&gt; <i>Then why the fuck do we keep killing ourselves?</i><p>We are slaves to our own genetic sequences to a much larger extent than we usually think.<p>It&#x27;s pretty easy to show that the behaviors that lead to people killing each other are driven by mechanisms initially evolved to ensure that our own genetic sequences keep multiplying and spreading out, eliminating competition. And they&#x27;re pretty dumb mechanisms, running on the lower levels of our brains, so don&#x27;t expect them to be very selective, or run without failure. Sometimes they hit an internal bug and become runaway destruction loops, which sometimes even turn against the individual itself.<p>Many things that are typically considered &quot;evil&quot; can be traced back ultimately to these mechanisms that ensure that our own genetic sequences win the race. In a way, &quot;evil&quot; was actually useful, way back in time, in an evolutionary sense. It&#x27;s just recently that we&#x27;ve acquired new desires and aspirations, which are in conflict with the old, narrow, dumb routines.