Yup, you got me, my whole argument are worthless because I added an “e”.
OMG, you are serious about this, aren’t you?
Should I point out that the same technology that is “making it harder and harder for governments to hold the power they once did over people” is the same techonolgy that’s actually making it easier and easier for those governments to exert more control over us? Should I point out that the same techology that has so increased the risks of one type of war has only made different types of war more attractive? Should I point out that it’s no longer necessary to throw away millions of lives to accompolish objective in war, thereby making war LESS costly and MORE attractive to governments?
Naw, it’d just be lost on you.
I left my own quote in there on purpose, so that I can pose the same question to you, because you are displaying the same lack of intellect. If you have something contructive to add, some point to make, or a rebuttal of one of my points, I’ll be happy to address it. Otherwise, I’d just as soon not deal with you.
My whole argument ARE worthless! Precious. Did yew pas gramer skewl?
Well, sir, I am so desperately sorry to hear that. Well, as I’m not going anywhere, I’m afraid it’s adeiu. Maybe one day, while touring the dark recesses of the interwebs, I’ll see you posting on some McCain site, speaking about how your new little fuhrer makes you so HOT or some such. The way his jowls jiggle as he screams his rage… dead sexy. Yessir, I could totally see you doing that.
You are not explaining anything - you just keep on repeating a dogma. My English skills are good enough to understand what you say. Also, I think this is a properly formed English sentence :
Did you do that yet ? You didn’t ? - NO, saying that the future is bound to be the same as the past is not a logical proof but a laughable attempt at empiricism. But we are not talking about physics and falling apples.
If unequal distribution of goods and resources, religious tensions, ethnic conflicts, overly ambitious political leaders, and population pressures exist, war is likely
All of these conditions exist, as much today as they did in the past, and show no signs of going away.
Therefore, war is likely now, and in the foreseeable future.
So, unless you disagree on the root causes of warfare (and I would be VERY interested to see what you think the alternatives might be) OR you believe that the causes that I listed DO NOT cause war (and I would, again, be very interested to see what you DO think causes war) OR you think that these things DO NOT exist (and then I would be very interested to know what you’re smoking and where I can get some), then my logic is faultless.
Dunkel, the problems you list can lead to war, or not. The determinism you think is there doesn’t really exist. “Population pressures”, whatever that is, can lead to an improvement in food production techniques, to a decrease in natality, to more trade, to people eating a bit less, people using land more efficiently , etc., etc.,
The same is true for the rest of your ‘causes’ for war. None of them necessarily leads to war - so your ‘argument’ lacks one thing : logical necessity.
Yes, you are hopeless. You think the world operates the way you wish it did instead of seeing it for what it really is.
These are the things that have led to war in the past, these are the things causing war today, and these are the things that will lead to war in the future. This fact does not require your belief or acceptance to be true.
Then perhaps you can explain the sudden change in human nature which has suddenly made war less likely today than it has been in the past. Or maybe you can show us all a time in human history when peace, rather than warfare, was the norm. Or maybe you can give us an insight as to which technological or socialogical advances we are on the verge of making that will make war obsolete in the future.
Excuse me but you’re assuming everything you need to prove.
My god, they didn’t even teach you basic claim, data argumentation during your indoctrination? Do you know how to qualify? Justify warrants? Prove correlation is non-coincidential? I mean come on, you accusing others of lacking intellectual skills is frankly quite pathetic. I’m questioning whether you’re real or this is real or just some trollish sham.
As long as the color purple exists there will always be inequality. Inequality leads to war, therefore purple affords war.
A wee bit touchy aren’t we…what makes you think I’m not on your side?
I actually agree with most of your ad hominem attacks but while fallacy has a place in an argumentative strategy it isn’t a good overall plan.
Historically speaking, a direct correlation can be made between the ‘freeness’ of a people and their tendency to act in a warlike fashion. Merchants and blacksmiths don’t engage in wars of conquest because they practice a method of wealth building that is foreign to the political class, mutually beneficial exchange.
It is necessary to draw a distinction between ‘engage’ and ‘participate’ in this context because it is quite important.
If you have a society totally built on the principals of mutually beneficial exchange then, drawing on 5000 years of human history as you are apt to do, a conclusion can be drawn that this society wouldn’t engage in warlike activities because it isn’t mutually beneficial to all parties involved.
You can also draw another conclusion from this directly observable correlation. The political class as a group that doesn’t derive its livelihood from mutually beneficial exchange but through theft and coercion of its own people is more likely to use these methods as a means to increase its wealth when dealing with other peoples because their form of exchange isn’t beneficial to all so the other people will tend to avoid them as much as possible.
The only way the political class can benefit from exchanges with people that aren’t under their direct control is to either allow the productive class to engage with them and use theft and coercion to extract wealth from them indirectly or to attempt to directly steal from them through war.
Now that the root cause of war has been established there is only one logical conclusion that can be drawn; without a political class there would be no cause for people who base their existence on mutually beneficial exchange to participate in warlike activities because it would be more beneficial to all parties involved to increase their wealth through the only other way that a person can increase their wealth.
Ignoring gift giving as a means of wealth acquisition of course as it isn’t important to the overall argument.
So I smite down your basic premise that because war exists it will always exist as a means to an end in human culture based on the fact that it exists.
If you want war to not exist all you have to do is get rid of the people who directly benefit from war and keep around the people who directly benefit from the absence of war.
How to do that without actually engaging in war is another question altogether.
I’m rapidly losing interest here due to lack of intellectual ability being shown.
If you can come up with an alternative to what I have suggested, by all means, present it. Otherwise, stay off your daddy’s computer and don’t waste my time or the bandwidth.
Sure, he challenged it with nothing more than wishful thinking to back it up. He offered solutions to the root causes of war…which would be great, if not for the fact that in the last 5000 years, none of those have been implemented to the degree that they have actually reduced the frequency of war.
Food shortages cause war, so let’s just grow more food. Yeah, we’ve been growing more and more food every year, yet there is still hunger and warfare. Overpopulation causes war, so let’s just have fewer babies. Yeah, that works for a very small percentage of the population…the rest just keep having babies and overpopulating. Religious and ethnic strife causes war, so let’s just, um, get along or something. Yeah, that’s working well around the world, huh?
The THEORY for ending war is easy. It’s the application that is hard due to the fact that human nature does not change. As long as Group A has more than Group B or Group C prays to a different god than Group D, there will be warfare. To believe anything else is either willful ignorance of that which is abundently clear or stupidity. Take your pick.
While I have engaged in ad hominem attacks, my arguments are based on reality, nothing more or less. I am not right because my opponents are unintelligent (the fact that they are is completely irrelevant), I am right because I am right.
You are quite mistaken. Free people become and stay free directly related to their ability to wage war. Once a society earns its freedom through warfare, it then must maintain it through, at the very least, being better able to wage war than anyone that might try to take away its freedom. America has fought no less than 13 more or less major wars and countless other smaller engagements in the last 200+ years, yet we are the freest nation ever to exist. Generally speaking, free societies are less agressive, yes, but they cannot be less warlike because they would soon lose their freedom.
This might be true if a society is isolated from everyone else. However, as soon as a less fortunate group realizes they can take what a more fortunate group has created, war enters the picture.
As Tolstoy said, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. If a society is so well balanced and utopian that the members of that society lose the ability or desire to wage war, it won’t be long before a less enlightened group moves in and reminds them why they should not pound their swords into plowshares.
Now your real beliefs show through. Sorry to burst your bubble, but a “political class” is a necessary evil. I forget who said it, but he was right…Man is a political animal. In the absence of leadership, someone will step forward. Men need leaders as much as they need food, water, and air. A man may not necessarily need a leader, but men do…a functional society quickly becomes much less so with no one making decisions.
Do you mean paying tribute to a stronger society to avoid war? Yes, this is a viable tactic that has been used throughout history.
Except that my premise is not that it will always exist because it always had. That would be ridiculous. My premise is that it will exist as long as the conditions that cause it exist, and that I have seen nothing in the last 5000 years to suggest that those conditions are going away any time soon, mainly because human nature has not changed much in that time. Xenophobia and jealousy, especially, are as strong today as they have ever been, and those two aspects of human nature probably, in my unscientific assessment, have accounted for more warfare and violence in general than anything else.
You can disagree with me, but you cannot, with any sort of intellectual honesty, study history and come up with much of an alternative view.
More pie in the sky nonsense. At no time in human history have their been a lack of “people who directly benefit from war” or a lack of reasons to go to war. There will always be inequality, there will always be zealots, there will always be ambitious political leaders. To waste time wishing that this isn’t true is to take time and effort away from finding real solutions.
Human nature does indeed change slowly, if at all. However, different systems within which humans operate are able to provide different incentives, and thus achieve different results, even if human nature does not itself change.
I posted about incentives, a stateless society, and agorism earlier on and you conveniently ignored it (unless I missed the response).
You can sprinkle glitter on a turd, but it’s still a turd. Civilization, in any of its myriad forms, is nothing more then a thin coat of paint, under which lurks the same human nature that has always been there. The same strengths and weaknesses that our cave man ancestors possessed are still with us today. And it doesn’t take much to scratch a little paint off and let it all show through.
What will a man do to feed his hungry family? Darn near anything, including turning to a leader that promises food. So what does that leader do? Darn near anything, including taking food from another group; the people in the other group are not his people, so he is less likely to care if they go hungry. How does he take that food? Through war, my friend, war. Change “food” with any other resource, and the equation stays the same. I could lay out a few other scenarios involving ethnic strife or religion, but the answer is always the same…war, my friend, war…
And I probably saw “stateless society” and ignored the whole post. I have no time to address such fantastical nonsense. I prefer to deal in reality. Thanks, though.
What “human nature” is that? Are you saying there has never been a peaceful society anywhere on earth? If that is not what you are saying, why is it that if there are or were peaceful peoples, that there could not be in the future more such? Does not the existence of even one peacful society refute your argument that war is an unalterable and irresistable result of human nature?
Except that people always loose their freedom at the hands of their own governments. If you knew any history at all you would know that freedom is won by reducing the size and scope of government.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
Ah, yes, and if YOU knew any history, you would know that governments do not typically give power up voluntarily. Yes, freedom is won by reducing the size and scope of government, you are correct in that…you are incorrect, however, in believing this can happen without war. Once a government gets so large and powerful that it has the ability to oppress its people, there is usually very few other options. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but generally speaking, this is the way of the world.