Re: Looking for a name.

From: Chris Taylor (christ@ebi.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 08 Mar 2004 - 10:07:37 GMT

  • Next message: Keith Henson: "Re: Looking for a name."

    I was trying to think of something germanic based on krieg, to no avail
    (war shank was as close as I could get with googlefish), but what about borrowing 'marshall/marshalling' with the obvious link to martial as well. So call it a marshalling response? (Got a nice God-root to boot). I always liked bellicose as a word too, but belly doesn't give you much to work with. You could do something like guerilla maybe? I'll shut up anyway.

    Cheers, Chris.

    Keith Henson wrote:

    > Stockholm Syndrome, more descriptively capture-bonding, is a
    > conditionally switched on evolved psychological trait humans have. See
    > http://www.human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html for discussion re this
    > trait and the attention-reward mechanism (awkward terms, I know).

    Er, 'is'? A little bold there fella -- but I digress.

    > I need suggestions for what to call the psychological mechanism(s) that
    > induce humans (and chimps) into making organized war on other groups
    > either as a result of being attacked or due to xenophobic memes
    > amplified by privation/looming privation. Shorter terms based on Greek
    > or Latin roots for war or war gods would probably be better.
    >
    > I am not far from having the first draft of this article done. If any
    > are interested in reviewing the draft, send me a note.
    >
    > Keith Henson
    >
    > **********
    >
    > Evolutionary Psychology, Memes, The Origin of War, and Empowering Women
    > (Tentative title)
    >
    > By H. Keith Henson
    >
    > ABSTRACT. (DRAFT)
    >
    > Our ancestors always lived close to their ecological limit, an unstable
    > upper bound for how many hominids (or lions or tigers or bears) an
    > environment can support. When reproduction pushes populations over the
    > limit or the limit fluctuates down because conditions vary, part of the
    > population will die, typically by starvation. Humans have evolved a
    > psychological response to looming starvation; a mechanism that induced
    > tribes to make war on nearby tribes. The psychological response
    > increases the circulation of xenophobic memes among groups facing
    > privation. Xenophobic memes break down the normal reluctance of humans
    > to attacking other humans and synchronize warriors of one tribe to
    > attack another. Genes inducing suicidal behavior in the (male) members
    > of a weak tribe attacking a strong tribe had a selective advantage
    > because the losing tribe's young females (carriers of those genes) were
    > usually incorporated into the winning tribe. From a gene's perspective
    > this was better than starvation. In war situations self-preserving
    > (rational) behavior has not been favored by selection. I.e., "stupid"
    > decisions should be expected.
    >
    > Being attacked turns on a related psychological response, rapidly
    > inducing xenophobia and a fighting response even in groups not facing
    > starvation.
    >
    > With appropriate mapping (looming starvation/privation into expected or
    > actual declining income per capita) this evolved psychological mechanism
    > accounts for the origin of most (if not all) historical wars. While war
    > was adaptive for hunter-gatherer level societies, war is poorly adapted
    > for human societies above that level.
    >
    > Inherent in this model is a prescription for avoiding wars: keep income
    > per capita rising or at least not falling for *all* human groups.
    > Population growth itself does not lead to wars, but population growth in
    > excess of economic growth does. Empowering women to limit births to a
    > level below economic growth appears to be a key to avoiding wars or
    > ending long running conflicts.
    >
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >
    > 

    -- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Chris Taylor (christ@ebi.ac.uk)
  MIAPE Project -- psidev.sf.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit

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