If one frames organized violence as a means rather than an ends, then it is possible to see an answer other than the survival strategy of “be the best at organized violence.”
Now, all this would be just the normal human history (and as per the article, pre-history). What changes the dynamic is the advancement of science and technology. If we assume that it is accruing monotonically (which has been the case for several centuries), then if the same social dynamic or emergent organized violence continues, at as some point even a small group that drifts into a state of feeling aggrieved could prompt vast destruction.
This isn't surprising at all given that "absolute monarchy" was more of a marketing term than a description of reality.
England, which rather decisively cut off their monarchs' pretensions at absolute power, was far more centralized than whatever the fuck the different parlements (sp?) of France or the Spanish cortez were doing during the absolutist age.
Or are you proposing a genetic breeding/selection program to weed out such tendencies? A "final solution" to violence, perhaps?
Murdering Cluster B people might be a little extreme, and most non-Cluster B people will feel uncomfortable with that idea.
But most violence is demonstrably driven by certain personality types who lead the violence and normalise it.
Excluding those types from leadership positions of all kinds as soon as they show evidence of toxicity is unlikely to make things worse.
The alternative is on a scale from small cults to megadeaths. (Perhaps gigadeaths on a bad day.)
And we already exclude most of the population from leadership and power anyway, using other reasons as an excuse.
I’m guessing whatever criteria that was decided for filtering would conveniently exclude the one making it?
It also seems likely to be problematic human survival wise, as it’s not like those traits evolved in a vacuum.
At all times look for the motivators of behavior (such as "slaughtering people") and address them proactively.
And at least right now, wouldn’t that require massive, global, overwhelming force?
No matter how objectively correct or convincing, I could see no way China or Russia would take any such proposal seriously, let alone a large chunk of the rest of the world?
For example, it wouldn’t have mattered one bit how peaceful Ukraine was when Russia started on its rampage.
Near as I can tell, the only reason Ukraine still exists is because Western Europe and the US had massive stockpiles of weapons they gave, Ukraine had enough angry (and murderous) Ukrainians, and Ukraine and the US had been preparing to murder a bunch of Russians for years after the last move Russia made before Russia made it’s move this time.
And even then it is no small, certain, or cheap endeavor. Horrible destruction has been wrought.
But compared to it’s women and children taken (and ‘married off’/‘adopted’ within Russia) and the men slaughtered, conscripted, or imprisoned, and everything that made them, them destroyed, it’s still the better outcome no?
And that is exactly what would have happened, and has been happening in the area they did take.
Which is pretty normal for these kinds of things. NOT having it happen is definitely the notable exception.
So seems to me, these traits, while irritating/disruptive in peacetime, are essential at some level during times of conflict. And conflict inevitably comes, always. Just as death is a part of life.
Megapolis implies society, structure and rules. Also machinery to enforce these rules.
Not an example demonstrating that violent individuals are an aberration.
The group of people trying to head-butt the chicken to death are playing a sport. Often enough to at some time add trumpets to it.
* head-butt the chicken please re-read the quote, it doesn't mention chickens.
* When the entertainment committee invests in quartering of a human being, it reflects the norms and attitudes of the general population.
If you are interested in the topic, "THE WANING OF THE MIDDLE AGES" is open source and text is available here https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Waning_of_the_Middle_Ages
Chimp Empire is worth watching in this context.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/
It does seem to me that most political arguments fall into this category
My take is that this is a natural consequence of competition for resources. The more individuals or groups are organised, the more violence becomes organised as a logical consequence.
We have evolved as social animals members of tight groups and this seems to be quite old looking at chimpanzees and gorillas, for example. So this 'tribal' streak is probably embedded in us to this day.
More often than not, and very broadly speaking, the fight is over mindshare: tribal beliefs and allegiances. Differences of religion, politics, nationality or ethnicity are nearly always perceived to be far greater than they actually are.
The machine's weapons of choice are algorithms, code, simulations, viruses. No physical violence. But still very high stakes, like mind wipes.
As individuals we want acceptance, respect and love. It's abnormal for someone to randomly, attack others when they are alone and already vulnerable feeling. Normal people crave community and do not attempt acts that result in their ridicule and/or rejection. Only outliers like psychopaths continuously break societal norms.
As groups we form bonds and have our place/role. Protecting what we have and those we love seems natural as does protecting the society, world view, or leader(s) our group supports.
Therefore, I would expect individual violence to be much less than group violence in intensity, duration and occurrence.
to me this analysis is not starting off in the right direction. We're talking about Neolithic people here so it's appropriate to use more straight up evolutionary law of the jungle thinking. Sudden violence is in us from the get go. Look at so many other mammals, they use violence with each other to sort things out at the drop of a hat. Look at how we portray cowboys, and indians (or fasts, and furiouses?). I'm not even saying that the picture is accurate to history, I'm saying the picture is accurate to how we think, viscerally, and such films excite us, not because of memories because we were there, we weren't. Just because it's how we think.
So I'd start out the analysis with, we are animals at the base of our brain, or is it at the base of our evolution, but animals don't kill each other that often. On top of that we are extremely social animals, you can walk down the street surrounded by strangers and not hit them. But also on top of that we are thinking, calculating, theory of mind: this person has been irking me for awhile now, if I secretly kill them, my problems will be solved.
Now we seen some papers recently here that said it's not appropriate to think we have 3 brains in 3 layers, wrestling with each other, because they're more intertwingled than that. So this kind of noodling only takes us so far.
I don't think our violence is aberrant at all, but we did "invent" being extremely social, and then etiquette, and then even the term aberrance to talk about some behaviors which are unusual within that framework. Rabies might be aberrant behavior in dogs, and anxiety conditions, but otherwise they're pretty basic. And anxiety is so prevalent we have to assume it's adaptive anyway.
Starting with Freud, an aspect of psychology that is not as widely understood as it should be is the notion of unconscious thought, and unconscious motivation. (The term subconscious is associated with a more woo-woo theory of Jung's, that we share subconsious awareness with other people, is why unconscious is the usual term.) It's very difficult for people to grasp that they don't actually know what they are thinking, but it does leak out. If you are talking to somebody and say "I'm not saying that you're X, I'm saying that you are Y", you are definitely thinking that they are X, or at least a substantial part of you is. That's where you got the idea from. It can be broken down plainly in computer programmer terms. While the brain isn't "just like a computer", in order for you to compare X and Y you have to use the subroutine or the struct or the class for X and the one for Y, they are separated at some place in your mind. You can't say X without the X part of the brain lighting up. What makes you say "I'm not calling you X" is another part of your brain lighting up to say "this is an unpleasant thought, better not be accused of saying it, that will be socially awkward"
So, imho we don't get anywhere by imagining we are a "good people" walking around who sometimes aberr; we are complicated collections of competing ideas, some of which are nasty.
>>But give a group of individuals the slightest pretense in the form of some arbitrary cultural narrative ...
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."
— Voltaire c.1765
Chimpanzees wage wars and go on raids.
Random individual violence does not seem to be innate except as an aberration. You can walk in any tightly-packed megapolis of millions (an environment that was presumably never encoded / selected-for in our DNA) and not really worry that one of the thousands individuals you come across will simply go berserk for the fun (or benefit) of it. "Rage" of various forms happens, but typically under intense stress conditions.
But give a group of individuals the slightest pretense in the form of some arbitrary cultural narrative and they will engage in acts of incredible cruelty and dehumanization of random "other" groups. Competition for actual resources seems just a fig leaf. Clan dominance in some imagined anthroposphere is typically the real driver. Think e.g., two football fan clubs attacking each other in ritualistic or actual murder.
This behavior is so pervasive in history (and pre-history) that it is almost certainly based on genetic traits. But maybe what was once a "positive" feature is now a millstone around our neck. In a crowded planet with ever advancing technological capabilities large-scale violence based on arbitrary cultural concoctions is simply not a scenario we want to have in front of us. Feels like maybe the most critical aspect of our own species we need to understand and somehow "manage" - assuming its at all possible. Do we have a survival strategy?