5 ms·

How about just avoiding wars? Global interdependence of countries is beneficial for this reason. Also, India's military is no match for and unlikely to have any

How about just avoiding wars? Global interdependence of countries is beneficial for this reason. Also, India's military is no match for and unlikely to have any reason to fight the external countries where MasterCard's data is likely to be stored (US, UK, etc).

jessedhillon 5y ago
In the case of MasterCard that might be true, but the law applies generally. It's not inconceivable that another piece of critical infrastructure could be provided by a country who has a data center in a more likely adversary, say, China. In general, the Indian approach is not to whitelist everything and then blacklist whatever specific exceptions become necessary, but the reverse. As for avoiding war: sure, but how should we conduct things until utopia arrives?
ncallaway 5y ago
> How about just avoiding wars? Countries simply do not have the unilateral ability to avoid wars.
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  The easiest way to prevent war is to make it uneconomical -- like it was in the past. War should bankrupt a country. Years long fighting like we saw in the 20th century is a product of loose monetary policy. When a country can print itself out of debt (or more accurately, kick the can down the road for the next generation), war is inevitable. If we remove the ability to do this, a prolonged war becomes far less likely.
  - ncallaway 5y ago
    But, again, that's not something a country can unilaterally control. If a nation's neighbors have the capability to fight a years long war, but that same war would bankrupt the nation, then the The game theory of the situation (again, from an individual nation's perspective) means no one nation will "remove the ability to do this" unless there's a massive collective action.
  - qwytw 5y ago
    Have you heard about the 100, 70 and 30 years wars? The massive death toll and destruction in the world wars was largely a result of much more effective military technology. There was simply no way to kill as much people and destroy as much property in such a short time frame in any preceding wars. And I don't really see what a loose monetary policy could have anything to do with this. Before the 20th century countries rarely had the means to mobilize their economies by directing most of the output to the war effort, they had no capacity to enforce this and in any case there wasn't enough surplus produced to a wage total war without everyone starving to death and/or the central government collapsing.
    - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
      I am advocating hard monetary policy (ala a gold standard, a bitcoin standard) as a method for disincentivizing war. When you cannot replace the capital spent on war via inflation, war is less likely to occur. I acknowledge this is a fringe philosophy, but time will tell.
      - qwytw 5y ago
        > but time will tell Well the gold (or silver) standard had been a thing for thousands of years and I don't think there is much empirical evidence to suggest that a country's inability to control it's monetary policy somehow inherently disincentivizes it's government from waging wars. Talking about inflation specifically, there was relatively little of it during both WW1 and WW2 since all countries implemented price controls and rationing and pretty much nationalized all the available production capacity.
        rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
        There was the debasement of the currency of the Roman Empire, which lead to its failure. This was done for reasons of waging war. I am arguing that if you remove the ability for a state to create money (or at least debase it), it removes the ability for it to wage war. Continuous war requires continuous capital to wage. If this continuity is ended, wars end.
- seunosewa 5y ago
  Countries rarely go to war with countries that they don't share borders with. For India, that's China, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Making sure that MasterCard does not store their transaction data in any of those countries should be sufficient.
  - ncallaway 5y ago
    There are many rare events that a country would still want to protect itself against. "Should be sufficient" and "Will be sufficient" are different enough to cause anxiety for people who have to safeguard against those kinds of outcomes.
DesiLurker 5y ago
>How about just avoiding wars? that's a silly remark. are you suggesting that countries can simply avoid wars and accept the consequences just because some credit cards will stop working ? edit: formatting
- qwytw 5y ago
  Yes, if they believe that the cost of waging the war would outweigh anything that they might gain even if they win it. Why would any two countries wage a war against each other if their governments knew that both countries economies (and most of their capacity to produce military material) would immediately collapse?

jessedhillon 5y ago

In the case of MasterCard that might be true, but the law applies generally. It's not inconceivable that another piece of critical infrastructure could be provided by a country who has a data center in a more likely adversary, say, China. In general, the Indian approach is not to whitelist everything and then blacklist whatever specific exceptions become necessary, but the reverse. As for avoiding war: sure, but how should we conduct things until utopia arrives?

ncallaway 5y ago

> How about just avoiding wars? Countries simply do not have the unilateral ability to avoid wars.

rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
The easiest way to prevent war is to make it uneconomical -- like it was in the past. War should bankrupt a country. Years long fighting like we saw in the 20th century is a product of loose monetary policy. When a country can print itself out of debt (or more accurately, kick the can down the road for the next generation), war is inevitable. If we remove the ability to do this, a prolonged war becomes far less likely.
- ncallaway 5y ago
  But, again, that's not something a country can unilaterally control. If a nation's neighbors have the capability to fight a years long war, but that same war would bankrupt the nation, then the The game theory of the situation (again, from an individual nation's perspective) means no one nation will "remove the ability to do this" unless there's a massive collective action.
- qwytw 5y ago
  Have you heard about the 100, 70 and 30 years wars? The massive death toll and destruction in the world wars was largely a result of much more effective military technology. There was simply no way to kill as much people and destroy as much property in such a short time frame in any preceding wars. And I don't really see what a loose monetary policy could have anything to do with this. Before the 20th century countries rarely had the means to mobilize their economies by directing most of the output to the war effort, they had no capacity to enforce this and in any case there wasn't enough surplus produced to a wage total war without everyone starving to death and/or the central government collapsing.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
    I am advocating hard monetary policy (ala a gold standard, a bitcoin standard) as a method for disincentivizing war. When you cannot replace the capital spent on war via inflation, war is less likely to occur. I acknowledge this is a fringe philosophy, but time will tell.
    - qwytw 5y ago
      > but time will tell Well the gold (or silver) standard had been a thing for thousands of years and I don't think there is much empirical evidence to suggest that a country's inability to control it's monetary policy somehow inherently disincentivizes it's government from waging wars. Talking about inflation specifically, there was relatively little of it during both WW1 and WW2 since all countries implemented price controls and rationing and pretty much nationalized all the available production capacity.
      - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
        There was the debasement of the currency of the Roman Empire, which lead to its failure. This was done for reasons of waging war. I am arguing that if you remove the ability for a state to create money (or at least debase it), it removes the ability for it to wage war. Continuous war requires continuous capital to wage. If this continuity is ended, wars end.
seunosewa 5y ago
Countries rarely go to war with countries that they don't share borders with. For India, that's China, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Making sure that MasterCard does not store their transaction data in any of those countries should be sufficient.
- ncallaway 5y ago
  There are many rare events that a country would still want to protect itself against. "Should be sufficient" and "Will be sufficient" are different enough to cause anxiety for people who have to safeguard against those kinds of outcomes.

DesiLurker 5y ago

>How about just avoiding wars? that's a silly remark. are you suggesting that countries can simply avoid wars and accept the consequences just because some credit cards will stop working ? edit: formatting

qwytw 5y ago
Yes, if they believe that the cost of waging the war would outweigh anything that they might gain even if they win it. Why would any two countries wage a war against each other if their governments knew that both countries economies (and most of their capacity to produce military material) would immediately collapse?