Conflict, Failure to Cooperate, and Dereliction of Duty among Humans: Causes and Consequences - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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I
Human conflict is ubiquitous. It is often covert and exists in every type of human social interaction, ranging from that between happy lovers, to all types of leaders and their followers, to that between politicians, bureaucrats and the rest of society, to that between states, alliances of states, and large sections of humanity bound by one common characteristic (e.g. religion)[1].

II
Human failure to cooperate is also quite common, and ranges from that between family members, on a simple household task, to unwillingness to seek mutually beneficial agreements between states or failure to cooperate on a mutually beneficial international project (e.g. continental defence).

III
Human propensity for dereliction of duty is also very common and occurs at all levels of society (from individuals to states) and at all jobs and activities.

IV
All sources (i.e. causes) of human conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty are psychological and include attempts to boost one’s shaky self-esteem through attempts to control, manipulate, outdo, humiliate and hurt others; attempts by those with very high and unshakable self-esteem to become a ‘god’ (i.e. rise high above the masses) by attempting to rapidly accumulate wealth, power, and prestige; selfish pursuit of self-interest, even at the expense of others; and human propensity for vengeance.

V
The consequences of human propensity for vengeance is worthy of special consideration. On the one hand, human tendency to take revenge for perceived wrongs is likely the most common cause of human conflicts, uncooperative behavior, and dereliction of duty, with the most harmful consequences for humanity. It exists in every type of social interaction, from the most loving, between individuals, to the most hostile, between states. On the other hand, human propensity for vengeance forces everyone, from individuals to states, to think twice before doing something objectively harmful or even subjectively displeasing to others. Hence, human propensity for vengeance limits the reign of other causes of human conflict, uncooperative behavior, and dereliction of duty.

VI
Be that as it may, the above-listed causes of human conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty also apply to various human groups, from families and clans, to ethnic groups, states, and broad religious groups (e.g. Christians). Hence, an ethnic group, for example, might attempt to boost its shaky sense of ethnic pride by attempting to control, manipulate, outdo, humiliate, and hurt other ethnic groups. On the other hand, an ethnic group with very high and unshakable self-esteem (e.g. ancient Romans) may attempt to become the most powerful, wealthiest and most prestigious ethnic group on the continent by conquering all others ethnic groups. At the same time, a member of a military alliance, for example, may fail to come to the aid of an ally out of selfish inclinations. Finally, any human group may neglect its duties, to another group, fail cooperate with it, or attack it in order to take revenge for perceived wrongs the other group has done to it.

VII
In different cases, the above-described motives for human conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty, can range from those below conscious awareness, of those individuals or groups who exhibit them, to deliberate, calculated attempts to reach goals.

VIII
Due to their presence in every type of human social interaction (from interpersonal to international) and all levels of society (from individual to national), human conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty, cause large amounts of harm to humanity’s welfare. This harm ranges from individual psychological and physical pain and privation, to a multitude of intrastate social problems, to destruction of whole nations. Hence, it is clear that even if human suffering and lives are not counted, human propensity for conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty are a waste of time, energy, and resources; since they involve billions of people harming and working against each other in various ways, instead of working together towards a common goal.

IX
To be sure, under motivation by fear or self-interest, people can often be observed cooperatively working towards a common goal. However, all such cooperative enterprises are rife with internal conflicts, failures to cooperate on various tasks, and mass dereliction of duty; all of which, not surprisingly, severely diminish the efficiency of all human collective enterprises.

X
Hence, humanity will have a hard time winning a war against a collective of creatures with similar (or even lesser) intellectual capabilities, but a lack of human propensity for conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty. Science fiction provides many possible examples of such creatures, ranging from autonomous societies of robots, to intelligent extraterrestrials organized like insect societies. Developments in military robotics, for example, already suggest that artificial intelligence, despite lacking human creativity, can easily outperform human decision makers on the battlefield and in many other tasks; in virtue of much more rapid and efficient information sharing, decision making (even if rigid compared to that of humans) and cooperative abilities between AI agents; which would be severely compromised if they engaged in human-style conflicts among themselves, often failed to cooperate with each other, or systematically neglected their duties.

XI
On the other hand, human propensity for conflict, in particular, gives humanity some degree of preparation for a serious conflict with a collective of other intelligent creatures, who lack internal conflicts, failures to cooperate, or dereliction of duty. In particular, chronic conflict builds psychological resilience for withstanding even more/greater conflict. (However, the likes of robots/AIs have infinite ‘psychological’ resilience, when compared to humans.) In addition, constant military conflict leads to rapid development of new more destructive and more efficient weapons, and better, more flexible strategy and tactics; which may make a difference between human survival and human extinction, in the event of war of annihilation with a collective of more efficient, more cooperative intelligent creatures. (However, the likes of psychological strategy/tactics will not work on the likes of robots/AIs.)

XII
However, human experience with various large scale (e.g. political) attempts to dominate and exploit each other, will be of no use against creatures who lack human propensity for conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty; while these human qualities could be easily exploited by them to defeat humanity. For example, human desire to outdo each other and benefit personally, at the expense of others, provides an easy route for turning members of alliances against each other. Similarly, while propaganda and offers of resources would be of no use in turning collectivist creatures, who lack human propensity for intraspecies conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty, against each other; such methods have proven very effective in turning humans against each other. In addition, human desire to outdo each other and benefit personally, at the expense of others, not to mention the fact that some people have vengeful desires towards humanity at large, can easily lead many humans to voluntary join forces with non-human enemies of humanity.

XIII
Thus, humanity’s chances of victory, against much more efficient and cooperative non-human invaders, are rather slim; which opens the question of the possible consequences, for humanity, of being defeated. One possibility is that the conquerors of humanity will form the master class, while humans will be turned into a class of their serfs. However, this possibility is likely to take place only if the conquerors of humanity will quickly come up with valuable (for them) functions for humanity to fill in, while simultaneously making the risk of human rebellion close to zero (the Matrix saga is a good, fictional example, of this). Conversely, if the conquerors of humanity will see the defeated humanity as being useless and a threat to their objectives, then an attempt, on their part, to exterminate humanity is very likely (e.g. the Terminator saga).

XIV
Despite their many drawbacks, human propensity for conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty, have led to the (1) emergence, (2) expansion, and (3) possibly even preservation of state societies.

Emergence:

Theories on the initial emergence of state societies can be grouped into two camps: Those arguing for voluntary state formation, and those arguing for coercive state formation. Thus, voluntary theories of state formation argue that certain social, economic and/or political conditions (e.g. high population density) compelled small human groups (e.g. villages) to come to a conclusion that a centralized government with coercive powers, over all neighboring human groups, will prove highly effective in reducing conflict between its subjects, and in forcing unwilling people to cooperate with others on important projects (e.g. large-scale irrigation, collective defense from hostile foreigners) without risk of serious dereliction of duty on their part. Hence, according to this group of theories, individuals and small groups voluntarily set up a centralized government, with coercive powers, over themselves.

On the other hand, coercive theories of state formation argue that certain social, economic, and/or political conditions (e.g. a shortage of agricultural land, despite an expanding population), compelled small human groups (i.e. tribes) to start conquering each other; leading to the emergence of larger political structures where leaders have coercive power (i.e. chiefdoms). If the same conditions remained (or new conditions which led to the same compulsions arose) the process continued with chiefdoms now attempting to conquer each other; with some succeeding to conquer others and thus becoming states. It is not difficult to see that whichever social, political, and/or economic conditions may have compelled tribes, and then chiefdoms, to start conquering each other, none of them would have led to such outcomes without the presence of fundamentally psychological causes of human conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty, as described above in sections IV and VI.

Expansion:

All historical cases of geographical expansion of state societies can also be grouped into voluntary and coercive expansion, for lands/peoples who end up joining the expanding state. Thus, under voluntary expansion, independent small settlements voluntarily joined neighboring states, primarily to gain protection from hostile neighbors. Such small, independent settlements, which voluntary joined neighboring states, were often subsequently displeased with the taxes that the state, which they joined, started to levy on them, as well as with the state’s attempt to interfere into their social, political, or economic affairs. Hence, it is clear that no independent, small settlement would ever voluntary join a neighboring state, if it didn’t have hostile neighbors whose hostility was inevitably motivated by the psychological factors described above in sections IV and VI.

Coercive expansion of state societies has, not surprisingly, been historically more common, and simply involved state societies conquering neighboring settlements or largely empty territories. It is not hard to see that such actions, on the part of state societies, could only have been motivated by the psychological factors described above in sections IV and VI, as well as by their main consequences (i.e. conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty).

Possible preservation/stabilization:

Occasionally, certain social, economic, and/or political factors led state societies to permanently collapse into autonomous tribes/villages (e.g. the collapse of Classical Mayan Civilization). However, more often than not, the necessary social, economic and political factors, enabling a collapsed state society to quickly re-emerge, remained in place, and provided a foundation for its re-emergence, even when its former political system has completely disintegrated, its communication and transportation systems and other infrastructure not in operations and in disrepair, and its population divided, scattered and reduced (by famines, epidemics, and violence). Most temporary collapses of state societies (e.g. that following the Russian Revolution of 1917) had all these consequences.

Now, while it is clear that human propensity for conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty constitute the ultimate causes of all destabilizations and subsequent collapses of state societies; they played a no less important role in the subsequent emergence of new, highly stable state societies, on the ruins of those that have collapsed. After all, thanks to their psychological causes, described above in sections IV and VI, all such collapses of state societies led to intense civil wars, with one political party soon (often within several years) overpowering all others, eliminating all opposition, establishing itself as the new government, quickly bringing law and order to the ravaged country, rebuilding the infrastructure and restarting its operations, and uniting the divided and scattered population under one banner.

It is worth noting, however, that many societies (e.g. many African countries) in the late 20th/early 21st centuries seem to have violated this rule by being in a seemingly perpetual state of partial societal collapse and partial civil war, without any prospects of strong centralized government emerging and permanently stabilizing and uniting the country. This, however, is a consequence of many such state societies being an artificial creation of colonial powers (most modern African countries, for example, have traditionally been populated by independent tribes, chiefdoms, and kingdoms), on which they depended for their stability and effective administration. Consequently, it is not surprising that upon being granted independence, most of such societies fell into a state of partial societal collapse and partial civil war. Of course, in the late 20th/early 21st centuries, there were also a few countries which were not former colonies, but which also were in a seemingly perpetual state of partial societal collapse and partial civil war. And it is clear that whatever its immediate causes, the ultimate causes of such protracted instability were human propensity for conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty.

Be that as it may, it is clear that human propensity for conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty, have led, at the very least, to the creation/emergence and expansion of very large, complex, and usually stable, human political organizations (i.e. state societies), with vast resources under their command, and an ability to make vast numbers of people work together towards a common goal. This, in turn, made humanity capable of carrying out prolonged, large scale military action, a capability which considerably increases humanity’s chances of survival, in the event of humanity’s conflict with extraterrestrial or manmade (e.g. robots) creatures capable of carrying out collective action at much greater levels of efficiency than humans.

XV
Finally, it is worth considering what effect human state societies have had, since their emergence, on human population growth. On the one hand, as already mentioned, the establishment of state societies is thought, by many scholars, to have made food production (e.g. by enabling large-scale irrigation projects) and economic transactions between neighboring settlements (e.g. by imposing an enforceable legal framework on economic transactions) more efficient; thus, increasing the size of the population which the economic system could support.

On the other hand, excess taxation of the peasants is known to have often led to serious food shortages among them, possibly limiting their population growth. However, it is unlikely that this heavy taxation of the peasants had any effect on net human population growth; given that all this food taken from the peasants by the ruling class, was used by them to buy a large assortment of goods and services from urban specialists in various trades (e.g., artisans, cooks, tailors, etc.), thus enabling the urban populations to grow.

Be that as it may, human world population grew relatively slowly since the emergence of state societies thousands of years ago. But all that changed when advancements in science (a product of European state societies) have shown that most premature deaths can be prevented through sanitation and vaccination. Consequently, since around the end of the 19th century, state societies around the world started to institute mass sanitation and vaccination practices (which would not be possible without the state’s coercive and wide-reaching administrative abilities). As a result, the world population started to grow at unprecedented rate.

Hence, human propensity for conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty, have led, step by step, to the creation/emergence and expansion of state societies; which, in turn, have led to the emergence of science, subsequent world-wide sanitation and vaccination practices, and a rapid increase in the world’s human population. And a vast human population will obviously prove to be an important factor in humanity’s ability to win, or continue to exist (in the event of defeat), in the event of war of annihilation against extraterrestrial or manmade (e.g. robots) collective of creatures, which are free from human propensity for intraspecies conflict, failure to cooperate, and dereliction of duty.

------------------------
Notes:

[1] It is worth remembering that human conflict (in the sense used in this essay) is different from competition, which, unlike conflict, despite being motivated by many of the same impulses, presupposes honesty, openness about the methods which will be used to pursue victory, pre-determined rules, attempts to avoid psychologically and physically harming the participants, and freedom for all potential opponents to not participate (else they feel not prepared, and/or that the contest is not worth their time, energy and resources). Good examples of competition include fair athletic contests and fair free market exchanges, both of which are known to be more effective/socially beneficial than their uncompetitive/cooperative alternatives (e.g. athletic pursuits where there is no one/nothing to compete against, and command economy).


(Source: https://roughdraftsofnewtheorie.wordpre ... sequences/)
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