you guys always fall back to this same old, and very very tired, petulant whine. its just a self fulfilling circle of adolescence.

It's not logic. It is biology.

Biology determines behavior far less than people suspect.

That's a pretty empty statement. Our ape biology has a large impact on how we interact and create power structures.

The easiest way to argue for statism is to assume in your hypothetical the very conditions which make a state (or some equivalent apparatus of organized violence) necessary. For instance, if we assume a capitalistic world where the property-less have to sell their liberty to the propertied in order to survive, then the establishment of a state becomes absolutely imperative to protect those who own from those who do not own. To use George Washington's words, the state becomes necessary "to contain the threat of the people rather than to embrace their participation and their competence," lest "the anarchy of the propertyless would give way to despotism." Or as James Madison put it, "the most common and durable source of faction has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society" and "the first object of government" is "the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property."

Without a state, the "leveling impulses" of the propertyless multitude would be impossible to contain. IMO, those who deny this fact (which is backed up by all of history) put themselves in the same ballpark as Holocaust deniers, young earth creationists, and flat-earthers: people who are so divorced from reality that they are not worth talking to.

fyp

The truth really does hurt

citation needed

That's interesting. I have a degree in psychology and cognitive science and haven't seen any evidence for this claim. Can you give any sources?

Our behavior is determined by the connections between neurons. Most of those connections are formed after birth under the influence of environment and are not genetically determined.

Biology is not strictly physiology

I agree with this. But I assume this forum doesn't have too many member of "the 1 percent". And even if it does, I doubt they'd give this as an argument.

Okay, same to you for your previous claim.

I am not sure what evidence you're looking for. Our biology makes us who we are. We are in the ape family and we follow a lot of the same rules they do, but a little more complex because of the large numbers of humans.

Here is a link to an abstract:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3927823

I could look for more. But I am not sure what is in question here.

On the one hand we have millions of years of development through selection of beneficial traits. On the other we have social status quo(s), changing from generation to generation.

*edit but I don't want to sidetrack this thread. It's really good.

Which claims should I elaborate on? The creation of neural connections? Or their importance?

I'm not sure what point is about this paper. It talks about social structures in apes. I could link to papers discussing social structures in bees, ants, etc. But what conclusion do we draw from this? Maybe you could elaborate.

Remember, the topic of discussion here is to what extent our cognitive processes and behavior (human behavior) is predetermined by our genes. This paper doesn't give any insight for this question.

I hope the thread develops into something constructive, glad you like it. I don't think this is such a sidetrack, for now nobody's engaging me in the original question i posed anyway.

The traits that are being selected are more low-level, concerning biological survival (like physical strength, speed, ability to fly, etc.) The high-level processes are shaped mainly through learning. It is true that some brain areas have evolved to take certain functions, but it is also true that the brain has this really useful property called neural plasticity. For example, Wernicke's area in the left temporal lobe has a large role in language comprehension. Some infants are born with a damage to that area and it would be expected that they'd also not be able to develop certain language skills. However, what happens in reality is that other brain areas whose functions is normally something else take the role of Wernicke's area and the children still develop normal language comprehension skills with no noticeable deficits.

Obviously, language cannot be acquired without stimulation from the environment. But the same thing holds for the so-called personality traits. They are mostly shaped by the environment through learning. And, as would be expected, culture has a big influence on those traits. Our culture is dominated by hierarchical relationships. In fact, many times they are encouraged. It is no surprise then that children (and we) acquire this from their environment so readily.

A question to address the pro state people whom fear chaos and crime would ensue if we were all put into a stateless society?

Do you feel modern or past government has instilled that the state is the only means in which protection is provided to ensure violence and terror would not occur???

A more extreme version of the question would be, Do you feel government has brainwashed the public into believing that w/o government, people would indeed fail????

Nonetheless here is a question for anti state people

How do you deal with everyday necessities like healthy food and water? Not to mention possible crime and violence that occurs in all society

With these questions being asked.... the facts are violence and poverty are a serious problem for many people in the world today, and has been in the past . A world in which about 99% of the population have some forum of government

So, is government good or bad??? Maybe Only god knows

sweet, it's the "bad things are gonna happen no matter what, we better get in on that action or someone else will" argument.