True about the positive feedback loop, I think, BUT if testosterone is the driver of status-seeking, then why are so many women so status-obsessed? I would hazard a guess that, on the average, women are even more concerned with status than are men.

Status and mating as the sole causes of war? This is as crazy as saying “It’s all about the economies and resources”.

You can’t analyze the whole thing along one axis in particular, because there are multiple causes besides just some humans playing the “Biggus Dickus” contest–Resource constraints, ideology, potential profits to be made in looting… All that goes into why some people chose to go to war or violence in the first place. And, then there’s the reaction to that, the folks who fight purely defensively, and wouldn’t have initiated the conflicts they find themselves in on their own.

As well, this “vision” he has of “leaders” being the ones driving all this? Again, BS–More often than not, it’s a case of some poor bastard being there questioned by an interrogator, and then having to say “There they go… And, I must follow them, for I am their leader…”. The madness of crowds plays a role, here–Look at the popular enthusiasm for WWI, there at the beginning. Even the German Socialists were enthused, and said “…the hell with the Internationale…”.

War is a hell of a lot more complicated than these happy-ass types assert. This guy strikes me as another of the sort of idiot that we have in Dave Grossman–He’s come up with a theory that has limited application in specific sub-cases, and tried to apply it universally. Which ain’t gonna fly, if you stop and think about it.

I mean, seriously… Does anyone think that the sole motivating factor behind Hitler was that he was gonna get himself laid? There are simpler, less destructive means of doing that, and in the final analysis, was Hitler really all that motivated by sex in the first place?

He was a consummate user of it, in that he knew that he’d maintain power better so long as all those wet-in-the-panties German hausfrau could close their eyes and think of him, and that’s why Eva Braun didn’t get seen much in public, nor did she ever seem to get much out of him.

In short–This is a guy trying to apply things deriving from specific cases into some sort of universal rule that doesn’t work when applied universally…