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by PJDK 3457 days ago
Somewhat related, I remember reading some research that talked about how during natural disasters you get very little in the way of riots and looting. Rather people have a strong urge to cooperate [1].

It doesn't mention it in the linked article, but I also remember hearing that the idea that people get very violent can cause serious issues as resources go into military-police rather than relief efforts.

It makes sense when you think about it evolutionary. The groups that fell apart when the going got tough were not the ones that survived!

[1] http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/31/how-disasters-bring-ou...

1 comments

Thanks for the article, it makes a lot of sense. Note that in this book, the doomsday scenario is predicted to happen 2 years in the future, so it's not quite the same as a natural disaster that has already happened. So I don't think it would look quite the same in terms of violence and how we've evolved. It's more like, imagine 30% of the population suddenly lose their jobs or something like that, you could probably see riots happening today.