>>9703824Sympathy is based more on the concept of "camaraderie" and mutuality of thought. A form of group cooperation ... under these conditions I might even feel sympathy for a defeated enemy as he likely went through the same shit and fought for the similar core tenets as I, only on the "other side". I do not "feel" his suffering, I understand it. You see, I have the theory that the human instinct for violence in general is a secondary trait as our fruit-eating nocturnal ape ancestors lost their primary killer instinct. This secondary human "kill switch" instead evolved from male/male competition and violence over females ... an activity which is usually restricted in lethality in most species as outright slaughter between males would mean extinction beyond a certain number of losses. Yet, to become efficient killers and hunters again humans pushed the lethality threshold of this violence to the absolute limit. This is what I meant with that we are "cold blooded killers". However, with the advent of cultures and sessile urban lifestyle this violence became problematic ... population density became too high, putting people under constant stress. So the secondary violence was gradually lost in some, creating a more "docile" form of man. As a replacement, a "tertiary violence" evolved, a system based on quorum sensing (you could also call it mass hysteria), allowing the new farmer societies to act with a pack mentality, switching to violence when stress became too high but otherwise being "pacified" by empathy.
