OK, so you're arguing that from rationality rather than physical evidence?
physical evidence, what we DO know:
last, relatively brief ice-age was 10,000 years ago. prior to that earth was much more lush and full of vegetation compared to now.
upper cranial development of Homo Erectus has been proven (recently, 1970s) to be the same as Homo Sapien - extending the history of "humans" on earth to 4+ million years.
loads of evidence of
Gatherer Hunter societies eating 99% plants, and very little hunting.
Civilization as we know it arose after the last ice-age, when resources became scarce.
loads of evidence of centralized power as we know it to NOT exist prior to civilization, prior to division of labor (makes sense don't it).
there are people on earth today who live much the same as what our ancesters probably lived - tribes of Indonesia, Africa, etc. and findings of many studies of their societies and lifestyle all reinforce the Primitivist theories.
I was under the impression however that compelling evidence from bones etc had shown that people were less healthy, pysically smaller and didn't live as long as they do now which seems to suggest that, however much you think it likely that people would have been nice to each other with the cumulative effect of a better life for everyone, that simply wasn't the way that things were.
the oldest fossils we have found is
195,000 years old. not old enough to prove anything about the 4 million years of "human" life on earth before the last ice-age.
the impressions you are under is/was the impression i was under. and all of us who grew up in the modern world. but I have begun to question these impressions -- whether they are tainted by civilization and our way of life. capitalism wants to justify itself, and thus paints a picture of our ancesters in the image of itself -- "humans are violent, competitive, and ruthless by nature", etc., and to me these claims seem more and more unreasonable, to put it lightly.
Well this is what I'm asking you to expound upon - I realise that to say "there are other ways of being" is important as a first step but I've heard it enough times. I want to see or hear the next step - suggest some of these other ways and how we get to them?
i think the studies of "primitive" societies in Indonesia and Africa are fascinating. these people show many amazing attributes perhaps we all had at one point. we in the west with our prejudices deem these people "less" than us, but in many ways they are far more "advanced", and live more "efficiently". their communication, social organization, can all be indicators of not only where we come from, but also where we can go. I don't know enough about the subject to go on, i am learning too.
people have said that the underlying cause for war is resources not being enough for everyone. i think any significant change of the social order can only happen when human population is reduced significantly.