Hey… simmer down… don’t get mad at me yet… This idea just popped into my crack squirrel-infested cranium and I haven’t had time to think about it yet. See, this is what the crack squirrels do. They come up with these crazy ideas. Then, the ideas bounce around inside my head while the squirrels all chatter their own thoughts on the subject while at the same time screeching at me to start a post about it.
‘Oh, don’t worry’, they assure me… in those crackly little voices of theirs… ‘we know it doesn’t make much sense now, but trust us, by the time you finish typing it, it will be squeaking brilliant’.
So here I am once more… typing my way through a post… that just came at me out of nowhere… and has no end in sight… trying to listen to the babble of fast-paced, high-pitched voices in my head all trying to scream at the same time exactly what words I should type next.
Doesn’t it sound like fun to be me?
Now, back to this ‘war might be part of nature’s plan’ idea. Having listened to the squirrel screaming match, I find that there is some justification for the idea, as crazy as that seems. Maybe, instead of just typing it up like it was just one person doing this post, I will let the squirrels talk for themselves. Here are some quotes… the ones I could filter out of the hubbub…
Stu said: “If all those people in history who died during war hadn’t died during war, then the population would have been much larger, leading to disease and famine, thus killing at least as many people as the wars did.”
One-Eyed Pete followed that up with: “Yeah, dude, it’s totally like nature loves cyclic occurrence, you know? Like when there are too many rabbits, then more coyotes and rattlesnakes are born, and then they eat the rabbits, so there are less rabbits, and then the extra carnivores totally die off and it all comes back into balance.”
Toothless then pointed out: “Well, that would certainly explain why you humans are always up in arms about something, and yes, pun intended. I mean, you don’t just argue with your neighboring societies, but even within each culture you always seem to break down by instinct into opposing forces… democrats and republicans, Northerners and Southerners, team this and team that, pro this and anti that. You just seem to thrive on conflict. It must be ingrained within your DNA.”
Twitchy added: “You do seem to be preoccupied with violence. Even your sports tend to be aggressive in nature. You watch people hurting each other for enjoyment. And you pay them lots of money to do it. There is no way that can be anything other than a natural genetic drive imparted into your very makeup. It is just too horrifying to think it could be anything else.”
Wandering Wanda chimed in with: “Even your weird tendency towards murder and physical assault could just be just mixed genetic coding stemming from you all being hardwired towards violence. I mean, you are the only species that kills for any reason other than to eat. I have to believe you are driven to do it by instinct. To believe anything else is just too awful.”
Bug-Eyed Billy summed it up: “Hey, not that having violence encoded into your DNA lets you all off the hook entirely. You still have some responsibility to resist the urges when it goes against the common good… and I mean common good for all the creatures on this planet, not just you freakin’ upright-walking, bald-ass talking monkeys.”
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Author’s note: I might have paraphrased the points that the squirrels made just a little. And removed some of the swear words. And edited out the ramblings and digressions… and the constant questions about when Two-Toed Tim and Big Bob were going to be back with more crack…
Pouring My Art Out 
I think the same can be said for cyclic illnesses like the plague, the influenza epidemic, maybe even ebola?
we are all stuck in the circle of life
“All of this has happened before and will happen again”. Battlestar Galactica quote. I won’t ruin it for anyone who has never seen it, but you get the idea, existence is cyclical and maybe we’re repeating it over and over. War is part of that as we destroy civilisation and we start over again. We will never learn as we never remember what happened before to learn from our mistakes.
way to bring down the mood… HA!
Crazy though, we honour the people who died and fought for us in past wars, then we unleash our weaponry of other nations still. We never learn, we think we are some super advanced species but are we really? So we can make Iphones, whoopdeedo, what’s the point in patting ourselves on the back for technological advancement if we can’t get the humanity bit down. Depressing isn’t it.
It is… that is why my sci-fi books have no death in them…
Don’t give it away 😀
there is so much more
I mean, I have wars and conflict, fighting, pirate raids, duels, assassins… but nobody dies.
They must be terrible assassins then. That’s like their only job.
no… I am just that awesome… you’ll see
You named the squirrels? OOOOO kay. As far as war is concerned, I do think we have a tendency and I believe we have the ability to change that. If I was looking at our deisgn — intellectual and emotional – from afar, I would mostl certainly agree that war was built into us. From up close though, I beieve we have a choice – the trouble is that it only takes one person to start a war and then others are forced to participate to defend themselves.So the question really boils down to “Will there always be at least one human being who wants war?” And the answer, as far as I can see, will always be yes. That pretty much means war is a part of who we are forever.
I am more interested in the whole notion that without war, the increase in population would have caused disease and starvation to strike at levels either equal to or greater than those caused by war. This tends to point to the idea that nature’s plan makes some sort of twisted sense.
Actually, if we had spent the money on health and food and housing instead of war, the quality of living would have gone up considerably and the end result of that is a reduction in the birth rate. It always has been and always will be that way – from time immemorial. The US birth rate barely keeps up with the death rate and here in Canada, our population would shrink every year without immigration. rich=less kids. So, we don’t need war to thin our ranks, we do it automatically oursleves.
But look at Africa – most African countries aren’t at war, but they are still poor with quickly increasing population. It can take some of these countries a while to get to a high standard of living.
I can’t look at Africa from here… who am I, Sara Palin???
well we have been fighting wars a lot longer than any of those other ideas have been around
A further reason to cook and eat some crack squirrels. War is dumb and evoluntarily stupid. We keep beating each other up, the animal kingdom will ultimately take over…. hmmmm… i wonder if that is what the crack squirrels have in mind?
I wonder if somewhere in all the wars, the next Einstein bit the dust? Or the person who would have invented clean renewable energy in mass amounts for everyone? Or, you know, a funny sitcom?
Uh… according to books two and three and four of ‘The Otherwhere Chronicles’, I am the person who delivers clean energy to this world… and this version of a world in countless other universes… also cheap alien computer tech… oh, and I save the endangered plants and animals as well… you know… between avoiding alien assassins and saving us all from an invasion from another dimension… and stuff
How on earth do you find the time to blog????
Under rocks
Yuck.
yup
I guess population control by war is better than disease if there is no draft. That way those of us who got more Dalai Lama generic tendencies than GI Joe tendencies don’t have to sign up.
Right, we should have a soldier class… on the other hand, maybe it isn’t fair to make some people shoulder all the burden.
We do have a soldier class – the poor and disenfranchised. Ever see the Micheal Moore film about that? It’s eye opening.
I open my eyes all by myself
We can’t tell, you see, as your sunglasses prevent any assessment of whether you are conscious or not – and it is impossible to tell from your posts. Ha!
Someone is feeling sassy… but good one…
I think war is a kind of natural selection between groups of people rather that between different species. For example, ant colonies (of different species, though) can go to war against each other, too.
Competition for resources, predation, that sort of thing… the squirrels just skipped right over that…
Maybe you just didn’t ask all of them for their opinion.
I have to filter through them and make some editorial decisions. I can’t take hundreds of ideas and make one post… also, a lot of them are stupid…
You could train one of them to be a crack editor squirrel.
They do not take to training well
Can’t hate, kinda had that thought myself!
I guess I would rather think that we do it because it is instinctual than because we enjoy it or just don’t give a crap.
I’m sure you’ll get hate comments, but personally when I see the news films from the other side of the world, sometimes all I can think about is that movie, “Wag the Dog.” Except that some of the current film footage is too upsetting to have been created by Hollywood. I’d almost rather the situation had been created by Hollywood – at least the story line would have a definite ending at some point.
Please address all hate mail to:
The squirrels inside my cranium
Somewhere in Southern Calif.
A little over 6 feet above the ground
I’m sure someone will try to find it on Google Maps.
uh oh