are you suggesting they are all the same people behind them all?

Thanks... I wish I knew more about history, none of the comments have answered my questions we need a science dedicated to this stuff... and let's not call it warology Can't find like useful tables with reasonings for every war or something. We haven't learned to integrate different human personalities into an integer being either. We won't have real collective empathy until we learn to recognize how we work as a whole, and why it's okay to be different. We are all always wrong, yet it's okay for both, as long as we all strive to help each other. Sigh ... This is the least coherent comment I've posted... Sorry

@A1fredo

I would try reading "War! What Is It Good For?: Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots" by Ian Morris.

We like to think of cultural evolution as being directed or purposefully unlike natural selection. In reality culture is too complex and chaotic, too responsive to unintended consequences, and too dependent on environmental variables to be a top down design. To a limited extent this is illustrated by "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond.

One of the problems with history is that it is a scholarly pursuit not an intellectual one. Knowing a lot doesn't mean understanding a lot. You are going to have to pick a grand narrative or create your own to make history relevant to current events.

@wolfhnd Yeah, I guess I was trying to avoid just that trying to stay fair, but I appreciate your comment. It's probably not the best way to go, but I feel much better doing so now by knowing I don't really have a choice. So thanks!

None of them explain tho. Not gold, not oil, not drugs, nor ideology are goals by themselves. Gotta go deeper.

@A1fredo what do you see behind it all?

@GeeMac Well, I know what it means. Have you though how it works though, where it cones from. In essence, I would suggest that power would be mostly the ability to persuade, as convincing others to fight with or for you seems to be the most basic advantage. More than having the guns or the positions of authority. It's majority who is the tyrant and have always been.

What I see behind is the middle brain of humans. You see, we have the reptilian (instincts,) lomboc system (emotions,) and neocortex (rational) brains. Its main function is to act as a motor to motivate us, compell us to do or not do stuff, right? The instinct is predictable and unforgiving. You must sleep when sleepy, eat when hungry, etc. The top of its value hierarchy is aesthetics as a motivator, sex. For the reasoning, it's so negligible, we se It as a tool, more than a motivator, but I would suggest its top value of the motivation hierarchy would be convenience, following it's form of beauty, reason. So if we want to achieve something, we can plan it out.

Those are pretty clear for everyone, as we can't not notice them. However, I strongly suggest that the lomboc system is the responsible for all this mess. Well, we are for neglecting it and the knowledge of men we looked down to for so long and stopped implementing in our lives. You see, the emotional brain's main characteristic is to be sneaky. We all have feelings, only we are more aware than others. Happy relaxed people just go trough life without noticing and just thinking everything is the way it is because. Troubled people that have been to confront themselves for one reason or another, over and over, and over, and over, they become really good at identifying the inner emotional perceptions. It's like being able to distinguish pitch as opposed to being tone-deaf.

As one of those, I've come to realize that the nature of emotions is cognitive, and therefore they are thoughts too. It's just that they communicate with us trough a different infrastructure than the neocortex. In the same way instinct communicates trough us using physical means of persuasion like sleepiness or hunger.

We use emotions to decide which memories to keep in long term and which ones to discard in one side, and I'll suggest we follow kinda the same protocol for deciding things like "do I know this?" "Is this true?" And other very important questions. Just be aware when you question that, you feel the answer rather than go trough your mental records, as you need a quick answer. Did you watch Mean Girls? When Gretchen says "I'm sorry everybody is so jealous of me, but I can't help it that I'm popular" before she lets herself fall over a group of girls who are meant to catch her, but they move over to let her fall? They didn't have time to think it trough, that's what emotions are for. They just felt they should do that. It's a quicker though than the neocortex.

The bad news is that it is meant to be unconscious. You are not supposed to notice it. Trust me, noticing it alone can cause mental problems, I know. And it creates this phenomenon in us humans: we all always think we are right. And those who aren't aware of this emotional perk, just believe they KNOW something when they only FEEL they know something. That's what prevents them from listening to reason. And that may be the way trough them. To prevent war or whatever it is to come.

@A1fredo yep. I totally agree that power is more than a position of authority + firepower. There is great power in the mob, as we have seen in countless countries from the Philippines to more recently, Egypt.

I also agree that humans are creatures of emotion, not logic. Everything from fashion and advertising to politics and religion runs on emotion. Thats why it’s so difficult to reason with many people - reason isn’t a factor.

I always say if I’m operating on emotion and you are coming from a place of logic, we can’t communicate. We are speaking different languages.

@GeeMac Not necessarily. You see, I am of the opinion that actually.. you know how our brains can detect all the pitches of music, the rhythm, the harmonies, calculate all those values and give us our pleasure hormones if it's good, or otherwise, all that before we are even aware we are listening to music? Our subconscious is much MUCH smarter than us. And I think our emotions are actually smarter than us too. I can tell you as someone who is very very experienced with it, I can track back every emotion logically just as I can with thoughts. If we knew how to use them, they would be awesome. The problem aren't emotions on themselves. Actually, they cannot even be fooled. That's why art cannot (or at least extremely difficult, but I can't think of any that is consciously so) be corrupt. You can only indoctrinate trough art if the message is true. You need to indoctrinate trough the in-between areas, like how many women. Appear on a TV show, you know? Between the limboc system and the neocortex. It is a gradient and those are the point of failure. Anyway, I'm just some poor asshole in Mexico, i can't possibly back my theories with anything. Just ranting here I guess heh heh Nevermind.. anyway, so... Yeah xD lol

@GeeMac yeah, I forgot. My point was that basically, you can communicate, you just need to be smarter. You can do it with two prepared people. Lets say you are a logical genius, which you surely are, and I'm an emotional guru ( haha whatever,) together could probably get trough an emotional person. It's just that instead of trying harder with emotional people, most rather just think they are stupid and try even less so... That's the problem.