NationStates Jolt Archive

*This thread has anti thread steal paint*

Anyway we're hostile creatures aren't we? We see something different that affects our world view or perceptions and we act hostile towards it. Number of examples could be given quite easily:

Racism
Sexism
Nazism
Genocide

All those examples of where we are hostile. So anyway I was pondering this question. Why? What does it acheive in the modern world except conflict? And also, as I was watching Transformers, I thought would we be this hostile towards any alien species that should visit Earth even if they came in peace?

*This thread has anti thread steal paint*

Anyway we're hostile creatures aren't we? We see something different that affects our world view or perceptions and we act hostile towards it. Number of examples could be given quite easily:

Racism
Sexism
Nazism
Genocide

All those examples of where we are hostile. So anyway I was pondering this question. Why? What does it acheive in the modern world except conflict? And also, as I was watching Transformers, I thought would we be this hostile towards any alien species that should visit Earth even if they came in peace?

Just checking...

Damn your anti-thread steal paint!

*shoots Londim*

*Reads post*

*Sees irony*

It's much easier to point out examples of friendliness and co-operation but they don't make it into the newspapers. Just think of how many times you walked down the street this week and nobody killed, raped or racially abused you.

"What we are is semi-civilized beasts with baseball caps and automatic weapons" -George Carlin

:)

I think you're over-generalising a bit. Some are hostile at irrational things, most have no such feeling. There is an evolutionary basis for hostility towards that which we don't understand and have no knowledge of, but that is what education is there to correct. The examples you mention are perpetrated by a few and the act is condemned by most observers, and something like hostile sexism is only apparent as it is not institutionalised any more in laws and social rules.

Just checking...

Damn your anti-thread steal paint!

*shoots Londim*

*Reads post*

*Sees irony*

I'll haunt you! I swear it!

It's much easier to point out examples of friendliness and co-operation but they don't make it into the newspapers. Just think of how many times you walked down the street this week and nobody killed, raped or racially abused you.

This is true. I was thinking more generally. I mean different ideologies more often than not leads to conflict and war. When Europe and US first properly encountered Africa, it led to slavery. It seems humanities biggest drive is to have power over others.

"What we are is semi-civilized beasts with baseball caps and automatic weapons" -George Carlin

:)

Excellent quote!

Humans have the ability to about everything - egoism and altruism, self-centerness or self-sacrifice, violence or compassion, hostility or cooperation. You'll find plenty of examples of all at every scale.

But humans are more than everything able to adapt to their environment. The more hostile the environment is, the more hostile they'll become. The more selfish the society is, the more selfish they'll become.

Then, you've another problem: people who _are_ more egoist than altruist tend to grab power more easily - be it through violence, through accumulation of wealth, or through smart lies. That's a very deep problem of human societies, and especially of capitalist systems: the most selfish, egoist and hostile people tend to have the highest positions in hierarchy. So they make the society violent and selfish, which in turn creates more selfish people and make selfish people even more likely to hold power.

That's a very important reason for which I oppose capitalism and economical liberalism (which glorifies and rewards competition over cooperation).

Humans have the ability to about everything - egoism and altruism, self-centerness or self-sacrifice, violence or compassion, hostility or cooperation. You'll find plenty of examples of all at every scale.

But humans are more than everything able to adapt to their environment. The more hostile the environment is, the more hostile they'll become. The more selfish the society is, the more selfish they'll become.

Then, you've another problem: people who _are_ more egoist than altruist tend to grab power more easily - be it through violence, through accumulation of wealth, or through smart lies. That's a very deep problem of human societies, and especially of capitalist systems: the most selfish, egoist and hostile people tend to have the highest positions in hierarchy. So they make the society violent and selfish, which in turn creates more selfish people and make selfish people even more likely to hold power.

That's a very important reason for which I oppose capitalism and economical liberalism (which glorifies and rewards competition over cooperation).

Actually it's a common misconception that Marxism is all about altruism against greed. In actual fact Marxism views altruism, along with all ideological/religious/philosophical reasoning as an abstraction from reality. Marxism gives a material reasoning for all human actions, rather than thinking of each 'individual' as an isolated abstract entity, it places them as interactive with reality.

Marxism in that vein formulates that it is the material reality of certain people, split between the propertied and exploited groups, to struggle against each other, the antagonistic contradiction. The struggle then is scientific and not emotional or moralistic.

I support Marxism both because it's the more just system, but also because it's the inevitable system, and that isn't a contradiction. Because of capitalisms material deficiencies and it's unjustness to the workers, it is bound to fail. So the moral and scientific are the same, socialism is both the more just and the more realistic, so it is bound to prevail over bourgeois property just as bourgeois property was able to prove itself more 'just' than feudalism.

I support Marxism both because it's the more just systemMarxism is very explicitly not a just system. Why? Because when true marxism is achieved the conditions of justice (scarcity and conflicts of interest) do not exist. The language of justice does not apply in a marxist system.

But then, Marx always claimed he wasn't a Marxist. So why listen to him.

*This thread has anti thread steal paint*

Anyway we're hostile creatures aren't we? We see something different that affects our world view or perceptions and we act hostile towards it. Number of examples could be given quite easily:

Racism
Sexism
Nazism
Genocide

All those examples of where we are hostile. So anyway I was pondering this question. Why? What does it acheive in the modern world except conflict? And also, as I was watching Transformers, I thought would we be this hostile towards any alien species that should visit Earth even if they came in peace?
why do those things happen?
Well sexism is a throwback from ye olden days, when men could do what they want with women (generally pretty nasty stuff), nowadays it's changed a bit, with changes in divorce laws and equal pay acts passed oohh about 30 years ago. The West is moving toward a more equal standing with it's people, but will take at least 100 years before these become the accepted norms, to drive out sexism and all the rest.

Racism similar story, except it also has alot of negative connotations with it, and it's pretty ugly stuff too, again a throwback from the old "my town is better than your's" thinking.

Nazism, not quite as common as the other two, and usually laughable and rather pointless, it stemmed from Hitler as you probably know, but no real ideology other than kick out other races survival of the fittest and all that.

Genocide, probably from social issues between different groups of people who don't know how to communicate, pretty nasty again not sure why this happens.

(there's one you missed, ageism, and it's fairly common too)

I doubt we would speak to alien civilisations, we'd just kill them because we might think they're dangerous (ironic eh?), let's hope we don't meet any aliens.

Well the thing is it's not everyone that goes around thinking they're doing something bad, it's from subconscious messages received from friends and family about how to think, and a reflection of how crowded this world has become.
So in conclusion there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but i think it's a flamethrower.

*This thread has anti thread steal paint*

Anyway we're hostile creatures aren't we? We see something different that affects our world view or perceptions and we act hostile towards it. Number of examples could be given quite easily:

Racism
Sexism
Nazism
Genocide

All those examples of where we are hostile. So anyway I was pondering this question. Why? What does it acheive in the modern world except conflict? And also, as I was watching Transformers, I thought would we be this hostile towards any alien species that should visit Earth even if they came in peace?

From an evolutionary point of view, although co-operation within the in-group (your tribe/clan/family...) was beneficial to survival (hence why we altrurism, co-operation, empathy etc...), resources where nonetheless scarce as were mates. Hostility gains the ressources needed to survival, and those with greater hostility towards the out-group (ie everyone else) were more likley to survive.

Move on a few millenia, in the current society obviously in-group/out-group distinctions are a lot more complex, but the same underlying principle still remains in group/social psychology. Ie those you see as being part of your in-group (along whatever classification) people treat more favorable, those perceived as out-group people tend to be less favourable moving on to downright hostility if they perceive that the out-group is threatening their access to resources of any kind (including social ones). This can happen even when group distinctions are as artificial as randomly dividing people into A and B groups (there's a lovely study about this I can look up the reference for if people want).

Of course these are broad principles, you'll find a lot of individual differences, certainly in relation to how people define their in and out groups, which can be based on a wide variety of features. You'll also find individual differences depending on whether people have a single aspect of their personality (e.g. religion) that they feel defines them, which will tend to generate more extreme in=group/out-group divisions, compared to if they consider multiple aspects of their identify important.

It's a result from evolution. While it could be useless nowadays it certainly helped (or didn't do harm) back in the days.

Lets tackle Hostility first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostility

And then, let us tackle the Human Condition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_condition

Bring them together:
Humanity and hostility, hostile as a defense mechanism, and you have your answer to this thread.

We're not hostile you jackass!

We're not hostile you jackass!

Hey! Shut the hell up, you! :upyours:

And also, as I was watching Transformers, I thought would we be this hostile towards any alien species that should visit Earth even if they came in peace?

I found it very hard to think of a serious answer having read this final sentence. :p

I found it very hard to think of a serious answer having read this final sentence. :p

Yeah, its there to put people off...

But they were hurting Bumblebee!

We're not hostile you jackass!

Yes, we are. Otherwise we wouldn´t be able to survive in an increasingly hostile environment. So, SHUT UP!!!:D

Godwinned in the OP itself!

This is what is wrong with the world today!

*This thread has anti thread steal paint*

Anyway we're hostile creatures aren't we? We see something different that affects our world view or perceptions and we act hostile towards it. Number of examples could be given quite easily:

Racism
Sexism
Nazism
Genocide

All those examples of where we are hostile. So anyway I was pondering this question. Why? What does it acheive in the modern world except conflict? And also, as I was watching Transformers, I thought would we be this hostile towards any alien species that should visit Earth even if they came in peace?

I think you're quite right, just look at how humans always turn systems which are normally based on solidarity into mass murdering systems like marxism, christianity, islam, judaism, etc.

Godwinned in the OP itself!

This is what is wrong with the world today!

I aim to break new ground!

I'll haunt you! I swear it!



This is true. I was thinking more generally. I mean different ideologies more often than not leads to conflict and war. When Europe and US first properly encountered Africa, it led to slavery. It seems humanities biggest drive is to have power over others.



Excellent quote!

Africa had slavery before, just not on as wide a scale.

Yeah, I'm a jerk.

Wanna fight about it?:p

Africa had slavery before, just not on as wide a scale.

Yeah I'm guessing between tribes and such. I only pointed it out during Colonial times because that is when it became a true global issue. I believe that this kind of hostility will start to die down as the people mix more though there will always be hostile pockets in the world.