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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.153.24] on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 15:38:47 :
In Reply to: Re: glen in id - tattoo legislation posted by Glen Id [72.173.87.91] on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 12:59:33 :
You're right. Civilization is hanging from a thin thread. Even today, it doesn't take much to set people to acting like savages. Look at the Rwanda genocide where half the people in the country were trying to chop of the other half with machetes. I suppose what keeps us civilized, most of the time, is that if people go too far the other way, they simply kill each other off.
If Clueless' story is right, those cannibals might have been really good at capturing and eating each other (and doing scary tattoos), but they still lost the war to the Spaniards. Maybe it was smallpox, or maybe it was that the Spaniards were at least civilized enough to get organized and to stop killing long enough to invent good ships and good weapons. We're no longer in an age in which pure vicious brutality automatically wins. Nowadays the ability to cooperate, organize, and invent and build complex machines counts for more than the ability to simply be a fearless warrior does.
But yeah, that thin thread could break some day and the cannibals could again come out on top.
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