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I call it scarcity of resources. You won't see wars and what not when you have humanity with abundance of resources.
by felipeko 9y ago
I call it scarcity of resources. You won't see wars and what not when you have humanity with abundance of resources.
- robotresearcher 9y agoa) The problem is more distribution more than abundance. b) I bet that we'll have wars even if everyone has all they need. I'd like to be wrong.
- felipeko 9y agoa) World gdp per capita is less than $18.000, hardly what i would call abundance. We are still a few good decades away from abundance. b) I bet that rich countries, where people have all they need, will not provoke wars or engage on unprovoked wars (unless for humanitarian reasons).
- robotresearcher 9y agoThe richest country in the world has been at war overseas almost constantly since the end of WWII.
- felipeko 9y agoAnd it went to war for the following reasons: a) scarcity of resource (oil) / humanitarian reasons (whichever you prefer to believe) b) was provoked into it (because of cold war or terrorists)
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- wcarron 9y agoThis is demonstrably false. You need only look at the actions of our government (e.g. The CIA) to discern that the United States has gone to war (or "military conflicts" or whatever they call them these days) for reasons such as A) financial gain for private persons and companies B) financial gain for politicians C) financial gain for the country D) political gain for individuals E) extending a miltary based hegemony F) moral agendas (e.g the War on Drugs) etc, etc. The United States is by no means some perfect rational actor which engages in war solely for economic reasons or for "self-defense".
- robotresearcher 9y agoThose were the declared reasons, yes. But exactly what would you say are the resource and humanitarian gains and to what degree forgivable-due-to-provocation-in-retrospect is, say, the US-Vietnam War?
- dragonwriter 9y ago> The problem is more distribution more than abundance. This. Not because scarcity isn't present, but because it is fundamental and inevitable; distribution isn't he thing that can be addressed, and scarcity is not.
- dragonwriter 9y agoScarcity is a universal (more abundance doesn't cure scarcity, it just changes expectations of what is acceptable.)
- felipeko 9y agoNot really. Most people on most developed countries don't have scarcity for water, food, clothes, transport... It wasn't always like that. Things do become more abundant and people will dot not always change expectation on the same amount.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Most people on most developed countries don't have scarcity for water, food, clothes, transport Yes, they do. They may not have what you view as critical shortages, but if thode things weren't scarce, in economic terms, they would be free of cost. > Things do become more abundant Yes, but they continue to be scarce.
- belorn 9y agoI recall from primatology lectures that a majority of violence is not triggered by a scarcity of resources but by friction in social ranking. I also recall a lecture by Sapolsky where he talk about this successful peace negotiator which focused on mutual respect, understanding and a feeling of kinship rather than negotiating about borders and resources.
- Bakary 9y agoIn a book called The Happiness Hypothesis, the author made the interesting claim that violence is often cause by an attack on a person's self-image, and that it was indeed thus heavily linked to social friction.