"Okay, I'll pose my question to you too, since you seem to be pretty knowledgeable. Why would the mental arms race confine itself only to humans? It seems like other highly social animals (wolves specifically come to mind) would reap huge benefits from being a little smarter than their peers. Like I told Alter Kaker, I'm not trying to argue, I really don't get it."
You really just don't get it? The next most intelligent animals, chimps, whales, dolphins... are not capable of an 'arms race.' Was that really so hard to figure out?
Even for humans, the concept of an 'arms race' did not happen until the last century, far far after we started using and developing tools.
Who said anything about an arms race with weapons? We were talking about an intellectual or mental arms race, not a physical one.
If you'd read back through the last 10 posts or so (to post #299), you'd find the term "intellectual arms race" used in a thread by Ichneumon. Of course, if you'd read back to post 299, you wouldn't have penned such an insulting and inflammatory post.