Why war happens in our species........

[abaris]

Yea and? Glad he had his ass handed to him.

And you don't feel the least bit reminded of the US of A reading that statement? Göring has been a bastard, but not a stupid bastard. And he was a realist being out for personal gain. He knew what it took.

Fact is, you don't have to get all philosophical over war. We share 99 or 98 percent of genes with another population waging war. Truth is, we're still territorial chimps. That's all there is to know about humans and waging wars.

[Minimalist]

Brian, you can't correctly point out that people get emotionally worked up for war and then get all huffy when someone points out how easy it is to do.

We kid ourselves that we can drop a bomb in the middle of a town and act all surprised when civilians get caught in the blast.  We coined the phrases "surgical strike" and "collateral damage" for when the "surgery" gets a little slipshod.  Are we full of shit?  Yes.  Do we care whether or not the people in the blast radius are "real muslims?"  No.  "War is hell," as Sherman said.

[Brian37]

Brian, you can't correctly point out that people get emotionally worked up for war and then get all huffy when someone points out how easy it is to do.

We kid ourselves that we can drop a bomb in the middle of a town and act all surprised when civilians get caught in the blast.  We coined the phrases "surgical strike" and "collateral damage" for when the "surgery" gets a little slipshod.  Are we full of shit?  Yes.  Do we care whether or not the people in the blast radius are "real muslims?"  No.  "War is hell," as Sherman said.

Of course war is hell, but that does not mean we have to default to it, or treat all individuals caught up in it as sub human. The problem with "all or nothing" today ultimately are nukes. So even if we don't give a shit about them, a nuclear war would disrupt the entire planet, and would even make life on our side hell too. You still have to pick a strategy that has the right effect without going overboard. If Bush didn't teach us that, I don't know what will.

[Jello]

War happens because like all animals, we are greedy, as being greedy tends to get you to survive longer out in the wild, than being super generous and nice. The only difference is that animals aren't smart enough to develop weaponry, to have actual wars.

It's all personal gain, greediness has ruled the earth since life began.

[Minimalist]

Of course war is hell, but that does not mean we have to default to it, or treat all individuals caught up in it as sub human.

Silent enim leges inter arma *

Marcus Tullius Cicero

* In times of war, the law falls silent.



This is not a new problem.

[Brian37]

War happens because like all animals, we are greedy, as being greedy tends to get you to survive longer out in the wild, than being super generous and nice. The only difference is that animals aren't smart enough to develop weaponry, to have actual wars.

It's all personal gain, greediness has ruled the earth since life began.

So, I agree, that is part of life but so is empathy, and we can choose how we go forward. Just because both cruelty and compassion work in evolution does not mean we should let the cruelty part be dominate part of our species.

[Society]

Greed, power, and dominance.

[Kosh]

Yea and? Glad he had his ass handed to him.

And you don't feel the least bit reminded of the US of A reading that statement? Göring has been a bastard, but not a stupid bastard. And he was a realist being out for personal gain. He knew what it took.

Fact is, you don't have to get all philosophical over war. We share 99 or 98 percent of genes with another population waging war. Truth is, we're still territorial chimps. That's all there is to know about humans and waging wars.

That is what it comes down to for me.  When my wife and I discuss all the irrational bullshit that humans do, my base discussion point is that we are the same monkeys that crawled out of the trees.  We are fighting over the same watering holes and banana trees, but our tools to inflict damage upon one another has evolved faster than our reasoning capacity to not use them.
  
When you factor in the out of control world population, this is inevitable.  Imagine what we could accomplish as a species if we used the money and resources spent on the military for peaceful and constructive purposes.

[dyresand]

Ok, before anyone comments, please don't respond with "it's complicated", yes our species is complicated. But the core reason is not complicated, we simply as humans concoct elaborate schemes and call theme things like religion, political parties, and economic views. Yes those things do get complicated, but the goal as to why we invent those things isn't. We do that to get at resources and to create social order so we can have a sense of control over our environment, even when it comes at the expense to harming others.

Shakespeare saw the folly of human conceit in MacBeth Act 5 scene 5 "flurry of activity signifying nothing". Damn good guess even with not having the modern scientific knowledge of knowing how finite we are in cosmic time. Sagan however did. 

War happens for many reasons, but the goal is the same, control over our environments. Ideas are the excuses we make and those excuses do get complicated. It isn't that you can get rid of disagreements or differences, but we can work to a less violent world and make diplomacy more of a priority the more humans accept this.

Why it happens... land, ideologies, skin color, resources, who has the bigger dick (i.E. person with better technology vs person less advanced vice versa)

[ApeNotKillApe]

Why do ants wage wars?