on-human violence responsible for 12 percent of recorded deaths. But for the last century, we’ve been relatively peaceable, killing one another off at a rate of just 1.33 percent worldwide. And in the least violent parts of the world today, we enjoy homicide rates as low as 0.01 percent."

We are actually remarkably violent compared to other animals, but we have grown to become the most civilized apes. Though as history shows, it was a rough ride until things got better. That isn't biology, that's culture. Just to give culture its' due here. In this sense culture > nature every day of the week, but there is no culture without nature. And I don't mean that in a facile way, but very specific. Us apes are the most savage among the mammals. Because of our ability to build advanced social systems and abstract ideas like "sectarian genocide" and "conscription", we have a higher potential for violence. That is an issue in this discourse I believe, there is no real concept of "potential violence" in the way we have for potential energy in physics.

I don't believe that you believe we evolved to do one thing or fulfill one purpose. We can cooperate to do great things or cooperate to massacre each other and the rest of the planet. I am, like yourself, concerned when people misunderstand human nature.
jergul
large member
Tue Dec 01 13:56:10
Nimi
Hehe, I am sure you can see what is wrong with that statistic. But I will type it out anyway.

Very few human interactions turn violent. The number you are citing indicates close proximity over long periods of time.

By that metric: The death by kind per hour of interaction would be far lower than for most any other species. Humans just live for a while and spend a lot of that living time together.

I actually meant that very few interactions ever turn violent. You are citing a number that suggests that on average, one human of 50 would kill another human.

I stand by my remarkably non-violent statement.

Evolution has no purpose. It simply demonstrates what works. I am suggesting physical and mental well being works pretty damned well.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Wed Dec 02 03:29:38
Jergul
” Very few human interactions turn violent. The number you are citing indicates close proximity over long periods of time.”

I am reading your statement relative to other species, in the context of evolution the only way it makes sense. Compared with other mammals apes are very violent. And among the apes humans have the highest potential for violence. The article mentions that paleolithic evidence support this, the period we have been discussing. Couldn’t be more to the point.

Proximity isn’t a good explanation at all, since clearly even in close proximity we have the potential to be among the most peaceful animals. Some places and some cultures are currently considerably less violent than the average human/ape/mammal.

>>Evolution has no purpose.<<

I think you understood what I meant when I said ”not designed for one purpose” in response to your ”designed by evolution to chill on the beach”. It also is confusing that you say this and then in the next sentence explain the purpose of evolution to be ”demonstrate what works”. This would be a purpose, the way we are using language.

I don’t disagree that it ”works well”, it does, until it doesn’t and we are killing each other en masse.
TJ
Member
Wed Dec 02 08:54:46
Nim:

I was going to post about the contradictory sentences, but figured you would catch and respond and you did. Cheers! The ability to Learn is the most important toward progress.
jergul
large member
Wed Dec 02 09:18:22
Nimi
Other mammals do not have "the long periods of time" due to much shorter lifespans. A bear would be far more likely to kill another bear in any intraspecies interaction it had than a human would.

The chance of a human killing another human in any interaction is negligible. Almost all of us go through life never doing that and that is always how it has been.

You need very specialized indoctrination to get humans to kill other humans in any reliable fashion.

We are simply not inherently violent in any life threatening way.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Wed Dec 02 10:39:08
>>Other mammals do not have "the long periods of time" due to much shorter lifespans<<

It doesn't matter here. Animals are dying from a variety of causes. Regardless of lifespan, some percent are dying at the "hands" of other members of their specie and apes are the worst.
>>A bear would be far more likely to kill another bear in any intraspecies interaction it had than a human would.<<

You have other numbers? What you are saying isn't at all reflected in the intra-specie deaths of other apes. They are not the mammals with the longest lifespan. So clearly, other factors besides proximity and lifespan are at play with potentially better explanatory power.

*The average lifespan of a chimpanzee in the wild is relatively short, usually less than 15 years*

*lifespan of brown bears of both sexes within minimally hunted populations is estimated at an average of 25 years*

source wiki

>>You need very specialized indoctrination to get humans to kill other humans in any reliable fashion.<<

I already gave culture its' dues, but the phenomena of violence runs deeper. That is, even without indoctrination apes are dying at the hands of other apes, but to get the really nasty stuff you need culture.

So what exactly do you think is being indoctrinated if there is nothing inherent in your brain to make sense of and execute the doctrine and be convinced by the propaganda? Almost every conflict is about resources and/or base emotions like fear, anger and jealousy. At about age 3 my son started getting upset that I was eating his cookies, prior to that nothing. I didn't teach him that, me and my wife don't fight over scraps. He just slowly realized "mine" and that resources are finite. With time he will be socialized to act like a grow up.

>>We are simply not inherently violent in any life threatening way.<<

This is an empirical claim. I could give you the twin studies from the Swedish registries that indicate there is as genetic component to violent crime, or any of subsequent studies.

It is a very nice narrative I give you that, but not a single aspect of it is actually supported by any evidence.
jergul
large member
Wed Dec 02 11:55:41
Nimi
What percentage of human interactions result in human fatalities would you estimate?

The problem with getting humans to kill humans was firmly established by a ww2 study. Contemporary military indoctrination seeks to resolve those issues.

We are all very unlikely to kill another human being. We have always been very unlikely to kill another human being.

Male bears habitually kill and eat cubs. I mentioned bears as an example of a species that does not interact much, not as an example of a mammal that had a short life expectancy.

Early human life expectancy is far, far longer than what is average for mammals.

The narrative makes more sense once we wrap our minds around the fact that humans almost never kill humans.
obaminated
Member
Wed Dec 02 14:28:19
sorry nim, i wasnt trying to accuse you of anything. i just feel like it should be pointed out often that the feminist mythology about men ruling over women is simply untrue. i mean, for fucks sake, men are the ones who fight and die in wars and are considered cowards if they avoid fights.

i have no horse in this argument, i just have to do a lot of sexual harassment training right now and it is getting on my nerves. and before hood jumps in and accuses me of some shit. it is HR. everyone has to do it. everyone hates it. im one of the last people to do it though. literally waited as long as possible to do it.
jergul
large member
Wed Dec 02 17:35:22
Obam
I blame the misconceptions on how history is recorded. Consider.

Jack - Chilled on the beach. Had children. Died happy.

John - Murdered a king. Died horribly.

Who is recorded in the history books?

Most of us have always been Jacks.
jergul
large member
Wed Dec 02 17:41:29
Speaking of wars. I doubt the grand total for Norwegians killed by combat activity since 1812 is greater than 25 000.
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