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Originally Posted by willravel
Alright, time to address this human nature stuff.
Either a given trait can be explained by innate genetic traits or it's tabula rasa. 'Human nature' is a simplistic and outdated term that's virtually meaningless because of it's varied and vague meaning. One may have a genetic predisposition to violence, or has acquired the concept of war from their environment. To blame 'human nature', as is pointed out by roach above, is to blame Vague language does this thread, and by extension hope of a solution or progress in the venture of ending war, a disservice. Can we move away from the vague and antiquated, for the benefit of the thread topic? If you'd like to suggest that a genetic or environmentally acquired predisposition for violence (coupled with any number of things such as greed or selfishness) spread across certain members of a given society can and will manifest themselves in violent behavior and, when coupled with a type of thought like groupthink, the inevitable conclusion on a mass scale is war, then go ahead and we can debate it on it's academic merits. I welcome that type of debate here, as that can reach a solution. Blaming human nature is tantamount to using Newtonian physics to examine wave functions on the subatomic level or using a rams horn to play a trumpet concerto. We have the necessary tools to really look into this.
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Ah, but see therein lies a problem, I believe in human nature, I don't believe that we are "predisposed" or "our environment" is 100% fully responsible for who we are. So if I can't make my arguments from my beliefs.... you win the debate by default and don't have to answer any of the questions that the opposing view put forth..... how fucking clever.
If it were, genetic, environmental, etc.etc. (whatever you want to claim); the same drugs would affect everyone the same. You can have identical twins, who have shared every experience of their lives together smoke weed, do coke, take a xanax, etc. and have totally different reactions. Sooooo why is that? Identical twins have pretty much the identical genetic makeup, and sharing the same experiences takes the environment factor out also... so what is the answer that makes this happen? HUMAN NATURE, FREE WILL, INDIVIDUALITY, whatever you wish to call it.
We have emotions, we are a species that we may try to control emotions and come up with 99 million excuses as to why we feel certain ways, but if it is not an individualistic choice, then everyone would eventually feel the exact same about everything. This isn't even true with siblings, let alone any number of random people in a group.
You can collect a group of 100 random people, sit them down and show them Annie Hall (as an example). Now, from that group you may reason certain percentages will feel certain ways, but chances are you will not even guess 10% accurately as to who felt what about the movie, who slept through it, who ate more popcorn, who didn't truly pay attention and so on. You cannot guess because of HUMAN NATURE and FREE WILL.
To disregard them and to try to explain them away is ludicrous, lazy and IMHO, trying to be someone who believes since they know what makes humans tick (so to speak) they can poo-poo anything and control mankind. Trying to explain away man's emotions as genetics and environment is to say we have no souls, we have no spirits we are just neurons reacting in certain ways. Sorry, don't believe ya. But I am so glad that the government has been training our psychologists and psychiatrists to believe this. Makes helping the individual almost impossible at times. But makes the makers of Benzodiazapines, Prozac, Seraquel, etc, much, much richer.
Sorry, man is not GOD and man will never be able to control others... Hell the people who claim environment and genetics, I know have a hard time with their own self control.
BTW, if you go by "academic merits" you can come up with answers to everything you wish to..... theoretically... however, put into real life and upon the grand stage you will never get the results you hypothesized. Again, human free will, individuality, nature, spirit will prevail. What you profess as "antiquated, vague.... (was obsolete in there also?)" will basically always bite you on the ass, when you profess that it doesn't exist for one reason or another.