This is too cynical a take. "Tribal" warfare (what, Africa, North America?) seems to not be anything compared to civilizational war machines. Evidence shows it instead is two groups shooting arrows at eachother or engaging in non-bladed physical combat - think the PRC vs India in the mountains - with maybe one death. Sort of a mutually accepted way to "blow off steam."

Given that these kinds of battles exist throughout history, alongside catastrophic civilizational ethnocides, we can't assume one or the other is our "core primal behavior." Seems we have a tendency to both, depending on circumstance.

What is universally true though, preceding our capability to organize into warbands, is the fact that our evolutionary advantage is derived from our social nature. We rule the planet because we're so social we're the only species that invented language so as to communicate very complex topics. So in terms of "natural order" for humans, and adaptive behavior, it clearly is cooperation.

... or so I have heard

Off the top of my head from something I read a while back: Finland is listed as one of the happiest countries, but also has a higher rate than normal of prescribed anti psychotics and anti depressants, and also has high rates of alcoholism and suicide. Something isn't lining up there.

My own anecdotal experience as well conflicts. When I travel through Scandinavia, people seem... Fine. Friends I have there say you're basically not allowed to talk to strangers, at all, everyone is meant to just quietly ignore each other. Meanwhile the deeper I go into Vietnam, even deep into where people still live on stilt houses made by hand tools, the happier and more sociable people are. My friends say the same of various countries in Africa.

Regardless, you should read Robert Putnam's essay, E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century (2007). He makes it clear that social trust goes down because of it.

I thought I would be able to get in a good 20-40yr settling down where I did and would only be complaining about this stuff when I was old. It's been about 10 and it's all going to shit.

And yes, I am intentionally not being specific and leaving room for assumption.

One thing I've consistently noticed about these kinds of conversations is that people want to be allowed to share racist opinions without suffering the social consequences of sharing racist opinions, but in order to do so they have to hide their true values by masking their language and not actually say anything that has any meaning.

I have nothing in my value system I'm ashamed of, I'll say any aspect of it in any company at all. Is it hard not having a value system like that?

They show up, they get to screeching in the town hall meetings and before you know it the flock cameras go up, code enforcement is prowling around with a drone, Starbucks replaces the Popeyes, half the businesses you patronize sell out to developers of bougie stuff you don't want, everything costs more, etc, etc.

I'm sure the city wins on paper, it's replacing it's existing people with richer ones. And I'm sure the people who sell stuff to these richer people win, but everyone who was here first loses. We just wanted to pay low rents, drink beer on our front porches and let our kids ride dirtbikes in the street and generally live our lives.

I chose this city specifically because the kind of people I didn't want anything to do with said it sucked so much "my dad dealt crack in the 90s and that's where he'd meet his supplier" and all that, and it was so far away from where they usually like to settle. But with what happened to land values, rents, etc. after 2020 pushed a lot of them out here.

In gift economies, all these distinctions are meaningless. The bounty of a funeral would be a direct representation of the deceased's popularity (likely established through their generosity) as well as their family's ability to convice people to e.g. spend time making s beautiful coffin, bring food, play music.

You mean like reality? The power law exists. Runaway growth is natural. Or would you claim that planets and stars are secretly capitalists?

It's not even a good metaphor since a star is mostly a stable system. The better metaphor for human economic systems is life itself, and in life, positive feedback loops lead to things like ecosystem killing algae blooms or cancer.

Infinite growth through positive feedback loop is natural, exponential decay is natural (radioactive decay), but the thing that supports life best is homeostasis. In which case this culture's tendency to prevent wealth hoarding is actually long term the better solution than capitalist endless wealth accumulation.

This is mostly just capitalist normativism. In reality capitalism is young. Describing it as a natural order of things is like a kid born in 2002 calling TSA in airports a fundamental reality, after all, you can't have airports without TSA!

This is my experience with extremely rural areas or tightly knit / kinship / indigenous cultures as well. They happen to live on territory within a given State that's inevitably capitalist because the entire world is, but take a closer look and you'll realize it's almost an entirely different country within the village. A local example to me: everyone assumes the tribal leaders of Taiwanese indigenous towns are super wealthy landowners because their name is on every lot and house in the village. The reality: the villages own everything in common, and when government officials show up asking who owns what, the villages don't really know how to answer, so the government official then asks "ok well who's the leader?" And then getting that answer, just puts that name down for everything.

Edit: oh I see what you mean, right now, people are using cash to pay for e.g. the DJ. Yes, probably true because it's literally costing them money. My point there was that it's possible that an older tradition from a pre capitalist system that worked fine then is not compatible with how capitalism works. Many things aren't.

Oh, yes, agreed there. I can imagine that these communities were very insular in the past, so there wasn't really anything to own that wasn't what they could immediately see and touch around the village. Then again, there wouldn't be a need for this ritualistic spending back then, so the spending seems to be a direct reaction to capitalism arriving to these societies.

First, you have to do whatever it takes to make you able to just do things alone, frequently, and then go ahead and do things alone, frequently. Picnics, cafe co-working, reading in a lounge/cafe/bar, walks, bike rides, hikes, photo walks, star gazing, whatever. Literally anything.

You'll probably meet people while doing this. Get their contact info. Eventually, mention "oh hey I play basketball a couple times a month, want me to text you next time I'm planning?" Repeat, you have a crew or five. A couple group chats.

Then start planning bigger events. Book 8 person tables at a restaurant, then drop a note in your chat like this:

``` Reservation for 8 at UR Meat on Tuesday April whatever, 7pm, the new kbbq place near zhongxiao fuxing station.

1. komali2

2.

3.

4...

```

People will copy/paste adding their name so you can see how many seats are filled. I've tried 10 other booking platforms, apps, whatever, nothing beats the group text thing. The group chat is where shit happens.

For more casual events like picnics, just drop a maps link and a time, remind people a couple days before, day before, and day of send a pic with where you are in the park or whatever (the "final push" for people are hesitant but see that it's really real and thus come).

Repeat, scale as desired. The consistent thread is that you have to Just Do Stuff, and people have to know that you'll Just Do Stuff regardless if people come or not, so they come see you as a dependable and fun person, a great person to tag along with.

But knowing that I'm being classified by event organizers (and that there's a 10% chance I will be labeled "complete weirdo")? That will keep me from participating in events.

Which is too bad because I already have enough reasons not to participate in events without adding neuroses on top of them.

Anyway in my experience what the OP is referring to is less "nuerodivergent weirdness" and more "Will this person do violence" weirdness. Or, like, people that are just coming to events to try to fuck, and being obnoxious about it.

"Do violence" from a meetup event is rarely a concern in most countries, but never 0.

Mainly the people I'm concerned about are the ones who make others want to leave and never come back.

E.g. by asking uncomfortable and/or sexual questions (which is mostly fine) but not having the EQ after a few iterations to let the person politely weasel out of answering and change the subject. If they really press people, or monopolize the conversation to the point the person wonders why they would show up just to be lectured at, then that's a no-go.

We can all tolerate people who mean well and are mostly easy-going but not good at hangouts. Whereas the ones who are actively repelling newbies from being able to join and enjoy the event are the main challenge.

For example, at other meetups I go to, we've got a fellow who can't take feedback. He knows he made a newbie uncomfortable to the point of standing up and going home, but he makes a joke out of it when he's told what happened and why. Every time... and so the pattern repeats.

And so the fact that I don't do that must mean that I'm one of the weirdos. And sure, it doesn't really matter other than it's a reason to avoid events.

I guess it's this part I'm not really understanding - what harm are you avoiding?

You can't win man.

First, collective punishment is not acceptable. Shooting through a baby to kill the criminal holding it hostage is obviously monstrous, so your argument that there's "Hezbollah around" is invalid. Civilians present? Then find another way, Israel. But Israel refuses because terms always include something along the lines of leaving occupied Palestinian territory, which Israel refuses to do for many indefensible reasons.

Second, though, is that Israel has lost all credibility. You say Hezbollah is in the area and the thousand people killed are Hezbollah? I say, Israel once released a picture of a calendar and said it was a list of terrorist cells. Israel has lied too much to be trusted anymore.

There's also horrifying reality that's becoming increasingly clear as more street interviews from Israel are released: it's becoming clear that much of this bloodshed is fed by ethnosupremacy and Islamophobia. Israel is becoming the next Nazi state.

A better question to ask: what do you do when an ethnosupremacist state sets up shop near you and immediately begins territory expansion and meddling in your local politics while funding militant groups to destabilize your government? That's the question all of Israel's neighbors have had to answer for the last 60 years.

The entire neighborhood sucks.

Doesn't this also apply to Hezbollah in Lebanon?

> "[Hezbollah's] struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated" [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah#Attitudes_and_action...

I don't really sympathize with any State's desire for self preservation (especially since, like Israel, most states will happily sacrifice their citizenry to do so).

The radicalization necessary to feed recruitment to Hamas and Hezbollah is only possible because of the incredible violence Israel subjects the region to. Without Israel, Hamas would almost certainly not even exist, or at least would be some minor radical group with no political power.

We don't have a time machine.

In the present, Israel could go full pacifist, and Hezbollah doesn't go away.

No it isn't, we were alive in the 20th century, it's recent and we are fully capable of, and responsible for, handling fallout from decisions made during it. Your argument justifies any imperialism. "Last year Israel occupied more Palestinian territory - it's the same as ancient history, demanding they give it back is like demanding Greece re-establishes the sovereignty of Athens."

> In the present, Israel could go full pacifist, and Hezbollah doesn't go away.

Pretty speculative. An Israel that gives back sovereignty and autonomy as well as stolen land back to Palestine (and now Lebanon), releases prisoners, and regime changes out the ethnosupremacist government takes basically all the wind out of the sails of groups resisting it as the evil it currently is.

Actually negotiating and following through is something current Israel can't swallow because it's deeply racist against the people with whom it's meant to be negotiating.

"we"? Your point's either literal (false) or figurative (arbitrary).

Why would you say something so misleading? You'd be 100 years old for the pre-Israel British-colonial period or almost 80 for the instantiation of Israel. It seems you're unclear when Israel showed up as colonialists.

> Your argument justifies any imperialism.

Fallacy: Israel's actions and Hezbollah's actions can both be bad.

> Pretty speculative.

No, you made my point! LOL!

Now, observe your list of conditions needed (return land, release prisoners, regime change). Isn't it ironic that you laid out a bunch of actions that are far more aggressive than what I proposed? You're basically saying that a more extreme compromise is needed than what I proposed!

> it's deeply racist against the people with whom it's meant to be negotiating.

Let's accept this is true (which is terrible). The flaw is that you're blindly dismissing Hezbollah/Hamas as moderates and their stated goals to eradicate Israelis. You can't leave them out of the picture and to do so is arbitrary.

Is your proposal to "just stop doing war?" There's a reason it's happening - Israel has engaged in imperialism and genocide, and there are people alive today from whom Israel and its settlers have taken land. There's still a lot of Palestinians who can't return to their homes. Of the three entities, Israel is the one with the most (literal) ground it needs to give back to "even the scales."

Undoubtedly Hezbollah and Hamas have antisemitic members that are very interested in killing Jewish people, just as there's clear evidence for the same in the IDF, however of the two, only one has engaged in actualized genocide (the IDF), so the dissolution of the State that promoted this is a moral good. It doesn't require "the eradication of Israelis" as you say, and again, Hamas only exists because of Israel, whereas the elimination of Hamas obviously is doing nothing to stop Israel's genocide against the Palestinians (and it's clear interest in expanding this genocide and imperialism against anyone it can describe as "Arab").

You seem to be accusing me of being arbitrary because you're claiming Hezbollah/Hamas is equal to Israel in terms of evil behavior, when that isn't true: Israel is the far more evil entity, and the goal of Hezbollah and Hamas to resist and dissolve the Israeli state - there's a reason Hamas revised their charter to remove all the obviously anti-semitic stuff and focus instead on resistance ethno-supremacy movement that underlies every aspect of Israel's existence as a State.

Why not simply make all of Israel ruled by the PA? Can you make an argument against that that isn't Islamophobic? Because the reality is that Hamas and Hezbollah are moderates when compared to the actions of Israel over the past few decades, and in any case the PA was absolutely moderate and liberal compared to Israel.

Don't believe me?

I encourage you to put this in an LLM and ask if you're being fair.

E.g., calling an Iran backed Shia militant group "moderate" compared to Israel is hyperbolical.

Or, I could engage in a conversation with a human, like you. LLMs only tell you what you want to hear. This is disappointing that you suggested this to me, it leads me to believe you're doing this, which means your beliefs aren't backed by evidence, they're just things you thought of and then had an LLM validate.

> Don't believe me?

Nope. I am correct, objective, and historically accurate, and you're failing to demonstrate otherwise.

> E.g., calling an Iran backed Shia militant group "moderate" compared to Israel is hyperbolical.

You're just throwing around scare terms now. Nothing about "Iran" or "Shia" makes me think they're inherently more evil than "Israel." It smells like Islamophobia to me to suggest otherwise.

Here is a list of Israeli war crimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_war_crimes

Israel is continually committing war crimes, every day, including today. Every Israeli strike against Iran civilians constitutes an war of aggression and violates the UN charter and is a war crime. It has engaged in collective punishment of Palestinians, blockade, denial of water and destruction of wells, forced relocation, has admitted to using white phosphorous (including in residential areas and against Unifil peacekeepers), attacked schools, refugee camps, churches, mosques, and civilians seeking food, and has shot and killed children.

Now convince me that the IDF as a radical ethno-supremacist militant group led by a terrorist country is less evil than "an Iran backed Shia militant group."