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Most of the big wars were/are ultimately started (or allowed to start) by politicians. The word 'politician' can be thought of as a portmanteau: political tech

Most of the big wars were/are ultimately started (or allowed to start) by politicians. The word 'politician' can be thought of as a portmanteau: political technician. So the responsibility is on us to enforce this distinction: who among our political technicians is actually qualified to lead? Heinlein's Starship Troopers had the right idea. I wish just one nation in the world would implement it. Maybe it would lead to a cascade of rationality, and future wars would become impossible as a result.

afarrell 9y ago
In a society where politicians rely on a broad coalition of supporters in order to stay in power, I think it is an error to place all of the blame for misleadership on those same politicians. I think you have to first look at what incentives those politicians operate under and then look at which ones swim with or against those incentives. As CGP Grey says, Take the throne to act, and the throne acts upon you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
afarrell 9y ago
> Heinlein's Starship Troopers had the right idea. I'm pretty unconvinced that limiting voters to volunteer military veterans would prevent war. I think it would instead lead to a government which is more able to successfully pander to those with a value-system that leads them to volunteer for the military.
- 7952 9y ago
  It is ironic how that is a mirror image of fascist beliefs about military virtue. They wanted to give power to veterans so that wars could be started and won! They wanted to suppress the influence of weak willed peacniks. It is ironic that this could be reversed to imply that rationality means peace. Heinlein had some pretty fascist ideas, and books like starship troopers project that in a comfortable form. It is easy to attach our own ideas of what is rational, but that is very subjective. To a fascist war is rational.
  - fractallyte 9y ago
    Heinlein's point was that one's vote is a huge responsibility, and that privilege must be earned: by demonstrably placing the needs of one's country above individual wellbeing. Thus only military veterans could participate in governance. Militarism doesn't automatically equate to fascism. There are further ideas in this: that, having experienced a war, a (typical) person would never again allow such a thing to happen. That's sound thinking, in my opinion.
    - 7952 9y ago
      But none of that explains why the actual results would be better. You could make the same argument about other kinds of virtue like religion, property ownership, wealth, or ancestry. That may seem irrational to us, but it made sense to some people historically. And the choice of service is completely subjective. Maybe only parents should be we to vote? Because only they can truly understand. And they have sacrificed so much for their children. So many sleepless nights! But you did not pick any of those things, you picked military service. And military service is virtuous because of war! It would be very difficult to create a culture that glorifies military service, but treats war itself as repugnant. People are just not that nuanced. The realities of war are just too unimaginable for a person in a peaceful nation to really understand. That is why it is risky to glorify service in this way. I agree that war will make people less enthusiastic about future conflict. But surely you need a constant supply of wars to allow you to recruit these rational voters. If you have 100 years of peace then the system fails. The irony is that we have had many periods in our history when a huge number of voters and politicians had direct expert of war. Did it improve the prospects of peace? Who knows.
      - afarrell 9y ago
        > It would be very difficult to create a culture that glorifies military service, but treats war itself as repugnant. There are large sections of the American left which hold this sort of perspective.
    - mmjaa 9y ago
      >That's sound thinking, in my opinion. Except for the fact that its pandering to the survivors fallacy. Of course, the ones who don't want to fight wars won't be around - they'll have been dead. The ones who survived war, are more likely to want more war - especially when they emerge as the victor nation. Just look at how blood-thirsty the 5-eyes nations are, currently: none of them have truly 'lost wars' (i.e. fought on their own territory), only troops. Yet, here today, don't ask your average Aussie to ever criticise their nations war-making; they'll think you need psychiatric help for just questioning the Australian Defence Forces' heinous crimes...
7952 9y ago
Ah yes. The kind of rational society that fights giant insects with lightly armoured infantry soldiers despite being highly technologically advanced. A lot of problems are complex and require competing demands to be balanced. There is no single objectively correct solution to those problems. Rational intelligent people come to different conclusions. That is why we have politics, to deal with the messy complexity of the real world. Treating rationality as a moral virtue just disturbs me. It is just a kind of moralistic discrimination based on things that may or may not indicate actual quality.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- gaius 9y ago
  The kind of rational society that fights giant insects with lightly armoured infantry soldiers In the movie. In the book the MI wear power armour.
  - 7952 9y ago
    Sure, but they could have just thrown rocks from space, or nukes from orbit. A culture that can fly across the galaxy does not need to use infantry any more than a US marine needs to throw a spear. It is a very common thread in this kind of sci-fi. It is just more glorious to shoot the insect from close up. There is more opportunity for pointless sacrifice.
    - angersock 9y ago
      Heinlein actually addresses that point: > If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how—or why—he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people—'older and wiser heads,' as they say—supply the control. Which is as it should be.
musage 9y ago
> So the responsibility is on us to enforce this distinction: who among our political technicians is actually qualified to lead? None. Each of us, however, is responsible to participate, and therefore make "experts in how we should live together" pointless.
coupdejarnac 9y ago
Written by a guy who never saw combat. Anyway, one thing I got from the book, even if Heinlein never explicitly made this point, is that public officials need to perform some service or somehow show that they merit being our leaders. People who did poorly in intro uni economics should perhaps not be determining national economic policy, for example.
- LifeLiverTransp 9y ago
  I agree, so someone who did poorly at communism and socialism studies in the former ussr should not become a factory leader or economics minister- because if a university is good at something it is determinating people who are great knowledge repeaters and aggregators, but not determinating who is a good ad-hoc manager of completely knew scenarios. I would rather prefer pure luck to that intelectual slaughterhouse suggested by the parent, with all the fency problems a goverment would inherit in academia. I can only imagine, what would happen, if some Aspi driven towards perfectionism regarding roadtolls, would do to a transportation-ministry- to compose the perfect system. I rather have non government then this government.
watwut 9y ago
Where do you think politicians come from? People who started WWII were WWI veterans. They were not born career politicians either. Also, soldiers tend to be more pro-war, statistically speaking. Pacifists tend not to join armies.

afarrell 9y ago

In a society where politicians rely on a broad coalition of supporters in order to stay in power, I think it is an error to place all of the blame for misleadership on those same politicians. I think you have to first look at what incentives those politicians operate under and then look at which ones swim with or against those incentives. As CGP Grey says, Take the throne to act, and the throne acts upon you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

afarrell 9y ago

> Heinlein's Starship Troopers had the right idea. I'm pretty unconvinced that limiting voters to volunteer military veterans would prevent war. I think it would instead lead to a government which is more able to successfully pander to those with a value-system that leads them to volunteer for the military.

7952 9y ago
It is ironic how that is a mirror image of fascist beliefs about military virtue. They wanted to give power to veterans so that wars could be started and won! They wanted to suppress the influence of weak willed peacniks. It is ironic that this could be reversed to imply that rationality means peace. Heinlein had some pretty fascist ideas, and books like starship troopers project that in a comfortable form. It is easy to attach our own ideas of what is rational, but that is very subjective. To a fascist war is rational.
- fractallyte 9y ago
  Heinlein's point was that one's vote is a huge responsibility, and that privilege must be earned: by demonstrably placing the needs of one's country above individual wellbeing. Thus only military veterans could participate in governance. Militarism doesn't automatically equate to fascism. There are further ideas in this: that, having experienced a war, a (typical) person would never again allow such a thing to happen. That's sound thinking, in my opinion.
  - 7952 9y ago
    But none of that explains why the actual results would be better. You could make the same argument about other kinds of virtue like religion, property ownership, wealth, or ancestry. That may seem irrational to us, but it made sense to some people historically. And the choice of service is completely subjective. Maybe only parents should be we to vote? Because only they can truly understand. And they have sacrificed so much for their children. So many sleepless nights! But you did not pick any of those things, you picked military service. And military service is virtuous because of war! It would be very difficult to create a culture that glorifies military service, but treats war itself as repugnant. People are just not that nuanced. The realities of war are just too unimaginable for a person in a peaceful nation to really understand. That is why it is risky to glorify service in this way. I agree that war will make people less enthusiastic about future conflict. But surely you need a constant supply of wars to allow you to recruit these rational voters. If you have 100 years of peace then the system fails. The irony is that we have had many periods in our history when a huge number of voters and politicians had direct expert of war. Did it improve the prospects of peace? Who knows.
    - afarrell 9y ago
      > It would be very difficult to create a culture that glorifies military service, but treats war itself as repugnant. There are large sections of the American left which hold this sort of perspective.
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    >That's sound thinking, in my opinion. Except for the fact that its pandering to the survivors fallacy. Of course, the ones who don't want to fight wars won't be around - they'll have been dead. The ones who survived war, are more likely to want more war - especially when they emerge as the victor nation. Just look at how blood-thirsty the 5-eyes nations are, currently: none of them have truly 'lost wars' (i.e. fought on their own territory), only troops. Yet, here today, don't ask your average Aussie to ever criticise their nations war-making; they'll think you need psychiatric help for just questioning the Australian Defence Forces' heinous crimes...

7952 9y ago

Ah yes. The kind of rational society that fights giant insects with lightly armoured infantry soldiers despite being highly technologically advanced. A lot of problems are complex and require competing demands to be balanced. There is no single objectively correct solution to those problems. Rational intelligent people come to different conclusions. That is why we have politics, to deal with the messy complexity of the real world. Treating rationality as a moral virtue just disturbs me. It is just a kind of moralistic discrimination based on things that may or may not indicate actual quality.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gaius 9y ago
The kind of rational society that fights giant insects with lightly armoured infantry soldiers In the movie. In the book the MI wear power armour.
- 7952 9y ago
  Sure, but they could have just thrown rocks from space, or nukes from orbit. A culture that can fly across the galaxy does not need to use infantry any more than a US marine needs to throw a spear. It is a very common thread in this kind of sci-fi. It is just more glorious to shoot the insect from close up. There is more opportunity for pointless sacrifice.
  - angersock 9y ago
    Heinlein actually addresses that point: > If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how—or why—he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people—'older and wiser heads,' as they say—supply the control. Which is as it should be.

musage 9y ago

> So the responsibility is on us to enforce this distinction: who among our political technicians is actually qualified to lead? None. Each of us, however, is responsible to participate, and therefore make "experts in how we should live together" pointless.

coupdejarnac 9y ago

Written by a guy who never saw combat. Anyway, one thing I got from the book, even if Heinlein never explicitly made this point, is that public officials need to perform some service or somehow show that they merit being our leaders. People who did poorly in intro uni economics should perhaps not be determining national economic policy, for example.

LifeLiverTransp 9y ago
I agree, so someone who did poorly at communism and socialism studies in the former ussr should not become a factory leader or economics minister- because if a university is good at something it is determinating people who are great knowledge repeaters and aggregators, but not determinating who is a good ad-hoc manager of completely knew scenarios. I would rather prefer pure luck to that intelectual slaughterhouse suggested by the parent, with all the fency problems a goverment would inherit in academia. I can only imagine, what would happen, if some Aspi driven towards perfectionism regarding roadtolls, would do to a transportation-ministry- to compose the perfect system. I rather have non government then this government.

watwut 9y ago

Where do you think politicians come from? People who started WWII were WWI veterans. They were not born career politicians either. Also, soldiers tend to be more pro-war, statistically speaking. Pacifists tend not to join armies.