#467 David Barash - Threats: Intimidation and Its Discontents; Nuclear Deterrence
RECORDED ON MAY 3rd 2021.
Dr. David P. Barash is Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Washington. He has written, edited or co-authored 40 books, including ones on human aggression, peace studies, and the sexual behavior of animals and people. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been the recipient of several honors. His books include “Homo Mysterious – Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature”, “Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science”, “Approaches to Peace: A Reader in Peace Studies”, and “Through a Glass Brightly: using science to see our species as we really are”. His most recent book is “Threats: Intimidation and Its Discontents”.
In this episode, we focus on Threats. We start by talking about threats from an evolutionary perspective, and the kinds of behaviors and even human institutions that derive from how we evolved to process threats. We discuss deterrence behavior more specifically. In the second part of the interview, we talk about nuclear deterrence, the several issues and limitations with the theory behind it, and also demilitarization in Costa Rica.
Time Links:
Intro
Threats, from an evolutionary perspective
Deterrence in the criminal justice system and religion
The rise of right-wing populism
Overreacting and underreacting to evolutionarily novel threats
The problems with nuclear deterrence theory
Denuclearization
Costa Rica’s demilitarization, and how to prevent war
Follow Dr. Barash’s work!
Follow Dr. Barash’s work:
Website: https://dpbarash.com/
Articles on Researchgate: https://bit.ly/2VYUxyt
Books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2VTiWFL
Threats: https://amzn.to/3iVTfxc