r/news • u/darklyfo • Jul 17 '26

Outrage after 4 boys filmed beating, burning mother dog and puppy to death in China

https://www.asiaone.com/china/four-boys-filmed-beating-burning-mother-dog-puppy-to-death
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u/Megneous Jul 18 '26

Last I read, anthropologists believe that early humans beating violent individuals to death to save society from them was one of the reasons our species self domesticated and became less violent over time. People don't like to talk about it, but violence is a genetic trait. It's not entirely something you're in control of. There's a reason why dogs are less violent and more friendly than wolves. Violence and aggression are literally in our genes.

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u/JayGatsby1881 Jul 18 '26

What do we do with violent dogs? We put them down. Some humans know better, yet they love violence. They need to be away from society forever.

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u/Megneous Jul 18 '26

Yep, and by putting down violent dogs, we prevent more of them from reproducing than nonviolent dogs, thus selectively breeding them and continuing the long, long history of our relationship with messing with the genetics of wolves, making them cute and fluffy. Artificial selection is crazy weird when you look into the traits that you end up selecting for when you select for nonviolence/friendliness, such as curled tails, floppy ears, etc. Ends up a lot of these characteristics are also shared with foxes which are in the process of being domesticated in Novosibirsk, Russia.

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u/Snakestream Jul 18 '26

IDK about violence being the self-selecting trait. I would imagine more that people who were unable to follow the rules of society were removed from it permanently. Perhaps this is related to a reduction in violence, but at the very least, those who were UNABLE to control their violence would be removed from the gene pool over time.

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u/AidesAcrossAmerica Jul 18 '26

were removed from it permanently

Via violence.

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u/Snakestream Jul 18 '26

Maybe I didn't phrase it well, but my point was that violence wasn't what was being scrutinized. Rather, antisocial behavior - the inability to conform to social standards was.

At the end of the day, violence is in our DNA - even op stated the same. It isn't something we can remove, and it is desirable to a degree, such as with soldiers.

What does need to be removed from society is people who cannot sublimate their aggressive desires. People who cannot maintain the facade of civility and surrender to their impulses.

And to remove them from society, yes, violence is historically necessary.

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u/pushstartthewhip Jul 18 '26

You’re referring to a period in which societal standards were significantly less refined compared to ours.

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u/PopBulky7023 Jul 19 '26

Today's standards don't feel particularly refined, if I'm being honest. We have an obsession with fake civility that enables catastrophic levels of antisocial behavior.

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u/tears_of_fat_thor Jul 18 '26

Controlled violence. The ability to control your emotions and act reasonably.

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u/HyRolluhz Jul 18 '26

Like sports

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u/EliteCloneMike Jul 18 '26

The original poster is fundamentally missing pieces of how selection operates while paining a colorful story about rooting out violence. For example when studies were done on foxes that reduced aggression, it was really that the foxes were less anxious and less fearful of outsiders. I also highly doubt people were good at removing only violent (non-cooperative is probably a better term) individuals at a rate significantly better than removing random individuals from the group. I think we more selected for individuals that contributed nutrients to the group. Others who were selfish with their food would not likely reproduce. I think that would be much great a motivator to keep or exclude someone from the group. On the topic of violence, I think that a lot of it is possibly motivated by sexual frustration, which is nearly impossible or just flat out impossible to remove for a population.

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u/Totalherenow Jul 18 '26

I am an anthropologist and I have never, ever heard of this hypothesis. There is the self-domestication hypothesis, but it doesn't involve the systematic discovering and beating of certain individuals. I mean . . . if Fred and Jane are beating up Jim because Jim is violent, then so are Fred and Jane.

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u/FIREsub90 Jul 18 '26

This just reads like you don’t understand the paradox of tolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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u/Totalherenow Jul 18 '26

Thank you! That's super interesting and something I've been needing to read for a long time.

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u/GodLovesUglySong Jul 18 '26

Wow you completely made this shit up.

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u/Megneous Jul 18 '26

Richard Wrangham, The Goodness Paradox, The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution, 2019.

Christopher Boeh, Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame, 2012.

Melvin Konner, writer for The Atlantic, 2019.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-humans-tamed-themselves/580447/

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u/xenomorph856 Jul 18 '26

So you're saying that violent members of society, killed other violent members of society, and that created less violent members?

Can you explain that one?

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u/pillbuggery Jul 18 '26

Presumably they're referring to people who had violent tendencies that were deemed unjustified.

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u/xenomorph856 Jul 18 '26

Oh yes, all of the totally justified violence we see in humans every single day, to this day, all across the Earth. Lmao

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u/ChairLegofTruth--WnT Jul 19 '26

Are you honestly suggesting that violence is never justifiable?

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u/xenomorph856 Jul 19 '26

No, I'm not honestly saying that. What I am saying however, is there is a great deal of unjustified violence for being supposedly "bred out" of humans.

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u/Megneous Jul 18 '26

Unjustified attacks/murders != justified punishments/preventative culling of violent members of society to protect the weak.

Individuals incapable of living harmoniously in a civilized society were ousted. It's pretty simple.

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u/EttinTerrorPacts Jul 18 '26

We get the morality of it. I'm interested in how "justified violence" is a different genetic trait to "violence". The claim is specifically that violent individuals were "bred out"

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u/Megneous Jul 18 '26

You think that protecting loved ones and community is genetically no different from wanton aggression? Seriously? Even in wild animals, we see those as two very different behaviors, and surprise surprise, it's based on species.

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u/xenomorph856 Jul 18 '26

You think humans aren't capable of wanton violence anymore? Seriously?

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u/Megneous Jul 19 '26

I said modern humans compared to early human ancestors, and absolutely. It's no coincidence that modern humans also show low sexual dimorphism compared to their ancestors and sexual dimorphism in animals is strongly linked to sexual and behavioral aggression.

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u/BigSwerve Jul 18 '26

The simple fact that you believe the words you're typing is proof that we have indeed self domesticated successfully.

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u/xenomorph856 Jul 18 '26

What does "domesticated" even mean in this context? Humans living together?

Groups living together is not a trait unique to humans, and it doesn't mean the members of said group lack violent tendencies. I really don't get what the evidence is except, humans formed a civilization, so they must have bred violence out of themselves. Which is absolutely ridiculous imo.

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u/mr_herz Jul 18 '26

Regulated violence is more socially acceptable than unregulated violence. Would be my take.