4 ms·

That would be nice, it's a shame it could just as easily result in an increase of military spending to fund a space program to come invade.

by tempay 9y ago

ComodoHacker 9y ago
Let me anthropomorphically assume there will always be a closer target to spend excess planetary resources on.
- ethbro 9y ago
  Yes, but the closer target doesn't look alien. How often do countries go to war with people who are similar to them? Now how often with people who are the other? (Whatever definition fits)
  - ItsDeathball 9y ago
    Well, 1930s Germans were pretty similar to Poles and the Dutch, and even more similar to German Jews. Indians and Pakistanis are also not exactly space aliens to each other, nor are Iraqis and Iranians, Russians and Ukrainians, or Syrians and other Syrians. I'd say the historical rule for warfare is that the belligerents are so similar that tiny differences seem irreconcilable. Proximity and competition for resources also seem more important that otherness.
    - gorkonsine 9y ago
      Exactly. I can't think of many wars where the belligerents were really different from each other. American Civil War: many were actual relatives! ("brother vs. brother") WWI: English are descended from Germanic tribes, French are closely related to Germans too. WWII: Same as WWI mainly; Italians aren't very different from French/English/Americans. Americans/Japanese were a pretty big difference though. But Japanese/Chinese isn't that big a difference, relative to non-easterners. The people who promote wars frequently try to cast the enemy as alien, in order to rile up support for the war and to get soldiers to participate.
      - ethbro 9y ago
        > The people who promote wars frequently try to cast the enemy as alien, in order to rile up support for the war and to get soldiers to participate. I'd argue that the cultural perception of the belligerent humans towards their targets is far more important than objective differences. And you and parent are certainly being overly-reductive compared to the context of the times. What would a 1930s German have said about being compared to a Polish or Dutch person? Would they have seen themselves as "pretty similar"? And I'm not sure how many Indians and Pakistanis you've talked to, but they're pretty close to space aliens to each other. Same with Shia Iraqis and Sunni Iraqis, and both with Kurds. Etc etc. I don't see how you can say "these peoples are the same" across any modern ethnic or national boundaries without a lot more support without it coming across as "those people all look alike." Hell, I can localize most folks in the US within five sentences or so. And yes, there were states that straddled the Mason-Dixon line (and states like Virginia that were shattered because of it), but outside of those limited cases I'm sure the majority of the people involved could have identified "the other" pretty easily. Point being that if we're finely tuned enough to physical and cultural differences amongst our own species, yet still war on those we can perceive as different... imagine how much stronger that impulse would be against something that didn't even look like us.
        ItsDeathball 9y ago
        My point was as a direct counter to your assertion that warfare increases with degree of difference between peoples. That would predict that the Germans would prefer to ally with other Europeans against people like the Japanese, who they are maximally different from. Historically this did not happen. Yes, there are clear conflicts between each of the groups named, but they are more similar to each other than they are to most other populations of humans. Let's say an alien combat spacecraft crash-lands in the middle of ISIS-controlled territory. Would you expect ISIS to immediately declare a cease-fire and surrender the craft and its weaponry to the UN so that humanity can work together to face this new threat, or do you think they would immediately go about using it as a tool to better murder their fellow humans?
        9y ago
    - rasz 9y ago
      > 1930s Germans were pretty similar to Poles and the Dutch not to germans, unless you ignore that whole biologically superior Aryan fad
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Historically countries make war on their apparently-similar neighbors quite frequently. Antagonists that look very similar to outsiders denounce each other as irreconcilably different, sometimes for centuries or even millennia. Loss of ego (qua individual identity) is equated with loss of consciousness and thus loss of life. I'd argue that the process of deliberate othering (semantic maximization of difference) is a precursor to aggression. Establishment, maintenance, or expansion of a differential gap is a fundamental process in biology. Unfortunately we're now at or rapidly approaching the culmination of such a process: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0123507 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... It's interesting to consider figure 3 as an example of meiosis in a social meta-organism.
  - ComodoHacker 9y ago
    Well, this have stirred up interesting discussion. Ironically, I initially didn't mean war, but some project that requires concerted effort of all the population. Like colonizing nearby uninhabited planets or improving life conditions on their home one. Turns out I wasn't thinking anthropomorphically enough.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

That would be nice, it's a shame it could just as easily result in an increase of military spending to fund a space program to come invade.

by tempay 9y ago

That would be nice, it's a shame it could just as easily result in an increase of military spending to fund a space program to come invade.

ComodoHacker 9y ago

Let me anthropomorphically assume there will always be a closer target to spend excess planetary resources on.

ethbro 9y ago
Yes, but the closer target doesn't look alien. How often do countries go to war with people who are similar to them? Now how often with people who are the other? (Whatever definition fits)
- ItsDeathball 9y ago
  Well, 1930s Germans were pretty similar to Poles and the Dutch, and even more similar to German Jews. Indians and Pakistanis are also not exactly space aliens to each other, nor are Iraqis and Iranians, Russians and Ukrainians, or Syrians and other Syrians. I'd say the historical rule for warfare is that the belligerents are so similar that tiny differences seem irreconcilable. Proximity and competition for resources also seem more important that otherness.
  - gorkonsine 9y ago
    Exactly. I can't think of many wars where the belligerents were really different from each other. American Civil War: many were actual relatives! ("brother vs. brother") WWI: English are descended from Germanic tribes, French are closely related to Germans too. WWII: Same as WWI mainly; Italians aren't very different from French/English/Americans. Americans/Japanese were a pretty big difference though. But Japanese/Chinese isn't that big a difference, relative to non-easterners. The people who promote wars frequently try to cast the enemy as alien, in order to rile up support for the war and to get soldiers to participate.
    - ethbro 9y ago
      > The people who promote wars frequently try to cast the enemy as alien, in order to rile up support for the war and to get soldiers to participate. I'd argue that the cultural perception of the belligerent humans towards their targets is far more important than objective differences. And you and parent are certainly being overly-reductive compared to the context of the times. What would a 1930s German have said about being compared to a Polish or Dutch person? Would they have seen themselves as "pretty similar"? And I'm not sure how many Indians and Pakistanis you've talked to, but they're pretty close to space aliens to each other. Same with Shia Iraqis and Sunni Iraqis, and both with Kurds. Etc etc. I don't see how you can say "these peoples are the same" across any modern ethnic or national boundaries without a lot more support without it coming across as "those people all look alike." Hell, I can localize most folks in the US within five sentences or so. And yes, there were states that straddled the Mason-Dixon line (and states like Virginia that were shattered because of it), but outside of those limited cases I'm sure the majority of the people involved could have identified "the other" pretty easily. Point being that if we're finely tuned enough to physical and cultural differences amongst our own species, yet still war on those we can perceive as different... imagine how much stronger that impulse would be against something that didn't even look like us.
      - ItsDeathball 9y ago
        My point was as a direct counter to your assertion that warfare increases with degree of difference between peoples. That would predict that the Germans would prefer to ally with other Europeans against people like the Japanese, who they are maximally different from. Historically this did not happen. Yes, there are clear conflicts between each of the groups named, but they are more similar to each other than they are to most other populations of humans. Let's say an alien combat spacecraft crash-lands in the middle of ISIS-controlled territory. Would you expect ISIS to immediately declare a cease-fire and surrender the craft and its weaponry to the UN so that humanity can work together to face this new threat, or do you think they would immediately go about using it as a tool to better murder their fellow humans?
        9y ago
  - rasz 9y ago
    > 1930s Germans were pretty similar to Poles and the Dutch not to germans, unless you ignore that whole biologically superior Aryan fad
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Historically countries make war on their apparently-similar neighbors quite frequently. Antagonists that look very similar to outsiders denounce each other as irreconcilably different, sometimes for centuries or even millennia. Loss of ego (qua individual identity) is equated with loss of consciousness and thus loss of life. I'd argue that the process of deliberate othering (semantic maximization of difference) is a precursor to aggression. Establishment, maintenance, or expansion of a differential gap is a fundamental process in biology. Unfortunately we're now at or rapidly approaching the culmination of such a process: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0123507 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... It's interesting to consider figure 3 as an example of meiosis in a social meta-organism.
- ComodoHacker 9y ago
  Well, this have stirred up interesting discussion. Ironically, I initially didn't mean war, but some project that requires concerted effort of all the population. Like colonizing nearby uninhabited planets or improving life conditions on their home one. Turns out I wasn't thinking anthropomorphically enough.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]