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This article resonated with me. I was a Marine (no combat), didn't like it, but knew and respected the hell out of people who made a career out of it. I learne

This article resonated with me. I was a Marine (no combat), didn't like it, but knew and respected the hell out of people who made a career out of it. I learned several lessons in the service, many of which people don't want to talk about. It takes only a few armed and motivated men to dominate hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. So disarmament and pacifism is not a workable strategy until the day we start programming people as if they were machines. Somebody has to have the job of being the most violent person in the room. Everybody is violent. We are violent as a species. I think this is the thing that bothers so many people. They'd rather just turn away, pretend it's only others, and so forth. There is a ton of disgust and denial about who we are. We confuse who we aspire to be with our actual state. There may be Ghandis and Jesuses in our midst, but they are an extremely small percentage of the population. We are monkeys that kill things. War is bad because of what is does to all participants, not just because it involves hurting and killing others. War slowly erodes our civilization, making more and more extreme things "normal". It doesn't matter who wins, who loses, or what the cause is. War harms everybody -- perhaps especially the ones who win, who view war as a logical remedy for whatever the next problem that they have. Those who have served avoid war not out of kindness for others, but because of the terrible destruction it will bring on our own society every time it is used. (This, by the way, is another argument for the citizen soldier. Making war a separate profession that most people never experience just makes the self destruction that war does to civilization even worse, by isolating it and keeping it hidden. It also causes all sorts of misunderstandings and prejudices. The volunteer armed forces was a hack in the middle of Vietnam. It worked for a while, but it is having horrible long-term effects. Very bad stuff.) I think the analogy that stuck with me most about this was that war may be the male version of motherhood, that is, the closest we come to being true to our biological selves. Somehow this feels right, although that's just intuition on my part. Note: I am as non-violent as a person can get. I'm not trying to say that any of this is okay, simply that it appears to exist, whether it's okay or not.

tomxor 8y ago
> Everybody is violent. We are violent as a species. I think this is the thing that bothers so many people. They'd rather just turn away, pretend it's only others, and so forth. There is a ton of disgust and denial about who we are. We confuse who we aspire to be with our actual state. There may be Ghandis and Jesuses in our midst, but they are an extremely small percentage of the population. We are monkeys that kill things. I agree with the sentiment of your post about the denialism in the modern world, but I slightly disagree that people are one or the other in extreme proportions, I feel like a good analogy is to view those potentials more as phenotypes that can be expressed to varying degrees along side each other (simultaneously), and a phenotype can change from one moment to the next depending on the environment. In other words - I think we are both Gandhi and the violent monkey and many other things. I say this not from philosophical or psychological musings, I say this simply because with the slightest introspection I feel the potential for it all in me simultaneously - there's the part of me that arrogantly "knows" he can be the most bad ass muthafucka alive if needed, and part of me who has a more rationally minded world view and looks down upon mindless and pointless violence, and a great many things in between. > I think the analogy that stuck with me most about this was that war may be the male version of motherhood, that is, the closest we come to being true to our biological selves. Absolutely, I don't think I need to argue this one for any man, but perhaps I can just resonate this: i'm not a very social person, I didn't learn these traits, but I definitely feel the propensity for violence given the right conditions, be it something admirable i.e "protective", or not i.e "vengful". As usual understanding these things rather than rejecting them out of some miss-placed shame of humanity is the correct way to move forward, accept who we are and understand why. Understanding them should gives us the power to either follow or reject the emotion that drives them to be expressed, rather than being led by them blindly like an animal.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  Thank you for that clarification. I agree. We have all of that inside of us. I meant in comparison to what we wish we were, we are monkeys that kill things. My point was made poorly. Nice catch.
Bombthecat 8y ago
> It takes only a few armed and motivated men to dominate hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. So disarmament and pacifism is not a workable strategy until the day we start programming people as if they were machines This is was a lot people don't see. How easy it is to create a dictator ship with a "system" like that
- mmsimanga 8y ago
  The same phrase you quoted resonated with me. South Africa does have some violent crime. I don't know how it relates to other countries. We are fourth on the list when it comes to expenditure on private security per capita[1]. That's not all we spend money on. Next week a contractor is coming to fit an electric fence around our block of flats. Most homes now have high walls, alarms, sensor of all sorts. I grew up in a small town there were hardly fences. Fences were probably to protect against pesky kids stealing fruit and prevent cows eating up people's gardens. To your point, it is just a small group of violent thieves that have the rest of us under siege. Everyone is security conscious and not at ease. I don't think trying to talk sense into these gangsters is going to work. It makes me mad that another man is making live life in a manner that I loathe. [1]https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-05-14-south-africas-r40bn-private-security-industry-under-threat/ https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-05-14-south-afr...
  - rdl 8y ago
    Why don’t vigilantes solve this, assuming the State refuses to do so? It would certainly be cheaper to redirect some of the passive and defensive security expenditure to intelligence and targeted killing.
    - mmsimanga 8y ago
      See that's the thing. vigilantism is illegal, society as a whole frowns upon violence. Thus good healthy men end up building fences and hoping another man (the thief) cannot attack them. The government has its challenges solving the crime issue and I would venture that the criminals are more motivated/organized/have less red tape than the cops. Not everyone is lying down and accepting the status quo. Neighborhood watch committees exist. Some neighborhoods have put up boom gates which have caused a stink because it is perceived as limiting people's movement. More to your question. Occasionally frustrations boil over and communities take the law into their own hands [1][2]. This is the other extreme to the criminals. [1]https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/limpopo-mob-kills-suspected-clothes-thief-20170106 https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/limpopo-mob-kills-su... [2]https://www.iol.co.za/news/suspected-thief-dies-in-hail-of-stones-1885911 https://www.iol.co.za/news/suspected-thief-dies-in-hail-of-s...
klenwell 8y ago
> I think the analogy that stuck with me most about this was that war may be the male version of motherhood, that is, the closest we come to being true to our biological selves. Somehow this feels right, although that's just intuition on my part. I've just started reading Robert Sapolsky's book, Behave, and this is how he frames his study of human biology. Around violence. From the introduction: We are always shadowed by the threat of other humans harming us. If that were solely the way things are, violence would be an easy problem to approach intellectually. AIDS--unambiguously bad news--eradicate. Alzheimer's disease--same thing. Schizophrenia, cancer, malnutrition, flesh-eating bacteria, global warming, comets hitting earth--ditto. The problem, though, is that violence doesn't go on that list. Sometimes we have no problem with it at all. This is the central point of this book--we don't hate violence.
SigmundA 8y ago
Statehood and by extension society is pretty much defined by the "monopoly on violence" [1]. As much as I dislike it, it is a pretty much a law of physics, if you you don't have a monopoly on violence someone else will, some one must wield it, power vacuums will be filled. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
- em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
  Yet in international relations there is no monopoly on violence. So maybe it isn't a law of physics?
  - SigmundA 8y ago
    "However, this monopoly is limited to a certain geographical area, and in fact this limitation to a particular area is one of the things that defines a state." International relations is a manifestation of multiple monopolies on violence in different geographic areas interacting. They either find some sort of equilibrium for a period of time or they war and new boundaries are defined. The law of physics statement was hyperbole, but my point is anarchy doesn't last, it is quickly replaced with a monopoly of violence, because it has to be.

tomxor 8y ago

> Everybody is violent. We are violent as a species. I think this is the thing that bothers so many people. They'd rather just turn away, pretend it's only others, and so forth. There is a ton of disgust and denial about who we are. We confuse who we aspire to be with our actual state. There may be Ghandis and Jesuses in our midst, but they are an extremely small percentage of the population. We are monkeys that kill things. I agree with the sentiment of your post about the denialism in the modern world, but I slightly disagree that people are one or the other in extreme proportions, I feel like a good analogy is to view those potentials more as phenotypes that can be expressed to varying degrees along side each other (simultaneously), and a phenotype can change from one moment to the next depending on the environment. In other words - I think we are both Gandhi and the violent monkey and many other things. I say this not from philosophical or psychological musings, I say this simply because with the slightest introspection I feel the potential for it all in me simultaneously - there's the part of me that arrogantly "knows" he can be the most bad ass muthafucka alive if needed, and part of me who has a more rationally minded world view and looks down upon mindless and pointless violence, and a great many things in between. > I think the analogy that stuck with me most about this was that war may be the male version of motherhood, that is, the closest we come to being true to our biological selves. Absolutely, I don't think I need to argue this one for any man, but perhaps I can just resonate this: i'm not a very social person, I didn't learn these traits, but I definitely feel the propensity for violence given the right conditions, be it something admirable i.e "protective", or not i.e "vengful". As usual understanding these things rather than rejecting them out of some miss-placed shame of humanity is the correct way to move forward, accept who we are and understand why. Understanding them should gives us the power to either follow or reject the emotion that drives them to be expressed, rather than being led by them blindly like an animal.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
Thank you for that clarification. I agree. We have all of that inside of us. I meant in comparison to what we wish we were, we are monkeys that kill things. My point was made poorly. Nice catch.

Bombthecat 8y ago

> It takes only a few armed and motivated men to dominate hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. So disarmament and pacifism is not a workable strategy until the day we start programming people as if they were machines This is was a lot people don't see. How easy it is to create a dictator ship with a "system" like that

mmsimanga 8y ago
The same phrase you quoted resonated with me. South Africa does have some violent crime. I don't know how it relates to other countries. We are fourth on the list when it comes to expenditure on private security per capita[1]. That's not all we spend money on. Next week a contractor is coming to fit an electric fence around our block of flats. Most homes now have high walls, alarms, sensor of all sorts. I grew up in a small town there were hardly fences. Fences were probably to protect against pesky kids stealing fruit and prevent cows eating up people's gardens. To your point, it is just a small group of violent thieves that have the rest of us under siege. Everyone is security conscious and not at ease. I don't think trying to talk sense into these gangsters is going to work. It makes me mad that another man is making live life in a manner that I loathe. [1]https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-05-14-south-africas-r40bn-private-security-industry-under-threat/ https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-05-14-south-afr...
- rdl 8y ago
  Why don’t vigilantes solve this, assuming the State refuses to do so? It would certainly be cheaper to redirect some of the passive and defensive security expenditure to intelligence and targeted killing.
  - mmsimanga 8y ago
    See that's the thing. vigilantism is illegal, society as a whole frowns upon violence. Thus good healthy men end up building fences and hoping another man (the thief) cannot attack them. The government has its challenges solving the crime issue and I would venture that the criminals are more motivated/organized/have less red tape than the cops. Not everyone is lying down and accepting the status quo. Neighborhood watch committees exist. Some neighborhoods have put up boom gates which have caused a stink because it is perceived as limiting people's movement. More to your question. Occasionally frustrations boil over and communities take the law into their own hands [1][2]. This is the other extreme to the criminals. [1]https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/limpopo-mob-kills-suspected-clothes-thief-20170106 https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/limpopo-mob-kills-su... [2]https://www.iol.co.za/news/suspected-thief-dies-in-hail-of-stones-1885911 https://www.iol.co.za/news/suspected-thief-dies-in-hail-of-s...

klenwell 8y ago

> I think the analogy that stuck with me most about this was that war may be the male version of motherhood, that is, the closest we come to being true to our biological selves. Somehow this feels right, although that's just intuition on my part. I've just started reading Robert Sapolsky's book, Behave, and this is how he frames his study of human biology. Around violence. From the introduction: We are always shadowed by the threat of other humans harming us. If that were solely the way things are, violence would be an easy problem to approach intellectually. AIDS--unambiguously bad news--eradicate. Alzheimer's disease--same thing. Schizophrenia, cancer, malnutrition, flesh-eating bacteria, global warming, comets hitting earth--ditto. The problem, though, is that violence doesn't go on that list. Sometimes we have no problem with it at all. This is the central point of this book--we don't hate violence.

SigmundA 8y ago

Statehood and by extension society is pretty much defined by the "monopoly on violence" [1]. As much as I dislike it, it is a pretty much a law of physics, if you you don't have a monopoly on violence someone else will, some one must wield it, power vacuums will be filled. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
Yet in international relations there is no monopoly on violence. So maybe it isn't a law of physics?
- SigmundA 8y ago
  "However, this monopoly is limited to a certain geographical area, and in fact this limitation to a particular area is one of the things that defines a state." International relations is a manifestation of multiple monopolies on violence in different geographic areas interacting. They either find some sort of equilibrium for a period of time or they war and new boundaries are defined. The law of physics statement was hyperbole, but my point is anarchy doesn't last, it is quickly replaced with a monopoly of violence, because it has to be.