Asklemmy

No, not if we existed for another million years. It seems pretty fundamental to how we work, and how animals work in general. We basically discriminate along most possible lines. Few enough people even aspire to anything else.

The late rapper, "Eyedea" of Eyedea & Abilities had a really memorable verse in a song that always comes to mind when I hear this discussed.

Grinding my teeth as I’m peddling uphill / The fight against ape-hood is fate versus free will / We think we've advanced but there's nowhere to go / Mammals stay captive to animal actions / So slowly we climb up this DNA brick wall / Addicted to emptiness, anger and pitfalls / Desire for space, territory, or lust / We'll eventually turn this whole planet to dust

Outside perspective. Only when we meet another other.

Bold to assume that it's an instinct and not a taught and learned behavior.

I don't think it's an instinct, because it can absolutely be taught.

I encourage my kids to get along with everyone, but at the same time I can see how some of their peers are taught to be racists and other clique behaviours from home by parents who are just like that and don't even think about it when they pass it on.

But by default, nobody is like that from birth. Babies aren't racists or afraid of different kinds of people. The fear of others is taught.

It will take many generations to change.

when aliens arrive

There's a book I read a few years ago named "Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging" that delvs into this a bit and why humans are so tribal instinctively. Would highly recommend.

https://www.amazon.com/Tribe-Homecoming-Belonging-Sebastian-Junger/dp/1455566381?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=2999a0a3-f1d3-4c19-b97a-6215a1e3c695

The "Us vs. Them" mentality is also called the "in-group bias", in which you tend to align with other members of a perceived group (with little to no logical reason, it can be as simple as belts vs. suspenders). Like many other fallacies or biases, it is a built-in feature of our caveman-brains that no longer benefits us. When used in propaganda, it is often paired with the "strawman fallacy" to build the perception of an enemy that is barely even human.

You can learn to recognize these biases in yourself and in others - This is called critical thinking. I recommend the podcast "You Are Not So Smart" to everyone to get more insight on this subject.

The way I see it that instinct is the cause behind so much suffering and injustice in the world.

That's just what they want you to think.

The news feeding propaganda over and over isn't helping.

No

I think we could if enough effort was put forth into making it happen. The problem is that very same "instinct," or rather the plethora of different experiences and ideals held by individuals seems to make it harder if not impossible to ever come to a global united consensus on anything.

This current version of humans? No. But could it ever happen? Absolutely, if we assume our future evolutionary human descendants survive and provided we can supply everyone's needs.

I hope so. Knowledge and curiousity feed intelligence feed knowledge feed curiousity. A highly educated society with healthy education sytem and good working socioeconomy (concurency in news coverage) can theoretically get over "us vs. them". Until we someday maybe lose it as evolutionary trait.

No. There will always be another “them”. That’s what makes humans so great, but also so destructive. We never settle, and will always look for division, even if we need to create it.

No. That is human nature. In order to overcome that, we would have to evolve into a different species, which I would argue is less appealing than it might sound on the surface.

Instead of trying to overcome it, it makes more sense to build a society that directs that energy in a positive direction.