Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Aardwolf on September 02, 2011, 05:08:55 pm
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Hm bleh. Seems like we're having the same discussion across two or three different threads. This one shall be specifically about war / the lack thereof, since that's what I ended up wanting to talk about in the other threads!
I think we could all1 agree that it would be nice if people stopped being violent toward one another. However, we also mostly agree that something like that happening is rather far-fetched, and I do not disagree. However, a lot of people seem resigned to the fact that people will always be violent, and on a nation-versus-nation scale2.
Warfare has a long track-record. But suppose people actually took "children's morality" seriously... kindness, honesty, trust, nonviolence. Obviously, everyone is not going to simultaneously drop their weapons and have a group hug. That kind of change is impractical3, but if a sufficiently large fraction of the population says "No, I refuse to kill one of my fellow human beings", they can do something.
Rhetorical questions, but feel free to answer anyway:
- When is a cause worth dieing for?
- When is a cause worth killing for?
- When is a cause worth sending people to their likely deaths, in order to kill, with some uncertainty whether they will even succeed?
I think I'm done now.
1With the possible exception of Nuke :drevil:
2I would suggest the abolition of the nation-state, but then nobody would take me seriously :sigh:
3@MP Ryan and NGTM-1R interpreting what I said that way, :mad:
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As long as one human is willing to use force to obtain his goals, everyone will have need of force to protect themselves from that one human. There is no "sufficiently large portion of the population"; this is an all-or-nothing proposition, especially so as long as government or any form of organization that allows one person to issue orders or direction to a group of people exists.
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But suppose people actually took "children's morality" seriously... kindness, honesty, trust, nonviolence.
I'd like you to go to a kindergarten class of 20 or more students and simply observe them in the absence of adult supervision. Then come report if your observations match "kindness, honesty, trust, and nonviolence."
Alternatively, take my word for it: they won't. In the absence of enforced rules by an adult, kids will be competitive, cheat, rely on dominance and social grouping, and engage in ostracism, aggression, and violence (such that children are capable of).
In many, many ways, a kindergarten class is a microcosmic allegory of global politics. Now, if you could devise or create an entity to take on the role of the adult, then perhaps you might alleviate some of the problems. That is really how the UN was conceived, but as a body for global enforcement it's been neutered from birth.
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Now, if you could devise or create an entity to take on the role of the adult, then perhaps you might alleviate some of the problems...
Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer!
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him!
(http://www.it-he.org/deus/jesus.jpg)
/me bow and exeunt.
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Violence is a necessary facet of life. So long as anyone believes that, everyone must believe that or simply roll over and under those who do.
The world sucks. Get used to it.
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I'd like you to go to a kindergarten class of 20 or more students and simply observe them in the absence of adult supervision. Then come report if your observations match "kindness, honesty, trust, and nonviolence."
Lol, not what I meant. "Children's morality" was more in reference to this:
...without sounding like small children and depending on small children's motives.
As long as one human is willing to use force to obtain his goals, everyone will have need of force to protect themselves from that one human.
Tell me something I don't know and agree with.
There is no "sufficiently large portion of the population"; this is an all-or-nothing proposition, especially so as long as government or any form of organization that allows one person to issue orders or direction to a group of people exists.
Disagree, excluding defensive wars (see above).
In a democratic government, if the majority of the population says don't go to war, the country doesn't go to war. But even in non-democracies, people will only fight a war when they choose to do so---though it may be a coerced choice. Every person who refuses to fight is reducing the strength of the army by one.
Also, nobody going to comment on "when is a cause worth..." ?
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Violence is a necessary facet of life. So long as anyone believes that, everyone must believe that or simply roll over and under those who do.
The world sucks. Get used to it.
So does this mean that you choose to be one of those who roll over those who disagree?
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No, he's one of the guys that believes it. He's saying those that don't believe it will get steamrolled by those who do.
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In a democratic government, if the majority of the population says don't go to war, the country doesn't go to war. But even in non-democracies, people will only fight a war when they choose to do so---though it may be a coerced choice. Every person who refuses to fight is reducing the strength of the army by one.
This excludes the majority of revolutions in the course of human history from having ever happened. The American revolution, the English Civil War, the recent revolution in Libya, the French Revolution, any of innumerable intercine conflicts of Rome...
You get the idea. It similarly excludes the use of military force in situations like the current NATO support for the Libyan revolution, or United States involvement in Europe during the Second World War. There are times where nonviolent methods of preserving the lives and rights of others simply will not be enough; crimes that cannot be stopped save with force. Simply because it is not always practical to do so does not mean it should not be done wherever it is practical.
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Violence is a necessary facet of life. So long as anyone believes that, everyone must believe that or simply roll over and under those who do.
The world sucks. Get used to it.
So does this mean that you choose to be one of those who roll over those who disagree?
I would if it became necessary to do so for the safety of myself or my loved ones, without hesitation.
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world peace can only work if we vaporise the entire surface of the earth with nuclear weapons first. the survivors, if there are any, will probably figure out not to do warish things anymore and can build a utopian suckfest in the glowing ashes (more likely they will fight over resources).
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world peace can only work if we vaporise the entire surface of the earth with nuclear weapons first. the survivors, if there are any, will probably figure out not to do warish things anymore and can build a utopian suckfest in the glowing ashes (more likely they will fight over resources).
I'd give it maybe 100 years, long enough for the new tribes lands to start intersecting, before they start fighting again. If there's one thing humanity has displayed, it is a difficulty with learning from anything more than a couple of generations away. Basically, if no-one is alive to remember it, it doesn't count.
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I think you can be well defended and still be peaceful. Just because a country has a military doesn't mean it has to be used to invade other countries. Training can keep an army in fighting shape, and as a bonus it isn't nearly as dangerous as real combat.
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In a democratic government, if the majority of the population says don't go to war, the country doesn't go to war. But even in non-democracies, people will only fight a war when they choose to do so---though it may be a coerced choice. Every person who refuses to fight is reducing the strength of the army by one.
This excludes the majority of revolutions in the course of human history from having ever happened. The American revolution, the English Civil War, the recent revolution in Libya, the French Revolution, any of innumerable intercine conflicts of Rome...
You get the idea. It similarly excludes the use of military force in situations like the current NATO support for the Libyan revolution, or United States involvement in Europe during the Second World War. There are times where nonviolent methods of preserving the lives and rights of others simply will not be enough; crimes that cannot be stopped save with force. Simply because it is not always practical to do so does not mean it should not be done wherever it is practical.
Hm.
Mmk.
But I still contend that people are too quick to resort to violence. And that this tendency isn't an inescapable aspect of "human nature".
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"too quick." Opinion. Unprovable. Contending something that is unprovable (as the entirety of your post) is the equivalent of a discussionary party foul.
The simple fact of the matter is that violence works, and until it stops working, there's no reason for anyone to not use it when necessary.
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The question was never whether violence is necessary/sufficient to achieve a particular goal, the question was what goals are worth using violence to achieve.
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Such a question is subjective; there is no exact answer.
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In a democratic government, if the majority of the population says don't go to war, the country doesn't go to war. But even in non-democracies, people will only fight a war when they choose to do so---though it may be a coerced choice. Every person who refuses to fight is reducing the strength of the army by one.
This excludes the majority of revolutions in the course of human history from having ever happened. The American revolution, the English Civil War, the recent revolution in Libya, the French Revolution, any of innumerable intercine conflicts of Rome...
You get the idea. It similarly excludes the use of military force in situations like the current NATO support for the Libyan revolution, or United States involvement in Europe during the Second World War. There are times where nonviolent methods of preserving the lives and rights of others simply will not be enough; crimes that cannot be stopped save with force. Simply because it is not always practical to do so does not mean it should not be done wherever it is practical.
Hm.
Mmk.
But I still contend that people are too quick to resort to violence. And that this tendency isn't an inescapable aspect of "human nature".
I think you can also be too slow to respond to violence. Look at Nazi Germany (by which I obviously do not mean Nazi Germany's policies themselves, but hte policies against them).
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In a democratic government, if the majority of the population says don't go to war, the country doesn't go to war. But even in non-democracies, people will only fight a war when they choose to do so---though it may be a coerced choice.
>>>implying the population of a democratic country wouldn't ever want to go to war
every person who does chose to fight increases the power by one, and probably shoots the deserters to prevent further descent.
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But I still contend that people are too quick to resort to violence. And that this tendency isn't an inescapable aspect of "human nature".
Most of humanity's problems are escapable, but there usually is a price to pay. For example, I don't believe this species is able to simultaneously be completely free and completely nonviolent. How much of the one are you willing to give up in favor of the other?
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Such a question is subjective; there is no exact answer.
Are you dismissing all subjective questions? Or did you not realize that this topic was subjective from the start?
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Such a question is subjective; there is no exact answer.
Are you dismissing all subjective questions? Or did you not realize that this topic was subjective from the start?
No. Yes, I did realize that.
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Asking when it is worth using violence to achieve something pretty much means the same as asking "when is it morally acceptable?". It's not a very useful question in my opinion. Imagine if we went through a severe famine, and a large portion of the population couldn't get enough food to survive. Then of course people will start using violence, and they are not going to give a damn about whether violence is morally acceptable. The only thing they're caring about is finding a way to stop their hunger pangs.
That was an extreme example, but it serves to show the idea behind it, which is fairly basic. If one's situation is good, then they will probably see violence as unnecessary and immoral. But the more unstable the situation, the more violence will be seen as a useful course of action. Those who stick hard to morality will rapidly find themselves in a disadvantage to those who do not. And even when everyone is well off, there's always individuals who want more, and are willing to compete with others to get it. The use of competition to gain an advantage is simply a natural result of game theory applied to evolutionary processes. And of course, in the world we live in, not everyone is well off, and resources are neither infinite nor equally distributed. Hence, conflict, to some degree, is always present.
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Well duh... to people who are starving, food is worth using violence for.
But I'm not talking about starving people, I'm talking about us forumites. And I'm not talking about small-scale stuff like knocking a guy out and taking his wallet, I'm talking about nation-versus-nation war.
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My comments included a discussion of people like us forumites.
If one's situation is [well-off], then they will probably see violence as unnecessary and immoral. But the more unstable the situation, the more violence will be seen as a useful course of action.
You and I are pretty well off, all things considered, eh? As long as that's the case then of course it's hard for us to imagine circumstances 'worth' using violence/war for. Not so for many less-fortunate people out there in the world.
Nation-vs-nation war is simply a result of what I just described about individual behavior and finite/unequal resource distribution, but applied to groups. It's certainly much more complex, but again the basic principles are the same.
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Oh, a reply!
I can imagine it just fine!
But usually if you're serving in a military, you expect to get paid/fed out of the military's pocket (unless you're a viking?). And the same goes for the enemy. Come to think of it, that means there's somebody at home who's got money and food, who is using your lack of money/food to make you go somewhere else to kill/be killed.
Relevant semi-rhetorical question: how many combined kills do the Buddhist infantrymen of the world have?
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how many combined kills do the Buddhist infantrymen of the world have?
Do we take fanaticals into the equation?
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Relevant semi-rhetorical question: how many combined kills do the Buddhist infantrymen of the world have?
A lot more than you'd suspect.
Hell, there were a number of very prominently placed Zen Buddhists in the Imperial Japanese military. Ryūnosuke Kusaka was the deputy commander of First Air Fleet from Pearl Harbor to after Midway and a Rear Admiral; he made Vice Admiral and deputy commander Combined Fleet before the end of the war.