Claiming Immunity

[Don Coyote]

Call me crazy but might it possible that reason we aren't all going around killing people for their shit is because we were raised in a society that has laws against that kind of shit thus making such behavior unacceptable.
Or I could be bug nuts retarded and we were all born to be such non-murderous people.

[Doktor Howl]

This is the bit that annoys me. Some primates realise this and do their best to leash in the monkey and function like some kind of more intelligent thing, that walks on it's back legs all the time. It's possible to take control of the punishment reward mechanisms and rise above the whole hooting and flinging shit thing.

So we should assume that everyone does?

Heh! Exactly. That's what I hate. Not the monkeys themselves, they're just biological machines that haven't quite figured out how to work themselves. I hate the fact that they're like that. The fact itself is the target of my hatred. I have optimism it might not always be a fact, at some point in the future it'll just die but I'm pessimistic about seeing it in my lifetime.

Boy, it's a good thing that we're better than those filthy monkeys, and aren't ourselves running around in one uniform or another.

-jaded snort-

When you're as high above these things as we are, you're too high to fall.

[Don Coyote]

This is the bit that annoys me. Some primates realise this and do their best to leash in the monkey and function like some kind of more intelligent thing, that walks on it's back legs all the time. It's possible to take control of the punishment reward mechanisms and rise above the whole hooting and flinging shit thing.

So we should assume that everyone does?

Heh! Exactly. That's what I hate. Not the monkeys themselves, they're just biological machines that haven't quite figured out how to work themselves. I hate the fact that they're like that. The fact itself is the target of my hatred. I have optimism it might not always be a fact, at some point in the future it'll just die but I'm pessimistic about seeing it in my lifetime.

Boy, it's a good thing that we're better than those filthy monkeys, and aren't ourselves running around in one uniform or another.

-jaded snort-

When you're as high above these things as we are, you're too high to fall.

[Doktor Howl]

Call me crazy but might it possible that reason we aren't all going around killing people for their shit is because we were raised in a society that has laws against that kind of shit thus making such behavior unacceptable.
Or I could be bug nuts retarded and we were all born to be such non-murderous people.

I know I'D never go all chainsaw billy if they repealed the murder laws.

Because I love people. 

[Freeky]

Call me crazy but might it possible that reason we aren't all going around killing people for their shit is because we were raised in a society that has laws against that kind of shit thus making such behavior unacceptable.
Or I could be bug nuts retarded and we were all born to be such non-murderous people.

Shit, I know for a fact that I'd be a murderer if it wasn't a big deal.  I'd be bashing people in the head, dragging their faces across the tarmac, gouging their eyes out, and ripping people's throats out with my teeth left and right.  Laws and social taboos keep those violent tendencies in check, and shame and the desire to have people think well of me does even more to keep me a decent human being.

There's probably some deep thing about domesticated humanity in there.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You guys pretty much have it backward. It's domestication which has made us violent and necessitated the institution of laws.

Our violent urges are tied directly to a survival instinct that causes us to compete for resources when resources are slim. If you look at egalitarian people who live in tribal systems in areas where resources are plentiful, there is very little violence and not much that could be described as "crime". Resources are typically communal, and every member of the society depends on the others to survive. If someone behaves in a way that is antisocial and threatens the survival or well-being of other members, they're cast out, and that's more or less a death sentence.

When resources are not plentiful, you start to see competition between neighboring tribes. The other people are seen as other, lesser, sinful or not quite human, because that makes it easier to justify killing them or taking their resources so that YOUR babies will live.

It's in "civilized" societies, where we are all competing against other members of our own society that you start to see widespread crime and violence.

[P3nT4gR4m]

When you realise you've fallen what's the first thing you do? I don't mean while you're plummeting off the perch and headed groundward under your own speed, I mean when it dawns on you you've just let the ape take over? Happens to most of us, as far as I can make out. What's the first thing you feel? For me it's like failure. I've slipped, I've been less than excellent. It can be funny but it's not something I'm aiming for.

Thing is I very seriously doubt, if unprovoked, I'd ever kill someone. It's not exactly in my nature. The ability to kill? Sure, my primate physiology is more than capable but my primate nature accepts, on a purely instinctual level, that community is a good thing, we're a strength in numbers mammal. I reckon a fair deal (maybe even the lions share?) of my homicide inhibition is down to the fact that I realise, in a survival sense, that I have more chance of prolongedly doing it if I work with the opposing hominid, rather than against it.

It aint because god told me, or because I'd get flung in jail. It's distasteful to me. In a really icky way and also it's nonsensical to me in a purely self indulgent - how much better would life be without dumb fucks doing dumb shit - sense.

Humanity came from dumb fuck apes. Really dumb fuck apes. Look at them on Discovery Channel if you don't believe me. Those apes are dumb. Beside one of those dumb fuck apes even the most dumb fuck human could probably impress the judges. We're not, collectively, where we might end up but some are further along than others. Some have made the effort, continue to make the effort. To strive to become something more than we are.

Others just wallow in shit. Shit dressed up as not really shit, perhaps but it's never hugely different to fucking each other over, over who has the biggest tree and the most bananas. They know not what they do. It sucks that they know not this.

[Cain]

You guys pretty much have it backward. It's domestication which has made us violent and necessitated the institution of laws.

Our violent urges are tied directly to a survival instinct that causes us to compete for resources when resources are slim. If you look at egalitarian people who live in tribal systems in areas where resources are plentiful, there is very little violence and not much that could be described as "crime". Resources are typically communal, and every member of the society depends on the others to survive. If someone behaves in a way that is antisocial and threatens the survival or well-being of other members, they're cast out, and that's more or less a death sentence.

When resources are not plentiful, you start to see competition between neighboring tribes. The other people are seen as other, lesser, sinful or not quite human, because that makes it easier to justify killing them or taking their resources so that YOUR babies will live.

It's in "civilized" societies, where we are all competing against other members of our own society that you start to see widespread crime and violence.

You can also see this in the history of revolutions, for much the same reasons.

Revolutions tend not to happen when times are really, really tough.  They tend to occur once things start getting better.

[Doktor Howl]

Humanity came from dumb fuck apes. Really dumb fuck apes.

See, you're making this one assumption, here...

[Doktor Howl]

You guys pretty much have it backward. It's domestication which has made us violent and necessitated the institution of laws.

Our violent urges are tied directly to a survival instinct that causes us to compete for resources when resources are slim. If you look at egalitarian people who live in tribal systems in areas where resources are plentiful, there is very little violence and not much that could be described as "crime". Resources are typically communal, and every member of the society depends on the others to survive. If someone behaves in a way that is antisocial and threatens the survival or well-being of other members, they're cast out, and that's more or less a death sentence.

When resources are not plentiful, you start to see competition between neighboring tribes. The other people are seen as other, lesser, sinful or not quite human, because that makes it easier to justify killing them or taking their resources so that YOUR babies will live.

It's in "civilized" societies, where we are all competing against other members of our own society that you start to see widespread crime and violence.

Um, yep.  You're right.  I got nothing.

STOP BEING SO NIGEL ALL THE  DAMN TIME!   

[AnarChloe]

Those rules always exist, it's just a matter of how formally codified they are.

Do your neighbors lynch you, or has society organized a government with specialists who determine your degree of guilt and the nature of your punishment?

We have to cut out the middleman.  Government is inherently evil, so we should return to lynchings.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You guys pretty much have it backward. It's domestication which has made us violent and necessitated the institution of laws.

Our violent urges are tied directly to a survival instinct that causes us to compete for resources when resources are slim. If you look at egalitarian people who live in tribal systems in areas where resources are plentiful, there is very little violence and not much that could be described as "crime". Resources are typically communal, and every member of the society depends on the others to survive. If someone behaves in a way that is antisocial and threatens the survival or well-being of other members, they're cast out, and that's more or less a death sentence.

When resources are not plentiful, you start to see competition between neighboring tribes. The other people are seen as other, lesser, sinful or not quite human, because that makes it easier to justify killing them or taking their resources so that YOUR babies will live.

It's in "civilized" societies, where we are all competing against other members of our own society that you start to see widespread crime and violence.

Um, yep.  You're right.  I got nothing.

STOP BEING SO NIGEL ALL THE  DAMN TIME!   

But the nice thing about, it, Dok, is that it means that human beings are basically decent monkeys, pushed by a relatively new environment we have not yet fully adapted to into abysmally destructive behavior.

[P3nT4gR4m]

You guys pretty much have it backward. It's domestication which has made us violent and necessitated the institution of laws.

Our violent urges are tied directly to a survival instinct that causes us to compete for resources when resources are slim. If you look at egalitarian people who live in tribal systems in areas where resources are plentiful, there is very little violence and not much that could be described as "crime". Resources are typically communal, and every member of the society depends on the others to survive. If someone behaves in a way that is antisocial and threatens the survival or well-being of other members, they're cast out, and that's more or less a death sentence.

When resources are not plentiful, you start to see competition between neighboring tribes. The other people are seen as other, lesser, sinful or not quite human, because that makes it easier to justify killing them or taking their resources so that YOUR babies will live.

It's in "civilized" societies, where we are all competing against other members of our own society that you start to see widespread crime and violence.

Um, yep.  You're right.  I got nothing.

STOP BEING SO NIGEL ALL THE  DAMN TIME!   

But the nice thing about, it, Dok, is that it means that human beings are basically decent monkeys, pushed by a relatively new environment we have not yet fully adapted to into abysmally destructive behavior.

THIS!!!

especially "not yet fully adapted to" the operative word being "yet"

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

You guys pretty much have it backward. It's domestication which has made us violent and necessitated the institution of laws.

Our violent urges are tied directly to a survival instinct that causes us to compete for resources when resources are slim. If you look at egalitarian people who live in tribal systems in areas where resources are plentiful, there is very little violence and not much that could be described as "crime". Resources are typically communal, and every member of the society depends on the others to survive. If someone behaves in a way that is antisocial and threatens the survival or well-being of other members, they're cast out, and that's more or less a death sentence.

When resources are not plentiful, you start to see competition between neighboring tribes. The other people are seen as other, lesser, sinful or not quite human, because that makes it easier to justify killing them or taking their resources so that YOUR babies will live.

It's in "civilized" societies, where we are all competing against other members of our own society that you start to see widespread crime and violence.

Um, yep.  You're right.  I got nothing.

STOP BEING SO NIGEL ALL THE  DAMN TIME!   

But the nice thing about, it, Dok, is that it means that human beings are basically decent monkeys, pushed by a relatively new environment we have not yet fully adapted to into abysmally destructive behavior.

1000% Truth on both posts Nigel.

When humans live in tribes, their survival depends on the whole tribe. Humans behave like members of the tribe. In today's society, we depend on money, so some humans steal money to improve their survival chances. Some people kill over, for or because of money, because it improves their survival chances (if they don't do it in Texas and get caught). This sort of behavior simply had no 'upside' in a tribal society. You can't steal your way to better survival unless your tribe steals from another tribe. Today, even among lawful societies, that sort of process still happens, we just call it 'war' instead of 'killing and stealing' then throw a flag over it for good measure.

Once survival became dependent on objects (money) rather than people, a whole new breed of bad behavior arose.

[Reeducation]

Great stuff P3nT4gR4m. I dig.