Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war • Hacker News Board

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#121

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 6:34 PM UTC

nawitus wrote: post #34

npt4279 wrote: post #9

Thankfully, I don't see WWIII starting anytime soon... But I've always strongly thought the "globalisation will make war unthinkable" argument is naive. We're tribal creatures -Nationalism trumps economic interest at the end of the day. History shows this to be true. As the author hinted at - Russia, Germany, Britain, Belgium, and France were each other's biggest trading partners - by far! Heck, a Belgium company bui…

>Nationalism trumps economic interest at the end of the day. History shows this to be true. I interpret history as "nationalism used to trump economic interests". A lot of has changed since. Most countries are representative democracies, and it's more difficult for leaders to go into a war. As for the tribal argument, I think the "nation state" is dying. Tribes are subcultures these days[1]. The internet connects me…

> Most countries are representative democracies, and it's more difficult for leaders to go into a war.

There's not really a lot of evidence that representative democracies are any less likely to go to war than otherwise similarly-situated nations with different government forms.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#122

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 6:36 PM UTC

olefoo wrote: post #48

npt4279 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most countries are representative democracies, and it's more difficult for leaders to go into a war. I agree representative democracies are far less likely to go to war. I also don't think war is likely anytime in the present era. On the other hand, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are not representative democracies. They represent a fair portion of earth's landmass, population, and potential destructive power.…

You could make a fairly strong argument that these days the US is not much of a representative democracy; and that it is more of an elite oligarchy which performs a theater of democracy for public consumption. When overt criminal activity by elite institutions goes unpunished (see NSA, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, etc.) and popular movements for reform are crushed (Occupy) or coopted (Tea Party); it's hard to claim the moral…

> You could make a fairly strong argument that these days the US is not much of a representative democracy; and that it is more of an elite oligarchy which performs a theater of democracy for public consumption.

To the extent that you could make such an argument "these days", you could make an even stronger argument for the same thing at almost any time in the past history of the U.S.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#123

Post by userulluipeste » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

panabee wrote: post #32

npt4279 wrote: post #9

Thankfully, I don't see WWIII starting anytime soon... But I've always strongly thought the "globalisation will make war unthinkable" argument is naive. We're tribal creatures -Nationalism trumps economic interest at the end of the day. History shows this to be true. As the author hinted at - Russia, Germany, Britain, Belgium, and France were each other's biggest trading partners - by far! Heck, a Belgium company bui…

Interesting perspective. Agree that national interests ultimately trump economic interests. At the same time, what would advance the discussion even more is data on how critical international trade was/is to each country. For instance, what % of GDP for pre-WWI Germany came from beyond its borders vs. present-day China. Globalization may not prevent war, but perhaps it's possible that more intertwined relationships -…

"More intertwined relationships" may also become inconvenient shackles, especially when are used as political leverage (look at Russia with its exports of natural gas in Europe, or at the economic sanctions against Iran). Heck, look at history - given the right condition, an economical relationship by itself can start a war if it cease, becomes abusive, or is altered in some inconvenient way! And as power balance is in continuous change, so are the economical relations shadowed by it.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#124

Post by 1457389 » Mon, Dec 30, 2013, 9:03 PM UTC

atoningunifex wrote: post #98

1457389 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, looks like the only real way involves being co-opted in turn. Seems like that's what ended up happening to Obama.

It does, but its a shit outcome. I was hoping you'd come out with a spring of hope for me :) I honestly see no good way out of this mess. Call me pessimistic, defeatist or whatever, but this is a system well sewn up. Getting out of it is impossible, I think, beyond an uprising.

The greatest I hope I have is that the old media establishment becomes replaced in its entirety with a more chaotic, uncontrolled space like the internet. When people finally have access to the truth about what is going on and how it affects them, and grow up with that understanding, we will have a generation that can effect real change on a large scale. Right now unfortunately the cypherpunks and activists simply don't have the backing of the populace.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#125

Post by jusben1369 » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 1:41 AM UTC

austinz wrote: post #91

jusben1369 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't making the argument in 2005 so that comment isn't very helpful. I'll assume you're just focused on the Chinese piece in your acerbic reply. http://qz.com/160091/china-puts-out-yet-another-credit-marke... "China’s highly-leveraged and opaque financial system ranks high on the list of threats to global growth" Or this that shows the recent problems: http://qz.com/72487/shadow-banking-brought-america-to-its-kn.…

In 2005 the bogeyman was local government borrowing. In the late 1990s it was bad loans to SOEs that were going to collapse the Chinese banking system. You need to realize that the articles you are citing aren't based upon any sort of substantive analysis. They're based on pundits and consultancy reports basically taking the same arguments they've used in the past (scale, opacity, interlocking interests) and fitting…

Looks like that first bogeyman is back: Front page today: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/30/us-china-economy-d... "(Reuters) - Calls for China to accelerate financial reforms grew louder on Monday after figures showed its indebted local governments owe nearly $3 trillion in a debt build-up that some analysts called alarming."

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#126

Post by yk » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 3:43 AM UTC

VLM wrote: post #116

yk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More abstractly speaking, WWI was the breakdown of a alliance system that guaranteed peace in an earlier era. On this level, there is certainly a lot more going on since the end of the cold war, than between the crowning of Friedrich-Wilhelm and the outbreak of WWI. About your specific points: 1) Cultural attitude of "eh, war is not so bad and higher tech means we'll be home by xmas". Ever visited r/worldnews ? Addit…

Ugh with respect to the cultural attitude you're looking at it like a 2013 guy with plenty of hindsight and not looking at the 1913 perspective. Forget everything that happened post 1913 and my description and explanation of 1913 thinking makes a heck of a lot of sense. The 1913 perspective is the last total "world" war was Napoleon's escapades a century ago and it was a disaster but everyone involved is dead and mas…

Apart from the first paragraph, I agree. I do not really understand why you accuse me of presentism. Perhaps because you got my argument precisely backwards. I was commenting on your entire paragraph 1), not only on the quoted part. And wanted to argue that quite a bit of current US attitude looks from a European perspective similar to the "home by christmas" attitude in Germany in 1914. ( Actually I think that the "home by christmas" attitude is quite exceptional.)

I will admit that my knowledge of WWI east of Berlin is somewhat suspect, but I think the similarity proposed in the Economist article is anyhow a case of if we paint in broad strokes and squint a little, instead of a very close similarity. And therefore I think ( in the framework of this analogy), the Balkans play the role of the spark plug, rather than an integral part of the analogy.

    One specific and major blindness is people not being able
    to tell the difference between colonial police actions and
    total war on home turf. Yes dudes with uniforms and rifles 
    fight both, but its really two different concepts.

Great point, it is quite exactly the same difference between Global War on Terror and global war.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#127

Post by olefoo » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 4:43 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #122

olefoo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make a fairly strong argument that these days the US is not much of a representative democracy; and that it is more of an elite oligarchy which performs a theater of democracy for public consumption. When overt criminal activity by elite institutions goes unpunished (see NSA, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, etc.) and popular movements for reform are crushed (Occupy) or coopted (Tea Party); it's hard to claim the moral…

> You could make a fairly strong argument that these days the US is not much of a representative democracy; and that it is more of an elite oligarchy which performs a theater of democracy for public consumption. To the extent that you could make such an argument "these days", you could make an even stronger argument for the same thing at almost any time in the past history of the U.S.

Well, you could, but there are ebbs and flows. And right now the party of money seems to be riding roughshod over the party of the people.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#128

Post by myrandomcomment » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 6:00 AM UTC

VLM wrote: post #17

myrandomcomment wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese in general still feel humiliated by their treatment at the hands of the western powers and then their occupation by Japan in WW2. Furthermore they have an issue of not having enough resouces to feed their growth. Who ever owns the islands (more then one set - China is arguing with Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Philippines) has the rights to exploit the oil/gas fields in the ocean beds around them. Now to the…

"it would be a very short war. Blood and a mess but still very short." You may wish to read up on attitudes immediately prior to WWI. And there were three dominate military powers at the start of WWI, Germany the land empire able to call up 5M men in days, Russia with infinite manpower but so logistically messed up they never get to use them, and the British Navy dominated the waves, which was a pretty big deal as th…

I have. May I suggest a book called "The Sleepwalkers".

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sleepwalkers-Europe-Went-1914/dp/0...

My comments on the effects of military power come from first hand experience.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#129

Post by austinz » Thu, Jan 02, 2014, 12:27 AM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #125

austinz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2005 the bogeyman was local government borrowing. In the late 1990s it was bad loans to SOEs that were going to collapse the Chinese banking system. You need to realize that the articles you are citing aren't based upon any sort of substantive analysis. They're based on pundits and consultancy reports basically taking the same arguments they've used in the past (scale, opacity, interlocking interests) and fitting…

Looks like that first bogeyman is back: Front page today: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/30/us-china-economy-d... "(Reuters) - Calls for China to accelerate financial reforms grew louder on Monday after figures showed its indebted local governments owe nearly $3 trillion in a debt build-up that some analysts called alarming."

And here's another set of 'analysts' from 2011 addressing the same problem from the opposite angle: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/06/sovereig...

Point being, you can find 'analysts' on every side of this particular argument, and unless you're an intellectually dishonest ideologue the best thing to do is to look at the facts and read their analyses critically.

Re: Uncomfortable parallels with the era that led to the first world war

#130

Post by jusben1369 » Fri, Jan 03, 2014, 5:21 PM UTC

austinz wrote: post #129

jusben1369 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like that first bogeyman is back: Front page today: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/30/us-china-economy-d... "(Reuters) - Calls for China to accelerate financial reforms grew louder on Monday after figures showed its indebted local governments owe nearly $3 trillion in a debt build-up that some analysts called alarming."

And here's another set of 'analysts' from 2011 addressing the same problem from the opposite angle: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/06/sovereig... Point being, you can find 'analysts' on every side of this particular argument, and unless you're an intellectually dishonest ideologue the best thing to do is to look at the facts and read their analyses critically.

I thought you might like this too. Where China is addressed toward the end of this document: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/george-soros-map...