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Can men live without war? (1956)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#131

Post by The_Colonel »

blub wrote: post #120
kiba wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is a North Korean 'proxy'. With South Korea considering lethal aid, Ukraine may soon be a 'proxy' of South Korea. In the end, Russia made their own decision to invade, and the Ukrainians' own decision to resist.

Ukraine may not have started as a proxy, but it became one as its military stocks were exhausted. Both EU and US politicians claim on record that Ukraine would fold within days or weeks if it didn’t get support. At this point US+EU are paying for the pensions, military and keeping Ukraine’s economy afloat. Our military aid is keeping Ukraine in the fight. This doesn’t mean the Ukrainians don’t have agency or don’t ma…

I think it's pretty naive to believe that North Korea is not getting military technology in return.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#133

Post by rldjbpin »

with the power of hindsight, that aged like milk.

i wonder how much of our current views be seen this way another 50 years from now.

however i think some things will most likely be for certain, like how there are key parties who economically depend on war or planning for it. there have been countless seeds of conflicts sown around the time when this article and the essay it refers to were written. they are still being played out and i won't be surprised if they still influence some things decades from now.

another think i find repeating from the past into the future is the nature of aliances switching over time. predicting one major conflict between two currently strong allies in my bingo card.

our brains remain wired like the tribes that fought for survival. one might continue to find "us vs them" problems when there exists none.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#134

Post by StefanBatory »

squigz wrote: post #124
injb wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To ensure the natural advantage that strong people have over weak people, of course. Nature has ordained that the strong should subjugate the weak, and the equalizing force of firearms is thus an afront to nature, and is not to be tolerated!

Describing widespread firearms as socially "equalizing" is a new one to me, so thanks for that.

"God made some men tall and some men short. Sam Colt made all men equal."

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#135

Post by openrisk »

rldjbpin wrote: post #133

with the power of hindsight, that aged like milk. i wonder how much of our current views be seen this way another 50 years from now. however i think some things will most likely be for certain, like how there are key parties who economically depend on war or planning for it. there have been countless seeds of conflicts sown around the time when this article and the essay it refers to were written. they are still bein…

> our brains remain wired like the tribes that fought for survival

If that was literaly true then there would only ever be a single organizational structure for human society, like bees, ants, chimps or whatever.

When you look at recorded history alone, societies have organized in many different ways and the complexity and variety is only exploding over time.

Organized war has generally been part of societal behavior, but that has been because perceived benefits always exceeded the attributed cost. From the nuclear age forward the calculus has changed. It only gets worse with each new potentially lethal invention.

The reality of a finite planet, where organized, technologically assisted violence can wipe out billions will eventually sink and lazy ideological thinking, vested interest in warmongering etc. will disappear.

Logically, given the trajectory of human development, for war-as-we-know-it to persist we'd have to wipe out modern civilization in a final global war and go back to primitive societies that can afford this "game".

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#136

Post by openrisk »

proc0 wrote: post #116

Interesting thoughts but I feel it is the wrong level of analysis. Maybe we will reach some sci-fi utopia but personally I see war as a kind of law of nature. Think about a petri dish and how bacteria grow on it until they saturate the entire surface area and then the resources run out, unless half of the bacteria destroy the other half, and then they can survive longer. War is the result of humans fighting over the…

> War is the result of humans fighting over the metaphorical petri dish of land, resources, and also power.

People do all of that in modern economies without resorting to physically eliminating each other.

To get millions of individuals to coordinate over long times, mobilizing massive resources etc. in order to exterminate other millions (to grab their resources, subjugated them or whatever) is not "natural" or biological in any sense.

War is a cultural adaptation that worked for aeons because it did not threaten the survival of the species. In a technologically advanced civilization this is no longer assured. Vannevar Bush was simply a century or so ahead of his time. In the arc of human history this is just a blip.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#137

Post by numpad0 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #101
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…

Ideal for whom? I and many others own firearms and would like to continue owning firearms.

Bears. Not kidding. They're resilient against small arms, and they happily eat us alive.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#138

Post by paulryanrogers »

nradov wrote: post #99
paulryanrogers wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are firearms the only way for people to be defended?

To a first approximation, yes. Other means of defense either require significant physical strength, or are barely effective at all.

And yet so many societies function without personal gun ownership.

Guns are more likely to be involved in suicides, accidents, and crime than to prevent or stop a crime.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#139

Post by paulryanrogers »

squigz wrote: post #126
paulryanrogers wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A small child could kill hundreds of people with a single gun (depending on the type). Firearms (including bombs) are force multipliers far beyond any bow or spear.

So basically, small-scale war/death is fine, as long as large-scale war is monopolized by the powerful?

What an odd framing. Large scale war should always be avoided. That's a problem regardless of personal gun ownership. And personal guns won't keep governments any more responsive to the people, because governments need enough arms to defeat country-sized adversaries anyway.

Small scale 'war' should also be avoided. Guns make personal conflicts much more deadly.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#140

Post by gizmondo »

squigz wrote: post #58
imtringued wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think one of the most obvious, major benefits of war is the trillions of dollars that's put into the military-industrial complex every year. Whether war actually breaks out is irrelevant, if the interests involved can make people believe it's always inevitable, so let's keep pumping money into it.

Europe stopped believing in it and "interests involved" couldn't do anything about it. As a result their military-industrial complex has atrophied to a point where without US goodwill they would not be able to protect themselves against the belligerent neighbor with much smaller economy.
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