Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If you want peace, study war

persuasion.community

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 223 posts

Re: If you want peace, study war

#121

Post by some_random »

XorNot wrote: post #73
Scramblejams wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when you can just trade Peacetime commerce requires free waterways. Everyone can "just trade" because the U.S. Navy has guaranteed free navigation of the seas since Bretton Woods[1]. When America withdraws from its security obligations, others will fill the vacuum, with all the uncertainty that implies. A national leader who fears being cut off from essential resources will very logically view war as an option. Edit:…

Cut off by who though, and why? Denying what? These questions don't exist in a vacuum, and wars are terrible ways to secure resources as the US's adventurism in the Middle East has shown. If your goal is say, oil, it's still cheaper to just buy it.

>wars are terrible ways to secure resources as the US's adventurism in the Middle East has shown.

Perhaps US action in ME gasp isn't to seize physical resources then?

Re: If you want peace, study war

#122

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

arethuza wrote: post #39
Danieru wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The scary thing for me about wars is that the soldiers aren't the ones making the decisions. Letting Soldiers & Generals control the military is the exact mistake which lead to Japan's military aggression. Keeping the head of the military a civilian/politician is perhaps one of the few ideas everyone should be able to agree is smart.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is another example where if things had been left purely to the militaries of both sides things would probably have escalated very badly.

The US would have won the Cuban Missile War if it had escalated. The USSR would have been obliterated, Europe would have been severely damaged, and the US would have been relatively unscathed.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#123

Post by sudhirj »

sudhirj wrote: post #49
lovelyviking wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean “time will tell”? It doesn’t tell already? Now when Russia have occupied parts of Ukraine?

Without condoning it, that wasn't an all out war. It's a really complicated situation and seems more like a political action. Less people were killed than in the Capitol breach, don't think anyone is referring to that as the second civil war.

I assumed the post was referring to the annexation of Crimea, that was mostly bloodless.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#124

Post by wizzwizz4 »

Razengan wrote: post #100
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wars end up with those best at surviving surviving. The ones best at getting allies to protect them, the ones who keep their children alive even at the cost of thousands of others' lives, the ones who groom an ally to throw themselves on the grenade, the ones who climb the power ladder and then use that power to keep themselves safe from the conflict… War is a terrible selection pressure, if you value the light and g…

> Wars end up with those best at surviving surviving. The ones best at getting allies to protect them, the ones who keep their children alive even at the cost of thousands of others' lives, the ones who groom an ally to throw themselves on the grenade, the ones who climb the power ladder and then use that power to keep themselves safe from the conflict… Yes, natural selection at the civilization level. Those survivor…

Next you'll be saying millions of humans want to be addicted to social media. I don't understand how you could even think this in the first place, let alone believe it to be true.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#125

Post by joshmarlow »

roenxi wrote: post #14

The scary thing for me about wars is that the soldiers aren't the ones making the decisions. Some group of people in comfortable offices look at a map, says "yeah, I think this option is more favourable to us than peace". Then a war happens. It is all about incentives and capabilities. One of the lessons from being a Stallman watcher for many years - people are profoundly evidence based . If there hasn't been a war i…

> people are profoundly evidence based. If there hasn't been a war in 30 years, then they assume there will not be a war next year no matter how the background is changing.

I model this differently - people are very conservative about narrative change. I feel it works more generally.

Examples:

If we've had peace for 30 years, then war seems impossible.

If we've had government fiat currency for a centuries or more, then of course cryptocurrencies are a joke.

If we've been on the gold standard for long enough, then of course that's how money should work.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#126

Post by arethuza »

wolfd wrote: post #83
arethuza wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can strongly recommend "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War" by Michael Dobbs: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2606779-one-minute-to-mi... For extra nightmare fuel "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25663779-the-doomsday... The latter book literally gave me nightmares.

Additional recommendation: The Fog of War, the McNamara interview documentary. Absolutely fascinating look into the mind of the secretary of defense at the time.

I need to watch that again - saw it years ago when it first came out. I'm currently reading Ellsberg's Secrets A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers - which is pretty shocking - they knew all along they could never win in Vietnam but continued for "reasons".

Re: If you want peace, study war

#127

Post by [deleted] »

foxyv wrote: post #107

"Causes of Civil War are also, that the Wealth of the Nation is in too few mens hands, and that no certain means are provided to keep all men from a necessity either to beg, or steal, or be Souldiers." - William Petty While this is a quote about civil war, it points out a key fact. A country with a strong middle class is much less likely to send its children to war over stupid things. Even the USA barely sent 177,000…

[deleted]

Re: If you want peace, study war

#128

Post by jariel »

The Art of War, basically the first textbook ever written (and understandably so) is still relevant today.

It's almost oddly metaphysical, and relevant in zero-sum games.

Also:

"evidence of how you have come to understand the barriers faced by others, evidence of your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality, or evidence of your leadership among such groups.”

It's funny how some forms of censorship are evil, but other forms are lauded.

They are essentially demanding that research 'be in service to' a specific intersectional perspective, which has to be the opposite of academic freedom.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#129

Post by jacksonkmarley »

sudhirj wrote: post #16

There are notes in Sapiens proposing that war (the violent kind) is no longer useful / does not produce outcomes because the global economy has shifted from one of physical resources to knowledge based. That it no longer makes sense to fight over things that aren't worth as much these days, like land, oil or gold, when you can just trade. Most of money comes from peace time commerce. This seems accurate, but time wil…

It is accurate for dealings between liberal democracies, but I don't think you can take this approach to states who operate according to a different paradigm. Otherwise you will just be helpless when authoritarian regimes become aggressive.

Re: If you want peace, study war

#130

Post by jariel »

roenxi wrote: post #14

The scary thing for me about wars is that the soldiers aren't the ones making the decisions. Some group of people in comfortable offices look at a map, says "yeah, I think this option is more favourable to us than peace". Then a war happens. It is all about incentives and capabilities. One of the lessons from being a Stallman watcher for many years - people are profoundly evidence based . If there hasn't been a war i…

That's not 'scary' it's rational.

What's 'scary' are the stakes involved.

People in 'comfortable offices' are right now deciding who gets vaccines, and who will not until later.

People are dying in the US due to lack of access to healthcare due to other people making decisions in 'comfortable offices'.

We entrust those in positions of power with such legitimate authority.

And finally: "I think this option is more favourable to us than peace" - is an inappropriate analogy because it's generally never the case. If the US were to have entered WW1 and 2 earlier, a lot of lives would have been saved. While those were easier decisions in hindsight, they're all nuanced, for example, the US+Coalition decision to liberate Kuwait after Saddam's incursion.

Post reply on HN