29-01-2026, 07:33 AM
Certain great apes are highly territorial, get jealous, play status games etc. and its all out in the open to study. You dont need to filter behaviour through language and thus much less is lost in translation. If I wanted to know why we go to war I would rather study chimps and maybe gorillas for 6 months rather than have a conversation with Napoleon, since Napoleon would carry the prejudices of his time invariably, as war is never justified for its own sake in Human civilisational history. Muslims go to war for a caliphate sanctioned by Muhammad, Hindus go to war for "Dharma" , Christians for the Pope and the Vatican etc. While for Chimps you can for example take notice of when war actually sets off, maybe its in the summer when testosterone is higher but so is mate avaialability (females get more in heat as well), resources arent scare but then why war? Status seems to be valenced higher than resource guarding and protection going completely against the English Utilitarians.
