7 ms·

No. War is not progress. War has cost a lot to European countries, being WWII one of the major loses in history in human lives and resources. I have hear other

by kartan 10y ago

No. War is not progress. War has cost a lot to European countries, being WWII one of the major loses in history in human lives and resources. I have hear other, more plausible, explanations. Weather is one. The fact that Eurasia is wide means that it has similar conditions in large portions of land, so you can reuse technology for agriculture across all of it. In Australia and Africa weather is not so good for agriculture. America is rich, but being narrow you need to create new agriculture techniques as you move south or north, as the landscape, weather and other factors are changing. War is present in all cultures. So some more unique qualities should be looked for. And luck can't be discarded.

Cuuugi 10y ago
The article didn't specifically say war, just multiple competing states. This drove up trade, but also division. European history has had more conflict that any other region. Also, War has undeniably driven technological advances throughout history. Conflict does not create riches, you are correct. Competition does create riches ( and sometimes conflict)
- badsock 10y ago
  Yes. I don't think it's a coincidence that the two periods in history that provided much of the foundations of Western civilization (Ancient Greece and the Renaissance) took place amongst intensely competing city-states.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  I agree with you on all sentences but one. > Also, War has undeniably driven technological advances throughout history. The opportunity cost of a war is huge. It can easily be argued that it is larger than the perceived gain of a war. Objectively measuring those two costs is another matter, but there is nothing undeniable about it. Let's pick WWII as an example. Rockets came out of it and put people on the moon. What if we had peace instead what would those rocket scientist have done instead? Likely they still would rockets and other vehicles, but their would have been input from more scientists and it would have taken a few extra years while those scientists made other things. The moon would have happened anyway, but probably in a more sustainable way than a postwar "space race". What about Nuclear power? Maybe delaying that a few years might equal the economic output of the two cities it obliterated. Another view, without the specter of nuclear war we could have built more of the cleanest and safest power source we ever devised and redirected all the labor on coal and oil to other areas that nearly limitless energy might provide.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > What if we had peace instead what would those rocket scientist have done instead? Not gotten funding to build rockets in the first place, in large part. OTOH, there is at least an argument that the labor involved would have been directed in a manner that would produce more benefit in the civilian economy had it not been centrally allocated to military priorities.
    - fsloth 10y ago
      Your response describes the likeliest outcome, IMO. The resources von Braun got were plausible in the 40's only under a dictatorial nationstate waging a war.
      - sqeaky 10y ago
        You act though smart people like von Braun wouldn't have done something else productive. A no on a funding application is not a death sentence. Look at scientists like Norman Borlaug[1], he revolutionized food production and turned several countries from food importing to food exporting, without a war. Surely von Braun and other rocket scientists are at least as smart as some kid from Iowa. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
        fsloth 10y ago
        I was not assigning intrinsic value to alternative historical scenarios but estimating the resource cost of a rocket program in the 40's being out of reach in any other situation. US and USSR bootstrapped their programs based on V2 technology and then perfected their engines driven by the need to rain orbital nuclear death on top of each others without the chance of interception. Functional space propulsion became as a side product of these murderous efforts. Sure, we all would be probably happier if none of that had ever happened. The original topic was - would we have had rocket engines without ww2. Perhaps, but not as soon.
  - vtange 10y ago
arcanus 10y ago
'In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.' -Harry Lime, 'the third man'
- rsync 10y ago
  "In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." Well, they also produced switzerland. Have you been there ? It's the best place in the world - and not just the scenery.
  - geodel 10y ago
    Best for those who are there. Others with wrong-{skin color, religion, continent etc} must stay away.
    - rsync 10y ago
      That's not true at all. I suspect that, unlike my own country, they enforce and respect the immigration laws on the books - truly a shock. However, even outside city centers you run into people of all types. On my last trip I found myself in Gruyere and there were muslim families and east asians touring at the rest stop. Inside Zurich there's a roughly Minneapolis-level background of racial diversity.
      - senthil_rajasek 10y ago
        "Minneapolis-level background of racial diversity" Here is what the Minneapolis Fed bank president has to say about that, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-kashkari-shocked-black-unemployment-isnt-better-understood-2016-08-31 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-kashkari-shocked-black...
        10y ago
johnnydoebk 10y ago
>> I have hear other, more plausible, explanations. Weather is one. LOL, this is exactly what corrupted officials in a Country-I-Woudn't-Call say when they're asked about billions being spent on building of roads that cannot survive a single season (so they have to be rebuilt every year). "That's because of our weather", - they say.
vtange 10y ago
While war itself is destructive and did exact a great cost to Europe (it arguably ended European colonialism as it made Europe unable to maintain presence in their colonies), preparation in the case of war is arguably constructive and lead to innovations. The Internet for one started as a DARPA project (ARPANET). The Interstate Highway was made for troop transport. Military contracts kept some aerospace companies afloat (basically subsidizing them) and enabled innovation that otherwise wouldn't be possible.
hokkos 10y ago
The word war doesn't appear once in the article, what are you talking about ?
mschrage 10y ago
"The state makes war and war makes the state." - Charles Tilly I'd agree that war is not progress, but war (at least a very specific type of war found in Pre-Westphalian Europe) created the conditions for progress. Tilly's predatory or bellicose theory of state building[1] asserts that war was crucial in spurring the development of modern nation-states. A stronger centralized state expanded the rule of law and reduced violence, providing a foundation for positive sum economic activity. Furthermore, this type of proto-state can, more or less, be viewed as a protection racket. The state could extract resources from those under its protection. This encouraged the state to incentive economic activity and innovation as the state captured some of the benefit through taxation. Violence is present in all cultures. But the type of war that Tilly describes is somewhat unique to Europe. A confluence of geographic factors - arable land enabling higher population densities and a network of rivers that allowed for the projection of force - created the conditions for territorial war. If you look at South America or Africa there is much of a history of territorial wars because the area of these continents is so large that territory wasn't a limiting factor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-building#Application_of_predatory_theory_to_state_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-building#Application_of_...
pcrh 10y ago
Vast areas of Africa are perfect for agriculture... it's a big place.

by kartan 10y ago

Cuuugi 10y ago

The article didn't specifically say war, just multiple competing states. This drove up trade, but also division. European history has had more conflict that any other region. Also, War has undeniably driven technological advances throughout history. Conflict does not create riches, you are correct. Competition does create riches ( and sometimes conflict)

badsock 10y ago
Yes. I don't think it's a coincidence that the two periods in history that provided much of the foundations of Western civilization (Ancient Greece and the Renaissance) took place amongst intensely competing city-states.
sqeaky 10y ago
I agree with you on all sentences but one. > Also, War has undeniably driven technological advances throughout history. The opportunity cost of a war is huge. It can easily be argued that it is larger than the perceived gain of a war. Objectively measuring those two costs is another matter, but there is nothing undeniable about it. Let's pick WWII as an example. Rockets came out of it and put people on the moon. What if we had peace instead what would those rocket scientist have done instead? Likely they still would rockets and other vehicles, but their would have been input from more scientists and it would have taken a few extra years while those scientists made other things. The moon would have happened anyway, but probably in a more sustainable way than a postwar "space race". What about Nuclear power? Maybe delaying that a few years might equal the economic output of the two cities it obliterated. Another view, without the specter of nuclear war we could have built more of the cleanest and safest power source we ever devised and redirected all the labor on coal and oil to other areas that nearly limitless energy might provide.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > What if we had peace instead what would those rocket scientist have done instead? Not gotten funding to build rockets in the first place, in large part. OTOH, there is at least an argument that the labor involved would have been directed in a manner that would produce more benefit in the civilian economy had it not been centrally allocated to military priorities.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    Your response describes the likeliest outcome, IMO. The resources von Braun got were plausible in the 40's only under a dictatorial nationstate waging a war.
    - sqeaky 10y ago
      You act though smart people like von Braun wouldn't have done something else productive. A no on a funding application is not a death sentence. Look at scientists like Norman Borlaug[1], he revolutionized food production and turned several countries from food importing to food exporting, without a war. Surely von Braun and other rocket scientists are at least as smart as some kid from Iowa. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
      - fsloth 10y ago
        I was not assigning intrinsic value to alternative historical scenarios but estimating the resource cost of a rocket program in the 40's being out of reach in any other situation. US and USSR bootstrapped their programs based on V2 technology and then perfected their engines driven by the need to rain orbital nuclear death on top of each others without the chance of interception. Functional space propulsion became as a side product of these murderous efforts. Sure, we all would be probably happier if none of that had ever happened. The original topic was - would we have had rocket engines without ww2. Perhaps, but not as soon.
- vtange 10y ago

arcanus 10y ago

'In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.' -Harry Lime, 'the third man'

rsync 10y ago
"In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." Well, they also produced switzerland. Have you been there ? It's the best place in the world - and not just the scenery.
- geodel 10y ago
  Best for those who are there. Others with wrong-{skin color, religion, continent etc} must stay away.
  - rsync 10y ago
    That's not true at all. I suspect that, unlike my own country, they enforce and respect the immigration laws on the books - truly a shock. However, even outside city centers you run into people of all types. On my last trip I found myself in Gruyere and there were muslim families and east asians touring at the rest stop. Inside Zurich there's a roughly Minneapolis-level background of racial diversity.
    - senthil_rajasek 10y ago
      "Minneapolis-level background of racial diversity" Here is what the Minneapolis Fed bank president has to say about that, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-kashkari-shocked-black-unemployment-isnt-better-understood-2016-08-31 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-kashkari-shocked-black...
      - 10y ago

johnnydoebk 10y ago

>> I have hear other, more plausible, explanations. Weather is one. LOL, this is exactly what corrupted officials in a Country-I-Woudn't-Call say when they're asked about billions being spent on building of roads that cannot survive a single season (so they have to be rebuilt every year). "That's because of our weather", - they say.

vtange 10y ago

While war itself is destructive and did exact a great cost to Europe (it arguably ended European colonialism as it made Europe unable to maintain presence in their colonies), preparation in the case of war is arguably constructive and lead to innovations. The Internet for one started as a DARPA project (ARPANET). The Interstate Highway was made for troop transport. Military contracts kept some aerospace companies afloat (basically subsidizing them) and enabled innovation that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

hokkos 10y ago

The word war doesn't appear once in the article, what are you talking about ?

mschrage 10y ago

"The state makes war and war makes the state." - Charles Tilly I'd agree that war is not progress, but war (at least a very specific type of war found in Pre-Westphalian Europe) created the conditions for progress. Tilly's predatory or bellicose theory of state building[1] asserts that war was crucial in spurring the development of modern nation-states. A stronger centralized state expanded the rule of law and reduced violence, providing a foundation for positive sum economic activity. Furthermore, this type of proto-state can, more or less, be viewed as a protection racket. The state could extract resources from those under its protection. This encouraged the state to incentive economic activity and innovation as the state captured some of the benefit through taxation. Violence is present in all cultures. But the type of war that Tilly describes is somewhat unique to Europe. A confluence of geographic factors - arable land enabling higher population densities and a network of rivers that allowed for the projection of force - created the conditions for territorial war. If you look at South America or Africa there is much of a history of territorial wars because the area of these continents is so large that territory wasn't a limiting factor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-building#Application_of_predatory_theory_to_state_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-building#Application_of_...

pcrh 10y ago

Vast areas of Africa are perfect for agriculture... it's a big place.