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Weapons technology is not evil. Sovereign states cannot exist without a credible capacity to project force within their territory. If people have qualms with h

by fsloth 8y ago

Weapons technology is not evil. Sovereign states cannot exist without a credible capacity to project force within their territory. If people have qualms with how the weapons are used they should take effort in the political process.

paganel 8y ago
> If people have qualms with how the weapons are used they should take effort in the political process War and politics are very much the same thing, if we would have have managed to "fix" politics by now I'm pretty sure war would have also been "fixed" instantly. But "fixing" politics is an elusive (and I personally think impossible) job, we've been having a go at it for at least 2,400 years (think Plato) but apparently it still seems that people in power like to promise the impossible to the multitudes who believe them just because (think the propaganda lies told to the Athenians just before the ill-fated expidition to Sicily [1]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition
- fsloth 8y ago
  Politics is an inseparable part of human existence, and yes, war is an extension of politics. That's why you can't get rid of it. The cornerstone of the sovereignty of a polity is the credible capability to project force within their territory. To put in another words, the zeroth rule of existence of the state, is that the state is the entity with the potential for instrumenting most violence within the territory over which they claim dominion. As an example failed states can have various factions claiming sovereignty over mini-fiefdoms of their own, mainly due to their superior force projection capability. See the fragmentation in Libya, or the warlords of Somalia, etc. That's what I meant about fixing the political process. Over a specific territory there is always an entity with the most force projection capability, and that entity likely has the most political power over that specific area. You can't have a state without capability for violence. That's why military service is an honorable profession, (and not a crime against humanity) and absolute pacifists are completely delusional about the current state of human existence. I would like to have a world without war as well, but that's not the world we live in right now. Like in large software projects, you can't rewrite the world. You just have to try to maintain it and make it a little better, while learning to live with the quirks and the bugs of history. Currently war is hard coded to the political structure of the world.

by fsloth 8y ago

paganel 8y ago

> If people have qualms with how the weapons are used they should take effort in the political process War and politics are very much the same thing, if we would have have managed to "fix" politics by now I'm pretty sure war would have also been "fixed" instantly. But "fixing" politics is an elusive (and I personally think impossible) job, we've been having a go at it for at least 2,400 years (think Plato) but apparently it still seems that people in power like to promise the impossible to the multitudes who believe them just because (think the propaganda lies told to the Athenians just before the ill-fated expidition to Sicily [1]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition

fsloth 8y ago
Politics is an inseparable part of human existence, and yes, war is an extension of politics. That's why you can't get rid of it. The cornerstone of the sovereignty of a polity is the credible capability to project force within their territory. To put in another words, the zeroth rule of existence of the state, is that the state is the entity with the potential for instrumenting most violence within the territory over which they claim dominion. As an example failed states can have various factions claiming sovereignty over mini-fiefdoms of their own, mainly due to their superior force projection capability. See the fragmentation in Libya, or the warlords of Somalia, etc. That's what I meant about fixing the political process. Over a specific territory there is always an entity with the most force projection capability, and that entity likely has the most political power over that specific area. You can't have a state without capability for violence. That's why military service is an honorable profession, (and not a crime against humanity) and absolute pacifists are completely delusional about the current state of human existence. I would like to have a world without war as well, but that's not the world we live in right now. Like in large software projects, you can't rewrite the world. You just have to try to maintain it and make it a little better, while learning to live with the quirks and the bugs of history. Currently war is hard coded to the political structure of the world.