Because when dark forces are on the move, there is no choice between war and peace, only between fight and surrender.
Ask HN: Why must there be war?
11–20 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why must there be war?
#12There are fewer wars than there used to be. The percentage of the population for whom violence is not a regular part of daily life is much greater than it has been for most of history. OTOH, when violence does happen, the weapons available are far greater, able to cause far more death and destruction, than in the past.
Re: Ask HN: Why must there be war?
#13All wars are economic in nature. Scarce resources and growth are at odds. Some societies have been peaceful and found balance in the resource usage. They tend to get overran one way or another.
Re: Ask HN: Why must there be war?
#14Depending on how deep you want the answer to be?
On one of the levels without ww2 and the cold war afterwards — there would never be the Internet and modern computers as we know them [1]
On a philosophical level — as long as there is a dualism, there is a constant battle and interplay between the sides. So war in one form or another is as inevitable as peace.
In a sense the whole life itself is a constant battle between good and evil, chaos and order, entropy and information [2]
On the surface — scarced resources, justice, religions are just silly stories that people create for themselves to sugarcoat and rationalize those (or other) deeply embeded into the reality drivers.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1732265119/
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Into-Cool-Energy-Flow-Thermodynamics/... and other similar books
Also Jordan Peterson “maps of meaning” and any serious book on roots of religious myths and stories.
Re: Ask HN: Why must there be war?
#15Because there are scarce resources
This is the slogan that make people scared and ready to go to war.
Please stop spreading this bullshit.
Otherwise specify which exact resources do you mean and what is the proof of it’s scarcity?
Even the oil is being constantly produced by the earth.
Even if at incomparably slower pace than consumed, but who says people will need it at all in 50 years?
But the myth about scarcity of oil right now can be sold to naive and ignorant crowd to be manipulated.
Re: Ask HN: Why must there be war?
#16"War is simply the continuation of policy by other means."
The last argument of kings.
But seriously, it seems that conflict emerges because there exists difference of opinion or conflicting desire. Violence seems to be escalation of those conflicting desires. Maybe the answer is “war exists when we fail to de-escalate conflict”
Re: Ask HN: Why must there be war?
#17Because when dark forces are on the move, there is no choice between war and peace, only between fight and surrender.
And who is there to decide which forces are dark ones?
Re: Ask HN: Why must there be war?
#18There should not be .. its a complete waste of everything. But it is being thrust on you, whether you want it or not… now what are you going to do?
Re: Ask HN: Why must there be war?
#19There's so many of us
This was ultimately the reason given for the ancient Trojan war. That Zeus was upset that there were so many people in the world. That is in fact the true meaning of Odysseus’ name. the “child of anger”, given by his uncle for this very reason “too many people in the world!”
Re: Ask HN: Why must there be war?
#20Because when dark forces are on the move, there is no choice between war and peace, only between fight and surrender.
And who is there to decide which forces are dark ones?
When foreign armies hire mercenary groups to invade your homes so that they can maintain plausible deniability for what they know is an illegal and immoral act of war, I don't think there's any debate among non-psychopathic people.