At 03:39 PM 06/09/04 -0500, you wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Henson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 3:06 PM Subject: Re: KEP part 2 L3
> At 10:09 AM 06/09/04 -0500, "Dan M." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 2:27 AM > >Subject: Re: Killings, evil and pictures to assure accountabillity L3 > > snip > > > > I hold the view that given the right set of circumstances Houston > > > probably could turn into Sudan. > > > >I understand you hold that view. But, where are the data that support it? > > Rhwanda, WW II Germany, practically ever conflict that people ever had.
Not true. The pogums during the 14th century, when things were much more bleak than they were in the '30s in Germany were no where near as bad as the Holocaust. Ecconomic conditions in Rwanda were not worse than they were in Zambia at the time..and nothing happened there.
You clipped:
A bad enough economic downturn, one where independent of the realities people thought the future was really bleak,
The absolute economic level has little to do with setting off this reaction. It is *perception* that gets people. After a considerable run up, a relatively modest downturn can trigger this mechanism and has. This makes sense from a physiological viewpoint, like lukewarm water feels hot to a hand that has been in cold water and cold to a hand that has been in hot water.
The Holocaust's scale was due to the application of industrial production methods by a state, though as Rwanda demonstrated, you can accomplish a lot with more primitive methods.
Also, the modern consequences of a psychological mechanism that evolved in hunter gatherer cultures can't be predicted that accurately. (And by "modern" I mean anything subsequent to agriculture.)
Easter Island is instructive as is the warfare among the corn farmers in the American Southwest after about 1250 CE.
Keith Henson
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