Reddit reviews On Aggression (Harvest Book, Hb 291)

Humans haven't evolved fast enough to keep up with technology. As much as a sonogram might make the reality of another human growing inside clearer to some intellectually, it's certainly not going to have anywhere near the emotional effect of meeting face to face, talking, smelling, hearing, touching each other.

Similarly, humans have an inhibition towards violence when it occurs within a certain proximity such as in hand to hand. But that inhibition is much less powerful when someone is giving orders for someone else to carry out the violence. Like someone asking a doctor to perform an abortion or a general sending a drone to blow up a building full of people. That's because of the physical distance and time distance from the victims. sauce

My source states that intra-species murder among animals happens much less often then we think watching Animal Planet. Animals competeting for food use violence against each other, but the fight stops as soon as one party steps back.

Konrad Lorenz On Aggression

So is there or isn't a reference to humans and does the post not revolve around killing within the same species ? So what exactly have You had to guess or mind-read ? Or are You only interested in verbs ? Look, once again – comparing spiders to humans in terms of the Self is just wrong on too many levels to enumerate. I tried to show You why, and that is because You focus mainly on basic patterns (eat, pray, mate - whatever) and a philosophical zombie is well in place for that. If You still like to argue then show me a neurobiological study on spiders which would prove me wrong. Otherwise You have to reexamine that which You consider one’s Self.

Concerning the things You listed – I just don’t get why You omit the fact that from the very beginning I was stating that the reluctance to kill members of one’s own species can be overwritten. But the fact that a policeman or a soldier has to be preconditioned in order to be able to perform such a task is in itself in accordance with what I state, isn’t it ? I would gladly check out some of the tons of up-to-date resources that prove me wrong, but all I find are articles or books like:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Killing-Psychological-Learning-Society/dp/0316330116
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/themes/prep.html
http://www.amazon.com/On-Aggression-Harvest-Book-291/dp/0156687410
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/publications/assetfiles/historical/jones2006-thepsychologyofkilling.pdf

From the last link: More recently, support for the hypothesis that soldiers enjoy killing came
from Theodore Nadelson, a psychiatrist who treated US ex-servicemen at the
Boston Veterans Administration Hospital.Based on the testimony of 24
anonymized cases, Nadelson concluded that true killers in Vietnam were ‘ordi-
nary men’ before enlistment. He argued that once an initial resistance had
been overcome in training, soldiers became addicted to the excitement and
sense of freedom created by the licence to kill, while the act itself could assume
the quality of sexual arousal or drug-induced ecstasy. Given that the veterans
he had interviewed all suffered from intractable psychiatric disorders, includ-
ing post-traumatic stress disorder, Nadelson implicitly rejected any suggestion
that killing protected against mental illness.

If You could support something of substance that proves You right it would be great. Bottom line - what You are saying is: we don’t know that killing other humans is bad unless we are told so. So who the hell told us that in the first place ? Maybe God did ? Morality obtained by natural selection just fist, clicks, works. And I have yet to see evidence to the contrary.

No, I have only watched the TED talk. I have read Leonard Beeghley's Homicide:A Sociological Explanation, Richard Rhodes' Why They Kill, and Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression. All, books worth picking up if you are interested in this subject, which you obviously are.