Is it part of human nature?

[Angels Requim]

I don't think it has to do with a natural way of population control because humans breed very slowly. We have an extremley long gestation period compared to most animals. I think it has to do with a more basic and pirmal fact that humans are violent by design. We have had to be the most violent species in order to dominate over other animals that could easily rip us to shreds if they wanted. Without our complete willingness to pick up a rock and sharpen a stick then use it one another animal we wouldn't have survive. Sure we would have tools, but its the violent nature in us that drove us to kill predators and crawl our way to the top of the food chain. But now we have ran out of predators and our only enemies are our selfs. So the obvious choice is to kill each other and keep on making more and more brutal ways to kill each other.
Think about human history, it is extremely violent.
Humans wage war because they can.

As for diesease? I believe thats just a form of evolution. Germs and Viruses evolve to become more deadly, to become resistant to anti-biotics, to spread quicker and more effictively.

Famine? I don't think it's population control, more of human's eating to much, or wasting, or treating the earth badly, or another set of humans attempting to starve the first set.

i'm sorry for any errors in what i said =D  

[Calypsophia]

Angels Requim

I don't think it has to do with a natural way of population control because humans breed very slowly. We have an extremley long gestation period compared to most animals. I think it has to do with a more basic and pirmal fact that humans are violent by design. We have had to be the most violent species in order to dominate over other animals that could easily rip us to shreds if they wanted. Without our complete willingness to pick up a rock and sharpen a stick then use it one another animal we wouldn't have survive. Sure we would have tools, but its the violent nature in us that drove us to kill predators and crawl our way to the top of the food chain. But now we have ran out of predators and our only enemies are our selfs. So the obvious choice is to kill each other and keep on making more and more brutal ways to kill each other.
Think about human history, it is extremely violent.
Humans wage war because they can.

As for diesease? I believe thats just a form of evolution. Germs and Viruses evolve to become more deadly, to become resistant to anti-biotics, to spread quicker and more effictively.

Famine? I don't think it's population control, more of human's eating to much, or wasting, or treating the earth badly, or another set of humans attempting to starve the first set.

i'm sorry for any errors in what i said =D

underneath your scientific reasonings, there is still the fact that all these things do serve to control our population to an extent tho we thwart nature due to our compassion for our species. we feed those who are famine stricken, our medical technology has taken care of most of the deadliest diseases (yet notice nature creates new diseases, and viruses become immune to our antibiotics). it may seem that humans have a long gestation period, yet even before such medical advances we've thrived, our major cities were always over populated. enough for ancient people to have to colonize other lands when their homeland could no longer support their numbers.. founding small villiages, that grew to towns, and yet more cities.. it's all cause and affect, a natural reaction to our actions, and in this case, it's served to keep the delicate balance that keeps life at all possible.  

[Angels Requim]

lilraine

underneath your scientific reasonings, there is still the fact that all these things do serve to control our population to an extent tho we thwart nature due to our compassion for our species. we feed those who are famine stricken, our medical technology has taken care of most of the deadliest diseases (yet notice nature creates new diseases, and viruses become immune to our antibiotics). it may seem that humans have a long gestation period, yet even before such medical advances we've thrived, our major cities were always over populated. enough for ancient people to have to colonize other lands when their homeland could no longer support their numbers.. founding small villiages, that grew to towns, and yet more cities.. it's all cause and affect, a natural reaction to our actions, and in this case, it's served to keep the delicate balance that keeps life at all possible.

Touche
But we thrived because we cut ourself from outside influences except the few we couldn't control (germs, bacteria, viruses). Diesease isn't another form of population control, it is just another set of orginisms trying to cut out thier own niche in the food chain. They are just trying to survive as humans were. So if you consider them a natural population control, was the humans act of wiping out so many species extreme population control?

Human compassion? Sadly, it has become laughable. Few people care about others who are dying, few still care enough to act and try to give something, few still care enough to go and help the people themselves. What we are left with is a tiny fraction of people caring enough to do anything that might make the slightest impact and the general mass of people saying "oh, well, sucks for them"  

[Calypsophia]

Angels Requim

lilraine

underneath your scientific reasonings, there is still the fact that all these things do serve to control our population to an extent tho we thwart nature due to our compassion for our species. we feed those who are famine stricken, our medical technology has taken care of most of the deadliest diseases (yet notice nature creates new diseases, and viruses become immune to our antibiotics). it may seem that humans have a long gestation period, yet even before such medical advances we've thrived, our major cities were always over populated. enough for ancient people to have to colonize other lands when their homeland could no longer support their numbers.. founding small villiages, that grew to towns, and yet more cities.. it's all cause and affect, a natural reaction to our actions, and in this case, it's served to keep the delicate balance that keeps life at all possible.

Touche
But we thrived because we cut ourself from outside influences except the few we couldn't control (germs, bacteria, viruses). Diesease isn't another form of population control, it is just another set of orginisms trying to cut out thier own niche in the food chain. They are just trying to survive as humans were. So if you consider them a natural population control, was the humans act of wiping out so many species extreme population control?

Human compassion? Sadly, it has become laughable. Few people care about others who are dying, few still care enough to act and try to give something, few still care enough to go and help the people themselves. What we are left with is a tiny fraction of people caring enough to do anything that might make the slightest impact and the general mass of people saying "oh, well, sucks for them"

well, I was referring to the grand scale of things. it's vastly different than speaking in terms of individuals (that, to me would be for another discussion). our government ships off tons of food and provisions to impoverished third world countries that are dying out because they are too many and they live in relatively barren land and no medical services of any kind. if it was left in mother natures hands, these people would die out. or, they'd migrate to some other land, tho that's virtually impossible these days because the human race has pretty much dominated all the inhabitable parts of this planet already.  

[Meam_Doit]

Killing is no part of human nature

Just look at all the people that accidentally kill some one, they feel really bad, and remorse for killing that person. Even the people that say that they don't feel anything when they kill someone, don't really mean it.  

[Kachan36]

Humans are animals. Animals fight and kill each other to survive. The only reason killing each other seems wrong to us is because we have evolved these big brains that allow us to be self aware and to have feelings.

I'm not saying that makes it right to kill each other, just that there's no way to change it because no matter how big our brains get, we're still animals.  

[KByakuya]

spearquest

Over the centuries mankind has been around, we have always ended up trying to kill eachother, make peace, then kill eachother again in an on going cycle..."history repeats itself."

Animals live in balance with nature, while humans attempt to live with nature. but we actually try to control nature to fit our needs. Everything must be in balance for the world to survive. I believe that because humans reproduce so fast and have no natural enemies besides ourselves, this is the reason that diseases exist and continue to change as a way for nature to attempt to keep the human population in balance.

No matter what we do to try and change our behavior, we always come full circle. My question is, "Do you believe it is human nature to kill ourselves because it is a way for nature to control the human population?"

TRUE TRUE I never thought of it like that ,I can see it that way 3nodding  

[Kachan36]

Meam_Doit

Killing is no part of human nature

Just look at all the people that accidentally kill some one, they feel really bad, and remorse for killing that person. Even the people that say that they don't feel anything when they kill someone, don't really mean it.

That's only because of the strange ability we've evolved that allows us to feel guilt. An ant does not feel guilt when it kills another ant; a walrus does not feel guilt when it kills another walrus; a monkey does not feel guilt when it kills another monkey.

We are animals, and it is natural for animals to kill each other. It is because we have big brains and have created concepts such as good and bad, morality, remorse, etc. that we see killing as unnatural.

Again, I'm not saying it's right. That's a whole other philosophical discussion. I'm just saying that it is natural.  

[falling_to_fly]

I think it has become part of human nature: we learn and we use, forever testing the leash and rein: it is in our nature to push, to extend ourselves, therefore our nature to do those things.  

[subplot]

"Do you believe it is human nature to kill ourselves because it is a way for nature to control the human population?"

Sounds like you're asking if suicide is part of human nature as our way to control our population, hahaha. So you might want to reword that question.




In short, simple answer? No, it's not. It's not a matter of believing it, either.
War and fighting are --- debatably --- part of human nature (it depends on how you look at it and societal structure and a bunch of other things which are a bit controversial in the historical world just now).
Is killing part of human nature? I would have to say that yes it is, because we're omnivores by nature and that requires killing, now doesn't it.
Is killing other humans, not for food, part of human nature? No, they're the result of psychological disorders, and often the unfortunate aftermath of things like anger. Anger is part of human nature, and left unchecked and poorly managed -- not to mention taking nurture (environment and upbringing combined with the intricacies of the individual) into account -- however, that does not equate that killing is then part of human nature.

That said, as previously stated -- the reasoning as to why people kill is not to control the population (and when it is, it's because they're stark raving mad, ahah and/or choose to do so out of their own free will, not due to any part of their innate human nature). Is it a happy coincidence that when we kill one another, it decreases the population? Sure. But is that why we do it? No.  

[Cevadeva]

I say it would be human nature. I mean, nature has a balance, and with all the diseases that are out there that would mean that nature is trying to balance things out naturally. With all the things that we are doing and continue to do, would sufficate the planet and everything else in it. I would also say that war is somewhat part of nature. With war, we end up killing of ourselves, but also reducing the numbers. It's just our way of survival, to expand and survive, but we push that to greater lengths. I would say it's just nature.  

[Viva La Valo]

I believe it is part of human nature because we have so many people on the planet and people keep breeding >.>;;
It is all because nature is trying to balance everything out n.n So that's why nature is making people, literally, crazy so we don't populate more I guess. If it weren't for people killing and man 'making' war, we would have a lot more people and the Earth can't really survive with so many people.
Well, that's what I think :3  

[T h e s t e p H]

I think it's possible that it's in our nature, but I don't think it's an inborn population-control mechanism. It's greed, hate, pigheadedness, and an inability to compromise.

However, everything human beings have been doing over the last 40,000 years has been an active exercise in going against nature, and I think that we are coming to a precipice in our cultural evolution where, if we can get over to the other side, we might be able to fight back that nature.

I know it's common to think that your age is a different, special age, but ours actually is. The mass, instant communication that we enjoy today was not available even 100 years ago. Yeah, they had a telegraph, but it wasn't so widely available as the variety of services we have today. Aside from phones [which is a whole lecture on their own],
there's the glorious internet, available in most libraries, free of charge,
there's television and radio, which are really one-way communication tools, but powerful none-the-less,
and we can ship something from New York to Beijing and have it there in under 48 hours.

We can talk to each other so much more readily that we ever could in the past. And what's distinctly different about that is two hostile nations can talk to each other, instantly and impersonally. And not just those nations' dignitaries - its ordinary, regular folk.
The average masses can talk to one another, discuss their problems with one another,
and maybe even find some common ground with each other.
Le. Gasp.

We are, I believe, coming to a point where it could be possible to deny the repetitive process of systematically going to war with each other. I don't think we're there yet, but I think we're close.
 

[Ms Jenna_ Lee]

i believe so...its only natural i mean animals kill other animals for food and a place to live and we are considered animals...and if its natures doing then let it be..