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My new favorite book of all time

gatesnotes.com

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Re: My new favorite book of all time

#21

Post by craftyguy »

> War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations.

While this may have kept the 'superpowers' from engaging in direct warfare with each other, it has done nothing to deter them from engaging in proxy wars with eachother. And in the process, devestating the proxy countries. It seems Bill Gates, through all of his philanthropist work, would have realized this first hand.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#22

Post by agumonkey »

amasad wrote: post #16

Love Pinker but thought this was too funny not to share: "Steven Pinker jinxes the world" on how a lot of the trends that he spoke about started to stall and even reverse since the publication of the book. https://amp.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/6ggwap/stev...

I remember something called like frontpage or coverage effect; by the time mainstream people talk about something big, it peaked.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#23

Post by chinathrow »

topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

> "War is illegal. This idea seems obvious.

Yet that one rule is broken multiple times a year by multiple nations in multiple regions on earth.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#25

Post by agumonkey »

topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

How much of this is UN and how much is the new world structure and technology meaning any conflict can diverge into WW2 and nobody wants to end up being Germany again ?

I see this as the basis for cold wars and other international competitions, conflicts are converted into other outlets.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#26

Post by coding123 »

chinathrow wrote: post #23
topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

> "War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. Yet that one rule is broken multiple times a year by multiple nations in multiple regions on earth.

I think the jist is that this was still successful because if the UN didn't exist we may have already had 7 additional multination wars (that is if the first 2 didn't kill everyone). Of course we don't know for sure if that would have happened.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#27

Post by Diederich »

chinathrow wrote: post #23
topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

> "War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. Yet that one rule is broken multiple times a year by multiple nations in multiple regions on earth.

It's a process. The point is that there is far less war going on now than ever before, on a population adjusted basis.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#29

Post by arethuza »

arethuza wrote: post #4

I listened to "Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens" by Eddie Izzard base on the last time Bill Gates book recommendations were on HN and it is superb so this is now an automatic buy for me.

Izzard is someone with quite astounding levels of determination - I had no idea until I read the book that his childhood ambition was to join the SAS, which he may well have been quite suited for.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#30

Post by jmilloy »

topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

Yeah. It seems to me that it's not so much that "war is illegal" as "certain countries have declared a monopoly on force and have the means to enforce it." Or at least try to. That's probably a good thing, but it seems useful to me to approach it with a more accurate perspective.
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