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It's interesting to think about this question by asking a similar question. If you live in a house full of people, why hasn't anyone killed anyone else yet? It
by meri_dian 9y ago
It's interesting to think about this question by asking a similar question. If you live in a house full of people, why hasn't anyone killed anyone else yet?
It's a gruesome question, but the point is that even though people living together will certainly have arguments, someone who is sane will never seriously consider killing someone else.
Ultimately nations usually act as if they are scaled up people, which makes sense because they are run by people.
Full scale nuclear war represents the probability of complete and total annihilation for all parties involved. At this scale of destruction, war becomes an existential crisis for nations themselves, which is intolerable to a nation itself - no longer just a nation's citizens - which, from a nation's perspective, are expendable.
This may seem callous, but we need to recognize that organisms of different scales have different sets of concerns and priorities from one another. Just as we often don't think twice about doing something that would cause cells in our bodies to die, like binge drinking on the weekend - which from our cells' perspective would amount to a holocaust - nations have historically not thought twice about going to war when such war represented a minimal existential threat, even if a few thousand soldiers would have to die.
Nuclear war represents total destruction of nations in a way that traditional modes of warfare fought, say, between 17th century European powers did not, as this earlier warfare - while bloody and terrible for the individual soldier - would usually at worst (from a national perspective) lead to the loss of a few territories, which is tolerable.
- lostcolony 9y agoThat's a fine analogy...except for all the murders committed by family members in houses. It happens sufficiently frequently that there's the well known (and possibly apocryphal) idea that police always treat a spouse as a primary suspect. So, while I'm willing to bet my wife isn't murderous (I don't -know-, but I'll assume so)...do I really want to assume a -stranger- isn't, knowing that there are murderous people out there, and that if I'm wrong my entire family will die? I mean, you say "someone who is sane will never seriously consider killing someone else" - great, how possible is it for an insane person to end up heading a nuclear armed country? I mean, I don't think I want to trust 192 (or whatever our country count is at) random strangers to all be sane.
- 1_2__4 9y ago> Ultimately nations usually act as if they are scaled up people, which makes sense because they are run by people. This is such a breathtakingly incorrect statement - as in, completely wrong - that I can’t imagine for the life of me why you believe it. All evidence is that no, countries (and companies) do not behave like their constituent parts, and attempting to (lazily) hang your metaphor on “well let’s just talk about how individuals act” is entirely wrong and pointless.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 9y ago> Ultimately nations usually act as if they are scaled up people, which makes sense because they are run by people. In my experience with groups of people it doesn't make sense.
- meri_dian 9y agoSure it does. They operate according to the same principles of self preservation, growth, partnership and alliance, planning for the future, etc
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 9y agoYou must hang out with some pretty sweet groups. Mine are from Heller's Catch-22.