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Lumifer comments on Open Thread, October 7 - October 12, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Murder is very much a natural inclination of humans.
It sounds like you disagree with this claim; can you say more about why? (I'm willing to defend it, but right now I feel like someone has incredulously said to me "Wait, you're saying humans consume organic matter for fuel?"... I don't know where to start addressing your disagreement.)
There are also contexts in which killing people is explicitly taught, but they are relatively rare and we tend not to label them "murder" and they tend to be legal.
I guess one question is what do you mean by "natural inclination".
Humans are clearly capable of murder. They also, clearly, engage in it quite rarely (regardless of the degree of law & order around, I might add). Evolutionary speaking, the capability to murder is beneficial, but needs very strong constraints on it -- a tendency to murder those (of your species) around you is likely to wash out of the population pretty quickly.
So yes, there is a biologically hardwired ability to murder, but there are also hardwired brakes on it. These brakes are pretty powerful.
Yes, I would agree with all of this.