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Can men live without war? (1956)

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Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#21

Post by xg15 »

nyc_data_geek wrote: post #3
hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #2

No we cannot. A small percentage of humans are wired with a strong territorial mind and/or a greedy personality. It's in the gene. Some of them eventually become leaders.

A small percentage of humans can catch some hands and get stuffed into lockers by the rest of us who would prefer not to be led by them.

A small percentage of humans are wired with a strong territorial mind and/or a greedy personality. A large percentage of humans are wired to view those traits as favourable and attractive and view such persons as charismatic "leaders" to follow and identify with.

My suspicion is, this is in the genes too, and I feel this is almost the bigger part of the problem.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#22

Post by ses1984 »

k8sToGo wrote: post #15
jokoon wrote: post #14

In an ideal future, firearms would be banned worldwide. A body like interpol would investigate the entire world, to surveil if anybody is trying to make firearms. People would make bows and spears, but it would be more difficult to conduct war. It would not make war and violence impossible, but it would certainly be a better world. EDIT: lots of pedants: obviously there would be an joint army answering to an internat…

And those who will master creating weapons in the shadows will overthrow interpol and rule mankind. I’d say in an ideal future humans wouldn’t want to create weapons.

And those who want to make weapons will overthrow the people who don’t…

But in an ideal future…?

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#23

Post by graeme »

The thing is without force your stuff gets taken. We haven't got a good way around this. Our current peace is heavily based on nuclear weapons and the implied threat of force.

Don't like the status quo? Use force to try to change it.

Do like the status quo? Use force to try to keep it that way.

We don't have a stable equiliubrium where no force exists in the system. Many in this thread effectively say "You can do what you like, but I am above using force".

They can say that because their existence is secured by the force of others. There are enough people willing to take by force that if you have no force your stuff and land get taken.

This was how the world worked for all of human history until 1945. The only thing that changed it was nukes, the ultimate force.

In theory you could have a global government with a monopoly on force that enforced no more war. But that still depends on force.

Is there any convincing argument for getting out of this equilibrium?

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#25

Post by bluefirebrand »

nyc_data_geek wrote: post #3
hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #2

No we cannot. A small percentage of humans are wired with a strong territorial mind and/or a greedy personality. It's in the gene. Some of them eventually become leaders.

A small percentage of humans can catch some hands and get stuffed into lockers by the rest of us who would prefer not to be led by them.

Historically that's not what happens

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#26

Post by openasocket »

rhelz wrote: post #12

Fascinating article...written not that long after it looked like men or anybody else could never live with war again. But, those fretting about the necessity of war need not have worried, as subsequent events proved. War between nuclear powers doesn't happen any more, but instead we've had endless proxy wars. Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine....

We’ve had at least one war between nuclear powers off the top of my head. The Kargil war of 1999 between India and Pakistan, I believe both sides had nuclear weapons deployed at the time.

EDIT: also the Sino-soviet war of 1969

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#27

Post by 6510 »

phero_cnstrcts wrote: post #7
Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is, people vote for them :(

It’s not like any of the choices are great. Or even mediocre.

I had a look one time, there are tons of alternatives (in all countries) They all have youtube channels and facebook pages.

Beyond the top of the list they have so few viewers, subscribers, likes and followers that it doesn't account for direct family. It means not even journalists bother to watch a video or read a post let alone read the election program. Usually there is a single news article about a person without much if any coverage of the program.

People love to pretend their circular argument is not a fallacy.

Plenty of people would bother to look at other candidates if they got a lot more attention and a lot more votes. Someone will have to start voting for them before that will happen.

This someone is you.

If you refuse to vote for a candidate that has no chance to win they wont have a chance next time. One extra voice or vote is actually a big deal for them.

The search engines are full of articles about "most significant candidates"

If you look at this list here,

https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_registered_2024_presidential...

You cant say "It’s not like any of the choices are great."

Correct would be to say: No one in the whole world has any idea what the other choices are.

In the US there is a special kind of war to even get on the ballot.

https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_registered_2024_presidential...

You can help gather signatures, promote write in candidates.

I just imagined all those countless election programs should be loaded into some LLM, make it question the humans and point them to the text that fits them best.

edit:

Ill do one from the top of the list:

Aaron Avouris Libertarian Party

this him?

https://www.facebook.com/aaronavouris

278 friends

https://www.youtube.com/user/aaronavouris

2 subscribers?

https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P00015297/

lol?

edit2:

Because I cant help myself:

vote Afroman

https://www.afromanforpresident.com

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#29

Post by Greyfoscam »

rhelz wrote: post #13
hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #2

No we cannot. A small percentage of humans are wired with a strong territorial mind and/or a greedy personality. It's in the gene. Some of them eventually become leaders.

I don't know about you guys, but I think my masculinity is strong enough to survive the lack of war. I'm just not feeling threatened, here.

Not feeling threatened is the keyword. Modern society has many complacency triggers. Dangerous situation, drive away. Feel unsafe, call police. Injured physically or spiritually, seek compensation through the law. The interesting question is what happens when these safety systems become stagnant and less responsive

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#30

Post by ryandrake »

hkpack wrote: post #16
rhelz wrote: post #12

Fascinating article...written not that long after it looked like men or anybody else could never live with war again. But, those fretting about the necessity of war need not have worried, as subsequent events proved. War between nuclear powers doesn't happen any more, but instead we've had endless proxy wars. Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine....

> War between nuclear powers doesn't happen any more It didn't happen yet, but there are no is reasons for nuclear war to be avoided indefinitely.

All it takes is one madman to get near the button and gain enough power that his button-press is honored. It almost seems inevitable given a long enough time frame.
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