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Show HN: How to avoid World Wars!

4 points by EGreg 5y ago

Everywhere I travel, people everywhere have the same concerns: earn enough money, raise a family, enjoy life. They don’t want these conflicts. So why does it happen? The Russian security council has just unanimously voted to recognize the Russian-speaking breakaway regions of Ukraine as independent. While it’s tempting for many to explain it all as “Putin is behind every decision in Russia and eveyone is a puppet”, this is a more serious situation. What was Putin suppossed to do, ignore them? When the US congress pushed Obama to intervene in Syria, or pushed Trump slap sanctions on Russia, they resisted for a while. But whether Stalin or the Pope is replaced, the cold war or the Crusades would have still taken place. Because the apparatus continues to operate. Avtually the problem is actually far deeper and more. Almost always, it is the combination of two things that lead to escalating conflicts in the world: 1) A discrete (usually binary) choice between status A and B for people on the ground 2) An absurd concentration of power in a state, federation, corporate industry, etc. Together, they use mass media to pit regular people against each other on one or another side of an issue, keeping them divided rather than working together to fix the system upstream. I have written about it in many areas of life, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it (links in the comments below) Factory Farming [1] Plastic [1] Fossil Fuels [1] Vaccines [1] Party Poliics [2] Presidential Elections [2] Net Neutrality [3] Women in Tech [4] Israeli-Palestinian Conflict [5] I could go on… but let me just suggest an obvious solution. Make a UN treaty (like nuclear non-proliferation) committing to gradual transitioning to a system where each region could vote for its membership in neighboring states, and the results would be continuous, eg 30% membership in A, 60% in B, and 10% in a nascent independent state C. This would be reflected in regional arrangements. Separatists among Tamil Tigers, PKK, PLO, Hamas, Catalonians, Kurds, would have had less to fight about. As it is, systems resist change and people are pushed by mass media and culture to ostracize those who push for the system to change, as “traitors” who ”side with the enemy”. Meanwhile, by insisting on 1) consensus on discrete outcomes and 2) concentrations of power on both sides, they just paint themselves into a corner, and could lead to nuclear armaggedon. All for what? The inability to improve the current international system. (1 and 2 is also, incidentally, why blockchains don’t scale as well as almost all other Internet protocols).

EGreg 5y ago
1. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 2. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=254 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=254 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=212 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=212 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=250 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=250 3. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=194 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=194 4. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286 5. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=219 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=219 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=172 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=172 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=174 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=174 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=322 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=322
EGreg 5y ago
USA encourages separatists and regime change all the time, often halfway around the world. Just in the last 20 years, we had invasion and occupation of Iraq, refusal to leave despite unanimous vote by Iraqis, invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Libya (abandoned it to be a failed state), training rebels in Syria, while fighting a proxy war in Yemen, and so forth. Russia has encouraged and supported the separatists in Transnistria (Moldova), Ossetia (Georgia) etc from what would otherwise be aggression by their host countries. Many people there are grateful to Russia, while many in the host countries are very upset. I haven’t looked at Putin’s latest address, but I expect — like American presidents — it will be full of historical facts but of course miss the point. The International System allows this crap to happen. Sykes-Picot created even worse tinderboxes. The Tamil Tigers, PKK, PLO, Catalonians, Basques and many other separatists have been fighting for their own independence from India, Syria/Turkey/Iraq, Jordan/Egypt, Spain, France and so forth for a very long time. In my opinion all this an be solved by tweaks to the system. We need the UN members to come together to make a new resolution: to use the principle of self-determination to have each region and city to vote every few years which neighboring country it should be part of. This includes police forces, utilities, economic cooperation etc. The results should be continuous like a parliamentary system — so that means 30% country A, 50% country B and 20% their own nascent state. This would defuse most sectarian conflicts. Before you think this is crazy, this is exactly what we have done with RELIGION and we call it “multiculturalism”. Religion was a huge unifying force in Europe in the middle ages, and around the world 2000 years ago. The Crusades were EXACTLY about which religion would dominate a given land. Today, we have multiculturalism and learn to peacefully coexist without fighting religious wars for land. But in the modern intenational system, States have now taken the place of religion as a unifying force in certain locations, regardless of how thigs change. Swiss people will fight to keep the Swiss flag flying excluively in Lugano before they let Lugano be partly Italian too, for instance. Inability to coexist peacefully (eg Albanians and Serbians) has led to decades of sectarian conflict, and the current system relies on the international system top-down “recognizing” some change, such as Kosovo no longer belonging to Serbia, or the “one China policy”. This consensus doesn’t exist in practice. It is far better to agree to allow people on the ground to practice self-determination and MULTI-STATISM.
smt88 5y ago
> While it’s tempting for many to explain it all as “Putin is behind every decision in Russia and eveyone is a puppet”, this is a more serious situation. It is not just tempting; it is factually correct. Putin manufactured the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine as a justification for his invasion. It is astroturfed, not a grassroots issue. It's also easy to see places with true separatist movements (Ireland or Spain, for example) that aren't propped up by neighboring dictators. So Putin could have (and should have) ignored any Ukrainian separatists.

4 points by EGreg 5y ago

EGreg 5y ago

1. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 2. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=254 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=254 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=212 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=212 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=250 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=250 3. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=194 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=194 4. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286 5. https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=219 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=219 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=172 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=172 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=174 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=174 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=322 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=322

EGreg 5y ago

USA encourages separatists and regime change all the time, often halfway around the world. Just in the last 20 years, we had invasion and occupation of Iraq, refusal to leave despite unanimous vote by Iraqis, invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Libya (abandoned it to be a failed state), training rebels in Syria, while fighting a proxy war in Yemen, and so forth. Russia has encouraged and supported the separatists in Transnistria (Moldova), Ossetia (Georgia) etc from what would otherwise be aggression by their host countries. Many people there are grateful to Russia, while many in the host countries are very upset. I haven’t looked at Putin’s latest address, but I expect — like American presidents — it will be full of historical facts but of course miss the point. The International System allows this crap to happen. Sykes-Picot created even worse tinderboxes. The Tamil Tigers, PKK, PLO, Catalonians, Basques and many other separatists have been fighting for their own independence from India, Syria/Turkey/Iraq, Jordan/Egypt, Spain, France and so forth for a very long time. In my opinion all this an be solved by tweaks to the system. We need the UN members to come together to make a new resolution: to use the principle of self-determination to have each region and city to vote every few years which neighboring country it should be part of. This includes police forces, utilities, economic cooperation etc. The results should be continuous like a parliamentary system — so that means 30% country A, 50% country B and 20% their own nascent state. This would defuse most sectarian conflicts. Before you think this is crazy, this is exactly what we have done with RELIGION and we call it “multiculturalism”. Religion was a huge unifying force in Europe in the middle ages, and around the world 2000 years ago. The Crusades were EXACTLY about which religion would dominate a given land. Today, we have multiculturalism and learn to peacefully coexist without fighting religious wars for land. But in the modern intenational system, States have now taken the place of religion as a unifying force in certain locations, regardless of how thigs change. Swiss people will fight to keep the Swiss flag flying excluively in Lugano before they let Lugano be partly Italian too, for instance. Inability to coexist peacefully (eg Albanians and Serbians) has led to decades of sectarian conflict, and the current system relies on the international system top-down “recognizing” some change, such as Kosovo no longer belonging to Serbia, or the “one China policy”. This consensus doesn’t exist in practice. It is far better to agree to allow people on the ground to practice self-determination and MULTI-STATISM.

smt88 5y ago

> While it’s tempting for many to explain it all as “Putin is behind every decision in Russia and eveyone is a puppet”, this is a more serious situation. It is not just tempting; it is factually correct. Putin manufactured the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine as a justification for his invasion. It is astroturfed, not a grassroots issue. It's also easy to see places with true separatist movements (Ireland or Spain, for example) that aren't propped up by neighboring dictators. So Putin could have (and should have) ignored any Ukrainian separatists.