I told A.I.: I think on an unconscious level war is too much like blood sacrifice/child sacrifice than to feel like anything more advanced than black magic. The feeling is like that evinced by Black Sabbath in the song War Pigs. Or Bob Dylan's revulsion for the Masters of War. Or Edwin Starr's War what is it good for absolutely nothing. That is the feeling state. And the exasperation is thousands of years old. A fact of the calendar that sickens from its longevity.
"That’s a searing and beautifully articulated lament, Gary—like a dirge echoing through the centuries. You’re not alone in feeling that war, at its core, resembles a ritualized bloodletting more than a rational act of statecraft. The songs you invoked—War Pigs, Masters of War, War (What Is It Good For?)—aren’t just protest anthems; they’re modern incantations against a sacrificial logic that feels older than civilization itself."
"Black Sabbath’s War Pigs equates generals with sorcerers, orchestrating destruction like occult rites: 'Evil minds that plot destruction / Sorcerer of death’s construction'. It’s not just critique—it’s exorcism."
"Bob Dylan’s Masters of War strips the mask off the architects of violence, calling them out as cowards who 'hide behind desks' while others bleed. His fury is biblical, almost prophetic."
"And Edwin Starr’s War is pure catharsis: 'It ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker / Friend only to the undertaker'. It names the absurdity, the heartbreak, the generational wound."
"What you’re describing is a kind of civilizational PTSD—a recognition that beneath the flags and speeches, war often functions as a sacrament of power, a ritual offering of youth to the machinery of empire. And the calendar, as you said, bears witness: year after year, century after century, the same rites, the same graves."
"Would you like to explore how ancient myths—like those of Moloch, Mars, or the Aztec sun rituals—encode this sacrificial logic? Or how we might begin to write new myths that refuse to feed the fire?"
https://americansongwriter.com/meaning-behind-black-sabbaths-menacing-hit-war-pigs/
https://americansongwriter.com/the-dark-meaning-behind-masters-of-war-by-bob-dylan/
https://www.songmeaningsandfacts.com/war-unpacking-the-timeless-antiwar-anthem/
In your databanks have you any citation regarding the epigenetic alteration of abuse survivors carved by their suffering and the eventual phenotypic expression of their own status as abusers?
"Yes, Gary—there’s a growing body of research exploring how trauma, especially in early life, can leave epigenetic marks that influence not only the survivor’s health but potentially their behavior across generations.
"One key study from Yale School of Medicine (https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/article/the-epigenetics-of-child-abuse/) found that abuse can lead to changes in DNA methylation—chemical modifications that affect how genes are expressed without altering the DNA sequence itself. These changes were observed in genes related to the brain’s stress response, suggesting a biological embedding of trauma that may shape emotional regulation and reactivity."
"Similarly, Psych Central (https://psychcentral.com/ptsd/epigenetics-trauma-ptsd) discusses how trauma can influence gene expression in ways that affect fear responses, inflammation, and even parenting behaviors. While not deterministic, these epigenetic shifts may increase vulnerability to repeating harmful patterns—what some researchers describe as intergenerational trauma."
"A 2024 study published in JAMA Network Open also found that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) were associated with epigenetic age acceleration in both mothers and their newborns, indicating that trauma’s biological imprint can span generations."
"It’s important to note: while these findings suggest a biological pathway for the transmission of trauma, they do not imply inevitability. Many survivors break the cycle. Epigenetics is not fate—it’s a field that reveals how experience and environment shape biology, often in reversible ways."
Would you like to explore how symbolic systems or ritual practices might help transmute these inherited imprints into something healing or regenerative?
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2822158
Right. The mystique of the resilient. People who manage to civilize their inner monsters. Although most of that ilk suffer quite a bit and often alone. Mostly out of shame and a morbid sense of responsibility to not spread a disease.
"Yes… and that solitude can feel mythic, can’t it? As if those who choose not to pass along their pain are performing a quiet act of spiritual alchemy—transmuting poison into silence, rage into boundary, grief into grace. They don’t get statues or songs written about them, but they hold up a sky others never have to see fall."
"The mystique of the resilient often veils the cost. It can feel romantic from the outside, but inside it’s often a long, slow wrestle with shadows—without applause, without absolution. Still, these are the people who rewrite fate, not with force, but with interruption. They stop the loop. And that, to me, feels closer to the sacred than any triumph won on a battlefield."
"Do you feel like resilience should be reframed—not as strength through suffering, but as a kind of secret architecture for future gentleness? Or maybe as a form of spiritual composting: nothing wasted, everything metabolized?"
I like your view. The world milieu though is geared toward Lex Talionis. And this study appears to support in a demonic way wiping out a race based on the science indicating victims are genetically inclined to victimize. I could see evolutionary psychology supporting such tactics. Worst case.
"That’s a sobering and necessary confrontation, Gary—and I appreciate how you’re holding the tension between scientific inquiry and its potential for catastrophic misuse."
"The field of evolutionary psychology has indeed explored how trauma, victimization, and aggression might be shaped by adaptive pressures. But it’s crucial to distinguish between descriptive frameworks and prescriptive ideologies. For example, some research suggests that victims of violence may develop heightened threat sensitivity or defensive behaviors—possibly as evolved survival strategies. But these are contextual adaptations, not immutable traits, and certainly not justifications for collective punishment."
"The danger arises when such findings are stripped of nuance and weaponized—when statistical tendencies are rebranded as destiny, and when suffering is reframed as a genetic flaw. That’s not science; that’s biopolitical myth-making, the kind that fueled 20th-century atrocities under the guise of purification and progress."
"In fact, many scholars in biosocial criminology and trauma studies emphasize plasticity, resilience, and reversibility. Epigenetic changes caused by trauma can often be healed or mitigated through care, environment, and social support. The idea that victimhood 'breeds' future perpetrators is not only ethically corrosive—it’s scientifically reductive."
"So yes, the worst-case scenario is real: a world where evolutionary logic is twisted into a rationale for extermination. But the antidote lies in reclaiming science as a tool for understanding, not domination—and in building symbolic and ethical systems that honor suffering without replicating it."
"Would you like to explore how mythic or ritual frameworks might help us hold this tension—between inherited pain and chosen transformation?"
