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Can men live without war? (1956)

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Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#181

Post by Aerroon »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #138
nradov wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn't really matter, because you're taking agency away from people. You say that you know better and everyone should be at the mercy of the system.

But the system isn't perfect.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#182

Post by immibis »

lazide wrote: post #172
notfish wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d just prefer the survival rate not drop to zero for everyone at the same time.

Don’t worry. If there is anything history (and the geological record) has shown us, the planet and other humans have tried very very very hard to kill all humans in the past. And failed. Not that they didn’t make one hell of a dent sometimes, mind you. We’d more likely end up with an extra mutation or two, similar to the Moties [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye] and some solid species level PTSD…

Actually, the geological record shows that mass extinctions are possible, happen somewhat regularly, and are sometimes caused by a single species altering the environment on a massive scale. For example when photosynthesizers converted 20% of the atmosphere into extremely toxic oxygen gas.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#183

Post by paulryanrogers »

Aerroon wrote: post #181
paulryanrogers wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn't really matter, because you're taking agency away from people. You say that you know better and everyone should be at the mercy of the system. But the system isn't perfect.

People don't need firearm agency. It won't fix unresponsive governments. Gun ownership just makes society measurably worse to stoke fragile egos.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#184

Post by rubytubido »

snowpid wrote: post #97
mu53 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is uncomfortably close. Nuclear armed combatant on one side, and proxy on the other.

It must be repeated: Ukraine is it's own nation and Ukrainian people fight because their own decision.

No, they are fighting because the government wants it. Ukrainian men have no choice: they can't fly away from the country, they can't safely walk on the streets because the special patrol with take them to the military registration and enlistment office without consent. But some of them are really do.

Stop repeating your propaganda.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#185

Post by squigz »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #143
squigz wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Firearms grant their owners the right to say "No". Tyrants hate that. Before firearms the world was mostly ruled by "nobles" (i.e., those who had extorted enough from the peasants to afford weapons and armor, and had the free time for the required years of training). Now, it isn't. That didn't happen because the "nobles" suddenly decided to turn into nice guys.

> Now, it isn't

Oh, buddy, do I have some news for you

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#186

Post by mathgeek »

xanderlewis wrote: post #114
ryandrake wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All it takes is one madman to get near the button and gain enough power that his button-press is honored. It almost seems inevitable given a long enough time frame.

Yeah… but if it hasn’t happened by now (after 70+ years), that tells you something .

All it tells me (just personally) is that the threat of being nuked (and especially being nuked in retaliation) is an effective deterrent since 1945. Not perfect of course, but it’s prevented larger conflicts than we have seen.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#187

Post by murderfs »

dragontamer wrote: post #173
The_Colonel wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Note that the smallest tactical nuke, the Davy Crockett, is One-Million times smaller than the largest nuke ever tested (The Tzar Bomba). USA Policy is that all nukes are nukes. The idea being that we've never wargamed a scenario where small nukes were used that didn't turn into the treadmill of larger and larger nukes anyway. (Well, they used a 50 ton nuke. We should respond with a 500ton nuke, then they respond wit…

> USA Policy is that all nukes are nukes.

There's a difference between stated policy, actual policy, and what people will actually do when in a given scenario. For example, the PRC has a stated nuclear no first use policy, but I don't think anyone really believes that if the Indian army were advancing on Beijing that nukes would actually be off the table.

> The idea being that we've never wargamed a scenario where small nukes were used that didn't turn into the treadmill of larger and larger nukes anyway. (Well, they used a 50 ton nuke. We should respond with a 500ton nuke, then they respond with a 10,000 ton nuke. Then we respond with a 100kTon nuke. Then they respond with a 1Mton nuke....)

> So the minute a 'Small Nuke' is used, we should just respond with the biggest nuke. No point dilly dallying, if we are all going to die we might as well get it over with faster and in a way that is to our advantage.

The French nuclear doctrine is actually the exact opposite of this: they have a small nuke (the ASMP-A) that's explicitly designed as a nuclear warning shot to make everyone stop and think for a second before escalating into full scale nuclear war.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#188

Post by lazide »

immibis wrote: post #182
lazide wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t worry. If there is anything history (and the geological record) has shown us, the planet and other humans have tried very very very hard to kill all humans in the past. And failed. Not that they didn’t make one hell of a dent sometimes, mind you. We’d more likely end up with an extra mutation or two, similar to the Moties [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye] and some solid species level PTSD…

Actually, the geological record shows that mass extinctions are possible, happen somewhat regularly, and are sometimes caused by a single species altering the environment on a massive scale. For example when photosynthesizers converted 20% of the atmosphere into extremely toxic oxygen gas.

Eh, a bit overstated. None of them killed EVERYTHING, near as we can tell. Not even the oxygen catastrophe you're mentioning.

To do that would likely require liquifying the mantle entirely, or some similar scale event.

The last big one was approximately 66 million years ago due to perhaps the Chicxulub impact, and it wiped out most of the dinosaurs - but modern birds are descended from them, and the crocodiles and alligators survived (well, VERY similar looking ancestors) /just fine.

None of them could build space stations, nuclear reactors, bunkers, etc. That we know of at least. None of them could grow hydroponic food, or communicate at near light speed to the other side of the planet, or even know what any of that means.

The entire span of time something vaguely resembling human has been around is also 1/10th of that time, but there have been MANY smaller events with large scale extinctions.

I'm not saying it would be a good time, but there is no way every single human is getting wiped out by anything except a nearby Gamma Ray burst/Supernova, surprise planetary collision, or something of similar destructive scale. Things way beyond even our wildest dreams of destructive power.

Even if we launched every nuke every country has ever produced, while civilization as we know it would be done for, humanity would definitely persist. Even if the next war would be fought with clubs instead of nukes.

And even if all the oxygen in the atmosphere turned to cyanide - guess what, we do (technically) know how to deal with that, there are populations of people who are currently protected from that, and while most of humanity would die while we scrambled to adapt, humanity itself would not perish. At least not just from that.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#189

Post by racional »

Detrytus wrote: post #168
actionfromafar wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree except that Ukraine is slowly taking the war to Russia itself, their drones are getting further and further. I think Russia would rather invent a way to safe face than face whatever consequences may come after nuking Ukraine to oblivion.

But those are small, isolated attacks. Front line is still deep in the Ukrainian territory. If Ukrainian counter-offensive manged to move it deep enough withing Russian borders, Russia would nuke them. And as for consequences I do not think the West would do anything about that. US won't go on full scale nuclear war with Russia over some insignificant country at the end of the world, that isn't even a NATO member. So…

And as for consequences I do not think the West would do anything about that.

The worst outcome of nuking Ukraine for Russia is to get even more economic sanctions, that's all.

The response won't be nuclear, per its stated posture on this. But it's hard to imagine the United States would do basically nothing of substance in response, and it hasn't ruled out a violent conventional response. And at least back in 2022, Biden took care to put this messaging out indicating there would be a "consequential" response, per his interview with Scott Pelley:

  "And I wonder, Mr. President, what you would say to him if he is considering using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons?"

  "Don't. Don't. Don't. You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II," Mr. Biden said.

  When Pelley asked what the consequences would be if Putin crossed that line, the president wouldn't say.

  "You think I would tell you if I knew exactly what it would be? Of course, I'm not gonna tell you. It'll be consequential," Mr. Biden said. "They'll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been. And depending on the extent of what they do will determine what response would occur."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-joe-biden-vladimir-pu...

US won't go on full scale nuclear war with Russia over some insignificant country at the end of the world

First, while it isn't a NATO partner or of similar status, Ukraine is absolutely not "insignificant" to the at least the current administration in the U.S., and the whole Atlanticist crowd. It would not have stuck its neck out (and expended its political capital) as far as it has on Ukraine's behalf thus far, if that were the case.

And while it won't go nuclear over Ukraine -- it is definitely concerned about its strategic posture and global stability, and the detrimental consequences of giving Russia perceived "pass" to use nukes in any offensive context. And would basically have to make some kind of genuinely serious response. Which some people close to the administration have quietly hinted could be a conventional military response.

Re: Can men live without war? (1956)

#190

Post by squigz »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #139
squigz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The odd framing is thinking Interpol should ensure nobody is making large scale weaponry but still allow small scale weaponry.
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