Bingo.

War is not natural to humanity. Humanity will disagree with itself and have a fight or a shouting match or even one person will kill another, but most of humanity would much rather just live their quiet lives as successfully and happily as possible.

If war were natural to humanity soldiers wouldn't stop killing after the war ended and they'd be a hell of a lot happier in wars.

kick'd and rec'd.

Most people, throughout history, never experience war first hand.

it's been a while since i heard about that. thanks for posting, the book looks good.

that your leaders have failed at diplomacy.

[center]''...and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks:
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.''

national defense, might seem to be getting short-changed until one considers its unique burden to divide the world into six military commands, have its military stationed in God-only-knows how many countries throughout the world, and employ eleven air-craft carrier battle groups to be able to exert global hegemony. Besides, no other nation has been burdened with having to make war "as often, as long, as forcefully, as expensively, as destructively, as wastefully, as senselessly, or as unsuccessfully as the United States";
this is the fruition of a long-standing, belligerent and bellicose right-wing wet dream proliferated by a fuc*in' plethora of right-wing chicken-hawks. While other industrialized nations have been free to pursue a universal system of health-care, a higher standard of living for its citizens and other residents, and a higher quality-of-life as denoted in quality-of-life ranking factors, the U.S. as fallen to or near the bottom in nearly all of these ranking factors: to wit, when a corporatist government feeds the MIC as job #1, promotes the welfare of the uber-wealthy and large corporations as job #1a, only what little is left over can be devoted to promoting the general welfare.

for our valuable resources squandered on a bloated military. Defense contractors own Congress.

as the answer will diminish in number as a result.

Among other things. The primary reason we aren't fighting as much now as we used to is because of an abundance of resources. As long as we stay rich, we will be at peace. When resources get scarce, we will start fighting again.

for my own?

Great post Uncle Joe
and EXACTLY right on


Self-actualization - not - Self-Annihilation
Imagine that....

I know you have


peace, kp

a Mother's Day Card anyway.



Peace to you, UJ.

when the bottom shrinks or is removed?

One of the most important contributors to collaborative thinking has been the employment of collaborative violence in competition for resources.

I realize I sound like a real grumpus here. I just think it unwise to ignore the more evil angels of our nature because ignoring them is the surest way to make them appear.

from shrinking or being removed.

This is also by the way, as to why I'm a strong supporter of space exploration, humanity must reach beyond our tiny blue marble.

Humanity despite the nay-sayers protestions is growing more aware of the need to maintain a balanced global ecosytem with every passing day and to the consequences of ignoring this most critical of issues.

Global warming climate change will bring that harsh lesson home if nothing else does and it will not be denied, the cost of development in regards to enivironmental impact will become an intregal part of any calculation with increased intensity.

There was no environmental movement throughout human history prior to the last half century, a relative blink in time.

Human society should've learned the major lesson against waging all out war after World War I but it took the second lesson of World War II and the development of nuclear arms to bring about that limited epiphany.

I see two ways to go, of which yours is one. We know more about our impact on the planet than any culture before us and we can do something about it.

On the other hand every species on the planet is designed to expand beyond it's available resources. We are working against the way evolution has designed us.

So while we know what we're doing to the planet there is nowhere left to expand to. I expect another Axial Age. In three hundred years it will be a different world indeed.

I certainly prefer your vision to mine.

We are supposed to use them, not rely on our relatively pitiful muscles and senses.

are part of human behavior and have been for the entire history of our species. Although biology does not assure violence, the potential will always be there. So far our big brains have been used as much for development of the tools and methods of violence as for peace.

In evolutionary terms our big brains are energy gluttons that consume a lot of resources. Diminished resources invariably result in conflict.

I think the reason we have the big brains is because of an intra-specific arms-race, like with oversize deer antlers, because, as you point out, they are very expensive, and require more than the usual sort of justification. Big brains also require expensive changes in diet: more meat, fat, calories, and that requires predation, and cooperation, and social life, because we are not equipped to hunt deer by nature. We are scavengers and omnivores by nature. The fact they prove very useful after you acquire them does not explain how you got them. It also explains the territoriality and aggression you mention. Predators are not aggressive and territorial with prey, they are aggressive with their conspecifics.

However, all that all being true, that doesn't make being belligerent NOW a good idea, the world has changed, and we have changed too, and because we have the big brains, we are not constrained as much as other creatures by our inherited capacities and tendencies. So it is simply not true that we are stuck with the past.

War is not one thing either, war in primitive societies is like sports. Tribal war begins with tribes, mass warfare begins with "civilization", and industrial war begins with us, about 200 years ago; so while it is true we are not likely to end violence any time soon, we are most certainly are not stuck with the industrial wars of the past.

And it doesn't pay, as the OP points out. The natives are all well armed: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/76140/

And the world is all connected now, so you can't really sneak up on someone, and you can't keep secrets either, why do you think these pols keep stepping on their dicks in public like Hayden just did? Remember when it dawned on the Neocons that they ought not allow cell cameras in Abu Ghraib?

And we have nukes, so for anybody who is nuke-suitable to attack us would just be folly. And you can't plan your life around crazy people.

So there are small threats, which will always be there, and big threats, which are economic and political now, not military.

Why do you think nobody else wants to build up their military? Because they know it's stupid.

You read Ardrey and Lorenz and the ethologists?

Just finished Potts "War and Sex" and found it very intresting.

It's true that developed countries aren't likely to go to war. But the countries that have the natural resources we need to stay civilized are also under the most stress from poverty, overpopulation, and political repression. All they have to do is fight each other to get us started. As I recall the first world war was rooted in Serbian civil unrest.

We need to lift all boats to avoid serious conflagration, and our resource consumption is throwing rocks in some of them. I just can't see how anyone can declare war obsolete this soon after Iraq and Afghanistan.

But I applaud your optimism even though I don't necessarily share it. I would like very much for you to be right.

I have a feeling we could find a lot to talk about. But it's past my bedtime.

Don't worry about Ardrey and Lorenz, they are kind of out of date anyway. We can pick this up later.

You know how we outsourced a lot of our industry? Why did we do that? You can't fight an industrial war without an industrial base. Yet we decided we don't need an industrial base any more. Why is that? Because we don't really think we can win wars that way any more. Recent experience drives that message home.

Evolution designed us to "fight, flight, or freeze."

Technology has allowed us to choose between those.

There is a lot of study happening as I type this in which those who study evolution and brain physiology are determining how our brains evolved throughout time. It is interdisciplinary research and work and is changing everything "we know" from previous generations.

There has been research that has shown that people have to be taught how to kill other people and that research is being updated. There is more research into who and under what circumstances people will commit violence versus those who will not.

Just about everything you learned in high school and/or college in the 20th Century is obsolete or under investigation and to be determined.

If what you said were true, then either some of us manage to overcome our "programming" and don't commit violence or some of us are not "programmed" for violence as we don't commit violence. Either way questions your assertion that humans are "designed to fight."

21st Century science has also presented us with the theory (as defined in science) that Neanderthals were a communal people rather than a competitive people.

"Among other things" should have been in there instead of in the body of the post.

You're right, we aren't "born to fight", but anyone can be taught to fight. The impulse for organized aggression, especially in males, is alive and well. Just look at team sports.

I've worked a lot of installation crews and there is an energy there that has been adapted from the same hunting and raiding impulse reaching all the way back to early hominids. The only difference is the objectives, and those objectives are heavily influenced by available resources.

Though I didn't notice much in the body of your post that suggested otherwise. Regardless...

21st Century science is blazing along at such speeds and with such momentum that it can be hard to keep up.

The more we learn the more we learn we need to learn more.

I'm not known for my optimism.

to every silver cloud.

I have a wee bit 'o Irish blood in my ancestry. (It's an old joke. Paraphrasing; there's no happiness that an Irishman can't find sadness in.)

Here's the thing for you and me, "scratch a cynic and find a demoralized dreamer." (also a paraphrase.)

Hang in there. It's tough to find the good in the great.

each claim made.

Our technology made war obsolete by multiply our capacity for slaughter to the point where it is literally possible to end all civilization if not the species itself. The last thing the ruling parasites want is to rule over a smoking ruin, so they came up with the endless not-war we fight, kill, and die in today.

Some form of "we can't go on like this". I consider that the first true industrial war.

But:

themselves capable of unleashing. I picked WWI because that realization really took root with the average American and made us very resistant to the very idea of entering another war and especially another in Europe.

in economics, and externality is when the parties harmed (or, less likely, benefitted) by a transaction are not party to the transaction itself. thus they gain without paying or lose without being compensated.

the classic example is pollution, where the seller pollutes and the buyer pays the seller. both buyer and seller might profit from the transaction, but someone else, perhaps many, many someone elses, lose because their air, water, etc., is damaged, without reasonable compensation (never mind consent).

a great deal of microeconomics and even, occasionally, public policy, centers around how to right such wrongs, be it through the civil courts or fines or regulation or carbon allowances, or whatnot.


war (while not generally treated as an economic transaction) can be viewed through a similar lens. the parties that gain from war -- the defense industry, the politicians, certain industry owners and executives (particularly on the winning side), etc. -- are not the ones who pay the biggest price -- the soldiers on both sides, the public that finances the war, the casualties, certain industry owners and executives (particularly on the losing side), etc.


unless and until these externalities can be brought more in line -- i.e., unless and until those who wage war pay more of the price of war -- there will always remain huge pressures toward war. and unless and until those who pay the cost of war have more power to stop it, those who lust for war will continue to win the day.


in short, saying war is a net-net loss misses the point. as long as it creates winners in a position to continue making the decision to go to war, then it will persist. it doesn't matter if it creates 100 losers for every 1 winner. if the 1 winner has more power than the 100 losers, then war will continue to happen.

make us unique either.

pretty sure the British, Mongolian, Dutch, Spanish, French, Russian (Christian vs Muslim during the Crusades) empires, ect, made war their business at one time or another during history.

we're just the most recent.