Predators
The myth of man the killer. A must read.
Not sure I agree that we’re not killers because of biology. We have sharp teeth and forward facing eyes. So we’re not grass-eaters. But, yeah, it seems counterintuitive for us to kill one another.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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September 10th, 2010 at 9:02 am
My cats are obligate carnivores with predators’ instincts and all the gee-whiz fangs and claws that make them cute little half-pint tigers. They do not instinctually know how to kill and one of them was highly peeved when his toy/lunch dropped out of his mouth and make for the tall timber. In the context, “killer” is someone who can kill without effort.
I have killed my own dinner, but wouldn’t consider myself a “killer”. Hell, I prefer to shoot at bullseye targets rather than person-shaped ones, and in most cases will eject rather than smash bugs.
September 10th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Are there any animals who regularly hunt their own kind as prey?
September 10th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Are you serious? The history of the world is man killing man. Women and children, too.
And not in a fair fight over a woman or food. Smallpox-infected blankets to Indians, ovens in Dachau. And all the other various ways we have discovered to kill each other.
We resemble rats more than any other species. Rats eat each other and so do we.
September 10th, 2010 at 10:48 am
read the articles.
September 10th, 2010 at 11:11 am
I would think such a trait would die out of a species since it would make it difficult to procreate.
September 10th, 2010 at 11:23 am
I was quite heartened when I read “On Killing” long ago to discover that it is quite difficult for most people to kill. Takes a lot of training to get soldiers to shoot to kill on average. Unfortunately, that leads to mental health problems when soldiers are not given absolution by their society for the acts that society insisted they undertake, which is a serious cause of PSTD.
I does seem though that very bad things can happen when a few sociopaths are able to set up a bureaucratic killing machine (with diffuse responsibility and group normalization) to do horrific things. A person is generally just and moral, people are dangerous and unpredictable.
September 10th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Rustmeister, there are many animals that eat their own kind as prey. Fish pop to mind.
September 10th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
My mother’s brother was sentenced to death in three separate cases. He served eleven years in prison and was pardoned. His own son killed him.
My grandfather’s brother and his two sons, the youngest only sixteen, my namesake, were executed for having a shotgun and a pistol in their house.
I dunno. Maybe the socialists are right. We exploit fellow human beings.
September 10th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Chimpanzees (our closest relatives, if you believe that sort of thing) organize hunting parties to kill rival groups. The timing of these killing sprees has nothing to do with encroachment of territory or scarcity of resources.
September 10th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
The article is bullshit. It is an attempt at using philosophy to justify the paranoid delusions of the masses. Basically an excuse not a reason. The article also stops short of saying their are no man the killers. Just that they are very rare. Perhaps they are just hiding better than he thinks. If you would like to look up an interesting stat check ncic and see how many americans are reported missing every year…. Look at those numbers and tell me that man the killer does not exist in larger than expected numbers….
September 10th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
I always wonder about that “reported missing” stat. Is there tracking of “once missing, now found”? If not, it’s a (relatively) useless stat. A thouroughly scientific google turned up a rough estimate of 1 million at the high side reported missing per year. There’s roughly 300 million people in the US (lowball estimate). 1/3 of 1% go missing in a year, roughly. Even if they all remain missing (and they don’t), we’re into some pretty low statistical noise levels there.
I don’t know which article you are referring to, but the one I wrote argued *against* paranoid delusion of the masses, in that you could arm almost everyone and not see an increase in criminal violence. Yeah, I know people who I would prefer not to be armed, but I’m not thrilled with them being able to drive or use a lighter either.
Persons of violent tendency (“killers”) are extraordinarily rare in the Army, despite them recruiting the demographic (young males of early adult age) where they are most prevalent; as noted one of my source articles. The army trains up more, that’s one of the points of Basic. But the paranoid delusion is that the country is awash with deadly predators; it just isn’t so. That was the point of my article. If it wasn’t so, we wouldn’t have a (mostly) functional civil society. (Even in the worst parts of the country, we have functional civil society. You can look to Africa for examples of what a non-functional society looks like – and noplace in this country is close).
September 11th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
In either 2008 or 2009 52,000 of the 974,000 reported missing for the year were found. On average the various government agencies make 6 cross reference searches a year for each person reported missing. At the end of every year they reset the counter. Percentage wise the missing numbers are insignificant. Numbers wise however that is something all together different. The numbers of missing reported can fluctuate massively year to year signaling that this is not just people relisting their relatives that have disappeared in years past. Where do 900,000 thousand people go to every year. To put it in perspective that would be like the san francisco disappearing every year.. Not that that would be too bad if san francisco did disappear. Still that is a lot of people to just vanish.
I do stand corrected on your justification of paranoid killers. I had read the natural killers article and misapplied it to you somewhat. I think you are on the right road just 1 exit up.
The reason I applied it to you was that natural killers are more prevalent then most people think. The difference is that the countries stability has little do with their presence because a majority of the population continues to deny that they exist in numbers greater than what they are told. If the numbers were higher it would have an effect of questioning the intentions of the people who rule over them rather than the innate fear of the actual killers themselves. While natural killers are rare they are however far more common than our leaders would like us to think.
There is a flip side to this though. The one thing that would keep us from falling apart even if we were awash in killers is that our country was founded on a martial background. Have you ever wondered why the nazis were able to convince an entire country that what they did was ok?? It is due to germany being a martial country that they could accept quite a few horrors in order to contain overall stability. A country not built or who does not maintain a martial heritage is far more able to collapse at the whims of the few when compared to a martial one that continues to hold together even when the whims of the few are personified in destruction. A society can function with killers calling the shots. When society has the choice of follow the killers or its own demise it will always follow the killers. Survival. People would rather survive in a bad situation then die in a worse one. Germany was not even close to being the first society to follow this path. Paranoia would not cause the downfall of society even if half the population had a predilection toward being killers. A functional civil society is by definition subject to the interpretation of its members. One mans society is another mans anarchy. It all depends on your point of view.
September 13th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Mr Smith, I believe you misunderstand the NCIC stats. If the originating agency locates the reported missing person, the entry is “cleared.” An agency can not do a “locate” their own cases.
In Calif (as of late ’07 when I retired), it was mandatory to enter (and clear) someone as a missing person, even if the person was located just as the officer arrived (e.g. a child hiding under the bed).
If I were cynical, I might think that the laws/rules were set up to make sure the numbers were inflated because someone was making money from it.