Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World • Hacker News Board

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#111

Post by bzbarsky » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #95

groby_b wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, good thing is we're all getting an object lesson right now. Watch North Korea and the U.S. interact. That is how war happens. Leaders who for various reasons taunt and provoke each other, implementing what to either populace seems a reasonable policy. (NK would like to be able to defend against the US, so they get nukes. The US would like to not be nuked, so they agitate strongly against them). Alas, these poli…

USA has constantly pressured DPRK over the course of decades, mostly for domestic political purposes. At many points we could have chosen less confrontation, but usually we chose more. Recently we offered Qaddafi the same deal we have continually offered the Kims, and then after he accepted it we "changed our minds" and shoved a bayonet up his ass. Even now we continue the pressure (somewhat erratically, because Trum…

> That has never happened in my lifetime or that of my parents.

Unless your parents are really young, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War is an obvious counterexample. There was a reasonably clear goal and the goal was accomplished.

I will grant that this is the only example I can think of right now, though.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#112

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

arca_vorago wrote: post #107

jessaustin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're using an anonymous account, and I for one promise to upvote whatever "nastier, stranger" truth you post. Lay it on us, man!

Well, without going to deep down the rabbit hole, I think I'll put it like this: At best, wars are primarily a tool of the bankers and the international elite in a path towards control of all countries economic and physical resources. They finance and play both sides, and no matter the victor, they win. This is essentially the John Perkins position. Even John Perkins claims there is no "grand conspiracy" though... an…

Thanks for the pointers. Haha "Hanlon's Fallacy" I love it! I'll definitely be repeating that one.

I agree that the first step is taking stock of all the lies. There are some obvious untruths that most Americans physically can't even consider, let alone disagree with, because they've been lied to from childhood. My current favorite is, "USA military is powerful and effective". Historians to come will puzzle over how anyone could have believed that, based on its unblemished record of ignominious defeat from Korea to Iraq and back again. When I talk about it today, however, I can see people's brains locking up.

I think it's possible there is no grand conspiracy, or perhaps we should say that myriad small conspiracies are reinforced by a larger unconscious equilibrium of interests. I'm not sure whether it would be better to react to the conspiracies or try to destroy the equilibrium...

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#113

Post by bzbarsky » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #55

jgrowl wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a chaos theory documentary recently that touched on this same thing. It compared the Three-body problem in physics with Franz Ferdinand getting shot. It's truly terrifying to think that a single man making the decision to pull a trigger would send the world to the brink of destruction. Granted the conditions had to be just right to have such a spiraling effect, but it just shows you that the system is so comple…

Historically that's been held up as an interesting pivotal moment. But I don't think it bears scrutiny. Germany was itching to go to war (as a natural outgrowth of their manifest destiny). That shot was an excuse. They would have found another - the world was in turmoil.

Importantly, _Serbia_ wanted to cause a war that would pit Austria against Russia. One of the parts of https://www.amazon.com/Sleepwalkers-How-Europe-Went-1914/dp/... that struck me was the offhand mention that Serbia was the one country involved that accomplished all of its foreign policy goals as a result of WWI.

I suspect that even if the assassination had failed they would have kept trying other provocations at least until they provoked an Austria-Russia war.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#114

Post by notahacker » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #20

soneca wrote: post #17

"Billions of people would not exist without him. And yet without him, World War I would have ended years earlier" The article is very interesting, but there is this Hollywood simplistic approach where one man is responsible for all things. The text even mention the Allies developing a poison gas, why not other German chemic? No one other person would be able to discover how to produce amonia? I don't subscribe to thi…

It seems that he was lobbying hard for the use of the gas.

Yep. Prevailing military opinion against using poison gases could have changed over the course of the war, of course, but he brought both the technical knowhow and the outspoken advocacy. The Allies' first alleged use of poison gas turned out to be an unfounded rumour which Haber himself was responsible for disproving.

Didn't take the Allies long to muster a response though, and they had their own Nobel Laureate Victor Grignard to build chemical weapons for them.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#115

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

bzbarsky wrote: post #111

jessaustin wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA has constantly pressured DPRK over the course of decades, mostly for domestic political purposes. At many points we could have chosen less confrontation, but usually we chose more. Recently we offered Qaddafi the same deal we have continually offered the Kims, and then after he accepted it we "changed our minds" and shoved a bayonet up his ass. Even now we continue the pressure (somewhat erratically, because Trum…

> That has never happened in my lifetime or that of my parents. Unless your parents are really young, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War is an obvious counterexample. There was a reasonably clear goal and the goal was accomplished. I will grant that this is the only example I can think of right now, though.

I was in high school then, and unlike others I actually remember the bullshit I hear on the news. We were told that it wasn't like Korea, because the troops would come home immediately. To the contrary, the continued presence (to the present day!) of USA military in Kuwait, Iraq, and especially Saudi destabilized the Middle East and was the primary motivator for the author of 9/11. If evicting Iraqis from Kuwait was "the goal", why was that other crap necessary?

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#116

Post by usrusr » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #36

smackay wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a history documentary on the BBC many, many years ago where the historian was describing that the reason WWI started was because of railway timetables - basically moving all those troops and material was a logistical nightmare. Once the armies were assembled it was going to be impossibly difficult to move them all back so they got put into action instead. Most likely the historian was AJP Taylor: http://www.ae.…

Dan Carlin's Countdown to Armageddon also gets into these aspects in detail. The basic argument is that a number of factors, including technology at a macro level and logistics at a more micro level set various policies and machinery in motion that was difficult to stand down once it got moving.

Automatisms quite unlike like the various doomsday machines dreamt up during the cold war, just running on diplomatic and logistic commitments rather than on transistors and logic programming. I think that much of the institutionalized sabre rattling was seen by some contemporary experts as a guarantee for peace, in a proto-mutually-assured-destruction kind of way.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#117

Post by dschuetz » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

dschuetz wrote: post #88

loorinm wrote: post #2

What an insane and fascinating read. Two things occured to me: I don’t really understand how and why war happens. Like, it starts out as two parties both wanting the same resource, and then somebody says “over my dead body” or something and then a million other people decide to also join in this fight? I do not get it. The other thing is : The “inherent harm of technology”. Every single advancement will 100% hurt som…

A war is always the ultimate escalation of conflict of interests. "Over my dead body" is literally the line, as you said. As for technology, the purpose of a machine or a construct is primarily a solution to problems which made people's lifes difficult. The solutions of technology make people's lifes easier, more secure, but it also bears risks and unsforseen consequences. That's not always that case, as the special…

This discussion on Haber today inspired me to write a short article on whether it's even debatable how to judge his doing in WW I. Especially so the "Over my dead body" and why do wars thoughts, so kudos to you @nickik!

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#118

Post by lxmorj » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

loorinm wrote: post #2

What an insane and fascinating read. Two things occured to me: I don’t really understand how and why war happens. Like, it starts out as two parties both wanting the same resource, and then somebody says “over my dead body” or something and then a million other people decide to also join in this fight? I do not get it. The other thing is : The “inherent harm of technology”. Every single advancement will 100% hurt som…

The assumption that all things discovered will be discovered elsewhere is reasonable, but still an assumption. I wonder though... how many dangerous ideas have been hidden by their progenitors, never to be rediscovered?

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#119

Post by dclowd9901 » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

mannykannot wrote: post #38

soneca wrote: post #17

"Billions of people would not exist without him. And yet without him, World War I would have ended years earlier" The article is very interesting, but there is this Hollywood simplistic approach where one man is responsible for all things. The text even mention the Allies developing a poison gas, why not other German chemic? No one other person would be able to discover how to produce amonia? I don't subscribe to thi…

There is no doubt that if he had not solved the nitrogen-fixing problem, someone else would have, and it is certainly possible that someone else would have pushed the use of poison gas into practice. It is also generally simplistic to claim that any one thing greatly prolonged the war. 'Great men' and 'pivotal event' historiography is a simplistic way of looking at the past, but nevertheless, it is a simple historica…

I think people take special people for granted. You can't say, for certain, that anyone would have figured out the nitrogen fixing problem _in a period of time when it would have been effective to have done so_. The entire world could have been blown up before someone came along to figure it out.

The world has yet to churn out another mind quite like Einstein's, that flips convention on its head, or opens up humankind's collective knowledge by an order of magnitude. Special people, like Einstein, this man, Norman Borlaug or Ada Lovelace, I think, may have just been the right people at the right moment.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#120

Post by oblio » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #97

oblio wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethnic strife? Just like the one between Denmark and Sweden for centuries? Or between France and Germany (kind providers of WW1 and WW2)? In my eyes the main difference between those and the Balkans was that the former were mostly allowed to blow themselves up. Peace only came when they got tired of it. In the Balkans they got tired of it in 1999. They couldn't do it earlier because of... empires :)

Are you predicting no further horrible violence in the Balkans? In what, the next decade? Any longer than that would be a bold prediction...

Where would the violence come from? Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece are in the EU. Albania and Montenegro have no territorial claims they are pursuing. Macedonia and Kosovo are limping along in a depressing manner but there's no violence there that I know of. Serbia is getting over the Kosovo affair. Bosnia is the only wildcard but I don't think even it can blow up again.

Of course, there are no guarantees in life, but if I were a betting man I'd say that for each extra peaceful year of peace in the Balkans you can add 1 year of peace in the future.

So my forecast is for at least 19 years of peace :)