You may be aware that a lengthy thread has recently run through these parts hissing and spitting, about whether or not American culture builds in an appetite and propensity for violence in real life.

You can find that thread over here if you wish, and it is an interesting study on the relationship between communication, violence, and personal attacks of a verbal sort.

This thread is offered as an open discussion on what the real factors are that lead to the kind of violence that shows up in so many places -- in American schools and Congolese jungles and Ecuadorian mountains and the deserts of Algeria. I doubt their is any other species that is as liberal at wasting its own kind. I know other primates have gang-wars sometimes, and I don't even want to think about the blood that gets spiled between warring ant colonies, but our version certainly is the loudest.

Where does it come from, and what are the alternatives that could actually be considered to them--are there remedies that might really work? Does this much intra-species violence have any value to the species, or the relations among species?

Your opinions are welcome.

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