Historical anthropologist challenges conventional wisdom about human nature and violence. By April M. Short

War and all of its brutality is attention-grabbing and memorable. Recollections of war and conquests tend to stick around and take up the spotlight in historical records. However, a war-centered narrative paints an incomplete picture of human history—and human nature. While there is a popular opinion in the anthropological community that war is an evolutionary, inborn tendency of humans, there is also pushback to that theory. There is a growing argument for a human history that predates war altogether and further points out that war is not innate to human nature, but instead, is a social and cultural development that begins at certain points around the globe.

However, once war takes place, it tends to spread, explains historical anthropologist R. Brian Ferguson, who has spent more than 40 years researching the origins of war. Ferguson, a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, notes that war is not the same thing as interpersonal violence or homicide. War implies organized, armed conflict and killing sanctioned by society and carried out by members of one group against members of another group. Ferguson argues that current evidence suggests that war was not always present but began as a result of societal changes—with evidence of war’s origins appearing at widely varying timestamps in different locations around the world. He estimates that the earliest signs of war appear between 10,000 B.C., or 12,000 years ago.

“But in some areas of the world you don’t see any signs of war develop until much more recently,” he says, noting that in both the U.S. Southwest and Great Plains there is no evidence of war until around 2,000 years ago…

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/human-nature-and-violence/

Toby Walsh – Noam Chomsky and Stephen Hawking among a thousand intellectuals to sign Open Letter to Stop Killer Robots Before They’re Built

Joseph Stiglitz on artificial intelligence: We’re going towards a more divided society

Restoring forests could capture two-thirds of the carbon humans have added to the atmosphere

Book review: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History // Conservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change

From Siberia to Australia: the age of fire is the bleakest warning yet

The Amazon is burning. The climate is changing. And we’re doing nothing to stop it

MONEY TO BURN: Over 300 banks and investors back 6 of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn

REBECCA SMITHERS – We Are Flushing Away Our Forests: Researchers warn that toilet paper is becoming unsustainable

David Cox – The planet’s prodigious poo problem

Owen Jones: Why don’t we treat the climate crisis with the same urgency as coronavirus?

Abolish War – Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955