Ask HN: Why must there be war? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why must there be war?

8 pointsgizmore27 comments

Why must there be war?

War is a racket: https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

There are fewer wars than there used to be. The percentage of the population for whom violence is not a regular part of daily life is much greater than it has been for most of history. OTOH, when violence does happen, the weapons available are far greater, able to cause far more death and destruction, than in the past.

All wars are economic in nature. Scarce resources and growth are at odds. Some societies have been peaceful and found balance in the resource usage. They tend to get overran one way or another.

"War is simply the continuation of policy by other means."

The last argument of kings.

But seriously, it seems that conflict emerges because there exists difference of opinion or conflicting desire. Violence seems to be escalation of those conflicting desires. Maybe the answer is “war exists when we fail to de-escalate conflict”

Let us digress a moment and ask, by what do you mean “war”? In our time, we may cite so many unlawful conflicts.

Of unlawful warfare, what may be said of the other side?

Life feeds upon life.

Power is savage.

War is a savage writ. The last recourse before subjugation. Where law fails and tenacity of wills prevail.

The question should be, what is lawful warfare?

Or at what point do we call a circumstance war? When bullets fly or when law of domain becomes contested among bodies of power?

Because there are scarce resources

This is the slogan that make people scared and ready to go to war.

Please stop spreading this bullshit.

Otherwise specify which exact resources do you mean and what is the proof of it’s scarcity?

Even the oil is being constantly produced by the earth.

Even if at incomparably slower pace than consumed, but who says people will need it at all in 50 years?

But the myth about scarcity of oil right now can be sold to naive and ignorant crowd to be manipulated.

I did not mention oil at all, but in fact it was motivation for parts of WW2 as well as the first gulf war.

If there is not infinite abundance of a thing, it will potentially be coveted and contention for it will be a motivation to fight for it.

The thing is that people create and develop resources when working together, rather than just passively consuming them from nature.

But this is something you can’t use to justify a war, hence you’ll always see this silly argument in any war out there.

There should not be .. its a complete waste of everything. But it is being thrust on you, whether you want it or not… now what are you going to do?

Because the regime demands it. I believe it should be possible to live without wars. That makes me a member of a small and shrinking minority.

Because when dark forces are on the move, there is no choice between war and peace, only between fight and surrender.

And who is there to decide which forces are dark ones?

When foreign armies hire mercenary groups to invade your homes so that they can maintain plausible deniability for what they know is an illegal and immoral act of war, I don't think there's any debate among non-psychopathic people.

This simplistic black/white view is a very dangerous position, perpetuating the “war is ok” mentality.

Read some Taleb’s books or watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(film) to understand my point.

No. What is dangerous is refusing to recognize that bad people exist and do bad things. What is dangerous is calling into question people's right to defend themselves.

Nobody can stop you from believing that, e.g., Ukraine should just capitulate to Russia and give up its freedom. But don't pretend for a second that such a belief holds the moral high ground.

Just watch the movie first. This simplistic naive view of the world is exactly what helps bad people thrive.

Im not defending anyone by this position, nor Im okay with any military invasion

im just pointing out how easy it is to manipulate people who buy this ignorant binary scale. In both ways

Supporting a nation's right to self-defense is neither simplistic nor naive. What's more, my views are informed by years of study in international law at both the JD level and in my LLM, as well as professional experience. Lastly, your personal attacks are in violation of the site guidelines. I strongly recommend you stop engaging in Internet flame war and read scholarly literature on the topic, starting with any of the various sources of commentary on the UN Charter (particularly Article 51) before engaging further. I recommend https://amazon.com/dp/B004P1JFKG/

Your comment sounds very offensive to me.

And where exactly was I personally attacking you?

Not to mention that your arrogant comment is way out of the scope of the discussion (i never questioned the right of anyone to self-defense). And thus can be considered off topic and flame ;)

Depending on how deep you want the answer to be?

On one of the levels without ww2 and the cold war afterwards — there would never be the Internet and modern computers as we know them [1]

On a philosophical level — as long as there is a dualism, there is a constant battle and interplay between the sides. So war in one form or another is as inevitable as peace.

In a sense the whole life itself is a constant battle between good and evil, chaos and order, entropy and information [2]

On the surface — scarced resources, justice, religions are just silly stories that people create for themselves to sugarcoat and rationalize those (or other) deeply embeded into the reality drivers.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1732265119/

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Into-Cool-Energy-Flow-Thermodynamics/... and other similar books

Also Jordan Peterson “maps of meaning” and any serious book on roots of religious myths and stories.

Human nature

There's so many of us

This was ultimately the reason given for the ancient Trojan war. That Zeus was upset that there were so many people in the world. That is in fact the true meaning of Odysseus’ name. the “child of anger”, given by his uncle for this very reason “too many people in the world!”

And so it goes through the ages. I dropped it in there because it's the famous refrain from the 1982 Fear hit Let's Have a War:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUxkFCBPgx4

Which seems to find new relevance in the current moment.

Because territories must be defended.

Cuz weapon producers need to make money …

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