Aspies For Freedom

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent"
-Salvor Hardin

Very true, because a well built bomb will do the job properly the first time round without the need of intercontinental fisticuffs afterwards.

Violence - Just say no, very loudly. From above. About 20,000 feet above.

Violence has to be put in a context, if violence was self defence then it is justified, if violence is the strong picking on the weak and helpless it is pure evil.

evils kinda slippery; just try and define it! I bet I can find a fault with any definition you provide.

Whether picking on the weak is evil or not depends on how you look at it.  Personally I think it is but if you look at Chimpanze behaviour - they all do it.  They appear to single out individuals and beat them to death just for the hell of it.

So its in our natures - who can say why though.

Wolfy,

you seem to be saying that behaviours observed in P. troglodytes are also "natural" for  H. sapiens?  :?

Isn't  the most obvious difference between the two species this very business of behaviour and social organization?

Stella

Not true!  Chimps are extremely well organized into societies!  I begin to suspect that, given the prevalence of the merciless and cruel behaviors you call 'evil,' these behaviors must have some kind of survivial value, even in a highly socialized society such as our own.  I cannot say what this might be, but I must wonder.  So many apparently negative things in our genes (Tay Sachs disease, cystic fibrosis) turn out to have survival value (being a TS carrier protects from tuberculosis, being a CS carrier protects from cholera, there are many more examples liek these).  I wonder, if evil might not have its balance as well.

Because our minds and bodies are designed for a very different lifestyle to what we live in today.  Civilisation wouldn't exist if we didn't supress our instinctual feelings.  We're smart enough to realise that we can live a lot easier if we live in larger groups (cities), but that's contradictory to what humans are designed for.  We're too smart for our own good, basically.

'Evil' is one of the most useless words in the English language, except for war mongerers.  Evil is just a subjective concept, it doesn't exist at all. Gays were once evil, and still are in some places, until our concept of 'evil' changed, and now gays aren't in any way evil.

Actually, that idea came from the study of a single population who´s social structure had been severely disturbed by human intervention. Chimps surely are capable of such behaviour, but a single groups actions does not set the  standards for the entire species.

PS: Sorry if I sound somewhat lecturing

I've read that chimpanzees are indeed capable of violence towards their own but it is not common. I also think that it is possible to read too much into the results of a single study. The magazine writers do it every day though, with the "gee whiz" reports about some study or other that says one food or another is bad for us (this is usually something many people like) eg. "scientists say".

Because it is "scientists", we are supposed to swallow the whole thing uncritically without finding out the size of the study, whether or not it was carried out under properly controlled circumstances (including use of a large enough sample to be statistically valid" and what credentials the scientists have. "Doctors say" is another similar one as not everybody who calls themselves a doctor actually has the proper qualifications.

I associate such doctors and scientists who haven't really got a good enough result of their work with approved autism researchers who is more like philosophers who think autistics are freaks and haven't really got to know many.

I agree with Nemidaelius, most characteristics of NT's which is different from aspies have some kind of use, even though not in our time.

I only like violence carried out in a smart sly way. For example, the character Iago from the play Othello.