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On one hand, war and violence kill off the most violent people in society, providing a genetic benefit to those who don’t fight. On the other hand, the winners

On one hand, war and violence kill off the most violent people in society, providing a genetic benefit to those who don’t fight. On the other hand, the winners produce a lot of babies. But the mass killings of early modern and modern Europe really didn’t increase the fecundity of the winners. It mostly just killed off the violent. I’ve no idea about the genetics of this, might be bunk, but europe and Japan were both so warlike for so long, it is bizarre to see them so peaceful.

mhuffman 3y ago
>On one hand, war and violence kill off the most violent people in society This sounds very counter-intuitive to me! Interesting if true. I get that two war parties going at each other would result in some violent people dying. But I am not sure bravery and violence are always locked together, and it would also seem that a relatively small group of very violent people could kill a very large group of non-violent people.
- vitorbaptistaa 3y ago
  See: Spanish invasion of the Americas. Hundreds of Spanish soldiers with superior technology and bad intentions VS. thousands of native Americans.
  - lazide 3y ago
    You mean 10's of millions of natives?
  - nradov 3y ago
    The Spanish invaders relied as much on diplomacy as on violence. They formed alliances with local groups who were opposed to the Aztec and Inca empires.
  - cracrecry 3y ago
    You mean hundreds of Spanish soldiers with superior technology allied with tribes that were subjugated and enslaved by other Native American tribes? The Spaniards did not do it alone. This is a fact very easy to prove. It always shocks me to see people in North America complaining about Spaniards, when in North America there is less than 1% native Americans, the rest were exterminated, ethnic cleansed. In most hispanic countries, native and mixed people are over 70% of the population.
imjonse 3y ago
violence and war has a lot more to with availability of resources and the economic situation than with genetics.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
It killed off the slightly less violent and the slightly less ruthless. Those who where more so survived (and less subject to pain), as did their DNA. As for countries and war-like...that doesn't seem to be limited by geography and/or DNA. The species generally prefers violence. World history teaches us that. Sure, there are exceptions but they are rare.
PeterisP 3y ago
I think in most historic wars the civilian deaths far outweighed the soldier deaths, not fighting would not protect you from dying because of that war. E.g. if we're talking about the major conflicts causing depopulation - the 30 years war had half a million combat deaths but five million or more dead civilians; Mongol conquests lack good numbers for aggregate combat deaths, but they are clearly a small fraction of the 40-75 million of total depopulation, as the armies simply weren't even close to that large; conquest of Americas has most of indigenous population die outside of combat; WW2 has civilian deaths at twice the military deaths; WW1 is the exception of being roughly equal, but then we have events like Taiping rebellion which killed more than WW1 but again with civilians outweighing combatants, etc.
sinuhe69 3y ago
Nah, violence breeds violence, not killing it. The trend to violence goes down because the majority has found a better way to deal with disagreement: corporation and compromise. At the same time, a better economy and less inequality has rendered violence less and less necessarily. When I look back at many societies, where until very recent decades violence was the norm on the street and now seemly disappeared altogether, I could find no better explanation than a better economy has encouraged the new life style.
duped 3y ago
Why bring genetics into something with a very well established political and historical explanation?
mytailorisrich 3y ago
It think in evolutionary terms we are still the product of our way of life as it was over hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of year. Smallish tight groups of hunter gatherers trying to survive in an hostile environment. As such, when group violence arose I suspect that there wasn't much of a "those who don't fight" kind of people. Change to this way of life is relatively recent (on a scale of thousands of years, not hundreds of thousands+). And the "modern world" is really something that is brand new and most likely has not changed us in evolutionary terms yet.
cracrecry 3y ago
>might be bunk, but europe and Japan were both so warlike for so long, it is bizarre to see them so peaceful. This applies to all the world. Before Hispanic conquerors, in America the wars were extremely gore, with things like pyramids of heads(The conquerors wrote about them , but archaeological evidence had been found recently), skinning and scalping the of enemies, human sacrifices. The wars in North America were not less violent, with everyone carrying a rifle, people using them to hunt Indians from the train, and the eventual extermination of almost the entire native population. Africa? When has Africa been peaceful? I helped refugees in Europe from recent wars in places like Congo or Central African Republic where kids are given automatic guns and enforced to kill and rape their family members. That is happening today in Africa and nobody cares. Asia? Most of what you call violence in Europe actually came from Asia. The Huns, the Parthians, the Mongols, the Arabs, the Turks, all came from Asia, mostly from the central plains. China history is full of violence in order to unify the territory. They also suffered from invasions like the Mongols, the Manchus and the piracy of the Japanese.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
On a tribal scale "the violent" organise the violence. They don't take part in it. That's one reason why it's still happening. In contemporary war, tribal leaders have no direct, personal, immediate threats. They have meetings while other people do the dying for them. TBF this wasn't always true, and that didn't make war less likely. But it's true today, and there are certainly leaders who would be less casual about death if they were facing it personally.

mhuffman 3y ago

>On one hand, war and violence kill off the most violent people in society This sounds very counter-intuitive to me! Interesting if true. I get that two war parties going at each other would result in some violent people dying. But I am not sure bravery and violence are always locked together, and it would also seem that a relatively small group of very violent people could kill a very large group of non-violent people.

vitorbaptistaa 3y ago
See: Spanish invasion of the Americas. Hundreds of Spanish soldiers with superior technology and bad intentions VS. thousands of native Americans.
- lazide 3y ago
  You mean 10's of millions of natives?
- nradov 3y ago
  The Spanish invaders relied as much on diplomacy as on violence. They formed alliances with local groups who were opposed to the Aztec and Inca empires.
- cracrecry 3y ago
  You mean hundreds of Spanish soldiers with superior technology allied with tribes that were subjugated and enslaved by other Native American tribes? The Spaniards did not do it alone. This is a fact very easy to prove. It always shocks me to see people in North America complaining about Spaniards, when in North America there is less than 1% native Americans, the rest were exterminated, ethnic cleansed. In most hispanic countries, native and mixed people are over 70% of the population.

imjonse 3y ago

violence and war has a lot more to with availability of resources and the economic situation than with genetics.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

It killed off the slightly less violent and the slightly less ruthless. Those who where more so survived (and less subject to pain), as did their DNA. As for countries and war-like...that doesn't seem to be limited by geography and/or DNA. The species generally prefers violence. World history teaches us that. Sure, there are exceptions but they are rare.

PeterisP 3y ago

I think in most historic wars the civilian deaths far outweighed the soldier deaths, not fighting would not protect you from dying because of that war. E.g. if we're talking about the major conflicts causing depopulation - the 30 years war had half a million combat deaths but five million or more dead civilians; Mongol conquests lack good numbers for aggregate combat deaths, but they are clearly a small fraction of the 40-75 million of total depopulation, as the armies simply weren't even close to that large; conquest of Americas has most of indigenous population die outside of combat; WW2 has civilian deaths at twice the military deaths; WW1 is the exception of being roughly equal, but then we have events like Taiping rebellion which killed more than WW1 but again with civilians outweighing combatants, etc.

sinuhe69 3y ago

Nah, violence breeds violence, not killing it. The trend to violence goes down because the majority has found a better way to deal with disagreement: corporation and compromise. At the same time, a better economy and less inequality has rendered violence less and less necessarily. When I look back at many societies, where until very recent decades violence was the norm on the street and now seemly disappeared altogether, I could find no better explanation than a better economy has encouraged the new life style.

duped 3y ago

Why bring genetics into something with a very well established political and historical explanation?

mytailorisrich 3y ago

It think in evolutionary terms we are still the product of our way of life as it was over hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of year. Smallish tight groups of hunter gatherers trying to survive in an hostile environment. As such, when group violence arose I suspect that there wasn't much of a "those who don't fight" kind of people. Change to this way of life is relatively recent (on a scale of thousands of years, not hundreds of thousands+). And the "modern world" is really something that is brand new and most likely has not changed us in evolutionary terms yet.

cracrecry 3y ago

>might be bunk, but europe and Japan were both so warlike for so long, it is bizarre to see them so peaceful. This applies to all the world. Before Hispanic conquerors, in America the wars were extremely gore, with things like pyramids of heads(The conquerors wrote about them , but archaeological evidence had been found recently), skinning and scalping the of enemies, human sacrifices. The wars in North America were not less violent, with everyone carrying a rifle, people using them to hunt Indians from the train, and the eventual extermination of almost the entire native population. Africa? When has Africa been peaceful? I helped refugees in Europe from recent wars in places like Congo or Central African Republic where kids are given automatic guns and enforced to kill and rape their family members. That is happening today in Africa and nobody cares. Asia? Most of what you call violence in Europe actually came from Asia. The Huns, the Parthians, the Mongols, the Arabs, the Turks, all came from Asia, mostly from the central plains. China history is full of violence in order to unify the territory. They also suffered from invasions like the Mongols, the Manchus and the piracy of the Japanese.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago

On a tribal scale "the violent" organise the violence. They don't take part in it. That's one reason why it's still happening. In contemporary war, tribal leaders have no direct, personal, immediate threats. They have meetings while other people do the dying for them. TBF this wasn't always true, and that didn't make war less likely. But it's true today, and there are certainly leaders who would be less casual about death if they were facing it personally.