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Can men live without war? (1956)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#221

Post by immibis »

lazide wrote: post #211
immibis wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Species become extinct all the time. Humans don't have to exterminate all life, to exterminate humans.

I never said they did. I said good luck exterminating humans. Hell, not that long ago the most technologically advanced society of the time (Nazi Germany) with a massive and state of the art army tried to exterminate a subset of humans (Jews, Homosexuals, Roma) using massive force, the latest technology, and with a near single minded focus. And while they did kill a lot of people and perpetrate terrible crimes, they…

Nazi Germany failed because they used a method that did not scale well. Also because they were trying to exterminate one set of humans while preserving another set. Exterminating all humans together is easier - perhaps flood the oceans with dimethylmercury - the geological-scale equivalent of curing cancer with a flamethrower. Or, just dig up all the fossil fuels and burn them.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#223

Post by matrix87 »

It seems like the barriers for becoming an expat are lower now than what they were in the 20th century.

There are plenty of online expat communities. You can find maps, living arrangements, and machine translation all online

In general, the internet has made it so that people are a lot less dependent on their immediate community. So in the future, if the government starts making a bunch of hostile demands and tries to draft people, I'm not sure if that will be as effective as what it once was historically

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#224

Post by lazide »

immibis wrote: post #221
lazide wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said they did. I said good luck exterminating humans. Hell, not that long ago the most technologically advanced society of the time (Nazi Germany) with a massive and state of the art army tried to exterminate a subset of humans (Jews, Homosexuals, Roma) using massive force, the latest technology, and with a near single minded focus. And while they did kill a lot of people and perpetrate terrible crimes, they…

Nazi Germany failed because they used a method that did not scale well. Also because they were trying to exterminate one set of humans while preserving another set. Exterminating all humans together is easier - perhaps flood the oceans with dimethylmercury - the geological-scale equivalent of curing cancer with a flamethrower. Or, just dig up all the fossil fuels and burn them.

The ocean is already contaminated with dimethymercury (and cousins) at large scale. Unclear the exact mix, but around 45,000 to 80,000 tons from human sources. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mercury_pollution#:~:.... ]

That is why eating too much Tuna will give you mercury poisoning. And the Nazis literally used nerve agents (Zyklon B) among other things. Nasty nerve agents (and most household pesticides) came out of WW2 research largely done by the Nazis (through Bayer, as it turns out).

And the moment anyone got wind of an attempt to try to do such a thing, enough humans would go to ground you’d never actually succeed. Hell, enough are probably already under ground for whatever reason you’d never succeed even if you did manage to catch the whole world by surprise and somehow actually release it all at scale.

The Nazi’s did not fail because they failed to try to kill humans at scale. Frankly, they did it at the largest scale since probably Ghenghis Khan. Certainly in a far more industrial fashion.

The issue is that it’s actually really hard to kill a lot of humans. Something that personally warms the cockles of my very human heart.

Embrace your ancestry of murderous (and loving) hominids, and aim to use it to make things better. Rejecting it is a false path.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#225

Post by scotty79 »

The_Colonel wrote: post #130
blub wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many if not all the close calls in the past were misunderstandings or tensions spiraling out of control. The madman with nukes is a trope. This is also why online commenters thinking that the Ukraine war will not go nuclear are misguided.

The weaker version of madman scenario is a head of state believing they can use nukes in a limited scope to achieve its political goals. Imagine this scenario: the war in Ukraine goes for some more time, Russia starts to have economic problems and is desperate to settle it (without having to compromise), force Ukraine to surrender and demand sanctions to be lifted. So he uses a couple of small tactical nukes along th…

Look how much carbon we emit when we fight conventionally. Maybe throwing around few nukes might actually save some people in the long run by delaying global warming.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#226

Post by racional »

lazide wrote: post #224
immibis wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nazi Germany failed because they used a method that did not scale well. Also because they were trying to exterminate one set of humans while preserving another set. Exterminating all humans together is easier - perhaps flood the oceans with dimethylmercury - the geological-scale equivalent of curing cancer with a flamethrower. Or, just dig up all the fossil fuels and burn them.

The ocean is already contaminated with dimethymercury (and cousins) at large scale. Unclear the exact mix, but around 45,000 to 80,000 tons from human sources. [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mercury_pollution#:~:... . ] That is why eating too much Tuna will give you mercury poisoning. And the Nazis literally used nerve agents (Zyklon B) among other things. Nasty nerve agents (and most household pesticides)…

Actually Zyklon B came out of WWI research, and in the interim it was licensed worldwide for use as a fumigating agent. Including from 1929 onwards in the United States, where it was used by the Public Health Service to fumigate freight trains and clothes of Mexican immigrants entering the country.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#227

Post by scotty79 »

matrix87 wrote: post #223

It seems like the barriers for becoming an expat are lower now than what they were in the 20th century. There are plenty of online expat communities. You can find maps, living arrangements, and machine translation all online In general, the internet has made it so that people are a lot less dependent on their immediate community. So in the future, if the government starts making a bunch of hostile demands and tries t…

Yup. I already moved out of my home country and that was one of the reasons. Sudden interest of governments in the old ways.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#228

Post by scotty79 »

more_corn wrote: post #163
nradov wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you propose as an alternative?

Don’t work on terrible weapons. If you’re smart enough to create them you’re smart enough not to misuse them. But the last act in creation is relinquishing control. You’re putting them in the hands of people who aren’t smart enough to build them. And you don’t get to choose who that is. The US president who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t even fully understand that he was bombing civilian targets. How could he b…

> But the last act in creation is relinquishing control.

Tell it to Disney or Adobe

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#229

Post by scotty79 »

imtringued wrote: post #42
graeme wrote: post #23

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…

Consider it an economic problem. War costs money, therefore war will be conducted when its benefits exceed its costs. What makes war profitable? For that you need to know the benefits of war. The most obvious benefit is the changing of borders and conquering of new land. Now you might say that it always makes sense for a country to try to conquer the enire world, because having the land grants you access to its riche…

International wars are started for internal reasons. To stay in power. To funnel money.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#230

Post by lazide »

racional wrote: post #226
lazide wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ocean is already contaminated with dimethymercury (and cousins) at large scale. Unclear the exact mix, but around 45,000 to 80,000 tons from human sources. [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mercury_pollution#:~:... . ] That is why eating too much Tuna will give you mercury poisoning. And the Nazis literally used nerve agents (Zyklon B) among other things. Nasty nerve agents (and most household pesticides)…

Actually Zyklon B came out of WWI research, and in the interim it was licensed worldwide for use as a fumigating agent. Including from 1929 onwards in the United States, where it was used by the Public Health Service to fumigate freight trains and clothes of Mexican immigrants entering the country.

I never said Zyklon B was developed during WW2?
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