[Enigma]

(06-14-2014 08:10 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

I don't believe that the Germans were bombed during WWI, at least in any real sense. As for China and Russia being able to reach the US with missiles or planes, I think the Russians could do it with missiles. I don't believe the Chinese could.

You may be right. I know they were bombed during WWI, but I'm not a history buff, so it may have been pretty inconsequential.

(06-14-2014 08:24 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

Quote:

As for China and Russia being able to reach the US with missiles or planes, I think the Russians could do it with missiles. I don't believe the Chinese could.

Both China and Russia could. Submarines help.

To the point of causing significant and strategic damage? I'm sure they could sneak a few missiles through, but do you believe they could actually pose a threat to the mainland US on a major level, is what I'm saying?

I'm talking huge blows to infrastructure to the point of dethroning the US as a superpower?

(06-14-2014 08:15 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

Second comment was an indirect response to Enigma's "And again, we're comparing our soldiers to the Chinese, who aren't exactly paragons of masculinity." No harm done, just wanted to get the other side on record.

Quote:

As for calling Chinese men pussies, don't underestimate your opponent. Of course city dwellers are going to be soft. If you want, I can take you to the countryside and teach you a few insults. See how well you do.

Saying someone isn't the epitome or paragon of masculinity is not saying they're pussies. The fact that I moved from the US to Asia should tell you I'm not on some "rah rah USA's the best" tip and I definitely don't want to live in a potential warzone.

But a spade is a spade. They don't have a particularly masculine culture and as Lizard pointed out, they're typically much smaller than their American counterpart.

I can take you to country areas in the US where you won't even make it up the driveway. Hell, you can't even walk through certain areas of Chicago, a major city.

We could go on like this forever, my point is that focusing on the masculinity of the men on either side is rather pointless.

[TonySandos]

If the west is experiencing some sort of macroconscious push toward war than it's a suicidal one.

[El Chinito loco]

American military supremacy is designed for vast conventional warfare. However if it was a full scale war with 2 conventional armies with a much higher combined population and actual weapons of mass destruction then the outcome is uncertain.

People assume it'll be just China but I think Russia is a much more realistic threat. Putin is actually trying to bring back the glory of the Soviet state. Russia is eyeballing the arctic because it's now drillable thanks to melting polar caps and there's billions upon billions in natural resources lying beneath. This flashpoint was recently covered in Vice. There is a joint task force with Nato allies that trains there for that reason.

The most likely flashpoint that the U.S. will have with China is over the Spratley island conflict. However, it's still pretty unlikely to blow up into mass military engagement.

I don't know why people are so eager to see something like this happen though. A modern war between two countries armed with vast conventional armies AND WMDs will not be any kind of glorious war. It'll just be lots of missiles flying overhead, mini nukes, and fuel air explosives being dropped on each other. No matter how little you think of China it's still not a half-assed nation of dirt farmers like Iraq. Neither is Russia for that matter. They can bring serious civ changing damage in a war.

[Quintus Curtius]

Interesting thread. We should be careful not to make unsound deductions from Lizard's initial premises, though.

Lizard, I almost always find myself in agreement with you, but here I fear you may be perched on a wobbling tightrope.

It is absolutely true that war is an inescapable and inherent part of the human condition. It has been with us ever since the first primitive humans competed for land and game on the steppes of East Africa. It always will be with us. And it is also true that long periods of peace are inevitably broken by warfare.

It is also true that, for the most part, our decadence and decline is traceable to a post-1945 protracted period of peace. American citizens have not experienced any sort of military hardship since the 1860s. No foreign army has molested American shores since 1814. By any measure, we've had it too good here.

In the face of a major conflict, all of this feminism nonsense and other such decadence would go right out the window. I certainly do agree with that.

But where I take some issue is the fact that you may be overlooking an equally important truth: catastrophic wars destroy more than they regenerate, and any major future conflict will plunge the participants into multiple circles of hell.

Your arguments sound much to me like those of the late 19th century social Darwinists and European nationalists, who rhapsodized about the cathartic benefits of war, while forgetting the horrifying destruction that the modern engines of war---machine gun, airplane, artillery, and tank--could produce.

And it also needs to be said that modern war is no "purifying" experience: almost always, it is the most fit, the most healthy, and the best men who are killed, leaving the less fit at home to inherit the earth.

There is no purifying. There is only degradation, shame, and the sickening putrescence of death.

French, British, and German nationalists on the eve of 1914 thought much the same way. They thought war would come as some sort of purifying tonic that would galvanize their societies, purge them of their weaknesses, and restore their health. Don't take my word for it. Look at the writings themselves.

And we know how that turned out.

Be careful what you wish for. I understand you are not calling for anything, but some of these observations can be so easily misconstrued.

He who would light the torch of global war in this modern era can only hope for chaos and a restoration of pre-industrial society.

It would be a catastrophe.


.

[Sp5]

(06-14-2014 03:19 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

Sp5, did you read my post? I never said that nuclear war was "necessary" or "desirable". Only that the war that will come will not be a "civil war" but a major global conflict, and that this conflict will very possibly (but not necessarily) involve a limited nuclear exchange. Nuclear weapons have already been used once; it is fanciful to imagine that there is some guarantee they will never be used again.

Far from being "a bit of a canard", the technological progress made during major wars is massive and the role of wars in spurring and catalyzing this progress is absolutely unarguable. "Weapons" are not some magical items mysteriously removed in any facet of their development from other machines and devices; indeed, these are the objects that reward most fundamentally brilliant coups of engineering and applied mathematics. The technologies of war extend the senses -- it is no accident that Leonardo, one of the few proper men of genius that existed in the history of mankind, was continually driven to imagine and sketch out war machines -- he understood their eminence in the world of created objects. And of course, the last World War, and the Cold War since then, have entirely driven progress in cryptology which underlies the most important developments in modern computing -- and this, too, will be accelerated by the unimaginable levels of cryptological warfare that will accompany the next global conflict.

Finally, it is of course true that the personal experience of war is not only "not pleasant" but unspeakably brutal and terrible. What does that have to do with the role that war plays in the progress of mankind? Nothing. It is crucial to distinguish the subjective aspects of the experience of a phenomenon from its point and its objective consequences; otherwise one's thinking becomes as muddled as that of a female or a gay academic who thinks that wars are "bad" and "irrational" and will therefore never really happen again.

Remember, finally, that our real war is not with each other; it is with the world of dead and obdurate materials that surround us and eventually take us back into their silence and darkness. That is the fundamental reason why we as a species periodically submit ourselves to the terrible conditions of sustained combat pressure, as we seek the deadly concentration that enables the bouts of explosive progress which we need to continue to advance upon our true and implacable enemy.

I read all of your essay.

You wrote:

Quote:

A major war is craved, necessary, and inevitable.

and

Quote:

Such a war will be savage; limited nuclear exchanges possibly including successful delivery of nuclear bombs to the US mainland are entirely plausible, maybe even likely.

Readers can draw their own conclusions.

As for personal experience, yes it means something, but not just in the experience of war itself. Whether you liked the experience of war or didn't like it, one thing is that it gives you a sense of perspective. You learn that small shit does not matter, and you don't get upset about every little thing.

I was happy to see the short-haired tattooed girl barista with-an-attitude when I got back, I was amused. I really don't care much about transgender pastors, I know that in a world with seven billion people, and a USA with 300 million plus people with some freedom are going to make all kinds of choices. People on this board get too upset about Shit Other People Do that has no affect on them.

Call me a contrarian, call me a beta, call me a male feminist, but I'll take feminist bitches with short hair on Twitter over nukes on San Diego or even the USS Ronald Reagan being sunk in the Sea of Japan.

Writing about what a great thing a general war would be without any experience of it reminds me of all of the think-tank academics who are always cranking out such papers who condescend to military professionals.

The other thing about your essay is your naive certainty about the outcomes of the war and your omissions of certain undesirable effects.

"War is the health of the state." There hasn't been a war which did not lead to the advance of the state and more control over individuals. Even this "War on Terror" has brought total surveillance, the removal of due process rules and the militarization of local police. A general war would stamp out freedom altogether. Maybe you think that would be a good thing - no more feminists on Twitter!

WWII has been credited with advancing feminism by placing women in factories doing traditional male work. Since a future war, especially one in the Pacific mostly fought at sea would bring more drones and automation, women would have an equal role in fighting that war. This would not lead to a return to your idea of "natural roles."

The USA could lose, after having its economy and infrastructure destroyed. It could lose in a limited way, by being humiliated in the western Pacific with the sinking of a few carriers and submarines, or it could lose in a big way, say the occupation of Hawaii.

I can't think of a more radical idea than advocating a general war to restructure society. It is the antithesis of conservatism.

When I was reading the essay, I imagined it being read in this accent:

[infowarrior1]

(06-14-2014 11:58 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

Interesting thread. We should be careful not to make unsound deductions from Lizard's initial premises, though.

Lizard, I almost always find myself in agreement with you, but here I fear you may be perched on a wobbling tightrope.

It is absolutely true that war is an inescapable and inherent part of the human condition. It has been with us ever since the first primitive humans competed for land and game on the steppes of East Africa. It always will be with us. And it is also true that long periods of peace are inevitably broken by warfare.

It is also true that, for the most part, our decadence and decline is traceable to a post-1945 protracted period of peace. American citizens have not experienced any sort of military hardship since the 1860s. No foreign army has molested American shores since 1814. By any measure, we've had it too good here.

In the face of a major conflict, all of this feminism nonsense and other such decadence would go right out the window. I certainly do agree with that.

But where I take some issue is the fact that you may be overlooking an equally important truth: catastrophic wars destroy more than they regenerate, and any major future conflict will plunge the participants into multiple circles of hell.

Your arguments sound much to me like those of the late 19th century social Darwinists and European nationalists, who rhapsodized about the cathartic benefits of war, while forgetting the horrifying destruction that the modern engines of war---machine gun, airplane, artillery, and tank--could produce.

And it also needs to be said that modern war is no "purifying" experience: almost always, it is the most fit, the most healthy, and the best men who are killed, leaving the less fit at home to inherit the earth.

There is no purifying. There is only degradation, shame, and the sickening putrescence of death.

French, British, and German nationalists on the eve of 1914 thought much the same way. They thought war would come as some sort of purifying tonic that would galvanize their societies, purge them of their weaknesses, and restore their health. Don't take my word for it. Look at the writings themselves.

And we know how that turned out.

Be careful what you wish for. I understand you are not calling for anything, but some of these observations can be so easily misconstrued.

He who would light the torch of global war in this modern era can only hope for chaos and a restoration of pre-industrial society.

It would be a catastrophe.


.

I will like to add that since militaries enlist the cream of men. And many of die in war. War may have a dysgenic effect by its preservation of the weak and stupid while killing off the best and brightest.

[TonySandos]

Sp5 pretty much summed up my take on this

[void]

Globalization aka international capitalism has replaced war. In both cases the participants want to gain resources (land, energy, materials) by trading money aka life time/work hours and dead people. Compared to constant warfare, capitalism actually is productive.
Rapid technological advancement in both capitalism and war time are a result, not a cause. The pressure to develop new technology increases during war time, and in a capitalistic system there is always pressure. Armies with old technology will die, companies with old technology/products will die.
(i.e. Nokia)
Fight for survival and reproduction is every evolving lifes program.

[Foolsgo1d]

A major conflict would not see limited nuclear exchanges, quite the opposite.

In Britain the major targets are; London, Manchester, Midlands area, North West and Dover.

Major targets for USA; NORAD, Washington (x2), naval bases, California(or entire West coast), the corn belt.

Those are just off the top of my head and both the Chinese and Russians have enough WMDs to hit every major and secondary target twice over with room to spare to hit US battle fleets.

Why would each side stick to conventional tactics when the threat of ICBMs and tactical nukes is a good option?

All it would take for a country to be on its knee's and the majority of a population to be dead inside a year is the food supply to be destroyed, no significant medical aid and no government to enforce stability.

Look at Hurricane Sandy, a weak yet massive superstorm caused havoc across the USA. Can you imagine a dozen nuclear weapons going off and then down the line storms like sandy come along to finish the job?

I cannot say how many would die in the initial exchange but that 300 million will dwindle to the low 7 figures real quick.

[TonySandos]

It would be an event similar to Toba. A superpower vs. Superpower war is something no one should want.

[Feisbook Control]

(06-14-2014 08:37 PM)Pepini Wrote:  

(06-14-2014 08:23 PM)cooledcannon Wrote:  

(06-14-2014 08:12 PM)Pepini Wrote:  

There was only one empire: The romans.

I thought historically the roman empire was nowhere near the biggest, or even top 5.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lar...population

If Brazil plays agains Suriname they will probably defeat it for 12-0. Does this mean Brazil is the best team in the world? Even though they had the biggest goal difference. No.

If Brazil plays against Spain, Germany, Italy, and wins 12-0 to each one of them then yes it´s the best team in the world.

You gotta beat the best to be the best.

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about with this. Rome didn't fight the best in its day because it never managed to penetrate far into Western Asia, let alone Central or East Asia.

On the other hand, the British and the Mongols both saw off the greatest contenders of their day on multiple occasions.

[The Lizard of Oz]

QC, thanks for the thoughtful response.

(06-14-2014 11:58 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

It is absolutely true that war is an inescapable and inherent part of the human condition. It has been with us ever since the first primitive humans competed for land and game on the steppes of East Africa. It always will be with us. And it is also true that long periods of peace are inevitably broken by warfare.

Indeed -- and that in itself is important to understand. I don't know about "always" -- the distant future, in which the human being changes, is impossible to extrapolate to. But what is clear is that it will be with us for the foreseeable future. Steven Pinker academic types who believe that war is on its way out because it's "irrational" are as deluded as they could possibly be.

(06-14-2014 11:58 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

It is also true that, for the most part, our decadence and decline is traceable to a post-1945 protracted period of peace. American citizens have not experienced any sort of military hardship since the 1860s. No foreign army has molested American shores since 1814. By any measure, we've had it too good here.

Again, that is a very important point so I'm glad you agree. And I wouldn't even characterize it as "having it too good" -- the moral aspects are not really important here. The main thing is to understand the facts.

(06-14-2014 11:58 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

In the face of a major conflict, all of this feminism nonsense and other such decadence would go right out the window. I certainly do agree with that.

So far we agree on the following: a major conflict is inevitable at some point; and to the extent that the current social climate can be characterized by decay and decadence, all of that will be swept away in the wake of such a conflict.

Wouldn't you say that those are extremely important facts to recognize?

It follows from them, for example, that any idea that the current trends are inexorable and irreversible is logically mooted, since an event that is inevitably coming will obliterate them in its wake.

It follows that all ideas of "cultural collapse" are mooted as well -- since they cannot be extrapolated past such an event -- which will certainly occur at some point.

Sometimes it's important to stop and understand just what follows, logically, from a few simple observations.

(06-14-2014 11:58 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

But where I take some issue is the fact that you may be overlooking an equally important truth: catastrophic wars destroy more than they regenerate, and any major future conflict will plunge the participants into multiple circles of hell.

QC, those are two separate statements.

I agree with this: "any major future conflict will plunge the participants into multiple circles of hell". How could one possibly argue against that? The subjective experience of war is hell for almost everyone.

"Catastrophic wars destroy more than they regenerate" -- in the short term, for sure. In the longer (not much longer term)? I'm not so sure.

WWII was unprecedented in its savagery and destruction. A mere 20 years after it ended, the US and Europe (even Germany) were thriving like never before, and western society was virtually unrecognizable, so profound were the technological advances that it brought in its wake.

(06-14-2014 11:58 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

Your arguments sound much to me like those of the late 19th century social Darwinists and European nationalists, who rhapsodized about the cathartic benefits of war, while forgetting the horrifying destruction that the modern engines of war---machine gun, airplane, artillery, and tank--could produce.

And it also needs to be said that modern war is no "purifying" experience: almost always, it is the most fit, the most healthy, and the best men who are killed, leaving the less fit at home to inherit the earth.

There is no purifying. There is only degradation, shame, and the sickening putrescence of death.

French, British, and German nationalists on the eve of 1914 thought much the same way. They thought war would come as some sort of purifying tonic that would galvanize their societies, purge them of their weaknesses, and restore their health. Don't take my word for it. Look at the writings themselves.

And we know how that turned out.

QC, my arguments have absolutely nothing to with the mystical calls for a "purifying" war. I never used such emotional terms.

However, it is unarguably true that major wars, while being immensely destructive in the present and to their participants, have catalyzed explosive spurts of technological progress that contributed to rapid growth, innovation, and regeneration in their wake. That has been the case throughout history, and it is no accident. Indeed, I argue that enabling such explosive progress is the objective point of wars -- the real reason why mankind engages in them.

"There is only degradation, shame, and the sickening putrescence of death." -- that is a rhetorical figure, but it is not actually true. That is not all there is -- even during a war, there are also engineers trying to frantically figure out solutions to problems in real time; there are cryptologists and applied mathematicians making progress under combat pressure; there are factories that have to figure out ways to churn out weaponry as efficiently as possible; there are field surgeons who are learning what can be done to save lives in real time. These things are important -- indeed their importance cannot be overstated.

Any time one is tempted to construct a rhetorical figure starting with "there is only...", it is likely that one is betraying the true richness of life -- and perhaps even missing the point by taking an excessively narrow view.

(06-14-2014 11:58 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

Be careful what you wish for. I understand you are not calling for anything, but some of these observations can be so easily misconstrued.

He who would light the torch of global war in this modern era can only hope for chaos and a restoration of pre-industrial society.

It would be a catastrophe.


.

QC, as you said, I am not calling for anything. I think the only way my observations can be misconstrued is if someone wants to misconstrue them.

It is not in my power to "light the torch of global war", nor am I (absurdly) attempting to do so.

However, I believe that such a war is coming; that it will be catastrophic for those who participate in it and experience it, but not catastrophic for mankind at large -- indeed, that it will be followed by a period of rapid rebuilding, growth, and explosive innovation. I see no reason to think otherwise.

[Alpharius]

(06-15-2014 07:00 AM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  

A major conflict would not see limited nuclear exchanges, quite the opposite.

In Britain the major targets are; London, Manchester, Midlands area, North West and Dover.

Major targets for USA; NORAD, Washington (x2), naval bases, California(or entire West coast), the corn belt.

Those are just off the top of my head and both the Chinese and Russians have enough WMDs to hit every major and secondary target twice over with room to spare to hit US battle fleets.

Why would each side stick to conventional tactics when the threat of ICBMs and tactical nukes is a good option?

All it would take for a country to be on its knee's and the majority of a population to be dead inside a year is the food supply to be destroyed, no significant medical aid and no government to enforce stability.

Look at Hurricane Sandy, a weak yet massive superstorm caused havoc across the USA. Can you imagine a dozen nuclear weapons going off and then down the line storms like sandy come along to finish the job?

I cannot say how many would die in the initial exchange but that 300 million will dwindle to the low 7 figures real quick.

Mutually assured destruction. You need to hit not only the US but France, the UK, and Israel, too (though Israel might be pretty hesitant to join in a retaliatory attack). China, N. Korea, Russia, India, and Pakistan each have their nukes, though only China and Russia have the capability to hit the US. The US has what, 14 submarines operating at any given time carrying nuclear weapons? Each carrying multiple nukes capable of hitting targets all over the world. The problem with a first strike is that an opponent needs to take out targets like this, in addition to fixed placed targets like missile silos and airfields.

Seriously though, hope and pray these things never get used. Being in SEA will only prolong the amount of time it takes for the effects of a full scale nuclear war to reach you. Say China, Russia, the US, France, and the UK envelope each other in a maelstrom of nuclear fire - in addition to nuclear winter and massive amounts of fallout across three continents, you also have the worlds primary economic powerhouses destroyed overnight. How unstable will any developing country be when their primary trade partners and givers of aid are gone? How long until war breaks out between the surviving nations when suddenly they're in charge but don't have the diplomatic corps the world leaders have built up over the past century? How long until the mass exodus of refugees becomes a serious concern?

It will be catastrophic for humanity should such a thing come to pass.

[Quintus Curtius]

@Lizard:

Well said.

I suppose my comments earlier were not so much directed at your statements themselves, but on the inferences that the careless or unscrupulous might make from your statements. In the main, I agree with you.

Maybe I've just been haunted in recent weeks by a 20 CD audio book I just finished, Max Hastings's "Catastrophe 1914." There are uncomfortable similarities between Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, and our own time now:

* Long period of relative peace and stability that made war seem like a thing of the past.
* Tight interconnection of the ruling houses of the major participants (England, Germany, Russia, Austria).
* Military and the public blissfully unaware of what modern war truly meant.
* A complicated alliance system that made it difficult to stop a conflagration once started.

The analogy is not perfect, of course.

But I do expect some sort of conflict to arise with China within the next 50 years or so. Why? I think history suggests this as an outcome.

Usually in history, when two rival powers have competed for the same economic turf, the one that has failed in the economic competition has made war upon the other. China's continued economic growth, its armament, and its increasing penetration of Latin American markets is not going to sit well with the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. Recall that Japan in the 1930s had signed deals with Uruguay for the establishment of free trade zones that directly challenged American economic power in its own perceived backyard.

[The Lizard of Oz]

(06-15-2014 12:37 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

You wrote:

Quote:

A major war is craved, necessary, and inevitable.

and

Quote:

Such a war will be savage; limited nuclear exchanges possibly including successful delivery of nuclear bombs to the US mainland are entirely plausible, maybe even likely.

Readers can draw their own conclusions.

Sp5, what conclusions can "readers" draw from that?

To say that a major war is craved, necessary, and inevitable is an observation about the mood and the direction of the times -- what is in the air, and what is coming. I believe that it is an undeniable observation. Men grow weary of the extended peacetime and crave its opposite; and its opposite arrives, sooner or later. That has been the case throughout history, and the current period is no different in that respect. That is all.

(06-15-2014 12:37 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

As for personal experience, yes it means something, but not just in the experience of war itself. Whether you liked the experience of war or didn't like it, one thing is that it gives you a sense of perspective. You learn that small shit does not matter, and you don't get upset about every little thing.

I was happy to see the short-haired tattooed girl barista with-an-attitude when I got back, I was amused. I really don't care much about transgender pastors, I know that in a world with seven billion people, and a USA with 300 million plus people with some freedom are going to make all kinds of choices. People on this board get too upset about Shit Other People Do that has no affect on them.

Call me a contrarian, call me a beta, call me a male feminist, but I'll take feminist bitches with short hair on Twitter over nukes on San Diego or even the USS Ronald Reagan being sunk in the Sea of Japan.

That's fine -- but taking it or not is not your choice to make, nor is it mine. A major war will happen, or not, no matter how we feel about it.

If you read my post carefully, you might note that I ended it with a call to enjoy the stale peace while it lasts -- including even the short-haired barista. Indeed that is the only thing in the entire post that I called for.

(06-15-2014 12:37 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

Writing about what a great thing a general war would be without any experience of it reminds me of all of the think-tank academics who are always cranking out such papers who condescend to military professionals.

Again, please distinguish between the subjective experience of war (or anything else) and its objective purposes and consequences. If one cannot separate these two things, there is no thinking at all. That is one reason women are not very good thinkers, by the way.

I did not say that a war would be "great". Fucking a luscious 18 year old girl in every hole is great; war is not.

What does that have to do with its objective consequences?

(06-15-2014 12:37 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

The other thing about your essay is your naive certainty about the outcomes of the war and your omissions of certain undesirable effects.

"War is the health of the state." There hasn't been a war which did not lead to the advance of the state and more control over individuals. Even this "War on Terror" has brought total surveillance, the removal of due process rules and the militarization of local police. A general war would stamp out freedom altogether. Maybe you think that would be a good thing - no more feminists on Twitter!

WWII has been credited with advancing feminism by placing women in factories doing traditional male work. Since a future war, especially one in the Pacific mostly fought at sea would bring more drones and automation, women would have an equal role in fighting that war. This would not lead to a return to your idea of "natural roles."

The USA could lose, after having its economy and infrastructure destroyed. It could lose in a limited way, by being humiliated in the western Pacific with the sinking of a few carriers and submarines, or it could lose in a big way, say the occupation of Hawaii.

I disagree with these specifics, but they were not the point of my post.

(06-15-2014 12:37 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

I can't think of a more radical idea than advocating a general war to restructure society. It is the antithesis of conservatism.

I am advocating nothing. Is that so hard to comprehend?

And "conservatism" -- what do these meaningless labels have to do with anything? Come on.

(06-15-2014 12:37 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

When I was reading the essay, I imagined it being read in this accent:

Well, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed...

But seriously, I am disappointed with the use of shaming language and rhetorical devices of this kind. They have no place in trying to understand the world and its tendencies.

[Sp5]

You say a war is "necessary" and "craved" and will have all of these great results in "revolutionary and otherwise often impossible to achieve technological progress," and bringing "women . . to their proper station in life as men become men" --- but you're not "craving" or "advocating" war yourself?

Peace is "stale," "overripe," "shameful and distasteful," and "disgusting[ly] sweet[]" -- but you're not against peace?

Is it fair to say you're "in favor" of this war? That you think it would be a good thing? That you would be happy when it comes, at least for awhile until you heard the explosions, the EAS alert message, or the Chinese soldiers started shooting at you after you were drafted and sent to Luzon?

You can't debate someone who runs from the implication of their words. What you wrote is an argument for war. Don't weasel. Do you think this war would be good or not? If you can't stand behind the clear meaning of what you say or complain about a little mockery a' la Dr. Strangelove, how will you fare in the big war?

This is also shark-jumping, almost a mirror image of #EndFathersDay in its conformance to the corollary to Poe's Law:

Quote:

The core of Poe's Law is that a parody of something extreme by nature becomes impossible to differentiate from sincere extremism. A corollary of Poe's Law is the reverse phenomenon: sincere fundamentalist beliefs can be mistaken for a parody of those beliefs.

#NukeFeminism

[Wutang]

(06-14-2014 08:01 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

A lot of ignorance about China going on in this thread. China's not an imperialistic country. Never was, never will be. But as China grows stronger, their ability to tell America to mind its own business in the Pacific increases as well. If (and when) conflict kicks off, it'll revolve around and center on China's backyard. That'll level the playing field quite a bit.

As for calling Chinese men pussies, don't underestimate your opponent. Of course city dwellers are going to be soft. If you want, I can take you to the countryside and teach you a few insults. See how well you do.

China's power has always been soft power - not from it's military. Even at it's height of imperial power such as during the Tang Dynasty (widely considered to be one of the greatest dynasties in it's history) they were losing to the Arabs and I recall at certain times when they attempted to use a heavy hand on their tributary states such as Vietnam and Korea as opposed to their usual soft power strategies they got their asses kicked by them.

Look at what China's doing now - investing heavily in Africa, building Confucius Institutes around the world, working on it's hacking capabilities and the like. What are they doing in Taiwan right now? Trying to foster more economic co-dependence as opposed to making big moves like Putin has been doing in Ukraine.

[RexImperator]

I think if the USA were to face a major war now, it would could likely be the end of the country as we know it. It may emerge nominally victorious, much as Britain after WW2, but in a much weakened state.

I can't see much good coming from it in our age of technological, and especially nuclear warfare. This isn't the age of Achilles on the plains of Troy... Granted, you have your spec ops guys and infantry etc. but let's be realistic...a lot would be happening remotely.

Theodore Roosevelt used to wax about the manly virtues sharpened through warfare, until he lost a son in WW1.

Major wars cause destruction to families and trauma that lasts for generations. Look at the mess Eastern Europe is still in today.

[The Lizard of Oz]

(06-15-2014 11:12 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

You say a war is "necessary" and "craved" and will have all of these great results in "revolutionary and otherwise often impossible to achieve technological progress," and bringing "women . . to their proper station in life as men become men" --- but you're not "craving" or "advocating" war yourself?

Yep, that's correct. I have absolutely no personal love of war or desire to be in one. I have no desire to die in a bad way or see people that I care about die in a bad way. I have no desire to even be inconvenienced by the general mayhem that major war brings about.

What does that have to do with the points of my post? Less than nothing.

I believe that revolutionary and otherwise impossible to achieve technological progress is the objective point of wars; it is certainly true that it has come in the wake of major wars before, and there is every reason to believe it will happen again.

It is also true, as I stated, that as the extended peacetime grows stale, men lose their sense of purpose and focus, women become crazed, and society as a whole becomes preoccupied with trivia and, in some ways, decadent. And it is further true, in my opinion, that these trends would be obliterated as if they never existed in the wake of a major conflict.

Those are the observations. My subjective feelings about them -- or anyone else's -- are entirely irrelevant.

(06-15-2014 11:12 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

Peace is "stale," "overripe," "shameful and distasteful," and "disgusting[ly] sweet[]" -- but you're not against peace?

I did not say that peace, as such, was "stale" or "overripe". I said that we are currently in the late, stale, stages of an extended peacetime. Can you see the difference? It is an important one.

I'm not "for" peace or "against" peace. What would that even mean? Certainly I would personally prefer to live during peacetime, even though there are many characteristics of the stale peace that I, and others, find distasteful, because they are.

(06-15-2014 11:12 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

Is it fair to say you're "in favor" of this war? That you think it would be a good thing? That you would be happy when it comes, at least for awhile until you heard the explosions, the EAS alert message, or the Chinese soldiers started shooting at you after you were drafted and sent to Luzon?

Nope. It is not even a matter of "fair" or otherwise -- it's just irrelevant.

To ask whether a war would be a "good" thing is a childish question. It is useless to think of events in those terms. Rather, one can try to understand their point, likely course, and consequences.

(06-15-2014 11:12 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

You can't debate someone who runs from the implication of their words. What you wrote is an argument for war. Don't weasel. Do you think this war would be good or not? If you can't stand behind the clear meaning of what you say or complain about a little mockery a' la Dr. Strangelove, how will you fare in the big war?

See above. Whether I think a war would be a "good thing" or not is a silly question. I do not think in those terms because that is not thinking at all.

Again.

When dealing with a complex phenomenon, make distinctions between its different aspects. The subjective experience of war -- which is hellish for almost all of its participants -- is one thing. The objective point of why mankind engages in wars -- which, in my opinion, is to create circumstances of combat pressure that catalyze progress vis a vis materials -- our true enemy -- is another. And the consequences of a war for the social and cultural climate are a different thing yet again.

What really short-circuits any thinking is the use of shaming devices in lieu of arguments. "You are saying that war would have some great consequences -- therefore you are saying that war is great -- therefore you are for it -- therefore you are a fool or a monster". That is how females "argue"; we can do better.

[Sp5]

Quote:

The objective point of why mankind engages in wars -- which, in my opinion, is to create circumstances of combat pressure that catalyze progress vis a vis materials -- our true enemy -- is another.

Your theory of war being caused by "combat pressure," some kind of mystical battle to shape "materials, our true enemy" into new things - is absurd.

First, I don't regard a lump of iron ore as an enemy, even metaphorically.

Second, there are more examples of material being shaped into new things during peace than war. Just off the top, the airplane, automobiles, the railroad, the cotton gin, the steam engine, nuclear reactors, radio and television, dynamos, the assembly line, and electric lights were all peacetime inventions.

On the other hand, what innovations did WW I bring? WW II, yes some advances in aircraft, rocket and ship design, the atomic bomb, efficient production technologies, and ENIAC. Not really that much, and a lot of that stuff would have come along anyways.

Most of the innovations of the recent wars have been negative to human freedom - surveillance and biometric technologies, drones.

Your refusal to engage on the likely effect of war on freedom is telling - I suspect you're not that much in favor of freedom and think the whip hand of a strong state is needed.

What did Vietnam bring? And what was the opportunity cost of the spending in the war in Vietnam not being spent on other things, like the space program? If the USA wasn't so addicted to wars, we could have been on Mars now and have fusion power.

Countries go to war for a lot of reasons, mostly stupid and/or evil ones. There aren't too many instances where a war could not have been avoided through prudence. Certainly WW I was avoidable. Quintus Curtius mentioned that war in the context of your rhetoric resembling turn-of-the-century Social Darwinists and nationalists who saw war as a catharsis and led their countries into the futility WW I.

War with China is not inevitable. Over the course of years, it's possible that Taiwan and the PRC will converge, that condominiums and accommodations will be worked out over things like the Spratlys and Paracels.

Your idea that war is inevitable and will bring a cathartic improvement in society and technology is worth opposing, just because history shows that the propagation of similar bullshit into public discourse in the past pushed countries into the waste of World War I, which of course led to World War II.

[Samseau]

I was hoping some kind of cool debate would come out of this thread, but there's just a lot of hot air about war but nothing really concrete to support the idea of a global war.

There will be no global war because civil war is 100x more likely. Oz's third premise of civil war being impossible is simply wrong. There is nothing to be gained from war right now; not land, no money, not even prestige.

On the other hand, most of the world's major economies are heading for bankruptcy. Invading America is impossible, so no one is going to attempt it. Yet there already has been multiple civil wars in America and there is a major political divide forming between Americans right now.

I do not think a new Civil War in America will lead to the same kind of mass slaughter the 1860's Civil War did, but maybe a million here or there will die as a result. Regardless there will be new boarders in America and it's coming whether or not anyone wants it. Bankruptcy guarantees it, and the Democrats are incapable of balancing the budget.

[All or Nothing]

(06-15-2014 12:48 PM)Sp5 Wrote:  

If the USA wasn't so addicted to wars, we could have been on Mars now and have fusion power.

The US going to war is a mixed bag. I would say it is good in part because it maintains and grows US ideological dominance over the world.

Also, it is good for local businessmen who can wrangle Congressman and Senators into getting the US to invade countries that are ripe with ore. This leads to the US extracting real wealth from other countries and adding it to the overall wealth of the US.

The last good thing about war is that it can maintain mutually beneficial financial partnerships between the US and other countries by the US fighting wars for other countries.

The bad parts about war is that it is a massive driver in US debt. The US war machine also behaves like a black hole for the brightest minds in the country sucking all of them in, leading to a reduction in brain power for developing other parts of technology.

The war machine is good for the US overall. It just needs to be severely reduced in scope (at least halved in size).

(06-15-2014 01:19 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

Invading America is impossible, so no one is going to attempt it.

If the US breaks out in civil war, invasion from outside forces becomes possible.

The US has large quantities of ore and oil buried in the land.

A civil war could give powerful countries (ie: China) a great opportunity to come in and take it while chaos is happening internally.

[The Lizard of Oz]

Sp5,

I am delighted that we are now getting into the meat of the argument, particularly what I believe is the most interesting point made in my post -- that the true purpose of wars is to create conditions of combat pressure that enable rapid technological progress. I was hoping that someone would address that point, especially by disagreement and dismissal.

As a side note: your surmise about my political views is 100% wrong. To the extent I have such views, I am an old-fashioned 19th century liberal (nothing to do with what "liberal" has come to mean in the US at present). I believe in free markets governed by limited, fair and transparent laws, and minimal government intervention in the lives of people. My political heroes, if I had to name any, are J. S. Mill, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman. I hate fascism, communism, and all statist and authoritarian movements on the left and the right alike. All of the above would be obvious to anyone who read my posts elsewhere on the forum (not that you or anyone else is obliged to do so). So there you have it.

Now that we have gotten this low-level stuff out of the way, we can proceed.

********************

1. What does it mean to say that our true war is the war against materials?

The human being recognizes one fact above all others: that it is different from the materials that surround it, and from which it is made. This is a difference in kind -- the most important difference in kind that we are aware of.

It is hard to understand the nature of this difference -- it does not mean, for example, that the materials of which the human being itself is made are somehow special as such or are governed by special laws. Nevertheless, the difference is there, and it is recognized by everyone.

The existence of sentience in the world of materials is threatened at every turn; the physical shell that embodies sentience can be and is destroyed, either by violent disruptions, or by the slow accumulation of errors and wear and tear that characterizes aging. Eventually, all sentience subsides back into the mere darkness and silence of the materials from which it is made. It is in that sense that a lump of stone can be, metaphorically, seen as the true enemy: it is that which we know to be different in kind from us, by which we are threatened, and to which we (as individuals, but not sentience as a whole) succumb.

Once it is understood that there are two things that are different in kind, one can see that the purpose and meaning of sentience is to extend its control over materials, both the ones that surround it (our environment) and the ones that embody it (our bodies). The linear, progressive, and cumulative nature of the creation of mathematics, science, and technology is the clearest expression of the unceasing and relentless activity of sentience in consolidating and extending its ability to control the merely material and protect itself against it.

2. How can one understand the purpose of wars?

Given that the singular purpose of sentience is to extend its control over materials, how can one understand wars between human beings, in which sentience seems to turn on itself and engage in savage, relentless, and seemingly irrational destruction of its own kind?

I believe that the answer to this is that human beings, who realize instinctively what their purpose is, crave conditions under which the sensation of purposefulness is heightened and pressurized. War provides such a condition as it renders every move and every decision that is made by men immediately and palpably consequential. I believe that this is the source of the intense interest that combat provokes in men: everything you do counts, and the stakes are the highest at all times. It is why war stories of various kinds (and their simulacra in other fields such as sports) are so endlessly captivating; it is why the friendships forged in wars are the deepest of which men are capable. There is nothing that interests men more than the sense of immediate, shared, and urgent purpose.

One can now see how all these things are related. Human sentience recognizes that its purpose is the struggle for control of materials; men, in turn, crave conditions where the struggle is maximized and made manifest in real time; and where it is a matter of life or death at every instant. Because men who have not experienced such conditions are so intensely drawn to them, they seek them out and seek out their creation.

And while the men who participate in wars get more than they bargained for -- and experience on their flesh what materials can really do to humans -- sentience gets what it requires because the pressurized conditions of combat and mobilization catalyze the development of innovative technologies and their rapid and pervasive implementation.

The human individual is (rationally) sluggish and lazy; it is always ready, as an individual, to sag under the weight of materials as it ages, since it knows that in its own life it is destined to decline and die. It is a truth that everyone with any life experience knows, that people are only very good at solving problems if they have skin in the game; and then they can get scarily good, very fast. During peacetime, the way of creating "skin in the game" is money; and money works extremely well -- but it is nothing compared to the ultimate skin in the game -- your own hide, and that of your loved ones and your people. That is sometimes the only way the really tricky problems get figured out; especially in a society that has grown stale, risk-averse, and cowardly as a result of an extended peacetime.

Finally, as far as specifics go, it is naive to itemize particular inventions as being the products of war and others of peacetime, as if these things can be separated. There are no barriers between all areas of human knowledge; different devices are not separate line items that are arrived at one by one. What happens is that a great deal of relatively abstract knowledge gets accumulated during the long lulls of peacetime; but it often takes the pressurized conditions of wartime to effectively remove the practical and engineering obstacles that prevent or delay the rapid conversion of this knowledge into real-life applications. These engineering problems are solved in a pressurized and accelerated manner under combat pressure and in the rebuilding and reorganization during the early peacetime phase following the end of a major conflict.

*****************

All this is not to say that all wars are "good" (which would be absurd), or justified, or that some wars (such as World War I) are not a moral disgrace -- which of course they are. It is also not to say that the pace and impact of technological innovation is the same or equally consequential in all wars. To understand the general point and driving forces behind a complex phenomenon is not the same as to arrive at some simplistic, one-size-fits-all description of all that happens or can happen in its context; life is far too rich and various for that. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the most general features of the landscape first -- both because they can sometimes be the hardest to see because they are always there staring you in the face; and because without understanding the most general features, you cannot orient yourself in the landscape at all.

[The PerSev]

It's obvious you've put a lot of thought into this theory, but personally I just can't see it. My view on the cause of war is more simplistic. War happens for the same reasons young boys form packs and get into scrapes with other boys, for the same reasons fans of rival football teams get into stadium brawls, for the same reasons crips and bloods kill each other in the streets, for the same reasons pencil-necked academics bleat at each other in pointless ideological pissing contests: tribalism.

Humans tend to associate in packs - for a myriad of shared commonalities - and then seek to combat other packs... for a myriad of differences between the groups. The manifestations are endless, but the root cause is the same. Only the flavors are different.
Much like fear, it's a biological impulse, a legacy from our less evolved 'ancestors'. And just like fear, it can be both an advantage and a hindrance to us, both a 'feature' and a 'bug'.

No offense, but your idea that the invisible hand of war is driving us toward progress is just like any other theory meant to explain or rationalize certain aspects of the human condition that are just unexplainable(and so is my tribalism theory).

It's much the same with humanity in general. Religions have their various explanations, philosophers have theirs, Newton had his mechanism which immediately spread to other domains. Some economists like Marx claimed that our lives are just a mechanical unfolding of economics, some psychologists like Freud claim that our very personalities were a deterministic result of strange sexual complexes, Darwinists claim that we are the result of random material interactions(first molecules, then organisms).

The theories are endless, and maybe each contains a piece of the puzzle. But as much as we may pretend otherwise, no one has quite figured out humanity - or war. And I suspect that no one ever will.

Some may accuse me of intellectual laziness and they're certainly free to do so, but I say that some things should just be accepted: we war because that's what humans do. We always have, and we always will.

Just my $0.02

[Jackreacher]

Perhaps this might be one of the reasons you see an introduction of more harmful elements in ones environment as a man; plastics, fluoridated water, estrogenic compounds, ball breaking social ideologies(feminism), villifying steroids, scarce quantities of nutritious food that are expensive to attain and complicated to identify, soy in food the dismantling of the family structure, divorce rape, brain washing to convince many men to be more feminine in order to get approval from females(and society). You weaken males enough they may lose the disposition to fight altogether.

This is what I think has happened in the west. Men here have no disposition to fight even for their own self improvement let alone for a country that mistreats them and ranks them as a second class citizen, same applies for the Japanese and other countries.

And this certainly isn't peace time. Around 40+ wars are currently going on in the world, with an estimated 40,000+ casualties from these conflicts in 2014 alone.