5 ms·

It seems dubious to claim something that has impacted history as significantly as war has not had any positive effects on civilization.

by juve1996 4y ago

lupire 4y ago
On the winner's civilization, mostly.
- juve1996 4y ago
  Even the losers - we borrow many ideas from plenty of failed civilizations.
  - Ensorceled 4y ago
    And many ideas are also simply lost, history is full of the ebb and flow of advancement as civilizations are destroyed and plundered.
    - juve1996 4y ago
      Despite these catastrophic civilization collapses, civilizations have grown increasingly more advanced despite a localized minimum. The need to wage war to defend or gain resources seems like a major driver of complexity. To maintain a military it needs equipped and fed, requiring large supply chains, and hence, more complexity. If you didn't need to defend your food stores, you wouldn't need such complexity.
Ensorceled 4y ago
It's pretty easy to imagine that war significantly slowed humanities advancement and caused significant pain and suffering along the way. Anything good that came out of warfare might also have come out of less horrible methods. Not sure why you are having so much trouble with this.
- bergenty 4y ago
  Much as I dislike it, I’m having trouble too. Warfare will push the society to create better weapons (metallurgy, chariot making etc,), better logistics, solidify hierarchies etc. The spoils of war are extremely effective motivators at a very base human level (power, land, wealth, rape). I doubt peaceful means could achieve what war can.
  - EthanHeilman 4y ago
    > I doubt peaceful means could achieve what war can. It works the other way as well, I doubt war can achieve what peace can. > Warfare will push the society to create better weapons (metallurgy, chariot making etc,), better logistics, solidify hierarchies etc. In many historical examples this also involved the destruction of knowledge. The Roman empire set mathematics back a thousand years. The Greeks were very close to calculus. Large hierarchies often stagnate societies. The result of the Peloponnesian War was a diminished Athens and stagnant slowly dying Sparta. Did WW1 help Europe by killing two generations of French and German Mathematicians? Königsberg was one of the top intellectual centers of the world for 300 years? How is it doing now? Can you even find it on a map? Warfare isn't just on thing that we isolate and ask, "is it beneficial?" The impact of a war on a society depends enormously on context and the chaos of history. Did WW2 result in massive advances in human science, I think so. How can we know what the world would have looked like if so many human lives had not be lost? The world got really good jet engines but what did it lose? Did WW1 set science back, I also think that is true. WW1 also helped set in motion the end of European colonialism which is a long term good for the world. There is no meaningful answer to this question when set at a scope as large as you have set it.
- User23 4y ago
  I think the trouble is that you're emotionally wedded to the idea that war is absolutely bad. That's preventing you from even considering the possibility of higher order consequences of war having positive aspects. It's conceivable that warfare improved the human capability for advanced cooperation, motivated engineering advances, inspired great art, selected for stronger and healthier men, lead to beneficial gene flows between populations, and had other largely positive effects.

It seems dubious to claim something that has impacted history as significantly as war has not had any positive effects on civilization.

lupire 4y ago

On the winner's civilization, mostly.

juve1996 4y ago
Even the losers - we borrow many ideas from plenty of failed civilizations.
- Ensorceled 4y ago
  And many ideas are also simply lost, history is full of the ebb and flow of advancement as civilizations are destroyed and plundered.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    Despite these catastrophic civilization collapses, civilizations have grown increasingly more advanced despite a localized minimum. The need to wage war to defend or gain resources seems like a major driver of complexity. To maintain a military it needs equipped and fed, requiring large supply chains, and hence, more complexity. If you didn't need to defend your food stores, you wouldn't need such complexity.

Ensorceled 4y ago

It's pretty easy to imagine that war significantly slowed humanities advancement and caused significant pain and suffering along the way. Anything good that came out of warfare might also have come out of less horrible methods. Not sure why you are having so much trouble with this.

bergenty 4y ago
Much as I dislike it, I’m having trouble too. Warfare will push the society to create better weapons (metallurgy, chariot making etc,), better logistics, solidify hierarchies etc. The spoils of war are extremely effective motivators at a very base human level (power, land, wealth, rape). I doubt peaceful means could achieve what war can.
- EthanHeilman 4y ago
  > I doubt peaceful means could achieve what war can. It works the other way as well, I doubt war can achieve what peace can. > Warfare will push the society to create better weapons (metallurgy, chariot making etc,), better logistics, solidify hierarchies etc. In many historical examples this also involved the destruction of knowledge. The Roman empire set mathematics back a thousand years. The Greeks were very close to calculus. Large hierarchies often stagnate societies. The result of the Peloponnesian War was a diminished Athens and stagnant slowly dying Sparta. Did WW1 help Europe by killing two generations of French and German Mathematicians? Königsberg was one of the top intellectual centers of the world for 300 years? How is it doing now? Can you even find it on a map? Warfare isn't just on thing that we isolate and ask, "is it beneficial?" The impact of a war on a society depends enormously on context and the chaos of history. Did WW2 result in massive advances in human science, I think so. How can we know what the world would have looked like if so many human lives had not be lost? The world got really good jet engines but what did it lose? Did WW1 set science back, I also think that is true. WW1 also helped set in motion the end of European colonialism which is a long term good for the world. There is no meaningful answer to this question when set at a scope as large as you have set it.
User23 4y ago
I think the trouble is that you're emotionally wedded to the idea that war is absolutely bad. That's preventing you from even considering the possibility of higher order consequences of war having positive aspects. It's conceivable that warfare improved the human capability for advanced cooperation, motivated engineering advances, inspired great art, selected for stronger and healthier men, lead to beneficial gene flows between populations, and had other largely positive effects.