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Comment by z3phyr | Hacker News Reader

We have been warring before the dawn of civilization. I think it used to play a role in territorial resource usage/rights, evolutionary selection, population control and asserting your own set of morals.

I wish we all get over war, but realistically, as long as we differentiate between "good" and "bad", there will always be some source of enmity to start wars..

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In almost all wars, the "bad" is that one group wants to take something away from another group. Sometimes that thing is their freedom, but even in those cases, there is usually an underlying material issue.

In almost all wars, the "bad" is the group that lost the war. And when it cannot be decided or doesn't matter anymore, those who control the discourse decide who is/was "good".

Taking something away is not good or bad per se. Sometimes both sides see the other part "taking something away" from them (see any rebellion vs central power conflict).

1) For some self-serving definitions of "bad" 2) Then doubly so.

Actually, that's not really the case: warring started at the dawn of civilization. There aren't many clear cases of large scale destruction of human life in prehistoric times. The proliferation of war only happened as sedentism gained popularity. Sedentism is the start of civilization. It also creates economic stratification, which is probably the number one reason for war across nations and inside nations.

Hmmm. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War

That sounds like a bit of a tautology given that humanity kept to relatively small bands at that time from logistical constraints.

Also amusingly technologically mutually assured destruction may have started with /fire/ and contributed back in ancient forest Africa. Essentially if there was a rival band to risky to fight and you have mastery of fire setting via a firebreak a contained wildfire would rid a threat and give remaining territory minus what was burnt into immediate uselessness.

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