Cultures, Wars, Wiping Asses off the Planet

[Joe Varo]

On Thu, 6 Mar 1997, Murthy Yenamandra wrote:

> MantaRay at aol.com writes:
> > Doesn't the one seem to lead inevitably to the other here? It's because of
> > these "peoples" inability to recognize mythologies of domination that they
> > are getting their asses wiped off the planet? We can cry about it all we
> > want, but this is the course of Human History, like it or not. That, I think,
> > was the assertion. Not really very new. So what's the problem? 
> 
> The problem is that we wipe their asses off the planet and then turn
> around and claim that wiping other peoples' asses off the planet is
> inherent human nature, instead of our own culture's misguided tendency.
> Which means that there is no hope ever of us learning that we can stop
> wiping other peoples' asses off the planet (because it's human nature
> and we can't help but be this way).

I'm going to tentatively dangle a toe into the waters of this thread of
conversation and pose a question.

Is it so much "our own culture's misguided tendency" to wipe other
peoples' asses off the planet or is that just a side-effect of the
Technology (i.e. fire-power) we have?

If those cultures which particpate in limited skirmishes simply for the
sake of marking off their territory had (or had had) 20th century Western
Technology, would they have stopped just as soon as they, shall we say,
made their point, or have gone on to total domination and the wiping-of-
asses-off-the-planet?

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure this is a valid question.  Perhaps
Culture and Technology are too intertwined...perhaps Technology shapes
Culture to some extent...is there a Culture resistant to the shaping power
of Technology?

Just kinda thinking out loud.

Joe