human nature to war?

[Secular Sanity]

So, how should we handle the current situation in North Korea?

Trump responds to N Korea with missile defense test and B-1 drills

Hmm…what to do-what to do?  

Oh, yeah, Yazata unreservedly enjoys absurdist humor.

Let us pray…

Oh, Lord bless this thy hand grenade with it that thou may blow thy enemies to tiny bits.

And the Lord spake and said, "First thou shall take out the holy pin then thou shall count to three.  No more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shall count and the number of the counting shall be three."

[Secular Sanity]

North Korea: What can the outside world do?

Have we got any birds? No. They know that we don’t have any birds left.

“You’ll see that there are no birds.  They’ve been eaten by the people who live in these tents and corridors.  You can also eat the snow, which there is plenty in the United States.  They drink coffee cups full of local snow.”

Is anyone holding out on any snow white turtle doves?  Wait a minute that gives me an idea; SNOW!  They know that we have plenty of snow. Did you know that 3745 students from Michigan Technological University set the world record for the largest snowball fight?  

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/WqYu-Q-tHG4

But Hitler, Secular Sanity, and Bin Laden can disrupt reason and make people highly emotional are reactionary.

Hmm…what would Hitler and Bin Laden do?  By George, I think I’ve got it!  We can make snowballs with rocks inside them. We can stockpile a bunch of snowballs and then flex our military might to these so-called Jusche (wikipedia.org) ideologists.

Okay-okay.  That’s dark absurdist humor.  Well, what do you expect?  I’m an atheist. Mmmwwwwahahah!

[Carol]

I agree that something akin to the Holocaust would test my moral fibre immensely. Would I be so angered knowing the atrocity is taking place and would I pick up arms to stop it? Or would I be comfortable feeling just as guilty as those committing the actions if i did nothing? By not doing anything would future genocidal actions be encouraged? What do you do?

If you were Mulsim do you think you would be a suicide bomber?  Those people have to believe they are giving their lives for good reason, to stop an evil and open the opportunity for their people to have good lives.   When I learned what happened to Muslims in Palestine  I thought I could give my life for their cause.  One young female peace worker did.  She stayed on a mound of rubble to stop a bulldozer and the bulldozer operator took her life by not stopping.  I think what has been done to the Palestinians is unjust and violates the United Nations mandates.   I think we are moved to war with something seems so wrong it is intolerable.  What are our lives worth if we tolerate the intolerable?

[C C]

I agree that something akin to the Holocaust would test my moral fibre immensely. Would I be so angered knowing the atrocity is taking place and would I pick up arms to stop it? Or would I be comfortable feeling just as guilty as those committing the actions if i did nothing? By not doing anything would future genocidal actions be encouraged? What do you do?

If you were Mulsim do you think you would be a suicide bomber?  Those people have to believe they are giving their lives for good reason, to stop an evil and open the opportunity for their people to have good lives.   When I learned what happened to Muslims in Palestine  I thought I could give my life for their cause.  One young female peace worker did.  She stayed on a mound of rubble to stop a bulldozer and the bulldozer operator took her life by not stopping.  I think what has been done to the Palestinians is unjust and violates the United Nations mandates.   I think we are moved to war with something seems so wrong it is intolerable.  What are our lives worth if we tolerate the intolerable?

Addressing how much influence the pro-Israeli crowd has on Washington, the entertainment industry, Christian television evangelism, or the US as a whole can't even be touched without the anti-Semitic card being played. So it's pretty much just stand back (while ignoring the greater picture of what Israel is surrounded by) and watch the Palestinians get mowed over like the Native Americans did by European "immigrants". (If that analogy for the Palestinian / Jewish relationship is historically applicable, which I would rather be much skeptical about but can hospitably flirt with today for the sake of not having the time [or interest] to dig up the deep chronology of events over there across well more than a century.[*])

- - -

[*] "More than 20 new Jewish settlements were established in Palestine between 1870 and 1897 (the year of the first Zionist Congress). These were built by various groups, most notably Hovevei Zion ('lovers of Zion'), a network of local Zionist groups in Eastern Europe. Hovevei Zion joined together secular and religious Jews who shared the goal of colonizing the Land of Israel and did so in a proactive and organized way that set a precedent for the future."
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/...r-zionism/

[Carol]

I think the analogy with native Americans is a good one, and I think this can be traced back to having a God who has favorite people and told his favorite people to take land that was possessed by others. I have contemplated often the possible relationships between religion and war. And also the foolishness of consuming so much of the planet that we are in another mass extinction period. How do intelligent beings justify such behavior? Or are we as intelligent as we think we are, and if not, how do we justify ourselves? We defend the well-being of those who are one of us. This makes sense if we are attacked, but how well do we understand who is attacking whom and why? And isn't it becoming obvious it is our own behavior that threatens this planet? Is there any hope of us having a united intelligence that can do better?

[Syne]

I agree that something akin to the Holocaust would test my moral fibre immensely. Would I be so angered knowing the atrocity is taking place and would I pick up arms to stop it? Or would I be comfortable feeling just as guilty as those committing the actions if i did nothing? By not doing anything would future genocidal actions be encouraged? What do you do?

If you were Mulsim do you think you would be a suicide bomber?  Those people have to believe they are giving their lives for good reason, to stop an evil and open the opportunity for their people to have good lives.   When I learned what happened to Muslims in Palestine  I thought I could give my life for their cause.  One young female peace worker did.  She stayed on a mound of rubble to stop a bulldozer and the bulldozer operator took her life by not stopping.  I think what has been done to the Palestinians is unjust and violates the United Nations mandates.   I think we are moved to war with something seems so wrong it is intolerable.  What are our lives worth if we tolerate the intolerable?

No, suicide bombers largely believe they are satisfying signs of the end times, such as "Frequent, sudden, and unexpected death" and "Increase in pointless killings". They believe the "good reason" and "good lives" are those to be had after the final judgement, when all the infidel have been destroyed. The second Palestinian intifada was a Palestinian uprising against Israel, and the culpability of the bulldozer operator is disputed by witnesses on both sides.

Sounds anti-Semitic to equate Israeli response to Arab aggression.

Addressing how much influence the pro-Israeli crowd has on Washington, the entertainment industry, Christian television evangelism, or the US as a whole can't even be touched without the anti-Semitic card being played. So it's pretty much just stand back (while ignoring the greater picture of what Israel is surrounded by) and watch the Palestinians get mowed over like the Native Americans did by European "immigrants". (If that analogy for the Palestinian / Jewish relationship is historically applicable, which I would rather be much skeptical about but can hospitably flirt with today for the sake of not having the time [or interest] to dig up the deep chronology of events over there across well more than a century.
[*])

Anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories are completely appropriate to be met with "the anti-Semitic card". Balking at that is like complaining about being called a racist for saying all blacks are lazy. What Israel is surrounded by is all Arab nations, many of which openly call for the genocide of Jews...while funding Palestinian aggression in their proxy war. The only reason you can even try to equal Native Americans with Palestinians is that both have been on the losing side. But Israel has always been the smaller, outnumbered target of aggression. They've just been too difficult an opponent.

I think the analogy with native Americans is a good one, and I think this can be traced back to having a God who has favorite people and told his favorite people to take land that was possessed by others.  I have contemplated often the possible relationships between religion and war.  And also the foolishness of consuming so much of the planet that we are in another mass extinction period.  How do intelligent beings justify such behavior?  Or are we as intelligent as we think we are, and if not, how do we justify ourselves?    We defend the well-being of those who are one of us.  This makes sense if we are attacked, but how well do we understand who is attacking whom and why?  And isn't it becoming obvious it is our own behavior that threatens this planet?  Is there any hope of us having a united intelligence that can do better?

The analogy is ignorant. Israel has only taken land as a buffer following an unprovoked attack from a neighboring country. Intelligence? Sounds like simple group-think.

[C C]

Addressing how much influence the pro-Israeli crowd has on Washington, the entertainment industry, Christian television evangelism, or the US as a whole can't even be touched without the anti-Semitic card being played. So it's pretty much just stand back (while ignoring the greater picture of what Israel is surrounded by) and watch the Palestinians get mowed over like the Native Americans did by European "immigrants". (If that analogy for the Palestinian / Jewish relationship is historically applicable, which I would rather be much skeptical about but can hospitably flirt with today for the sake of not having the time [or interest] to dig up the deep chronology of events over there across well more than a century.[*])

Anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories are completely appropriate to be met with "the anti-Semitic card". Balking at that is like complaining about being called a racist for saying all blacks are lazy.

That's an example of what can happen, though: Mention the influence of the pro-Israel crowd (the Israel lobby as more formally known) and the subject will get detoured away to or injected with items like "conspiracy theories" and "Jewish stereotypes". If the latter wasn't a deliberate confusion-generating tactic, then knee-jerk defenders on the outside playing that "ethnic card" would ironically themselves be mis-perceiving slash stereotyping it as a "Jewish lobby" being bashed by bigots, rather than a coalition of diverse alliances.

There's also nothing secretive and cabalistic about those pro-Israel folk (i.e., such claims are not warranted by either real crank theorists or strategists who use crank theorists for misrepresentation purposes). The groups composing the Israel lobby are upfront as to what they're about. Their spokespeople cover the range of professions (including those in government and the entertainment industry). Being conventional people who happen to have an in-common passion and special interest that attracted them to one of the coalition's organizations or sympathizing factions, they don't shy away from voicing their views publicly or using any persuasion that they possess in those areas they work in or outright own. What would be bizarre is if they did behave like ideal individuals that were above all that policy pushing, if they truly did not have influence or a desire for it.

The US form of government offers activists many ways of influencing the policy process. Interest groups can lobby elected representatives and members of the executive branch, make campaign contributions, vote in elections, try to mould public opinion etc. They enjoy a disproportionate amount of influence when they are committed to an issue to which the bulk of the population is indifferent. Policymakers will tend to accommodate those who care about the issue, even if their numbers are small, confident that the rest of the population will not penalise them for doing so.

In its basic operations, the Israel Lobby is no different from the farm lobby, steel or textile workers’ unions, or other ethnic lobbies. There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US policy: the Lobby’s activities are not a conspiracy of the sort depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise it are only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very much better. By contrast, pro-Arab interest groups, in so far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israel Lobby’s task even easier.

The Lobby pursues two broad strategies. First, it wields its significant influence in Washington, pressuring both Congress and the executive branch. Whatever an individual lawmaker or policymaker’s own views may be, the Lobby tries to make supporting Israel the ‘smart’ choice. Second, it strives to ensure that public discourse portrays Israel in a positive light, by repeating myths about its founding and by promoting its point of view in policy debates. The goal is to prevent critical comments from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing US support, because a candid discussion of US-Israeli relations might lead Americans to favour a different policy.

A key pillar of the Lobby’s effectiveness is its influence in Congress, where Israel is virtually immune from criticism.... https://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mears...rael-lobby

What Israel is surrounded by is all Arab nations, many of which openly call for the genocide of Jews...while funding Palestinian aggression in their proxy war. The only reason you can even try to equal Native Americans with Palestinians is that both have been on the losing side. But Israel has always been the smaller, outnumbered target of aggression. They've just been too difficult an opponent.

You're not giving Israel enough superhero status. They're the flea wagging a large dog on another continent.

- - -

[Syne]

Addressing how much influence the pro-Israeli crowd has on Washington, the entertainment industry, Christian television evangelism, or the US as a whole can't even be touched without the anti-Semitic card being played. So it's pretty much just stand back (while ignoring the greater picture of what Israel is surrounded by) and watch the Palestinians get mowed over like the Native Americans did by European "immigrants". (If that analogy for the Palestinian / Jewish relationship is historically applicable, which I would rather be much skeptical about but can hospitably flirt with today for the sake of not having the time [or interest] to dig up the deep chronology of events over there across well more than a century.
[*])

[*]

Anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories are completely appropriate to be met with "the anti-Semitic card". Balking at that is like complaining about being called a racist for saying all blacks are lazy.

[*]

That's an example of what can happen, though: Mention the influence of the pro-Israel crowd (the Israel lobby as more formally known) and the subject will get detoured away to or injected with items like "conspiracy theories" and "Jewish stereotypes". If the latter wasn't a deliberate confusion-generating tactic, then knee-jerk defenders on the outside playing that "ethnic card" would ironically themselves be mis-perceiving slash stereotyping it as a "Jewish lobby" being bashed by bigots, rather than a coalition of diverse alliances.

There's also nothing secretive and cabalistic about those pro-Israel folk (i.e., such claims are not warranted by either real crank theorists or strategists who use crank theorists for misrepresentation purposes). The groups composing the Israel lobby are upfront as to what they're about. Their spokespeople cover the range of professions (including those in government and the entertainment industry). Being conventional people who happen to have an in-common passion and special interest that attracted them to one of the coalition's organizations or sympathizing factions, they don't shy away from voicing their views publicly or using any persuasion that they possess in those areas they work in or outright own. What would be bizarre is if they did behave like ideal individuals that were above all that policy pushing, if they truly did not have influence or a desire for it.

What Israel is surrounded by is all Arab nations, many of which openly call for the genocide of Jews...while funding Palestinian aggression in their proxy war. The only reason you can even try to equal Native Americans with Palestinians is that both have been on the losing side. But Israel has always been the smaller, outnumbered target of aggression. They've just been too difficult an opponent.

[*]

You're not giving Israel enough superhero status. They're the flea wagging a large dog on another continent.

- - -

Who said there was anything "secretive and cabalistic" about defending the ONLY democracy in the Middle East that protects the rights of Muslims and Jews alike (including serving in government office)...not to mention women? O_o You sound as if you're unfamiliar with the Arab lobby in the US. Sharing Judeo-Christian values/history does not mean Jews are manipulating the US (as your "wagging a large dog" comment would seem to imply...and where the conspiracy theory charge seems validated). Allies are made with shared values...like women's rights...still quite lacking in Palestine.

It does seem a little anti-Semitic to ignore a multitude of details to paint Palestinians as wholly innocent and virtuous.

[RainbowUnicorn]

human nature to war?

It's human nature to eat to survive. By survive I mean procreate, pass on the genes. I'm thinking that perhaps early on that food was worth fighting for, the first reason for killing another human being. I don't have proof but I wonder if anthropologists have ever determined whether we began our tour of Earth in hierarchic groups. I mean its so prevalent among species that its hard to ignore. I would have no trouble believing an alpha human would dispatch a low rank just for want of a meal.

is it human nature to procreate ?
i suspect not.(casual speculative opinion)
i think procreation is just symptomatic of the desire to copulate.
it appears that the majority of parents in non westernised civility use their children as slaves.
to the point where they keep breeding and sell their own children.

soo... it would lend to the idea that there is no innate drive to parent otherwise the majority of the instinct would propel the accumulation of children rather than just those produced by their own copulation... AND ... more soo i ponder, children would be gathered by adults regardles of being their own and a general sense of parenting of all children would be normalised.

probably not what the majority of literate western adults want to beleive or hear, none the less it certainly raises some questions.

[Carol]

We have the same problem today with Syria.

Also past examples like the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields, the Rwandan genocide, (etc) illustrating the impotence of the West (if measured purely by willingness of direct military intervention to stop such affairs). The US even lightly contributed to the Indonesian communist purge of 1965–1966, in terms of training several hundred officers and providing the death squads with a broad database of resident "offenders".

How about this insane idea?  The US is one of the few places that isn't already overpopulated and has enough resources to share.  Instead of making multi-million dollar weapons that we can't use until it is too late to avoid war,  we should use our resources to build cities for refugees.  That is cities complete with everything needed for good lives.

"Everything they need" would entail existing services, retail-chains, businesses, and industries being lured there to provide employment. Banks willing to offer loans for start-up of the newcomers' own later enterprises. Such are scarce in even home-grown minority neighborhoods where the residents actually possess credit and identity records pertaining to their past. The latter would complain: "Why is the government helping out fresh, exotic strangers to this magnitude when it doesn't do the same for us?" The native homeless of America would complain: "Why do you build whole communities for homeless foreigners and not your own homeless citizens?" Overburdened tax payers and jobless members of the working class / proletariat would respond with their own feeling of neglect and brand of wrath at the voting booths.

Reservations didn't universally work so well for Native Americans. Isolating Middle Eastern refugees to their own urban complexes in remote areas that nobody else wanted (i.e., the land that would be available for such projects) would deliberately inhibit their cultural integration into American society. Setting-up a recipe for future disaster in all sorts of ways. (I.e., compare to the accumulating grudges of disgruntled Muslims in France that have been brushed off to impoverished, marginal neighborhoods away from the mainstream).

But contrast to the members of tribal nations in eastern Oklahoma who are just "out there" living and working with the non-Indians. The white people there supposedly brag about having insignificant degrees of Indian blood, and the Nations finance community projects that benefit everybody in their "dual-sovereignty" areas, not just tribal members. If ever chancing upon their newspaper "The Biskink", one might come away with a perplexed impression that the Choctaw (famous for their service in the two World Wars) are almost politically conservative -- the opposite of how counterpart tribes confined to a sequestrated "Rez" are / were traditionally stereotyped ideologically (during the later 20th century ... today).

CC can we use your great intelligence to go beyond identifying problems, to resolving them?  Smile, I love it when you make me think and let's begin with slavery was a big improvement over killing everyone.   Today we disapprove of slavery, but is it better than killing everyone?

Reservations on worthless ground lacking resources for wealth or even healthy living, do not seem much more acceptable to me than slavery, but what else can be done with people who do not want to be assimilated and are already living in the territory?   I am not saying our treatment of native Americans was right, Socrates said when people are exploited, sooner or later they become a problem to those who exploit them.   We can avoid problems by choosing to be cooperative with those willing to cooperate with us.  Perhaps the elimination of those who do not choose cooperative relations is the most practical? Why would we choose to maintain the lives of those who do not to cooperate with us?  (this is an intellectual question not a statement of my values.)

I think our moral choice is based on our awareness of human rights and our beliefs about being human, and also our resources.  You know the life boat experiment many college students do....a strong leader will make difficult but necessary decisions to increase the survival of the most people.   We might expect a mother or father to put the children in a life boat and not force their way onto the life boat if it is already full and over loading the life boat would reduce the chance of their children surviving.  The earth is our life boat, and it is over full.  I think we have to address this problem and do something about reducing population growth around the world.   Preferably we reduce population growth without disease or war.   Are we ready to step up to the plate and challenge ourselves to use our intellect for more humanitarian problem-solving?  Syria is not and the Africans are having a hard time developing inclusive humanitarian behaviors.    

Assimilation of those born outside of the nation (tribe, ethnic group) seems essential to me and our public education was about preparing the young for good citizenship, knowing the parents would learn American values from their children.  (Sara H. Fahey speech at the 1917 National Education Association).

The Nordic countries seem to be doing a superior job of establishing the good life for people within their borders, this includes immigrants.   

All refugees are offered the opportunity to participate in an introduction program. The lengths and contents of these programs vary from country to country, but commonly the introduction plans all offer language training, cultural programs, vocational training, and other elements aimed at integrating the refugee into the society of his/her new country.
In Denmark, participation is mandatory for all (unemployed) refugees for the first three years. Failure to attend may have a negative effect on the amount of public relief received and the eventual acquisition of a permanent residence permit and citizenship.
Refugees in all the Nordic countries have access to the regular education system, which for all students is paid for by the state.

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/r...-countries

So CC I have no argument with you, but I would love it if we all acknowledged the problems, and discuss them and possible solutions.  Turning people into slaves is not okay.  Isolating them on reservations is not okay.  Assimilating them seems necessary for the best result, and how might we do this?

I wish we would begin with county land and our own homeless!  I wish we would plan a historical community and allow a set number people to live there, who were willing to live as people did in the past.  This would be both an experiment and a tourist attraction.  Using tourism to pay for the town.  And also gaining knowledge about what does it take to develop an economy?   CC this is the part I want you to turn your intelligence to.   How much land do we need and how many people (size of life boat and number of people who can use it).  What resources are essential for building the town and creating an economy?   

If we are not to have war, we must know how to prevent it.  I think we blunder into wars, not because we want to war, Sumerians invented athletics competitions to release aggressive tendencies in a relatively safe way, but that only works for us if we are safe from outsiders.  To be safe from outsiders we need cooperative relationships, how do we achieve that?

---

human nature to war?

It's human nature to eat to survive. By survive I mean procreate, pass on the genes. I'm thinking that perhaps early on that food was worth fighting for, the first reason for killing another human being. I don't have proof but I wonder if anthropologists have ever determined whether we began our tour of Earth in hierarchic groups. I mean its so prevalent among species that its hard to ignore. I would have no trouble believing an alpha human would dispatch a low rank just for want of a meal.

is it human nature to procreate ?
i suspect not.(casual speculative opinion)
i think procreation is just symptomatic of the desire to copulate.
it appears that the majority of parents in non westernised civility use their children as slaves.
to the point where they keep breeding and sell their own children.

soo... it would lend to the idea that there is no innate drive to parent otherwise the majority of the instinct would propel the accumulation of children rather than just those produced by their own copulation... AND ... more soo i ponder, children would be gathered by adults regardles of being their own and a general sense of parenting of all children would be normalised.

probably not what the majority of literate western adults want to beleive or hear, none the less it certainly raises some questions.

Rainbow, I think you have spoken essential truth.  Immediately I thought of England's history of parents selling their children to factories and the horrible abuse of these children leading to the early deaths or crippling of children.  Humans are not so nice until their bellies are full and we should never ignore this reality!  The worse thing we can do is to convince ourselves we are nice, and those people are not, missing the reality around what makes people nice and what makes them vicious animals.   

However, when our bellies are full, we do gather our children and dote on them.  That is public education.  I know it is popular today to argue that public education has always been about thinking of children as products to prepare for industry, but that has not always been so!  From the time we huddled around camp fires, education has been about preparing youth for adulthood and we have survived because we promoted being cooperative.   Hillary is known for advancing the idea that it takes a village to raise a child, and this is more true than we seem to realize because every since 1958 our public education has advanced selfishness and competition rather than the virtues and cooperation.  But get to know the teacher and nurses who live to nurture other people's children.  

I think we are living with mistaken beliefs about our nature and it is exciting to correct them.   We are where we are today because idealist thought it possible and took action to make it so.   Of course, we continue to share the planet with belgerant and nasty people, but we have made progress.  At this moment in time, I am not sure if we will continue to progress or if we will destroy the progress we have made.