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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Banshee16" data-source="post: 5299991" data-attributes="member: 7883">This is a valid point.  If you want to start considering non-physical violence, then you can probably add to the list of animals and species that participate in it.  Even to a similar level that humans do.This is why I don't bluff violence <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  But yes, you're correct.  However......I sometimes wonder if mental stability is a factor when you're talking about people resorting to violence when faced with overwhelming force.  Doesn't seem like a rational choice.Well....I'm not sure this is quite as cut and dry as this.  They have to be *willing* to use force...and it's that reputation for willingness (as a group) to commit violence that gives police the reputation for violence that gives authority to the threat, and leads to many people choosing not to resist.There are likely cultural differences as well though.  I hear of far more incidents in the US of people resisting the police, to the point of having shootouts etc. than I have in my own country.  But, again, cultural differences.There are many police who go their entire careers without discharging their firearms a single time.  And there are police who discharge their firearms in a single incident, and are messed up for life as a result.  I'm pretty sure it takes a certain kind of person to take a life, and not be an emotional mess as a result.</blockquote>I won't contest that there is violence in human societies.  That's obvious.  My only point would be that organized violence isn't restricted to homo sapiens.We know that other species such as chimps and ants practice it, on large scale.  Scientists have also observed chimps procuring weapons to use either against each other, or against prey that they desire to kill.  Now, those weapons might not be anything more advanced than using a rock to hit another animal, a heavy stick to use as a club, or in some areas of africa, sharp spears/sticks....but they *do* do it.Ants don't use weapons that way....but they don't need to, as their mandibles can rip antennae, limbs, and heads off their opponents.  Humans need weapons, because, physically, I don't think we can really rip other humans part limb from limb, the way other predators can.The more that animal behaviourists study other species the more they learn that we're special....but also, that we're not nearly so different as we'd like to think.Banshee[/QUOTE]

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