[Platt] Human history, especially of the twentieth century, belies the notion that hard-wired benevolence is difficult to overcome. It suggests instead that we are hard-wired for aggression, especially against those who are strangers and/or different than us. Co-operation is pretty much limited to one's own in-group. Or, as Pirsig wrote, "Cooperation without coercion is a devastating fiction."
[Krimel] Let's take this really slowly one more time. Human history, all of it, is irrelevant to this discussion. History, by definition means during the period after people started writing things down. That would be about 12,000 years ago, about the time that agriculture developed and group population sizes began to exceed what we are biologically equipped to deal with. Human experience since the invention of history has been at odds with the experience out of which we developed. But please note as I said a couple of times there is a distinction between within and between group violence. Being at odds with strangers is also a part of inherited morality. It is particularly dangerous in historic times because there are so many more strangers about. moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
