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There were so many proxy wars between the USA and the Soviets I would not class that as a bloodless "no war" conflict. I don't think there will be a war for th

by steve19 11y ago

There were so many proxy wars between the USA and the Soviets I would not class that as a bloodless "no war" conflict. I don't think there will be a war for the same reason Europe did not go to war with in the past few decades ... it would be like shooting themselves in the foot. there is little incentive for war when economies are so reliant on each other.

arethuza 11y ago
Niall Ferguson's The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred, which looks at the 20th century, starts by pointing out how comfortable and settled everything looked at the start of the 20th century and as Keynes put it that this state appeared "normal, certain and permanent". For all we know the historians of the 21st century may look back at our time in similar ways.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Let's hope not. For the first time ever we have something we need to protect - our technological civilization, on its way to reshape the fundamentals of human life. Ending aging and death, colonizing other worlds, really learning something about ourselves and the universe - those things are now actually reasonable concepts. It would be a real shame if we lose it over some stupid issue like political bickering leading to a world war. Because if we halt now, if we roll back to before the industrial revolution, we won't likely achieve this level for several more millennia, as we've pretty much used up all easily accessible, low-tech energy sources and materials. I really wish our leaders would realize that for the first time in the whole history, humanity is greater than the sum of its parts. However important your local issues seem to you, they're not worth endangering the future.
  - tomchristie 11y ago
    "For the first time ever we have something we need to protect" Humanity has always been worth protecting.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Yes. I didn't mean to devaluate human life. My point is, for most of the history, societies have been replaceable, fungible. A tribe would die off to be replaced by another one, with different language and maybe culture, but otherwise the same. A civilization would fall, and next one would took the place, replacing the lost works of art with something superficially different, but generally the same. The world didn't change much with the centuries, people had the same illnesses, same problems. Same capabilities and the same perspectives. We were as far from the stars in 2000 BC as we were in 2000 AC. You could restart a civilization any time, and it wouldn't be significantly different. Not so now. The last three centuries gave us the means and capacity to significantly improve the human condition. We started to ride on a self-amplifying feedback loop and we can't give up or fall off until we stabilize it, or we may never get on it again. Humanity has always been worth protecting. Human lives has always been worth protecting. But for the first time ever, we now have a civilization worth protecting. All the problems it has, we have to fix. We can't afford to try and start over.
      - ajuc 11y ago
        You significantly underestimate the last 20 000 years of progress. It's easy, because progress was very slow, but it was still nessesary for the later stages, and there's no reason to think it will take less time the next time around. Domestication and farming alone took tousands of years, if you restarted the culture in year 0 - we wouldn't have to wait 1600 years for industrial revolution, but more like 10 000 years.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        It's true that what we have today was built directly on the last 20 000 years of progress, but there is still a significant difference - those previous 20 000 years will live in the memories of survivors of the next great war, as well as in any books that will last. Domestication, farming, basic health care, etc. are things that can fit in one's mind. In the entire known history, we've never really restarted from scratch. Even from our times, a some of knowledge would probably survive - from the ideas behind industrial revolution or modern medicine that can fit in one's head, to knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology that is stored in books. No matter how hard we try, we won't nuke every single book out of existence. But then again, not that much knowledge will live, given our increased dependence on volatile storage media. Even if a hard drive would survive a century, we won't have anything to read it with. The reason last 300 years were special is because our progress started to depend on enormous and ever increasing amounts of power. We've used up most of the sources that could be mined, and most renewables are not viable without high-precision manufacturing. Solar power is out of the question; we could start rebuilding hydro and wind power capacity but it will be a slow and very painful process, without easy coal and petroleum to help build the infrastructure. We simply may not have enough easy fuel left to restart the technological civilization.
tr352 11y ago
"Norman Angell, a famous author and Nobel Prize winner in the 1930s, published a brilliant book in 1909. In 'The Great Illusion', Angell argued that war in Europe had become impossible due to the intense level of interdependence between European countries in investment and trade. He postulated that a war would devestate Europe simply because of the economic disruption it would cause. Therefore, war was impossible." George Friedman, Flashpoints.
xlm1717 11y ago
Perhaps it will be a different kind of war. With the economies so reliant on each other, one side can tweak their economy to cause negative effects in the other side's economy. There are politicians in the US who consider China to be engaging in economic warfare for artificially lowering the value of their currency. There is also the possibility of cyber warfare. Steal some secrets here, bring the stock market down for a few hours there. Actual shots don't need to be fired, just enough disruption to reach agreements that one side wants.
- cylinder 11y ago
  So what was QE then if not artificially reducing the value of the dollar?

by steve19 11y ago

arethuza 11y ago

Niall Ferguson's The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred, which looks at the 20th century, starts by pointing out how comfortable and settled everything looked at the start of the 20th century and as Keynes put it that this state appeared "normal, certain and permanent". For all we know the historians of the 21st century may look back at our time in similar ways.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Let's hope not. For the first time ever we have something we need to protect - our technological civilization, on its way to reshape the fundamentals of human life. Ending aging and death, colonizing other worlds, really learning something about ourselves and the universe - those things are now actually reasonable concepts. It would be a real shame if we lose it over some stupid issue like political bickering leading to a world war. Because if we halt now, if we roll back to before the industrial revolution, we won't likely achieve this level for several more millennia, as we've pretty much used up all easily accessible, low-tech energy sources and materials. I really wish our leaders would realize that for the first time in the whole history, humanity is greater than the sum of its parts. However important your local issues seem to you, they're not worth endangering the future.
- tomchristie 11y ago
  "For the first time ever we have something we need to protect" Humanity has always been worth protecting.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Yes. I didn't mean to devaluate human life. My point is, for most of the history, societies have been replaceable, fungible. A tribe would die off to be replaced by another one, with different language and maybe culture, but otherwise the same. A civilization would fall, and next one would took the place, replacing the lost works of art with something superficially different, but generally the same. The world didn't change much with the centuries, people had the same illnesses, same problems. Same capabilities and the same perspectives. We were as far from the stars in 2000 BC as we were in 2000 AC. You could restart a civilization any time, and it wouldn't be significantly different. Not so now. The last three centuries gave us the means and capacity to significantly improve the human condition. We started to ride on a self-amplifying feedback loop and we can't give up or fall off until we stabilize it, or we may never get on it again. Humanity has always been worth protecting. Human lives has always been worth protecting. But for the first time ever, we now have a civilization worth protecting. All the problems it has, we have to fix. We can't afford to try and start over.
    - ajuc 11y ago
      You significantly underestimate the last 20 000 years of progress. It's easy, because progress was very slow, but it was still nessesary for the later stages, and there's no reason to think it will take less time the next time around. Domestication and farming alone took tousands of years, if you restarted the culture in year 0 - we wouldn't have to wait 1600 years for industrial revolution, but more like 10 000 years.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        It's true that what we have today was built directly on the last 20 000 years of progress, but there is still a significant difference - those previous 20 000 years will live in the memories of survivors of the next great war, as well as in any books that will last. Domestication, farming, basic health care, etc. are things that can fit in one's mind. In the entire known history, we've never really restarted from scratch. Even from our times, a some of knowledge would probably survive - from the ideas behind industrial revolution or modern medicine that can fit in one's head, to knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology that is stored in books. No matter how hard we try, we won't nuke every single book out of existence. But then again, not that much knowledge will live, given our increased dependence on volatile storage media. Even if a hard drive would survive a century, we won't have anything to read it with. The reason last 300 years were special is because our progress started to depend on enormous and ever increasing amounts of power. We've used up most of the sources that could be mined, and most renewables are not viable without high-precision manufacturing. Solar power is out of the question; we could start rebuilding hydro and wind power capacity but it will be a slow and very painful process, without easy coal and petroleum to help build the infrastructure. We simply may not have enough easy fuel left to restart the technological civilization.

tr352 11y ago

"Norman Angell, a famous author and Nobel Prize winner in the 1930s, published a brilliant book in 1909. In 'The Great Illusion', Angell argued that war in Europe had become impossible due to the intense level of interdependence between European countries in investment and trade. He postulated that a war would devestate Europe simply because of the economic disruption it would cause. Therefore, war was impossible." George Friedman, Flashpoints.

xlm1717 11y ago

Perhaps it will be a different kind of war. With the economies so reliant on each other, one side can tweak their economy to cause negative effects in the other side's economy. There are politicians in the US who consider China to be engaging in economic warfare for artificially lowering the value of their currency. There is also the possibility of cyber warfare. Steal some secrets here, bring the stock market down for a few hours there. Actual shots don't need to be fired, just enough disruption to reach agreements that one side wants.

cylinder 11y ago
So what was QE then if not artificially reducing the value of the dollar?