Do you think that their particularly violent brand of jihadism is a worse menace to the sanity waterline than say, other kind of religious movements, past or present?
We need to understand empathically what they are thinking and how they are feeling in order to build predictive mind-models. Can we? I can’t. I am unwilling to believe people simply buy into the most possibly uncharitable reading of a holy book purely because of murky theological reasons. They could be like some nice farmer dude in Indonesia, reading the same holy book. The difference is not in the book. (I used to learn Indonesian folk dancing at their embassy. They are super normal people, if there was any hint of weird, it was more about too much respect for Sukarno than too much religion. So it is evidence that it is not simply so that reading that kind of holy book really efficiently makes people want to kill infidels.)
It is possible they are just doing it for the advantages it brings + the hell of it. Adventure. Excitement. Power.
It is also possible the men are extremely sexually frustrated. Higher-status men keeping harems and most guys there seeing no chance to find a woman or something like that. When men are violent and angry, that is one of the first causes to check. A huge chunk of evolution went into men competing with each other for women, so it is reasonable to start investigating abnormal behavior from there.
This is one of the harshest truths to swallow, but unfortunately it does seem likely. We know little about the ancestral environment, but early recorded civilizations are rife with bride-kidnapping (alive as an fake ceremony / playful wedding game even to this day), Sabine women, Greek legends about princess Europa, and so on. Perhaps we could try to argue this is a feature of early civilization and not of the ancestral environment, or we could try to argue Indo-Europeans are unusually aggressive (this, independent from the issue here, seems at least 30-40% likely to me) but the Yanomamö would disagree.
Rollo Tomassi probably takes it way too far when we argues women evolved to actually like this, I find it more likely that the effect on romantic relationships is not as much as a Stockholm-syndrome falling in live with the kidnapper but falling in love with the kind of guy who can be a useful protector against kidnappers. I mean, that predicts polygamy in e.g. Islamic societies just right—nobody really dares to kidnap the emir’s wives. The research showing that the most attractive guys are those who are dominant out-tribe but nice, friendly and easy-going in-tribe seems to support this, it fits the kidnapping-protector role better than the kidnapper role. There is something I have also noticed in soccer (team sports are quite good simulations of the ancestral environment IMHO): leadership, alpha-stuff is used to organize defense mostly, offense is more often a lone-hero thing. It takes only a small band to sneak in kidnap a few brides, but it takes a whole tribe to organize defense against it, so the leader-alpha types are more defense than offense oriented IMHO so not that aggressive. This is largely where the RP-sphere goes wrong.
Or, you could look at it as a sign of progress that has been achieved moving away from a savage evolutionary history.
Rollo Tomassi probably takes it way too far when we argues women evolved to actually like this
But the evolutionary pressures are probably in that direction.
but falling in love with the kind of guy who can be a useful protector against kidnappers… the leader-alpha types are more defense than offense oriented IMHO so not that aggressive.
While they wouldn’t start with violence, because they would expect submission, I doubt the dominant alpha leaders were in the business of taking no for an answer.
we could try to argue Indo-Europeans are unusually aggressive (this, independent from the issue here, seems at least 30-40% likely to me)
That sounds like an overestimate. As far as I’ve seen, the Indo-European expansion was just the first of the steppe hordes—weren’t they the first to domesticate the horse?
Also, isn’t it possible that women could have evolved to like both the kidnapper and the guy who can protect her from the kidnapper?
What I have in mind is more like Thucydides’ chilling explanation how the early Ancient Greeks simply did not understand the term peace, engaging in constant piracy against each others ships and villages, and peace was invented as side-effect of military alliane against a third polis. Was the whole world as bad as that?
We need to understand empathically what they are thinking and how they are feeling in order to build predictive mind-models. Can we? I can’t. I am unwilling to believe people simply buy into the most possibly uncharitable reading of a holy book purely because of murky theological reasons. They could be like some nice farmer dude in Indonesia, reading the same holy book. The difference is not in the book. (I used to learn Indonesian folk dancing at their embassy. They are super normal people, if there was any hint of weird, it was more about too much respect for Sukarno than too much religion. So it is evidence that it is not simply so that reading that kind of holy book really efficiently makes people want to kill infidels.)
It is possible they are just doing it for the advantages it brings + the hell of it. Adventure. Excitement. Power.
It is also possible the men are extremely sexually frustrated. Higher-status men keeping harems and most guys there seeing no chance to find a woman or something like that. When men are violent and angry, that is one of the first causes to check. A huge chunk of evolution went into men competing with each other for women, so it is reasonable to start investigating abnormal behavior from there.
You sound like you’d benefit from, and enjoy, this long interview with IS expert Graeme Wood.
I think “crush the inferior Others and take their women as slaves” is more the norm than the exception on historical time scales.
This is one of the harshest truths to swallow, but unfortunately it does seem likely. We know little about the ancestral environment, but early recorded civilizations are rife with bride-kidnapping (alive as an fake ceremony / playful wedding game even to this day), Sabine women, Greek legends about princess Europa, and so on. Perhaps we could try to argue this is a feature of early civilization and not of the ancestral environment, or we could try to argue Indo-Europeans are unusually aggressive (this, independent from the issue here, seems at least 30-40% likely to me) but the Yanomamö would disagree.
Rollo Tomassi probably takes it way too far when we argues women evolved to actually like this, I find it more likely that the effect on romantic relationships is not as much as a Stockholm-syndrome falling in live with the kidnapper but falling in love with the kind of guy who can be a useful protector against kidnappers. I mean, that predicts polygamy in e.g. Islamic societies just right—nobody really dares to kidnap the emir’s wives. The research showing that the most attractive guys are those who are dominant out-tribe but nice, friendly and easy-going in-tribe seems to support this, it fits the kidnapping-protector role better than the kidnapper role. There is something I have also noticed in soccer (team sports are quite good simulations of the ancestral environment IMHO): leadership, alpha-stuff is used to organize defense mostly, offense is more often a lone-hero thing. It takes only a small band to sneak in kidnap a few brides, but it takes a whole tribe to organize defense against it, so the leader-alpha types are more defense than offense oriented IMHO so not that aggressive. This is largely where the RP-sphere goes wrong.
Or, you could look at it as a sign of progress that has been achieved moving away from a savage evolutionary history.
But the evolutionary pressures are probably in that direction.
While they wouldn’t start with violence, because they would expect submission, I doubt the dominant alpha leaders were in the business of taking no for an answer.
And some later ones, too.
That sounds like an overestimate. As far as I’ve seen, the Indo-European expansion was just the first of the steppe hordes—weren’t they the first to domesticate the horse?
Also, isn’t it possible that women could have evolved to like both the kidnapper and the guy who can protect her from the kidnapper?
What I have in mind is more like Thucydides’ chilling explanation how the early Ancient Greeks simply did not understand the term peace, engaging in constant piracy against each others ships and villages, and peace was invented as side-effect of military alliane against a third polis. Was the whole world as bad as that?