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> The Onion couldn't come up with this. It's so embarrassing. And yet, as I type this, dozens of people are taking this premise seriously and debating it on its

by drtz 3y ago

> The Onion couldn't come up with this. It's so embarrassing. And yet, as I type this, dozens of people are taking this premise seriously and debating it on its merits. Humans really are doomed. Personally, I find discussion about hypothetical, albeit completely impractical, ways we could avoid killing each other a much better use of time than a lot of other topics, like discussing ways we could kill each other more efficiently.

dalbasal 3y ago
case in point, I suppose. Ok. Fine. I'm in. Let's discuss it. Do you think we're better off using ai to decide the arms treaties, or should we hold off for quantum computing?
hef19898 3y ago
Agree, but then humanity spent a considerble effort since the dawn of time exactly on that: developing ways to kill things faster and safer for oneself. It is, sadly, part of our nature. And because of that I prefer hypotheticals that actually have some basis in reality. By the way so, during the time of bow, arrow, sword, spear and shield, we still managed to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
- stareatgoats 3y ago
  > part of our nature. This comes up now and then. But it doesn't hold water, because if true then people would on average be killing people roughly at the same rate, regardless of epoch, geographical area or society. But nations and tribes that were constantly warring have over time become good, peaceful neighbors, while the opposite is the exception. In spite of the impression one might get from the daily news, person-on-person violence is at an historical low. Why is this explanation still popular, despite the obvious falsity of it? Good question, not sure. Maybe for now suffice to say that it isn't true whenever it pops up. Eventually we might start scrutinizing the real reasons (or lack thereof) for going to war, and the mindless slaughter it necessarily entails.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    It's part of the nature of a bomb for it to blow up, but you should note a bomb spends 99.999999% of it's life not blowing up, and many bombs never blow up before they are disassembled. There is no obvious falisty here. Any intelligent entity has the ability to kill, it's part of the nature of intelligence. The question you're asking, which is different is "What drives more killing at particular times, and can it be avoided". And here is the answer you don't want to hear. No. This is just game theory in practice. Every player has the option of cooperating or competing. If they decide to compete it is likely they will choose to escalate in order to win.
    - stareatgoats 3y ago
      > This is just game theory in practice. Maybe the model didn't take all parameters into account - a primary characteristic of all models? Such arguments may first seem like a plausible description of the world only to become arguments for a course of action. In short I would not rely too much on a theory that says "we must go to war and kill thousands if not millions of civilians otherwise the opponent will" as a lame excuse to leave other options unexplored. We're getting close to that phase in history where other such options seem ever more realistic IMO.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        You're seemingly shifting your point, which originally was that humans at times and for varied reasons kill each other. In which I was replying that this is innate and not a removeable part of the system. You may be able to quell said behavior, but you can never be sure your system is stable, or if your system is only quasistable. Any new variable added to your system at any point in the future can have a non-linear effect which is not predictable/non-computable before hand.
        stareatgoats 3y ago
        I think we can agree to disagree at this point. This is why I think so: The argument that I originally objected to was that it is in "our nature" to develop ever more lethal means of warfare. Your objection to this is that (according to game theory) there is no way to stop this, so although it might not be in our genetic nature then it is in the "nature" of game theory (with rational players that might as well be robots). My objection to this stands: you can't know all the parameters of the game even if it probably is possible to retrofit the theory to past events so that it looks all encompassing. In systems as complex as total world history you simply can not pin down all the parameters sufficiently so that you can foresee all possible outcomes - no matter how much one might wish for such powers. It is a temptation that many, perhaps mostly mathematicians, have succumbed to: replacing the world with the model, or the terrain with the map if you will. So, even this kind of "nature" is false, even if less obviously so. I don't expect you to agree, but I think we can agree that this is the point of contention, and since our beliefs are simply different (and I don't expect you to be swayed as a consequence of our little exchange here) there is no use arguing further.
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  > developing ways to kill things faster and safer for oneself. It is, sadly, part of our nature. If you really feel that way, please either (1) go vegan, or (2) start killing the animals you eat and wear with your bare hands.
chongli 3y ago
A lot more people, as a percentage, died during medieval wars than do today in modern wars. Read about the crusades sometime. They would lay siege to cities and massacre the entire population. Not a single survivor. They didn’t need advanced weaponry to kill tens of thousands of people. A few thousand soldiers would go through a city, house-by-house, and put every single man, woman, and child to the sword. They then looted what they wanted and burned the house to the ground. Thousands more died during the siege, long before any soldiers reached them, due to disease and starvation from overcrowding and dwindling food supplies. It was absolutely horrific and it happened mainly because swords, spears, and bows were useless against city walls so long sieges were the rule. The massacres that followed could be chalked up to deep resentment on the part of the attacking soldiers for the defenders holding out so long. I think another part of it is simply that the commanders of the day had less power over their soldiers, so looting and pillaging was part of the bargain to encourage them to fight.
- heja2009 3y ago
  Erm, no, I don't think so. Can you give a source for that claim? Medieval wars were in general shorter, more regional, used much smaller forces and affected the civilian population less than in later ages. Of course it is very difficult to give any numbers, but various infection diseases, childbirth and infant death were major causes of death. (E.g. women life expectancy overtook that of men only in the 19th century.) Also at least in the 13th and 14th century in Europe main reasons for a significant temporary population decline - during a time of general population growth - were black death and hunger, the latter being partially caused by limitations to agriculture technology and available land.
  - pmontra 3y ago
    The Mongol siege and destruction of Baghdad. An estimation of 200k to 2M civilians killed in one week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)
  - automatic6131 3y ago
    >affected the civilian population less than in later ages lol. lmao, even. Just an army moving through a region - just walking, scouting and "foraging" (this doesn't mean bushes, this means looting from rural villages) - guarantees a famine for those involved. Only the invention of the railway prevented (no, lessened) this.

by drtz 3y ago

dalbasal 3y ago

case in point, I suppose. Ok. Fine. I'm in. Let's discuss it. Do you think we're better off using ai to decide the arms treaties, or should we hold off for quantum computing?

hef19898 3y ago

Agree, but then humanity spent a considerble effort since the dawn of time exactly on that: developing ways to kill things faster and safer for oneself. It is, sadly, part of our nature. And because of that I prefer hypotheticals that actually have some basis in reality. By the way so, during the time of bow, arrow, sword, spear and shield, we still managed to kill hundreds of thousands of people.

stareatgoats 3y ago
> part of our nature. This comes up now and then. But it doesn't hold water, because if true then people would on average be killing people roughly at the same rate, regardless of epoch, geographical area or society. But nations and tribes that were constantly warring have over time become good, peaceful neighbors, while the opposite is the exception. In spite of the impression one might get from the daily news, person-on-person violence is at an historical low. Why is this explanation still popular, despite the obvious falsity of it? Good question, not sure. Maybe for now suffice to say that it isn't true whenever it pops up. Eventually we might start scrutinizing the real reasons (or lack thereof) for going to war, and the mindless slaughter it necessarily entails.
- pixl97 3y ago
  It's part of the nature of a bomb for it to blow up, but you should note a bomb spends 99.999999% of it's life not blowing up, and many bombs never blow up before they are disassembled. There is no obvious falisty here. Any intelligent entity has the ability to kill, it's part of the nature of intelligence. The question you're asking, which is different is "What drives more killing at particular times, and can it be avoided". And here is the answer you don't want to hear. No. This is just game theory in practice. Every player has the option of cooperating or competing. If they decide to compete it is likely they will choose to escalate in order to win.
  - stareatgoats 3y ago
    > This is just game theory in practice. Maybe the model didn't take all parameters into account - a primary characteristic of all models? Such arguments may first seem like a plausible description of the world only to become arguments for a course of action. In short I would not rely too much on a theory that says "we must go to war and kill thousands if not millions of civilians otherwise the opponent will" as a lame excuse to leave other options unexplored. We're getting close to that phase in history where other such options seem ever more realistic IMO.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      You're seemingly shifting your point, which originally was that humans at times and for varied reasons kill each other. In which I was replying that this is innate and not a removeable part of the system. You may be able to quell said behavior, but you can never be sure your system is stable, or if your system is only quasistable. Any new variable added to your system at any point in the future can have a non-linear effect which is not predictable/non-computable before hand.
      - stareatgoats 3y ago
        I think we can agree to disagree at this point. This is why I think so: The argument that I originally objected to was that it is in "our nature" to develop ever more lethal means of warfare. Your objection to this is that (according to game theory) there is no way to stop this, so although it might not be in our genetic nature then it is in the "nature" of game theory (with rational players that might as well be robots). My objection to this stands: you can't know all the parameters of the game even if it probably is possible to retrofit the theory to past events so that it looks all encompassing. In systems as complex as total world history you simply can not pin down all the parameters sufficiently so that you can foresee all possible outcomes - no matter how much one might wish for such powers. It is a temptation that many, perhaps mostly mathematicians, have succumbed to: replacing the world with the model, or the terrain with the map if you will. So, even this kind of "nature" is false, even if less obviously so. I don't expect you to agree, but I think we can agree that this is the point of contention, and since our beliefs are simply different (and I don't expect you to be swayed as a consequence of our little exchange here) there is no use arguing further.
RecycledEle 3y ago
> developing ways to kill things faster and safer for oneself. It is, sadly, part of our nature. If you really feel that way, please either (1) go vegan, or (2) start killing the animals you eat and wear with your bare hands.

chongli 3y ago

A lot more people, as a percentage, died during medieval wars than do today in modern wars. Read about the crusades sometime. They would lay siege to cities and massacre the entire population. Not a single survivor. They didn’t need advanced weaponry to kill tens of thousands of people. A few thousand soldiers would go through a city, house-by-house, and put every single man, woman, and child to the sword. They then looted what they wanted and burned the house to the ground. Thousands more died during the siege, long before any soldiers reached them, due to disease and starvation from overcrowding and dwindling food supplies. It was absolutely horrific and it happened mainly because swords, spears, and bows were useless against city walls so long sieges were the rule. The massacres that followed could be chalked up to deep resentment on the part of the attacking soldiers for the defenders holding out so long. I think another part of it is simply that the commanders of the day had less power over their soldiers, so looting and pillaging was part of the bargain to encourage them to fight.

heja2009 3y ago
Erm, no, I don't think so. Can you give a source for that claim? Medieval wars were in general shorter, more regional, used much smaller forces and affected the civilian population less than in later ages. Of course it is very difficult to give any numbers, but various infection diseases, childbirth and infant death were major causes of death. (E.g. women life expectancy overtook that of men only in the 19th century.) Also at least in the 13th and 14th century in Europe main reasons for a significant temporary population decline - during a time of general population growth - were black death and hunger, the latter being partially caused by limitations to agriculture technology and available land.
- pmontra 3y ago
  The Mongol siege and destruction of Baghdad. An estimation of 200k to 2M civilians killed in one week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)
- automatic6131 3y ago
  >affected the civilian population less than in later ages lol. lmao, even. Just an army moving through a region - just walking, scouting and "foraging" (this doesn't mean bushes, this means looting from rural villages) - guarantees a famine for those involved. Only the invention of the railway prevented (no, lessened) this.