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Post WW2 has been one of the most peaceful periods ever in human history. It might not be peace in the absolute sense, but it's about the closest humans have ev
by TheCoelacanth 11y ago
Post WW2 has been one of the most peaceful periods ever in human history. It might not be peace in the absolute sense, but it's about the closest humans have ever achieved.
- kabouseng 11y agoI doubt the people or Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Kuwait, Somalia, SAR or Serbia would agree with you, to name just a few... If I may ask, how do you get to your statement? Is there some metric one can look at to determine it?
- TheCoelacanth 11y agoBecause those regions were so much more peaceful when the Mongols or the Ottomans or the crusaders were rampaging through them /s I'm not saying that there isn't localized violence, just that global level is down. Stephen Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature is one source to support this idea.
- kabouseng 11y agoNo I was genuinely wondering what is the basis for that statement (I have heard it before), or if it was just sentiment. I'll add Stephen Pinker's book to my reading list. Yes it's an old debate whether the US should have gotten involved in all these conflicts, but back to your original point: That the US national debt has increased dramatically in peace time. My point is that it is not peace time, and that a substantial part of that debt stems from the US's military industrial complex. It is after all not nothing that (famous tv saying) "the US spends more on defense than the next 26 countries combined" or something like that.