[David Cain]

Has technology and civilisation stopped the isrealites and palestinians from fighting?

please tell me how technology and civilisation has stopped the feud in Northern Ireland.

Whoa, whoa, I never said it did. I was not arguing that humans have left hate behind, only that any usefulness it ever had is gone, for most of us. (Us = homo sapiens)

I will try to explain what I mean, I guess I didn't explain it well before, please hear me out:

Humans are animals too. Evolution has geared us to survive at all costs even if that cost is quality of life. Reactive, overemotional qualities like paranoia, mistrust, and hate provide very strong incentives to keep all potential physical threats at bay.

Logically, a caveman who dominates others, hates anyone who might threaten him, and is not afraid to get violent would have been far more likely to become the alpha male, which would allow him to procreate much more frequently and pass his genes along.

It's unfortunate, but a gentle and trusting caveman would never have become dominant and would rarely get a chance to procreate.

So guess who we're descended from?

This alpha/beta pattern is typical to all sorts of mammals. Humans are only now beginning to leave this model behind, but our bodies are still tuned for it.

See, hate has a use in the animal kingdom, but that does not mean that hate has ever been directly conducive to quality of life for human beings as in how enjoyable life is for us.

It has atrocious side effects now, because the focus of human beings has shifted from mere survival to quality of life. Hate and certain other impulses help the former and impede the latter.

Everything you're talking about (the events of the 20th century) is just a tiny percentage of the millions of years our bodies and emotions have been evolving. Civilization has changed the playing field completely for homo sapiens, but we're stuck with these animalistic traits that no longer serve us (reactivity, paranoia, hate, etc.) War is the ultimate manifestation of how ingrained these ancient behaviors are.

In other words, our bodies and minds still tell us we're in danger far more than we really are, because millions of years of evolutions have predisposed us towards being overprotective of ourselves and our egos.

It's the same reason we have a tendency to overeat. Because of technological advancement, food is not hard to find for those of us in developed countries, but our bodies are geared towards surviving feast or famine conditions. But eating too much is rarely helpful to us now, because we seldom experience the 'famine conditions' that overeating has always compensated for. We're out of balance, in other words.

By your logic, it kept people from betraying us, therefore preserving my way of life, so how can it detract from it simulteanously?

Here's how: Preserving one's life is not the same as preserving one's quality of life. Biological evolution is guided solely by how good a creature is at reproducing and keeping its children alive. The genes we have are the genes of those individuals who mated the most. And dominance has always been the biggest determiner of that.

This is unfortunate, because society is still gripped by these impulses. That's why we have wars and violence. I think we are evolving past hate, but evolution is slow.

I explained all of this in the article I linked. If you do not agree, I would like to hear why you think humans have such a tendency towards hate and violence? Where did it come from? Nothing happens without a reason.