Тег: Violence

The Role of Violence in the Survival of Species and Populations

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Intraspecific violence is often credited with the role of a mechanism important for maintaining the life of individual populations and even entire species. For example, violence is a tool for establishing a dominance hierarchy, excluding weak individuals from competition, allocating limited resources in favor of the strongest and most adapted members of the population, etc. To a certain extent, these statements are true, but what is definitely incorrect is to look at the phenomenon of violence in isolation from other factors—an error often made when presenting violence as a mechanism that works the same way in all cases.

Factors such as the innate armament of population members and the possibility of avoiding violence through flight play an important role in intraspecific violence. In cases where the armament of individuals is quite weak, the population is not limited by a strict habitat (it has room to expand), and individuals generally possess a good ability to flee, then certain benefits can indeed be derived from intraspecific violence without encountering an unacceptable level of negative externalities created by it. In short, in such cases, the benefits outweigh the losses.

But everything changes with an increase in the armament of individuals, with the limitation of their habitat, and if their ability to flee is less developed. The more pronounced these factors are, the more negative externalities the population will experience—violence will begin to threaten its survival. This was noted in ethological research by Konrad Lorenz, who also did not deny the positive aspects of violence, but at the same time took into account factors capable of turning this phenomenon into a catastrophe. He also described the concept of a mechanism that inhibits (restrains) intraspecific violence. I will provide an excerpt from his book “Aggression, or the So-called Evil”:

“A raven can knock out another raven’s eye with a single blow of its beak; a wolf can rip open another wolf’s jugular vein with a single bite. If reliable prohibitions did not prevent this, neither ravens nor wolves would have existed for a long time. A pigeon, a hare, and even a chimpanzee are unable to kill one of their own kind with a single blow or bite. Moreover, such poorly armed creatures possess an ability to flee that allows them to escape even from ‘professional’ predators, who are far more skilled in pursuit, capture, and killing than any superior fellow of their own species. Therefore, in the wild, it is usually impossible for such an animal to harm its own kind. Consequently, there is no selective pressure creating a prohibition against killing.”

From all this, a simple conclusion can be drawn: intraspecific violence can be useful, but only as long as factors such as armament and the inability to flee from violence do not become so pronounced as to create too many negative externalities. And the more pronounced these factors are, the greater the harm will be, which will ultimately lead to selective pressure toward stronger inhibitors of aggressive behavior among population representatives.

Now let us briefly consider the case of humans. Their innate armament is quite weak, and they have not yet fully adapted to the artificial armament that emerged during the development of civilization and scientific and technical progress. But this armament, along with the current lack of possibility for significant expansion of living space (humans have already spread across almost all habitable territory on the planet), creates a great threat to the survival of humanity. Intraspecific violence may have been useful for the distant ancestors of humans, but since they began using artificial weaponry, the situation has changed fundamentally. It is also worth adding that when discussing violence, the characteristics of humans and human society that distinguish them from animals and the animal world are often overlooked. Violence has an extremely negative effect on human psyche and behavior. Violence also disrupts economic relationships. This creates even more negative externalities.

The Myth of the Attacker’s Advantage

Voluntarist, Bitarch

The idea of universal armament and armed self-defense is often attempted to be portrayed as untenable by resorting to the argument of the attacker’s advantage. After all, what difference does it make whether the victim is armed or not if the attacker is still better prepared for the clash, since he is the one who planned it, while the victim expects nothing. And in general, few attackers will risk encountering a stronger opponent; they will prefer to choose a weak victim and bypass a strong one. The attacker always has the advantage; he is most often stronger, and freedom of armament will only give him more of an advantage since he will be able to arm himself freely.

To begin with, it should be noted that it is precisely the restriction of the freedom to arm oneself that gives the attacker an advantage. The ban only works for law-abiding citizens. If we take statistics from the USA, then 94% of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones, and 80% of armed criminals obtained their weapons illegally, most often on the black market, rather than simply buying them in a regular gun store; furthermore, 57% of criminals fear armed citizens more than they fear the police. All these facts directly indicate that it is precisely the regulation and prohibition of armament that gives the attacker an additional advantage.

And even if, after this, the attacker still retains some advantage over the victim, in general, this still decides nothing. The attacker cannot guarantee success; in the best-case scenario for him, his chance of success is merely higher than that of his victim. However, the risk of his failure in the event that the victim is armed is also high, and he will expose himself to this risk with every attack. Victory in one individual clash will not make him a winner overall; soon he will face a failure that could cost him his own life. And violent criminals make up an overwhelming minority of the population; as analysis of Russian crime shows, in the worst case, we have one violent criminal per year per 695 people (and that is considering not only murders, rapes, and the infliction of serious physical harm, but also, for example, battery). This means that, purely statistically, rapists and violent criminals have no chance of defeating an armed civilian population, or even inflicting any serious harm on society.

There can be no rights and freedoms to violence

Voluntarist, Bitarch

To the question of whether a person has the right to commit violence, we have only one answer — they do not! No single person in the world should possess the right to initiate an act of violence against another person. But some people (most often supporters of authoritarian-conservative views and force-based methods of solving problems) may say that this is a restriction of freedom. Freedom to commit violence is a freedom like any other, which means we are contradicting ourselves and are authoritarians ourselves, wanting to forcibly impose a single life scenario on everyone.

This is a rather inadequate manipulation in essence, which ignores the fact that violence leads to people being deprived of their freedom. That is, when one person initiates an act of violence against another person, they thereby deprive them of their freedom. Accordingly, violence is non-freedom. The right to violence is the right to deprive people of their freedom. However, the elimination of violence, the striving for its complete eradication as a phenomenon as a whole, is the elimination of the factor that leads people to non-freedom. And no verbal manipulations will change the essence of the phenomenon of violence!

Self-defense and the inhibition of violence

Voluntarist, Bitarch

An important question is how self-defense fits into the concept of the Lorenz mechanism (LM)/violence inhibition mechanism (VIM). From a rational point of view, restraining violence is a good and useful thing. But would a person with a strong LM/VIM be unable to defend themselves from an immediate threat of violence?

Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to find specific studies linking self-defense and the LM/VIM concept. In the future, I will try to study the neurophysiological aspects of self-defense in more detail and combine them with similar aspects of violence inhibition. However, I will now put forward a hypothesis about such a relationship based on the evolutionary aspects of the development of LM/VIM, which can serve as a starting point for further research.

According to Konrad Lorenz’s theory, the inhibitor is most pronounced in species whose representatives possess strong innate weaponry and do not have a statistically significant opportunity to avoid violence by fleeing. These two factors exert evolutionary pressure to strengthen the LM/VIM, as they create a threat to the survival of the species. And how did evolution handle this threat? It is not that complicated. Non-aggressive members of the population encounter intra-species violence only when they are attacked. Aggressive individuals, however, initiate violence themselves. Because of this, they end up in violent clashes much more often, and therefore die more frequently than other individuals, failing to pass their genetic material to the next generation. Thus, violence is weeded out, while the strong version of the violence-inhibiting mechanism is reinforced.

But for non-violence to be reinforced, it is necessary that the victims of violence be able to defend themselves during a direct attack using their weaponry. Otherwise, the aggressor’s life would be under no threat, and it would be the less aggressive individuals who die, leading to the opposite effect, and eventually to the extinction of the species (unless its representatives choose flight as an alternative, as hamsters do, for example, scattering after only a few mutual bites). But since we still observe heavily armed species in nature whose representatives are not prone to fleeing from intra-species aggression, and we also observe a strongly expressed LM/VIM in them, it means that victims of violence can indeed use their weaponry for self-defense against aggressors.

How might this work? An immediate threat of violence leads to a defensive reaction from the victim, which may weaken the operation of the violence inhibitor for a short period of time. As soon as the immediate threat passes, everything returns to normal. At the same time, the possibility of weakening the inhibitor to a state where the affected individual becomes capable of initiating violence themselves is excluded. Otherwise, the threat to the survival of many species would continue to exist, because the number of violent individuals in their populations would not decrease as a result of acts of violence, but might even increase, as victims would become new aggressors.

Self-defense is a permissible and evolutionarily optimal strategy for eradicating violence in a population. And humans are not exempt from this. If everything stated above is correct, then humans should also be capable of self-defense during a direct attack when there is a threat to their life, even if they have a strong version of the LM/VIM inhibitor. At the same time, they would not be capable of initiating violence outside of situations that directly threaten life, as this would relate to other, successfully inhibited types of violent behavior. I will also add that all of this points to the realism of evolutionary strategies for fighting and eradicating violence based on armed self-defense during direct attacks by various types of aggressors.

The Importance of Fighting Violence

Voluntarist, Bitarch

In connection with the recent anniversary of the terrorist attacks committed by Anders Breivik in Norway, I would like to remind you of the importance of fighting violence. Although such a tragic event is not a global catastrophe, it is frightening to imagine what future Breiviks might present to us, especially considering what fruits of scientific and technical progress could end up in their hands. Perhaps it will be another shooting, which is very bad, but it will most likely not affect you personally. Or perhaps such a person will decide to use some high-tech means to cause as much harm to people as possible—for example, by constructing a dirty bomb, releasing a previously unknown strain of a very dangerous and deadly virus (a scenario I described in the material “The Reality of the Viral Threat“), or using some other extremely destructive means unknown to us now.

But the capacity to commit violence is not the norm for a human being. On the contrary, 98% of people experience disgust at least toward brutal violence, and all brutal violence is committed by no more than 2% of people. This is because a natural part of human nature is the violence inhibition mechanism (Lorenz’s mechanism (LM) according to Konrad Lorenz’s theory, or VIM according to James Blair’s model). A person with a strong version of LM/VIM will never be able to commit violence. It is committed only by those who suffer from a pathology of the violence inhibitor. Violence is a pathological state. Therefore, it must be fought in an appropriate manner.

If violent tendencies were noticed to a sufficient extent in childhood—when a person is unlikely to be able to make a decision to intentionally hide them until the time they can organize a terrorist attack—or if mass testing for the congenital variant of LM/VIM were practiced in society, both in childhood and when conducting relationships with people in adult life, and if gene therapy treatment were then applied to those in whom the LM/VIM pathology was discovered, many terrorist attacks, as well as much violence in general, could have been avoided.

Perhaps in the past we did not have a sufficient scientific and technical base for this. But now the time has come; biotechnology and gene therapy are developing at a rapid pace. And now it is not too late to start fighting violence to avoid a catastrophic scenario in the future and finally completely rid human society of pathological violence. Does anyone really want the appearance of a new Breivik, and one who is even more heavily armed?

Imperfect People and the Social Ideal

In your posts, you often state that under ancap, all people (or most of them) will not be prone to violence (and those who are can be “reprogrammed”), which will allow for the construction of a violence-free society. But hold on! With ideal people, one could build an ideal society based on almost any ideology—even communism in its early idealized conceptions. Any modern social structure, however, is built on the fact that people are almost always imperfect—emotional, foolish, aggressive, greedy, cowardly, and so on—and the social order must neutralize human flaws. How can ancap exist in a society of imperfect people, if even now criminals are stupid enough to steal right under cameras, and in the absence of a universally recognized police force, they will become completely brazen, and their capture/shooting by private security companies will become difficult due to the scale of crime and overloaded courts? Will this not lead to a rapid slide of society into a wild state, where even adequate people are forced to be in a permanent state of war against all?

Anonymous question

You are right; many things can be built from ideal people. That is precisely why Bitarch and Voluntarist—the authors of the posts regularly appearing on this channel about building a non-violent society—do not bother with building specifically ancap; for them, the economic model is secondary, and the absence of a central authority is secondary, while the primary value is non-violence, in its narrow sense of the absence of physical coercion.

The doctrine of anarcho-capitalism assumes that the human inclination toward physical coercion will not undergo serious changes. The only thing required for its triumph is the emergence of a critical mass of technologies that make decentralized production and trade more economically viable than centralized ones—this is if we proceed from a materialist position, where being determines consciousness and the base determines the superstructure. If, on the contrary, we assume that consciousness shapes being, then the triumph of ancap requires a critical mass of people for whom libertarian ideas have significant value. To me, it essentially makes no difference which end of the loaf I bite into; it tastes equally good from both ends.

When decentralized technologies dominate everyday life, it means that an uber-police force will arrive faster and provide service more cheaply and with higher quality than a police squad from the Ministry of Internal Affairs; therefore, the Ministry will lose the economic competition for the client and die off. And if people steal right under cameras, decentralized technologies will more likely provide the ability to issue them a fine right under those same cameras. And if they wave at the camera instead and claim that they are, say, renting this car, then instead of a disproportionately large fine, a modest rental fee will be debited from them in favor of the car owner. Or perhaps I am talking nonsense, and the “market” will decide some other way.

When libertarian ideas dominate society, then even under conditions of technologically driven centralization of a large number of industries, people will still value freelancing or freelance-like relationships relatively higher, and the owner of the production facility will have to adapt to this demand if they wish to secure a workforce. People will join the police, but will still view their patrol crew as an autonomous entrepreneurial unit, with its own permanent clients and obligations to them that mean far more than formal subordination within a police department.

The most terrifying thing for libertarianism is an increase in the efficiency of the centralization of violence. In the middle of the 20th century, such efficiency was at its maximum; humanity fought with armies of millions, and there was not the slightest prospect for building a libertarian society. Now, an army of a hundred thousand is considered large, and one hopes that decentralization will continue at an accelerating pace. Cheap and effective decentralized violence, which scales very poorly as the number of involved persons increases or additional capital is invested—this is exactly what is required so that even in the event of armed conflicts, they quickly fade away without further escalation.

As you can see, it is not at all necessary to indulge in empty dreams about how chipping will make everyone “sweethearts and darlings.” Instead, one can indulge in empty dreams about how total armament with handheld weapons—effectively and as painlessly as possible incapacitating a person, but having low lethality—will make everyone “sweethearts and darlings.” As for my time free from empty dreams, I prefer to build a local libertarian community where all necessary skills of interaction between people are acquired through simple habit—and these habits will strongly conflict with the habits of obeying the state or any other centralized force.

No one needs a Leviathan. Hobbes is sad.

Innate Non-Aggression Morality: Relation to Moral Realism and Ethical Intuitionism

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Not long ago, I considered the question of morality in the context of the concept of the violence inhibition mechanism (VIM)—a cognitive mechanism that inhibits violent behavior in humans. A healthy person who does not suffer from VIM dysfunction is incapable of committing acts of violence against other people. The manifestation of direct brutal violence is successfully inhibited (restrained) in more than 98% of people. The capacity to commit violence is an aberration and a pathology, not the norm of human nature.

Within this topic, the question of a human’s ability to distinguish between transgressions of a moral and a social (conventional) nature (moral/conventional distinction) is of particular interest. Moral transgressions consist of causing harm to a person, whereas social transgressions consist of violating established norms. A beating, for example, would certainly be a moral transgression, while a student leaving the classroom without the teacher’s permission is merely a transgression of a conventional nature.

When a person encounters experiences that demonstrate moral transgressions, distress signals from their victims, such as a sad facial expression or crying, lead to the activation of the VIM and the emergence of a rejection response. The person develops an association between the moral transgression, the distress signals, and the subsequent rejection; as a result, they become capable of understanding and identifying moral transgressions by analyzing certain actions.

Such an association does not arise in the case of social transgressions, as they do not initially lead to the activation of the VIM in a person. Consequently, people with VIM dysfunction, such as psychopaths, cannot understand the difference between moral and social transgressions, because from a neurophysiological point of view, it truly does not exist for them—they perceive these transgressions identically; more precisely, moral transgressions are perceived by them in the same way as social ones.

The fact that psychopaths and people with violent tendencies are indeed incapable of understanding this distinction is a fact confirmed by a vast amount of evidence and research. Let us also recall the fact that violence is a deviation from the norm of natural human behavior. In fact, the morality of non-aggression is biologically predetermined for humans, which we learned by conducting research into human nature. Thus, this morality can be attributed to moral realism.

But we will not stop there, because it is worth mentioning one more thing—a person with a functioning VIM (which, as previously stated, is the norm of human nature) will become capable of recognizing transgressions of a moral nature, and therefore, a corresponding morality of non-aggression will develop in them absolutely regardless of whether they know anything about their own nature at all. If they are unfamiliar with the concept of the VIM and the notion of a moral transgression, the morality of non-aggression will be perceived by them as something intuitive, self-evident. For the vast majority of people, this intuitive understanding will coincide, and on the issue of violence, they will converge on a single position that committing acts of violence is unacceptable, without conducting any research and without attempting to form any logical conclusions (violent views will originate only from the violent minority). Such a universal intuitive understanding of morality pertains to moral (or ethical) intuitionism.

As we can see, the innate morality of non-aggression is simultaneously an objective fact of human nature, pertaining to moral realism, and an intuitively understood norm, pertaining to ethical intuitionism. Of course, we can see that the latter stems from the former—that is, a person’s intuitive understanding stems from their objective biological nature. Therefore, the innate morality of non-aggression simply unites these approaches to morality, simultaneously corresponding to both of them and deriving one from the other.

Violence and Cultural Influence

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Based on the concept we are considering regarding the inhibitor of intraspecific violence (the Lorenz mechanism (LM), as we call it in view of the corresponding theory of Konrad Lorenz, as well as the violence inhibition mechanism (VIM) according to James Blair’s model), we find that a human’s ability to commit violence against another human is a deviation consisting of a malfunction of the innate LM/VIM. Thus, violent offenders are people suffering from a genetic and neurophysiological pathology [1]. This concept can be countered by the argument that the level of violence in human society, from the very emergence of humans to the present day, has decreased at rates completely incomparable to the speed at which traits are fixed in a population as a result of natural biological evolution. Additionally, different levels of violence are observed under different social orders. I will not dispute the validity of such assertions; however, by providing two arguments, I will prove that they do not refute the LM/VIM concept.

The first thing to understand is that a person with a weak or dysfunctional version of the LM/VIM does not necessarily have to commit violence. A good upbringing, the absence of circumstances that provoke violence, and the presence of circumstances that deter it, while not eliminating the risk completely, reduce it to a certain extent. Combine this with the fact that violence is committed by a minority of people. Military evidence shows that only up to 2% of people experience no resistance to killing (and war is a highly provoking circumstance for violence). An analysis of crime in the Russian Federation determined that in the worst possible scenario (and in reality, it may be better), on average, only one new violent offender committing a violent crime no less severe than battery is reported per 695 people per year.

If environmental circumstances change such that, for example, instead of one person per 695 people, two people begin to commit violence per year, then the level of violence in society will increase by at least twofold, and most likely much more, since those who have previously committed violence may begin to do so more frequently. The consequences would be significant. However, violence would still originate from an overwhelming minority of people, so observing such changes does not refute the LM/VIM concept.

Let us now turn to the evolutionary argument. Under natural conditions, biological evolution is indeed a very slow process. However, it can be accelerated through artificial selection. Cultural influence can also lead to such selection, as it artificially alters the social and physical environment in which genetic selection occurs. This is called dual inheritance or gene-culture coevolution.

A classic example is the development of lactose tolerance, which resulted from the development of dairy farming that occurred only approximately 5,000 years ago. Another example: between 800 and 1700, the culture of the Ashkenazi Jewish ethnic group practiced limiting employment to professions requiring a high level of intelligence, which created selective pressure in favor of people possessing it. Combined with the genetic isolation of the ethnic group, this presumably led to high IQ scores, as well as a number of hereditary genetic diseases among its representatives. Furthermore, as a result of territorial expansion in the second half of the last millennium, mixed races appeared. And even the consequences of urbanization and industrialization, which began 200-300 years ago, are already leading to measurable genetic changes [2].

Similarly, cultural influence can lead to the strengthening of the LM/VIM. The growing cultural unacceptability of violence creates selective pressure in favor of less violent people, while violent offenders are filtered out more and more. Culture does indeed influence the level of violence in society, but this does not contradict, and may even fit into, the LM/VIM concept.

Sources:

  1. https://panarchy.ru/2021/07/12/анализ-внутривидового-насилия-как-яв/;
  2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK210012/.

Those who do not make it in time will be late

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Violence is a major problem leading to many negative externalities (including catastrophic ones), as well as to the maintenance of a violent hierarchy of dominance in society (which only further exacerbates the externalities of violence). That is why the fight against violence will soon become one of the leading directions in the development of society. And whoever solves the problem of violence will have a chance to significantly elevate the reputation and popularity of their cultural and economic agenda.

There are those who do not consider violence a major problem, and if this violence takes the form of state coercive force or serves the achievement of certain goals in general, then in their opinion, it becomes a beneficial and useful tool. Such a position is typically characteristic of conservatives, although it is not limited to them, and concerns in principle all supporters of violence as a tool for achieving goals, including those who support the existence of a monopolistic state power. Often, even classical liberals and supporters of a free market economy have nothing against the use of force.

But no matter how much they deny the negative aspects of violence, it would be foolish not to understand what would happen if someone else took on the task of eradicating it. Suppose that the supporters of such an idea, instead of cooperating with conservatives or marketeers who see no point in it, go to a hypothetical Bill Gates and manage to convince him they are right. By financing this initiative and ultimately eradicating violence, he would gain giant moral support from society, since for most people, violence is the greatest evil. Being a left-liberal and having acquired enormous authority, it would be enough for him to simply voice his opinion for people to listen. If he says that gay people cannot be refused the right to bake cakes, or that business must be socially responsible and donate a significant part of its income for the benefit of society, then it will happen, because the majority will be ready to follow the direction of such an authority.

Many certainly do not like such a scenario, but it is entirely possible. And if someone does not want this scenario to become a reality, they should support the idea of fighting violence by all possible means. The problem of violence will be solved in any case, either with the help of a hypothetical conservative, or without their participation. But in the second case, their socio-economic agenda will lose a significant part of its support in favor of the views of those who participate in solving the problem of violence. So I advise you to hurry in this matter and start promoting the ideas of non-violence now, regardless of who holds what views.

Sexual selection against violence using dating sites

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Recently, some American dating sites came up with an interesting idea regarding how to encourage people to get vaccinated against coronavirus. They decided to add the ability to indicate one’s vaccination status in their profile, while providing certain bonuses to those who do so as early as possible. Accordingly, when searching for a partner on such sites, it is now possible to find out if they are vaccinated, which for many may serve as an indicator of responsibility and an understanding of the danger of the uncontrolled spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This, essentially, will stimulate dating site users to get vaccinated.

Of course, this idea may seem contradictory to some. Firstly, it could be argued that this is merely an attempt to control people, restrict their freedom, and apply a slave label. But specifically in the case of coronavirus, saying so would be an exaggeration—this is a temporary problem, and once it is solved and society begins to treat covid exactly like seasonal flu, such a status will cease to be relevant and there will be no demand for it. Secondly, the effectiveness of such an initiative itself can be questioned—there is no reason to believe that many people take coronavirus vaccination seriously, meaning they are indifferent to it. Moreover, some view it negatively.

But this idea could be used in the fight against violence by combining it with the concept of sexual selection. Fighting violence would become quite easy if people prone to it were denied relationships and, as a consequence, the ability to procreate. If such an idea gains public popularity, the number of rapists and the level of violence will be drastically reduced in the next generation. Along with the promotion of eradicating violence, a status indicating a propensity for violence could be used.

For example, a person could take certain tests that confirm their non-violent nature (more precisely, the presence of a strong version of the violence-inhibiting Lorenz mechanism) and use the results to establish a corresponding status in their profile. And if gene therapy against violence emerges, it would be possible to create a status with the same meaning as the coronavirus vaccination status on American dating sites. This would be especially useful for people who exhibited violent behavior in the past, as confirmation that they will never return to violence again.

There is certainly no reason to doubt the necessity and utility of such an initiative, as it is another way to fight violence, which leads to various negative consequences, including catastrophic ones. The effectiveness of this method should also be high, as most people will not want to deal with (and even less so have close relationships with) someone if they know in advance that this person is definitely prone to violence or likely to be prone to it, because they did not bother to confirm their non-violence while others did. Thus, everyone who wants to start a relationship, a family, and have children will have an incentive to confirm their non-violence or fight their own violent tendencies. And those people who have such tendencies but do not consider them a problem will lose this opportunity and will not be able to pass on a violent legacy.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/covid-19-vaccinations-are-sparking-14-more-matches-on-okcupid/