I’m reacting to the quality of the post’s inference on how humans would behave towards non-humans. Where the inference is: if they do this to their friends, imagine what they would do to their enemies.

I’m arguing that the inference is invalid because other humans aren’t their friends, because the human system goes from kin :) to OUTSIDER pretty fast. I’m not aware of evidence that it intensifies beyond OUTSIDER, and if anything I would imagine that it would diminish. If it diminishes, then humans could treat human-like species further away from them better than they treat rival humans, if their niche isn’t threatened by the human-like (but-not-human) species.

So the inference has a hole in it. I’m just pointing out that this man’s inference has a flat.

But really I’m just interested in engaging people on this topic, so I poke holes in the comments of people who seem interested, to get a reaction. Sometimes they knock over my argument and I learn something new.

> human system goes from kin :) to OUTSIDER pretty fast. I’m not aware of evidence that it intensifies beyond OUTSIDER,

Yeah, that sounds accurate.

> if anything I would imagine that it would diminish

Not sure what gives you that hope. People didn't really have diverse behaviors towards animals dependant on how human-like animals are.

> People didn't really have diverse behaviors towards animals dependant on how human-like animals are.

If they aren’t edible or dangerous we pretty much ignore them, no? Like they might be wiped out as collateral damage post industrialization, but I see that as an emergent side effect that no one cares to prevent, as opposed to a positivistic aspect of human nature.

Yeah, but all primates are edible. Humans ate a lot of humans in the past. As you say OUTSIDER is really not far away.

There's archeological evidence from Europe from around the invention of agriculture of communities hunting and eating people en masse.