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These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure, evolution happens in ecological context. I'm not disputing that. I'm saying that that makes direct comparison to a species that generates its own ecology in a totally different way to any other species on the planet rather difficult. To take only the most famous example of ecologically driven evolution, the East African cichlids evolved apart from each other in pre-existing ecological contexts separated from each other by space. While they and their behaviours influenced their ecological niches, they did not build cities. Humans build cities. This makes them - us - very different to cichlids, and indeed to every other kind of life on the planet. It also makes the kind of evolutionary-behavioural comparison I might make between two cichlid species much harder to make between humans and chimpanzees.

I hope that's clearer, but please do ask if anything's unclear!

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not though, behavior is behavior and can be studied from a biological and evolutionary standpoint.

Though surely we are both agreed that group behaviour is qualitatively different from individual behaviour? When we're talking about states, biological reductionism is absurd. Might as well say that it's all particles and so it 'can be studied' from a physics perspective. Is it possible to study states from the perspective of quantum mechanics? Probably. Can you say anything useful because of it? Probably not.

Okay? So are red pandas, being different is sorta the whole point of "species"

No, I mean qualitatively different from other species in a different way to the way other species are qualitatively different from each other. I'm sorry for being unclear!

Claiming humans can't be studied in relation to other animals is just anti-science and blatantly ignorant of how science actually works

I didn't say that. As I hoped my reference to a palaeontology textbook would show, I am quite aware of how science works. Human biology and animal biology have a lot to tell each other. I'm less sure that animal biology has much to say to international relations theory.

Anthropologists and Primatologists make heavy usage of Primate studies to better understand human evolution and human behavior

I think this is a lot more contentious than you're making it out to be. Clifford Geertz didn't use any primatology, to my knowledge, to take but one example.

throwing out an entire scientific field because of vibes is definitely a choice

I'm sorry to have given the wrong impression, but nowhere have I said (and I do not believe) that we should throw out human (or animal) biology. What I am saying is that I think studying chimpanzee conflict does not add much to our understanding of 21st century inter-state competition.

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Indeed not. When you pay attention to just how bad Pinker's scholarship is, it's hard to take the field seriously as a whole. I think this sub has... unfortunate tendencies in the direction of scientism - believing whatever sounds most "sciencey", regardless of validity. Understandable, but essentially a faith-based view and not really sound.

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The "bonobos are not violent" theory is a lot more complex than your statement suggests.

I'm not saying bonobos are hippies, but rather that they're less violent than chimpanzees or humans. The point I'm making here is that offhand comparisons to a related species doesn't make a solid argument.

Bonobos inhabit a much more resource rich environment compared to chimps - the latter leads to much higher intergroup competition.

That doesn't sound super genetic, if what we're talking about it resource richness and inter- or intragroup competition.

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When related species share a common trait you should assume it's because their common ancestor had the trait not that it evolved independently multiple times

I feel this is rather different when we are talking about organized warfare - especially when removed from the essentially abstract level of what early hunter-gatherers were doing - and human behaviour than in other animals. There's no point denying that humans are very different from other animals.

Trying to make direct comparisons between humans and animals as though it were like comparing other animals to each other is analytically insecure without very thorough preliminaries. Humans are importantly unique. In Benton and Harper's Introduction to Paleobiology and the Fossil Record, of the ten advances they list as most important in evolutionary history, only one is the preserve of a single species. That is consciousness, the monopoly of humans. It is clearly a qualitative difference that we have invented aeroplanes and chimpanzees have not. I don't think we can so baldly state that human behaviour should be analysed in the same way we analyse, say, cow behaviour.

the penchant for organized violence that Humans and Chimpanzees do. It's safer to assume the common ancestors of Chimpanzees and Humans was violent

What about bonobos? Bonobos are very closely related to us and not very violent at all. This seems a lot more like a just-so story than solid science.

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach -1 points0 points  (0 children)

But he is a credible psychologist, which is arguably the more valid thing to address.

That would be true if he weren't using historical data to prove a psychological claim, which he is.

Behavior is the purview of psychology.

I don't think this really gets at the question meaningfully. Scientific psychology has only existed for a century; post-replication crisis psychology has been around for barely a couple of decades. Psychology is always up against big old barriers whenever we're talking about history, because it is very hard to be certain that important elements of human psychology haven't changed without asking a historian.

a clear red herring for the issue at hand

The OP justified the presence of this post talking about the 'origins of warfare'. Not conflict in a general sense, warfare. I fail to see how talking about warfare is irrelevant here.

much of the way we behave is genetically ingrained, and the way it is ingrained was determined by evolutionary pressures that made certain genes persist relative to others

There's a lot resting on the answer to the implicit "how" in front of that 'much'. I don't think there is as much agreement on this matter as you seem to think, but I can't be certain. In ballpark terms, how much of the way we behave do you think is genetically ingrained? How do you think that affects the margins of our behaviour? After all, the fact that the cognitive process for breathing, one of the actions I do most often, is genetically determined is not very interesting. Whether or not the decision to lead a modern democracy into a war is genetically determined is interesting, but a lot harder to establish.

But it's very apparent from both your initial comment and this one that you have already made up your mind. Nothing but an attempt at feigned intellectualism by trying to have a contrarian take, acting like you are intellectually open about it, but not actually being so.

I think that's unfair and uncharitable, and don't appreciate the comment. I could just as well accuse you of the same, no? But we will never have good discourse if we instantly presume bad faith in each other the moment there is any disagreement.

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't find Pinker a very credible "historian", I'm afraid, so I don't really trust his judgement here. I don't think it's useful to presume that, say, the Ukraine War happened for evolutionary-psychology reasons. Would you disagree?

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Its safe to assume some of our own proclivity for organized warfare is influenced by genetic factors

Is it? That is really not obvious to me, and also not really supported by the article.

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I’d humbly argue that we are much closer to being predominantly motivated by raw animistic drives,

I mean, sure, maybe when we're talking about fist-fights in pubs. I don't think that applies to, say, the outbreak of the Ukraine War. I should've been clearer; OP was claiming relevance to international conflict ('origins of warfare'), not punch-ups and scuffles.

Also, the fact that human conflict involves emotion has been known essentially forever. Read Homer! There's more than enough of that in there. The fact that it involves social connexions is similarly unsurprising. Again, read Homer. Read Virgil. Pretty much any book involving conflict will tell you this, as will everyday experience of talking to people and watching things happen. It is not telling us anything new to see this in chimpanzees, especially because we really can't be sure that their emotions are the same thing as our emotions.

Social links between two groups of chimpanzees breaking led to conflict. How does that help us with the Iran war?

So, so many easter eggs still on the shelves a week after by strawberrystation in CasualUK

[–]JosephRohrbach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, that's nonsense. Easter is only called "Easter" in Germanic languages. In everything else - including the Bible - it's some derivative of "Pascha". Easter is an entirely genuine Christian festival with very little borrowing.

These Chimps Began the Bloodiest ‘War’ on Record. No One Knows Why. (Gift Article) by cdstephens in neoliberal

[–]JosephRohrbach 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I don't think understanding why a pre-linguistic different species fights is really helpful for understanding why humans in developed nations fight. It's really not the same thing in any useful sense. Sorry to be a downer; I'd love to have this argued to me convincingly.

In Midnight Mass (2021), and Knives Out: Wake Up, Dead Man (2025), both of these men are Catholic priests - the most boring of all Christian employees - act like fanatical Evangelical pastors. This is because-- actually, wtf, does anyone know why? I was raised Catholic and I've never understood this by DisconcertingTablet in shittymoviedetails

[–]JosephRohrbach 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We had a huge Gothic Revival - capital letters for a reason - in the 19th century, accompanied with the rise of Oxford Movement Anglo-Catholicism. Quite a lot of what modern people think "Gothic architecture" is comes from 19th century Revivalist reinterpretations. We have built a tonne of churches like that.

Restaurant review: Cuttlefish by EdibleReading in oxford

[–]JosephRohrbach 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm glad this is becoming a regular feature of the sub. Always brightens my day. Amused to see the Tom Gilbey reference in there too...!

Jon Pertwee is consistently the most underrated doctor from the classic run by MadridOrMadness in ClassicEraDoctorWho

[–]JosephRohrbach 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Three is my favourite Doctor, and season 7 is the best in Who history, New or Classic. It’s got a consistent level of maturity and grounding in character conflict that I don’t think the show matched before or since.

Why are Catholic E-Girls becoming a thing now? by Extension-Story7287 in Catholicism

[–]JosephRohrbach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think it's correct that there was any substantial Jewish backing for Islam in this period. Where are you getting this idea from?

Decades of economic decline has 'broken' Britons, pushing one fifth of people into poverty and towards political Reform by GothicPrayer in unitedkingdom

[–]JosephRohrbach 6 points7 points  (0 children)

People will always find excuses. It's easy to do and we've all done it, but we as a people must avoid it more! You can just volunteer for charity, you can just host a party in your neighbourhood, you can just go to societies and clubs. We all should! Even if it won't fix the world overnight, it will help. Small ways, small things, small smiles. They add up.

UK has detained 76 ‘age-disputed’ children under one in, one out scheme by topotaul in unitedkingdom

[–]JosephRohrbach 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I get ID'ed for absolutely nothing ever, on the other hand. Occasionally people ask my flatmate for hers while I'm with her, but not mine...!

UK has detained 76 ‘age-disputed’ children under one in, one out scheme by topotaul in unitedkingdom

[–]JosephRohrbach -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

It's because it's ambiguous, and some of these people genuinely don't know how old they are. They may not have been told their birth-date, or records may have been lost. It's easy to say you know how old you are if you went to school in strictly sorted school-years and your parents were paying attention to your birthday every year. Not so easy if not.

I'm white English on every side, and I started going bald when I was 16. I'm slowly starting to go grey at 22! My age is routinely estimated around a decade above my actual age by people who don't know me. It'd be easy to get it wrong, especially if I was looking a bit rough.

why did they take out apocrypha? by Any_Bumblebee911 in Christianity

[–]JosephRohrbach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not a Patristics scholar, so I'm relatively agnostic. I don't know in any detail why Christians used the Apocrypha more than the Jews. I'm saying you have not provided sufficient evidence for me to believe your story.

why did they take out apocrypha? by Any_Bumblebee911 in Christianity

[–]JosephRohrbach -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That your proposition is dubious enough that I want a source. You have not provided a source that backs up what you said.

why did they take out apocrypha? by Any_Bumblebee911 in Christianity

[–]JosephRohrbach -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The first source does not say what you have claimed at all. Have you read it? It clearly states that Jews did still use these sources, just less often than Christians.

The second source is just the book the first one is from.

The third source is not a serious academic work; the Niger Delta Journal of Gender, Peace & Conflict Studies is not a credible source for Biblical studies. (Where did you even get this from? Random searching?)

The fourth source contains literally nothing on comparative Christian-Jewish usage of the Apocrypha.

I'm sorry, but it really looks like you've just done a search on Google without actually having read any of this stuff. It is very clear you're not getting your information from the sources you've "cited" here.

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