To counterpoint the human nature point. Many have said violence is in human nature. Now weither thats true or not is certainly up for debate but it has been said for far longer than 100 years. A similar point could be made for people cheating on their spouses, many say thats part of human nature. Those are just the 2 that come to mind.
Violence is inherent to our entire evolutionary tree, nature kills to eat. I think it’s fair to say that violence is a part of human nature. It’s a part of the nature of every predatory animal on Earth, and some plants, and I think you could probably successfully argue that even herbivores are inflicting violence on plants because they’re destroying and consuming an organism.
I’ll add to this an anecdote. My neighborhood is near a nature preserve. We get all kinds of animals theough here, but mostly racoon, possums and armadillo. Oh and feral cats. For a while we would occasionally have critters fighting in our yard. You’d hear it at night especially during summer. Not so much lately.
See a few years ago we got a feral kitten fixed as part of our local colony management group. Cat decided to stay, and we’ve been looking after her. Friendly, but stand-offish. We make sure shes fed, but let her do her own thing. Hasn’t shown much interest in the inside.
We noticed that in the evenings raccoons would show up to steal her food. We chased em away, but theyd just come back later. The thing was that cat would sit there and watch the raccoons. She even moved out of the way once she was done, and let the raccoons have their share. Its been a few years now, and our yard cat manages things between other cats, the raccoons and the possums, and sometimes armadillos and nobody fights about it. Heck sometimes we find a small crowd waiting for our cat to summon the food for them.
The point being, violence may be an inherent part of nature, and the wilderness. However even animals when they dont have to work so hard to survive will cooperate when its to everyone’s advantage. Which means that anyone who tells you that violence is the only law of nature is full of shit, and is really just telling on themselves. In my opinion.
you could probably successfully argue that even herbivores are inflicting violence on plants because they’re destroying and consuming an organism.
Don’t need to stretch that far.
Lots of herbivores use violence, either in defense against predators or in competition with their own species for territory, resources, or mates. I’d even go as far as to say that the majority of them do, at least for the first of those two purposes – it’s rare to find an herbivore so passive that it wouldn’t use ‘violence’ to protect itself against a predator attack if necessary.
There’s a difference when violence results from instinct and/or having no other choice, and actively choosing violence. But this distinction is even more damning, as we see many smarter animals become capable of cruelty/spite/malice. Like that tiger who stalked and killed a man in revenge, or dolphins/orcas inventing elaborate methods of toying with their prey, or chimps being outright genocidal psychos.
In my experience, these numbers seem very low. Ive never cheated but I’ve been cheated on in nearly every relationship ive been in and many of my friends have as well or have been the cheater. I’d believe these numbers as the percentage caught cheating. If it was self reported, which is probably the only way to collect that data, I’d assume some people lied.
I don’t think you get to be the apex predator on an entire planet without some level of violence in your nature. We got so good at murder it’s just casually in the background courtesy of the vast ag-industry slaughtering tens of thousands of animals daily around the world.
Also, see: humans killing each other since forever and ever.
People who cheat is not the norm though, it’s very much not human nature. A part of humanity (or any species) doing bad stuff doesn’t make it the nature of that species. Pedophilia has also been going on for as long as humans have existed but it’s not human nature, it’s some individuals being sociopaths and have a mental issue that makes them attracted to something over 99% of everyone aren’t.
To counterpoint the human nature point. Many have said violence is in human nature. Now weither thats true or not is certainly up for debate but it has been said for far longer than 100 years. A similar point could be made for people cheating on their spouses, many say thats part of human nature. Those are just the 2 that come to mind.
Violence is inherent to our entire evolutionary tree, nature kills to eat. I think it’s fair to say that violence is a part of human nature. It’s a part of the nature of every predatory animal on Earth, and some plants, and I think you could probably successfully argue that even herbivores are inflicting violence on plants because they’re destroying and consuming an organism.
I’ll add to this an anecdote. My neighborhood is near a nature preserve. We get all kinds of animals theough here, but mostly racoon, possums and armadillo. Oh and feral cats. For a while we would occasionally have critters fighting in our yard. You’d hear it at night especially during summer. Not so much lately.
See a few years ago we got a feral kitten fixed as part of our local colony management group. Cat decided to stay, and we’ve been looking after her. Friendly, but stand-offish. We make sure shes fed, but let her do her own thing. Hasn’t shown much interest in the inside.
We noticed that in the evenings raccoons would show up to steal her food. We chased em away, but theyd just come back later. The thing was that cat would sit there and watch the raccoons. She even moved out of the way once she was done, and let the raccoons have their share. Its been a few years now, and our yard cat manages things between other cats, the raccoons and the possums, and sometimes armadillos and nobody fights about it. Heck sometimes we find a small crowd waiting for our cat to summon the food for them.
The point being, violence may be an inherent part of nature, and the wilderness. However even animals when they dont have to work so hard to survive will cooperate when its to everyone’s advantage. Which means that anyone who tells you that violence is the only law of nature is full of shit, and is really just telling on themselves. In my opinion.
Don’t need to stretch that far.
Lots of herbivores use violence, either in defense against predators or in competition with their own species for territory, resources, or mates. I’d even go as far as to say that the majority of them do, at least for the first of those two purposes – it’s rare to find an herbivore so passive that it wouldn’t use ‘violence’ to protect itself against a predator attack if necessary.
There’s a difference when violence results from instinct and/or having no other choice, and actively choosing violence. But this distinction is even more damning, as we see many smarter animals become capable of cruelty/spite/malice. Like that tiger who stalked and killed a man in revenge, or dolphins/orcas inventing elaborate methods of toying with their prey, or chimps being outright genocidal psychos.
to counteract your point this generation trusts strangers on the internet more than any other /s
In case anyone else was curious, 23% of men and 19% of women have cheated.
I thought it was normal too! Both my spouse and I have cheated on past significant others when we were young, I guess we deserve each other.
In my experience, these numbers seem very low. Ive never cheated but I’ve been cheated on in nearly every relationship ive been in and many of my friends have as well or have been the cheater. I’d believe these numbers as the percentage caught cheating. If it was self reported, which is probably the only way to collect that data, I’d assume some people lied.
I don’t think you get to be the apex predator on an entire planet without some level of violence in your nature. We got so good at murder it’s just casually in the background courtesy of the vast ag-industry slaughtering tens of thousands of animals daily around the world.
Also, see: humans killing each other since forever and ever.
People who cheat is not the norm though, it’s very much not human nature. A part of humanity (or any species) doing bad stuff doesn’t make it the nature of that species. Pedophilia has also been going on for as long as humans have existed but it’s not human nature, it’s some individuals being sociopaths and have a mental issue that makes them attracted to something over 99% of everyone aren’t.