Lukas Fierz on The Seneca Effect

Witch hunting and persecution of the jews are both special cases because they were aimed at basically helpless victims and at the same time very profitable businesses. The conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Iran follow another pattern: They are between violent contrahents who are able of attack and defense and the destructions are probably bigger than the (local) profits (the profits of Raytheon and General Dynamics are another story). Its the same pattern as the wars between France and Germany, Russia and Poland, etc. etc. Question is why these wars: According to Bouthoul ("L'infanticide différé") and Gunnar Heinsohn ("War index") and confirmed by Huntington ("Clash of civilisations") men are programmed to become belligerent if there is overpopulation. The aggressive mechanisms sit in the reptile brain and we share them with fish and rats. That population density can influence a collective is also illustrated by the example of locusts who even change their phenotype under conditions of overpopulation. One mechanism operative in man is the law of "social identity theory": The virtues of the own group are exaggerated as are the defects of the outgroup until you see the devil on the other side. This happened between Germany and France or between the Western world and the communist block in the last century. Its now happening between Israel and Iran, or between Russia and Europe. Interestingly enough this behaviour is Oxytocin controlled and the following aggression is Testosterone supported. What happend between Russia and the West or Israel and Iran is that the hormone-controlled reptile brains got unhinged and then we call that geopolitics.