Yana Usdi

The idea you were looking for sounds a lot like the old idea of divide and conquer. For the most part you all are on the right track I'd think but the problem isn't survival of the fittest, it's our tribal instinct. Fittest doesn't mean biggest or meanest, it means best able to survive, most fit for when and where it is. The reason we evolved into family and tribal units was because to a point cooperation made us more fit than aggression did.

But, we just needed our local group for that so the other side of that was tribal then eventually national competition. We've talked about this in other threads but we see the same type of thing in animals, especially ones such as chimps. Money is an aspect but only because it now represents what we need to survive, with money we can get the rest. In the past we had the same fights over the resources that money now represents. We can (and have) use money, better cropland, race, religion, or anything else to draw a difference between us and them and we see the same thing today in US politics. The more extreme dems and repubs hardly grant each other the same status as humans anymore, the more "other" we can make them the easier it is to hate them. In local or international conflicts it works about the same, concentrate on and expand the differences, and it isn't just government that does it. It's anyone who wants to manipulate us.

Best way to fight it seems to be to just try to find common ground, where they want to emphasize the differences there has to be enough of us on the other side of the issue emphasizing where we have common interests and needs, how we can do better together rather than at conflict.

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