[jessaustin]

Ummm... monkeys and chimps are not in the same family, let alone the same species. One might as well say that humans "genocide" chickens.

Tribes of neolithic humans occasionally attacked and killed each other, but it was about something real, like the survival of their families. Civilization has given us kings and armaments manufacturers, who have us kill and die over bullshit like "God" and "freedom".

[nikatwork]

> about something real vs die over bullshit

While the military-industrial complex is a thing, most armed conflict can be abstracted as resource exploitation or contention expressed as territorialism. Religion and ideology is just a convenient cassus belli.

As the Lesser Bonapartes podcast puts it, "The in-group always has a problem with... those people."

[schoen]

> cassus belli

Should just be one "s": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casus_belli

[jessaustin]

...most armed conflict can be abstracted as resource exploitation...

This might be true, but invariably it is massive excessive exploitation by the ruling class, rather than e.g. "we'd like to hunt in that creek bottom so we can eat some meat."

[mc32]

Not to get offbase but... people's belief systems are pretty "real" to them. Just think of the "fairness" belief system. Or you believe in oppression and others believe in not being oppressed -whatever oppression might mean.

[jessaustin]

It is one thing to act fairly, and expect others with whom one has direct contact to act fairly. It is a quite different thing to invent any interest in the fairness of situations twenty miles or more away. Civilization is definitely to blame for that.