Rules of the Game

I was watching Life in Cold Blood tonight, and was interested in the fight between the King Cobras. They fight for dominance, but have an unwritten rule (I would think there are few written snake rules) that they don't use their deadly bites on each other, but opt to wrestle instead. That way the conflict is settled, but no-one gets hurt.

Evolutionarily, I suppose this instinct exists to preserve as much King Cobra life as possible, which makes these snakes seem very enlightened compared to humankind.

I wish we could settle our disagreements that way. We could get Israel and Palestine to choose a champion each, and they could compete in a series of challenges (perhaps ending in a Gladiators-style Eliminator game) and then the best man win (the women, meanwhile, would be watching together, rolling their eyes at the whole thing). Wouldn't that be a bit more civilised? I for one believe the civility of one's society can be determined by its preponderance of novelty foam fingers.

Why haven't we evolved in such a way to preserve life?

In a way we have, by coming up with the most stupid idea in the world: the rules of war.

I've never understood this schoolyard element to armed conflict. Rules are generally quite useful and beneficial to an organised event, but surely once you've started killing people, once your aim is to wipe the opposition off the planet, that ship has sailed.

"By all means, kill us. Shoot us in the head, bomb our buildings, whatever, but don't kill us with chemical weapons. That's a step too far. I know my corpse would be much more happy with a bullet-hole in my heart that a lung-full of gas."

Why would you obey the rules of war? If you win, there's no-one to chastise you, and if you lose, you're in a hole in the ground which, at best, would make punishment difficult and time-consuming.

I'm sure the evolutionary reason for both killing each other and making up rules about it is down to some kind of Game Theory, where we can achieve more by cheating on the deal, but gain some by sticking to it. It's worrying that this gamble is happening at a genetic level. I'd rather be able to make up my own mind, or at least have the genes consult me about it first.

The example of the Cobras just reminds me of that childish idea that I'm sure everyone had at one time: "Why can't all the people fighting in the war just decide to stop killing each other and walk away?"

And people respond in lots of different ways, but none make sense. Surely any non-violent solution is better. Being shot and blown into pate is literally the worst alternative.

"Except for the destruction of national pride and our way of life and denigrating our Gods and blah blah blah."

Fuck you, genes. Fuck you, people. I'm with the fucking snakes.