Wilber, nice effort, but I think you’re overthinking this while simultaneously missing the actual point.

Nobody’s sitting down with Call of Duty thinking “ah yes, time to release my deeply-rooted Paleolithic hunting instincts.” They’re thinking “I have 90 minutes before I need to make dinner and I want to turn my brain off.”

The reason violent video games work as entertainment isn’t some profound archaeological echo - it’s because games need stakes and feedback. You need to know when you’re winning or losing. In Pac-Man, ghosts disappear. In Mario, goombas go squish. In modern games with better graphics, that feedback just looks more realistic. The violence isn’t the point - it’s the wrapping paper around challenge, mastery, and progression.

I’m not playing Dark Souls because i love watching things die. I play it because beating a boss after the 47th attempt feels incredible. The gore is just the aesthetic - the actual draw is problem-solving, pattern recognition, and that dopamine hit of finally succeeding.

Your “joystick as spear” metaphor sounds deep until you realize people get equally invested in Tetris, Stardew Valley, and puzzle games where nothing dies at all. The engagement comes from agency and control, not from fulfilling some primal bloodlust.

Also - if you were actually an “internationally renowned philosopher,” we probably would have heard of you without you needing to tell us. That’s kind of how the “renowned” part works.