I’ve been thinking about what solution there might be for preventing atrosities caused by wars. perhaps there isn’t any.
one reason is possibly that we have grown far too inteligent. the most esential things for sustaining life are food and water. we can now acquire food and water so efficiently that we have so much spare time. when we have spare time, we can sit down and do nothing but to think, to develope our believes, and try to impose what we believe on others–by force or other means. therefore, (in my spare time), I have developed a belief that if we give up our inteligence so that we have to spend most of our time finding food and water, we will not be able to wage war.
Yan
Yan,
When you’re off getting food and water all day, I’ll be waiting at your village with a sword I made in half the time, ready to steal the fruits of your labor from you. I’m afraid the whole thing is a bit more complicated than what you’re making of it.
acts of stealing and dishonesty require a lot of calculations and intelligence. that’s why I say war against inteligence.
You would probably enjoy the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
No more than the amount of calculations (or intelligence) it takes to find food.
I don’t think that the level of inteligence required for stealing and dishonesty is the same as looking for food. even if I grant you that they are the same, you cannot use it to argue against “war on inteligence”.
if I have spare food and water, I would eat and drink what I have before I go look for new food and water. or I would have carried them with me on my way looking for food. one doesn’t usually see piles of food where most non-human animals live, because they don’t have the inteligence to grow/keep food efficiently.
Yan
Yan,
We can bypass the intelligence issue with an example: suppose two humans of the most minimal intelligence grab for the last apple on a tree, in a valley where no more food is in sight. What would happen then? Would they have enough intelligence to share it? Or would it take less intelligence to fight for it? I would argue that these decisions take an equal amount of intelligence, so ultimately, regardless of intelligence, we are forced to make moral decisions. The complexity of the issue being decided is the only thing that changes with intelligence.
The following portion of your post:
…I don’t quite understand.
Man will have to retain the desire to mate in order for the species to survive, so it isn’t just food and water. The survival of the species will require procreation. For the sake of argument lets say that every male (bereft of intelligence) is subject to the same primal urge to mate with a female (and every female is subject to the same primal urge to select a male and allow him to mate with her). Males can continue to impreganate females indefinatelty. As a bare minimum survival strategy this only requires a small number of males to keep a vastly larger population of females pregnant. Thus the species is insure survival by numbers alone.
Unless men and women also have the intelligence to socialize as to insure the survival of the species, it is me and you clubbing each other to death in some cave somewhere over that pretty red head in the corner, whom, lacking in intelligence herself, must pick the winner as a result.
Remember, the survival of the species doesn’t require a large number of males, it does require that man and woman meet and mate. Considering how frail human babies are, how much they need in order to survive, etc, will also require more intelligence then just enough to seek out food and water. And although I believe females are easily capable of being alot tougher than men in terms of what they can survive, to better insure that a child can survive in such a world will also require that the father invest time and energy in helping to provide for and protect his offspring. This too entails more than just intelligence needed to seek out food and water.
Primates fight all the time over things like food/ territory/ mates etc. Even lacking intelligence, Man will eventually organize, the benefits outweigh the costs. After having done so, there will be times when communities of Humans will encounter each other and “war” over food, territory, mates, etc. Thus, removing intelligence does not end war, it just increases human misery.
Fuck Rousseau. you need to read Clastres, Girard, and Oedipus Rex.
War is A part of human nature. We have no instinctual brakes to prevent us from killing each other (as do most animals). We use cultural means (mainly religions) to prevent us from butchering each other. And besides, people don’t fight for frivolous reasons. People fight because they’re asses are up against the wall and it’s them or the other.
That being said, I didn’t support the Iraq War on the grounds that Bush gave and I fully realize that my above argument is not flawless as Ideology is a powerful master and will lead people to some dumb shit.
That is really sweet! But hey! Who says intelligence can only be used for abuse, it can also be used for the betterment of mankind whether openly or subtly and mostly that is how intelligence IS used for. In the process if things like war and abuse come up in a small way then I think we should use this very intelligence to find a way out of it rather than giving up on intelligence. Don’t you think so too Yan?