12 ms·
Can men live without war? (1956)
- optimalsolver 2y agoA depressing example of Betteridge's law of headlines.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rhelz 2y agoFascinating article...written not that long after it looked like men or anybody else could never live with war again. But, those fretting about the necessity of war need not have worried, as subsequent events proved. War between nuclear powers doesn't happen any more, but instead we've had endless proxy wars. Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine....
- hkpack 2y ago> War between nuclear powers doesn't happen any more It didn't happen yet, but there are no is reasons for nuclear war to be avoided indefinitely.
- ryandrake 2y agoAll it takes is one madman to get near the button and gain enough power that his button-press is honored. It almost seems inevitable given a long enough time frame.
- apantel 2y agoOn a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
- notfish 2y agoI’d just prefer the survival rate not drop to zero for everyone at the same time.
- lazide 2y agoDon’t worry. If there is anything history (and the geological record) has shown us, the planet and other humans have tried very very very hard to kill all humans in the past. And failed. Not that they didn’t make one hell of a dent sometimes, mind you. We’d more likely end up with an extra mutation or two, similar to the Moties [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye] and some solid species level PTSD from the whole mess. Why do you think the doomsday prepper genes haven’t been bred out yet? I’m guessing because sometimes, they were the only ones left standing!
- immibis 2y agoActually, the geological record shows that mass extinctions are possible, happen somewhat regularly, and are sometimes caused by a single species altering the environment on a massive scale. For example when photosynthesizers converted 20% of the atmosphere into extremely toxic oxygen gas.
- lazide 2y agoEh, a bit overstated. None of them killed EVERYTHING, near as we can tell. Not even the oxygen catastrophe you're mentioning. To do that would likely require liquifying the mantle entirely, or some similar scale event. The last big one was approximately 66 million years ago due to perhaps the Chicxulub impact, and it wiped out most of the dinosaurs - but modern birds are descended from them, and the crocodiles and alligators survived (well, VERY similar looking ancestors) /just fine. None of them could build space stations, nuclear reactors, bunkers, etc. That we know of at least. None of them could grow hydroponic food, or communicate at near light speed to the other side of the planet, or even know what any of that means. The entire span of time something vaguely resembling human has been around is also 1/10th of that time, but there have been MANY smaller events with large scale extinctions. I'm not saying it would be a good time, but there is no way every single human is getting wiped out by anything except a nearby Gamma Ray burst/Supernova, surprise planetary collision, or something of similar destructive scale. Things way beyond even our wildest dreams of destructive power. Even if we launched every nuke every country has ever produced, while civilization as we know it would be done for, humanity would definitely persist. Even if the next war would be fought with clubs instead of nukes. And even if all the oxygen in the atmosphere turned to cyanide - guess what, we do (technically) know how to deal with that, there are populations of people who are currently protected from that, and while most of humanity would die while we scrambled to adapt, humanity itself would not perish. At least not just from that.
- xanderlewis 2y agoYeah… but if it hasn’t happened by now (after 70+ years), that tells you something.
- more_corn 2y ago70 years is not a useful timeframe for analysis of human warfare. Historically speaking a 70 year peace could be considered brief. Recall that empires have lasted thousands of years, city states have warred on and off for centuries, warlords have emerged with a cadence measured in centuries and great conquests on a cadence of thousands of years. 70 years is a blip. Compare that to the 6 known close calls where all-out nuclear war was narrowly averted and we’re not looking great. (What is that about once a decade?) I’d say there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll see a nuclear war in my lifetime. And if it gets out of hand billions of people will die. I’m not sure the invention of nuclear weapons was a net positive for the world.
- hkpack 2y ago> I’m not sure the invention of nuclear weapons was a net positive for the world. It was never an option that nuclear weapons wouldn't be invented. The only question was who will invent and use it first.
- mathgeek 2y agoAll it tells me (just personally) is that the threat of being nuked (and especially being nuked in retaliation) is an effective deterrent since 1945. Not perfect of course, but it’s prevented larger conflicts than we have seen.
- adastra22 2y agoIt has happened. Twice. Russia-China in 1969, and Pakistan-India in 1999. Arguably one should count the Cuban missile crisis too.
- xanderlewis 2y agoNo, it hasn’t. We’re talking about nuclear weapons being used. The fact that we’ve had conflicts that didn’t go nuclear is even more to my point.
- blub 2y agoMany if not all the close calls in the past were misunderstandings or tensions spiraling out of control. The madman with nukes is a trope. This is also why online commenters thinking that the Ukraine war will not go nuclear are misguided.
- The_Colonel 2y agoThe weaker version of madman scenario is a head of state believing they can use nukes in a limited scope to achieve its political goals. Imagine this scenario: the war in Ukraine goes for some more time, Russia starts to have economic problems and is desperate to settle it (without having to compromise), force Ukraine to surrender and demand sanctions to be lifted. So he uses a couple of small tactical nukes along the frontline to cripple Ukrainian forces. Civilian deaths are in tens of thousands. Ukraine can't respond, but apparently some threat has been declared from US to prevent this scenario - NATO / US launches conventional strikes on Russian military installations within Ukraine. Russia is not able to respond symmetrically, so it drops a tactical nuke on a military base within NATO territory (in Eastern Europe, far from major population center) as a kind of last warning to step back. There are multiple ways how this can go from then on, but there are scenarios ending in a major or all-out nuclear exchange. Without the need for misunderstanding and madmans.
- dragontamer 2y agoNote that the smallest tactical nuke, the Davy Crockett, is One-Million times smaller than the largest nuke ever tested (The Tzar Bomba). USA Policy is that all nukes are nukes. The idea being that we've never wargamed a scenario where small nukes were used that didn't turn into the treadmill of larger and larger nukes anyway. (Well, they used a 50 ton nuke. We should respond with a 500ton nuke, then they respond with a 10,000 ton nuke. Then we respond with a 100kTon nuke. Then they respond with a 1Mton nuke....) So the minute a 'Small Nuke' is used, we should just respond with the biggest nuke. No point dilly dallying, if we are all going to die we might as well get it over with faster and in a way that is to our advantage. -------- The issue is that Russia or China may not see it that way. They might see the small nukes as a different thing that doesn't deserve the response of the larger nuke. It's not that the world is composed of madmen. It's that the world is composed of people with different points of view. As such, Russia stockpiles tactical (aka: small) nukes. USA stockpiles strategic (aka: large) nukes. ------ Also note: we stopped making larger nukes for political reasons. There seemed to be no end to the size of 'Large' nukes. The H-Bomb seemed to scale as large as we ever wanted. A collection of 10x 10 MTon nukes would deal more damage than a single 100MTon nuke anyway. But there's nothing stopping us from making 10x 100Mton nukes.
- Log_out_ 2y agoIs there a type of geo engineering that can soften the effects of a nuclear exchange?
- openasocket 2y agoWe’ve had at least one war between nuclear powers off the top of my head. The Kargil war of 1999 between India and Pakistan, I believe both sides had nuclear weapons deployed at the time. EDIT: also the Sino-soviet war of 1969
- rhelz 2y agoI stand corrected.
- Der_Einzige 2y agoBoth were basically small border skirmishes. Yes there’s trivia claims that “nukes almost flew between each state” but in reality no one was anywhere near nuking each others cities.
- hollerith 2y agoSarah Paine says that the Kremlin asked Washington if Washington was OK with the Kremlin's nuking China -- during or right after what you dismiss as "small border skirmishes". According to Paine, Washington responded with a firm no. Paine didn't specify the targets the Kremlin wanted to nuke: I'm guessing Beijing's new (and consequently small) nuclear stockpile and nuclear production facilities rather than cities.
- openasocket 2y agoIn the Kargil War both sides deployed multiple divisions, and the Sino-Soviet War armored units were employed. Sure, neither side came close to using nukes, but they were still at war. It just goes to show that war between two nuclear states is possible without nuclear weapons being employed.
- doubloon 2y agohalf of those are not proxy wars in any way shape or form.
- apantel 2y agoIn the era of the atomic bomb, conventional war no longer takes place directly between tier 1 (nuclear) powers because the rulers can’t have that. The rulers on both sides ultimately want to enjoy their wealth and power. They want to go to the brothel at the end of the day. So they won’t risk getting into a nuclear war. This is even truer in the era of Globalism where enjoying wealth and power generally means enjoying the benefits of the global supply chain: yachts, supercars, travel, exotic imports, etc. A nuclear war would disrupt all that. It would make being an oligarch a lot less fun, so they will generally avoid messing with the world at that level. Finally, in the era of the atomic bomb, conventional warfare (sending your tanks and battleships against your enemy) is obsolete for tier 1 powers. If you are a tier 1 power and another tier 1 power starts sending tanks your way, you send off one nuke to nuke all the tanks. Conventional warfare is not obsolete for tier 2 powers since it’s all they have. A tier 2 power battling it out in conventional warfare against another tier 2 power means something. Conventional warfare means very little to tier 1 powers. Tier 1 and tier 2 powers play by completely different rules. As a result, conventional war only takes place now on tier 2 (non-nuclear) lands. If there are sabers to be rattled between two tier 1 powers, the rattling will happen on tier 2 land, usually with tier 2 powers being the primary warring parties (proxy war). You also see tier 1 powers making the occasional move but always against tier 2 powers only, e.g. Russia -> Ukraine. If Ukraine had nukes there would be no war in Ukraine. Notice how it’s war IN Ukraine: on tier 2 land. If Ukraine managed to make it a war IN Russia, they’d be nuked to oblivion.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- actionfromafar 2y agoAgree except that Ukraine is slowly taking the war to Russia itself, their drones are getting further and further. I think Russia would rather invent a way to safe face than face whatever consequences may come after nuking Ukraine to oblivion.
- mu53 2y agoUkraine is uncomfortably close. Nuclear armed combatant on one side, and proxy on the other.
- snowpid 2y agoIt must be repeated: Ukraine is it's own nation and Ukrainian people fight because their own decision.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rubytubido 2y agoNo, they are fighting because the government wants it. Ukrainian men have no choice: they can't fly away from the country, they can't safely walk on the streets because the special patrol with take them to the military registration and enlistment office without consent. But some of them are really do. Stop repeating your propaganda.
- snowpid 2y agoAll Ukrainian men fight because they are force to? Do you talk to any Ukrainean person? Stop repeating Russian propaganda. Also if we are here: Do you Russian think, Russian soldiers like to die in meat waves?
- rubytubido 2y ago> Do you talk to any Ukrainean person? Yes, I have a few Ukrainean friends, initially they liked Zelensky, but now they hate him. I also visited Kiev in 2020 Stop repeating western propaganda. > Do you Russian think, Russian soldiers like to die in meat waves? I don't think they like or want to die, but SOME of them really want to participate in the war. This applies to both sides. Not sure if you just tried to assume my nationality by using "Do you Russian think", but you are wrong.
- kiba 2y ago
- wolpoli 2y ago> War between nuclear powers doesn't happen any more That might change as more nations acquire nuclear weapons. Or maybe the pathway to world peace is to give every country nukes.
- bsnsxd 2y ago[flagged]
- more_corn 2y agoJust because sarcasm doesn’t really work in text let me clarify. This strategy works not at all in the USA.
- 082349872349872 2y ago[flagged]
- jokoon 2y agoIn an ideal future, firearms would be banned worldwide. A body like interpol would investigate the entire world, to surveil if anybody is trying to make firearms. People would make bows and spears, but it would be more difficult to conduct war. It would not make war and violence impossible, but it would certainly be a better world. EDIT: lots of pedants: obviously there would be an joint army answering to an international body whose only mission is to seize and destroy weapons. firearms includes bombs and other lethal ammunition, of course. Not knives.
- k8sToGo 2y agoAnd those who will master creating weapons in the shadows will overthrow interpol and rule mankind. I’d say in an ideal future humans wouldn’t want to create weapons.
- ses1984 2y agoAnd those who want to make weapons will overthrow the people who don’t… But in an ideal future…?
- Loughla 2y agoBut who watches the watchers? Not everyone has a guarding dark.
- Greyfoscam 2y agoIt would certainly be more interesting conducting war with semi auto potato cannons
- akira2501 2y ago> In an ideal future, firearms would be banned worldwide. But not bombs, knives, chemicals or sources of radiation? Well.. good luck.
- Aerroon 2y agoIf you aren't physically strong enough to defend yourself then you shouldn't be able to defend yourself?
- whall6 2y agoMergers and acquisitions have taken the place of war in the modern era.
- mojifwisi 2y agoQuite an odd comment to make in the midst of the Ukraine war, another war between Israel and Palestine, and the ongoing civil wars in Sudan and Burma.
- graeme 2y agoThe thing is without force your stuff gets taken. We haven't got a good way around this. Our current peace is heavily based on nuclear weapons and the implied threat of force. Don't like the status quo? Use force to try to change it. Do like the status quo? Use force to try to keep it that way. We don't have a stable equiliubrium where no force exists in the system. Many in this thread effectively say "You can do what you like, but I am above using force". They can say that because their existence is secured by the force of others. There are enough people willing to take by force that if you have no force your stuff and land get taken. This was how the world worked for all of human history until 1945. The only thing that changed it was nukes, the ultimate force. In theory you could have a global government with a monopoly on force that enforced no more war. But that still depends on force. Is there any convincing argument for getting out of this equilibrium?
- js8 2y agoYou have a nice theory there, would be a shame if something happened to it. I played this older computer civilization-like space game. In it, there was an hyperaggressive race that always went to war with everybody. They always died out first. I think conflict will always exist, but violence? I am not sure. I think it comes down to availability of information. People don't like a*holes. Once world becomes a global village, and almost everyone will run a SW on their phone that keeps tabs on other 8 billion people, starting a war will become nearly impossible.
- HenryBemis 2y agoIf Rebel Moon and the Demolition Man taught us anything, is that even when 8bn people will be spied upon, there will be some that will object this and fight it tooth and nail. (Oh and History teaches that)
- jemmyw 2y agoRebel Moon has much to teach, but mainly about how important it is to have a logical plot line and believable character motivations.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- doubloon 2y agoThe whole thing is assuming that men drive progress and war drives progress, and both of those things are debatable.
- cassianoleal 2y ago> men drive progress and war drives progress, and both of those things are debatable I'm fairly confident that the progress mentioned in the article is meant as technological and maybe social progress. How would either of those happen without being driven by humans, or another hypothetical technological species? In terms of war, I don't see how it's debatable. It may not be the only driver but it's definitely a strong one. It may not be progress towards something you (or I) desire but it's progress nonetheless.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ninja3925 2y agoI actually think war driving progress is a strong argument. Not to use any obvious examples (e.g. internet), I would argue war has a profound effect on the psyche of nations (whether they lose or win). A few examples: - Germany rose to power in the 1800s, with a culmination at Sedan in 1870, driven by the humiliation Napoleon inflected on 60 years earlier. In 1870, Germany was a behemoth of technology (especially chemistry) & industry - France won WW1 with such heavy losses that its people said “never again” (they called WW1 the “Great War” or the “last war”). War left an indelible mark (one wished it had left the same mark on the German). Many such examples. Countries compete and war is a great impetus to modernize the Nation.
- openrisk 2y agoWhen a child is born there is nothing remotely resembling large scale warfare inscribed in its genes and the discretional cultural path that must be travelled before such detrimental collective phenomena come to be seen as innate and inevitable is enormous. Our predicament in relation to our war "habit" is similar to many other challenges we are facing: malignant social patterns that got established before a succession of dramatic technological recolutions are now mutating into existential risks. It is anybody's guess how things will play out. Cultural evolution is our superpower but we are not exactly in control of it. We still in a transition zone where old moralities feel secure in their "it was ever thus" denial. It is conceivable that we'll outgrow this phase and survive. A pacified humanity is not utopic, its the only solution to a long term sustainable existence. We thus might work backwards from what we know is the only meaningful endgame and see what it takes to get there. But we might also implode before we solve that.
- gotoeleven 2y agoYour ancestors are the ones that won wars in the past. Inasmuch as warfare can be "inscribed" in genes, it definitely is.
- openrisk 2y agoYour argument is that historical patterns of past conditions have to repeat for ever even when these conditions go extinct or get modified dramatically? What is definitely part of inate individual behavior is competitiveness and occasional propensity for physical violence. The road from this simple trait to organize millions (and now billions) of individuals to apply lethal, technologically assisted force on millions of other individuals is long. Modern organized war is business, politics, ideology and none of that is biology.
- kikokikokiko 2y agoEven purely instinct based animals, like chimps amd lions, engage in war between groups. A human child is still a primate, and no ammount of cultural bs will make your assumption of purity at birth a reality. Life is, in all it's forms, a war between organisms to see who can get more resources. Life is war, unfortunately.
- s4mw1se 2y agoThree billion human lives ended on August 29, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the Machines
- proc0 2y agoInteresting thoughts but I feel it is the wrong level of analysis. Maybe we will reach some sci-fi utopia but personally I see war as a kind of law of nature. Think about a petri dish and how bacteria grow on it until they saturate the entire surface area and then the resources run out, unless half of the bacteria destroy the other half, and then they can survive longer. War is the result of humans fighting over the metaphorical petri dish of land, resources, and also power. From this high level perspective, humans go through periods of growth, tension, war, and then the winner gets to continue surviving, only to repeat the cycle eventually. Unless we discover infinite energy and resources somehow, we are going to be forced to clash in this way, and the ultimate way to resolve these conflicts is war. That said, we can have long periods without it because we discover new technologies that alleviate these tensions for some time, but I think a great war will be inevitable, the question is how long will our current peace streak last?
- openrisk 2y ago> War is the result of humans fighting over the metaphorical petri dish of land, resources, and also power. People do all of that in modern economies without resorting to physically eliminating each other. To get millions of individuals to coordinate over long times, mobilizing massive resources etc. in order to exterminate other millions (to grab their resources, subjugated them or whatever) is not "natural" or biological in any sense. War is a cultural adaptation that worked for aeons because it did not threaten the survival of the species. In a technologically advanced civilization this is no longer assured. Vannevar Bush was simply a century or so ahead of his time. In the arc of human history this is just a blip.
- opyate 2y agoCame here to say the same. We've evolved on a finite planet, so war is in our DNA.
- opyate 2y agoBut... Game theory says we'll be ok in the end. https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM
- 2y ago
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoThe 1953 sci-fi novel Limbo touches on these concepts and references the Moral Equivalent of War essay heavily. Must have been something in the air at the time. In the novel's far future time of 1990 it's effectively a religious text and all the young men are volunteering to have their limbs removed as a protest against wars that were fought with those limbs. It gets a bit philosophical, and takes a very 1950s detour into the philosophy of rape, but is overall a very interesting read, sci-fi catch-22 in many ways.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rldjbpin 2y agowith the power of hindsight, that aged like milk. i wonder how much of our current views be seen this way another 50 years from now. however i think some things will most likely be for certain, like how there are key parties who economically depend on war or planning for it. there have been countless seeds of conflicts sown around the time when this article and the essay it refers to were written. they are still being played out and i won't be surprised if they still influence some things decades from now. another think i find repeating from the past into the future is the nature of aliances switching over time. predicting one major conflict between two currently strong allies in my bingo card. our brains remain wired like the tribes that fought for survival. one might continue to find "us vs them" problems when there exists none.
- openrisk 2y ago> our brains remain wired like the tribes that fought for survival If that was literaly true then there would only ever be a single organizational structure for human society, like bees, ants, chimps or whatever. When you look at recorded history alone, societies have organized in many different ways and the complexity and variety is only exploding over time. Organized war has generally been part of societal behavior, but that has been because perceived benefits always exceeded the attributed cost. From the nuclear age forward the calculus has changed. It only gets worse with each new potentially lethal invention. The reality of a finite planet, where organized, technologically assisted violence can wipe out billions will eventually sink and lazy ideological thinking, vested interest in warmongering etc. will disappear. Logically, given the trajectory of human development, for war-as-we-know-it to persist we'd have to wipe out modern civilization in a final global war and go back to primitive societies that can afford this "game".
- rldjbpin 2y ago> there would only ever be a single organizational structure for human society, like bees, ants, chimps or whatever. this implies that we have zero agency over what we do. i did not mean that with my remark. > societies have organized in many different ways and the complexity and variety is only exploding over time. completely agree. but i think a significant driver of the way we organize ourselves is the underlying approaches to how we made groups to sustain. from my narrow worldview, it would be too soon to rule out any violence from our future. but overall the trajectory has been for the better imho.
- hcfman 2y agoIt’s funny how most of the discussions below have as a basis that people will always behave rationally. As if the threat of total destruction will always stop a particular cause of action. Putting the fate on mankind in this basic premise is the flaw behind the entire building of such bombs in the first place. Nothing short of idiocy.
- nradov 2y agoWhat would you propose as an alternative?
- more_corn 2y agoDon’t work on terrible weapons. If you’re smart enough to create them you’re smart enough not to misuse them. But the last act in creation is relinquishing control. You’re putting them in the hands of people who aren’t smart enough to build them. And you don’t get to choose who that is. The US president who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t even fully understand that he was bombing civilian targets. How could he be so stupid? Do you even have to ask? Think quietly for five minutes about the average intelligence of politicians. About their ability to think calmly and consider facts when making decisions. If you do that you’ll never work on weapon systems again.
- nradov 2y agoPresident Truman knew exactly what he was doing when he authorized the use of nuclear weapons. He made the right decision and it saved American lives. It's cheap and easy to pretend to take the moral high ground and refuse to work on weapons when you have nothing at stake.
- harimau777 2y agoWithout the ability to keep other people from creating them, not creating them is suicide.
- scotty79 2y ago> But the last act in creation is relinquishing control. Tell it to Disney or Adobe
- hackandthink 2y ago>deep yearning among all peoples for peace. >the glamour of war is gone >Peace is indeed in sight if we are wise. Times have changed. The horrors of war are forgotten or far away. War is entertainment and many people have their favorite team. Why should you be wise when warmongering serves your career? --- Did not know: William James was a member of the American Anti-Imperialist League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Anti-Imperialist_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Anti-Imperialist_Leag...
- mediumsmart 2y agoI can. Can’t say for all the others.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- matrix87 2y agoIt seems like the barriers for becoming an expat are lower now than what they were in the 20th century. There are plenty of online expat communities. You can find maps, living arrangements, and machine translation all online In general, the internet has made it so that people are a lot less dependent on their immediate community. So in the future, if the government starts making a bunch of hostile demands and tries to draft people, I'm not sure if that will be as effective as what it once was historically
- scotty79 2y agoYup. I already moved out of my home country and that was one of the reasons. Sudden interest of governments in the old ways.
- hnthrowaway0328 2y agoNo we cannot. A small percentage of humans are wired with a strong territorial mind and/or a greedy personality. It's in the gene. Some of them eventually become leaders.
- nyc_data_geek 2y agoA small percentage of humans can catch some hands and get stuffed into lockers by the rest of us who would prefer not to be led by them.
- Dr_Birdbrain 2y agoProblem is, people vote for them :(
- phero_cnstrcts 2y agoIt’s not like any of the choices are great. Or even mediocre.
- 6510 2y agoI had a look one time, there are tons of alternatives (in all countries) They all have youtube channels and facebook pages. Beyond the top of the list they have so few viewers, subscribers, likes and followers that it doesn't account for direct family. It means not even journalists bother to watch a video or read a post let alone read the election program. Usually there is a single news article about a person without much if any coverage of the program. People love to pretend their circular argument is not a fallacy. Plenty of people would bother to look at other candidates if they got a lot more attention and a lot more votes. Someone will have to start voting for them before that will happen. This someone is you. If you refuse to vote for a candidate that has no chance to win they wont have a chance next time. One extra voice or vote is actually a big deal for them. The search engines are full of articles about "most significant candidates" If you look at this list here, https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_registered_2024_presidential_candidates https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_registered_2024_presidential... You cant say "It’s not like any of the choices are great." Correct would be to say: No one in the whole world has any idea what the other choices are. In the US there is a special kind of war to even get on the ballot. https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_registered_2024_presidential_candidates https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_registered_2024_presidential... You can help gather signatures, promote write in candidates. I just imagined all those countless election programs should be loaded into some LLM, make it question the humans and point them to the text that fits them best. edit: Ill do one from the top of the list: Aaron Avouris Libertarian Party this him? https://www.facebook.com/aaronavouris https://www.facebook.com/aaronavouris 278 friends https://www.youtube.com/user/aaronavouris https://www.youtube.com/user/aaronavouris 2 subscribers? https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P00015297/ https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P00015297/ lol? edit2: Because I cant help myself: vote Afroman https://www.afromanforpresident.com https://www.afromanforpresident.com