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You're right about all that. The question is: at what point did it become inevitable? Or, what would have had to happen to stop it? We know that it didn't, but

You're right about all that. The question is: at what point did it become inevitable? Or, what would have had to happen to stop it? We know that it didn't, but that's hindsight: "whatever happened, HAD to happen." But the players did have choices.

inkyoto 3y ago
> […] at what point did it become inevitable? I do not have an answer to that question, unfortunately. Given choices A, B, C, D and Z, what motivates people to make the worst (short or long term) one out of all alternatives? There is no answer to that. Personally, I link it to the self-determination theory and the intrinsic motivation, yet neither can be rationalised nor yield a deterministic answer. Hypothetically, if Kaiser Wilhelm II had access to a time machine and an opportunity to reflect on long term consequences of his own actions, would he have made the same choice to go to war, made a better choice, made a worse choice or anywhere in between? One can't know as human nature is an enigma to date.