User talk:Paine Ellsworth/Aggressiveness

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Seems that most reference works describe aggressiveness using very negative terms, even our beloved Wikipedia. There is little mention that every single species, animal, plant or whatever, is still alive today on this planet due to its inherent aggressiveness. That makes it a positive trait necessary for survival, doesn't it? Actually, my strongest question would be, "Could aggressiveness, which appears to be most necessary for our survival, could it also eventually be our undoing?"

Just trying to make sense of it, that's all.

Rumors of wars[edit]

One of my mother's favorite bible quotes is from the book of Matthew: there will be "wars and rumors of wars". I can remember thinking, 'but there have always been wars. So how is this a sign of the "end of times"'? Seems like ever since the numbers of humans rose to exceed territorial boundaries, they warred against their neighbors. If they won, then they took over their neighbors' territory and made their neighbors their slaves. It's what we do. We are an aggressive race of beings, and we show a fair amount of aggressiveness toward each other. Does that work for us? or against us? Only time will tell.

Roots[edit]

Human aggressiveness, deeply rooted in our memories and which was once so essential to our survival and evolution, is still necessary today. How would we continue to survive without it? So even if we could eliminate aggressiveness from within us, we shouldn't want to, because without it, a day may come when we need it to survive. Another alternative would be to channel our innate aggressiveness away from hurting others and toward using it to advance our technology. As long as we're careful and don't invent or create something that could or would do us in, advancing our technology would only help us – all of us.

No more starvation, no more disease, we would then be able to work toward our education, and to fulfill another deeply embedded trait, which is to explore our environment, our living space. In totality this would include continued exploration of our planet, Earth, and further discoveries in our solar system and our galaxy, and so on. Our continued aggressiveness toward each other is frustrating, because while war does tend to advance our technology, its negative aspects greatly outweigh such advancement. We can be at peace with ourselves and with others and still be aggressive toward technology and our advancement. The closer we all come to this discovery, the more likely we will continue to enjoy life for even longer than did the dinosaurs and many other forms of life.

Pipe dream? Don't think so.


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Un-article see also[edit]