Adam knew exactly what he was doing. God gave him clear and fair warning. When Adam bit that apple he chose Eve over God and all Hell broke loose for mankind.
Which only high lights that man is the worst desaster to cross the face of the Earth. Uncontroled man will terminate all life. Cities fall and Civilization rise it is the course of history and it will continue as long a man attempts to direct his own step. Man has killed more of his kind and every other kind of animal in the world more than any other creature in exisitance. It pales in comparison to the loss of a few breast beating governments that believe they're all the strongest and the best. We all fear it. The next world war. More people died in War War II than in any previous in history. Man is the blight, the uncontrolable factor and the plague that has been let loose on the planet. And given knowledge man chooses to set loose his knowledge in the form of weapons of mass destruction. Given the chance and given suffiecient fear man will kill us all.
Another world war wouldn't kill us all but it sure would mess up the trains coming in on time for awhile. I don't think man is as errant about war as you seem led to believe. Wars are fought over resources by groups who want to control those resources. Its not all that unpredictable or chaotic.
You speak as if you're not human. Aggression is built into our species via the same evolutionary process that gave rise to our intellegence and other positive qualities. It's ironic, but it may be that intellegence is a self limiting trait. It is beneficial up to the point that the species aquires the ability to destroy itself. As technology advances and WMD's become easier and easier to acquire/build, we could be in for a rough ride.
On a global scale, I think the fear of death outweighs the need for aggression. The Cold War is history's best example. On a more individual scale, I've never heard of someone ever being literally "scared to death." Maybe faint, or run for 20 miles and collapse, but never death.
