You Talkin' To Me?

Chapter 5 explores the idea of aggression. To a survival machine, all survival machines that are not children or close relatives as part of their environment, which means that the genes inside each survival machine instruct them how to best exploit them, and the caution that these other machines will hit back. This means that no matter what species, all survival machines are linked. It goes on to explain why animals kill and also do not kill within their species as there are advantages to both. Once again, altruistic acts are in fact selfish ones as they benefit the individual. This chapter also talks about moralization and demoralization. Animals remember past wins and losses, which means that animals who are “winners” are thus because each win makes a future win likelier, the same is true for losers. This phenomenon is also observed in humans, for example an army, no matter its size or technological ability is also dependent on the moral of its men to lead it to victory. Large and capable armies have lost, being demoralized, while the opposite is also true.