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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....
half of those are not proxy wars in any way shape or form.
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…
Why would they make bows and spears, but not guns? That seems a fairly arbitrary technological line to draw.
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…
If you aren't physically strong enough to defend yourself then you shouldn't be able to defend yourself?
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 wha…
And people are slowly testing the limits of the nuke deterrent. Turns out everyone is really hesitant to use them especially when the aggressor has nukes too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and land get taken. It's always land. This is because land is scarce. You can keep things that aren't scarce without force. > Is there any convincing argument for getting out of this equilibrium? The total destruction of artificial scarcity?
Why would you think scarcity is artificial? Have you tried growing your own food lately? Do you have an army of robots who are doing it for you?
The question you want to ask is there ever a point where population's psychical space demands overcome the space required to feed those people? We are nowhere near this limit.
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.
Evolution suggests that genes with no strong survival benefit are eventually discarded.
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…
the genie left that bottle more than a hundred years ago
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and land get taken. It's always land. This is because land is scarce. You can keep things that aren't scarce without force. > Is there any convincing argument for getting out of this equilibrium? The total destruction of artificial scarcity?
scarcity's been around since the dawn of time, even if it's sometimes intentionally worsened. do you see some way of truly eliminating it?
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 requiring global controls on 3D printers, CNC machines, any pressure bearing metal, and a range of chemistry and fertilizers.
All this after a door to door search for weapons and ammunition. What army exactly is going to be kicking down my door to confiscate these at gunpoint?