Comment by zmmmmm
3 days ago
It's hard to think through the implications of living in a world where it is accepted that countries with more power simply invade each other and take land and possessions from those with less power. I can't think how it doesn't ultimately lead to broadscale instability and ultimately, war. In turn it depresses me that this is toxic to the humanity progressing and solving its bigger picture problems.
No imagination is necessary: we've been there. The 1800s were exactly that and culminated in two world wars on the next century.
You can even go further, _all_ human history had stronger groups taking things from weaker groups. On the classical era of Aristotle and on the paleolithic pre-history. We sometimes forget that humanity can be cruel and work only for self-interest, we like to think that war and pillaging is something from the past, but it will be forever with us
This isn't universally true. There are actually a very large amount of cultures where we have ZERO evidence of violence. E.g. for the Sámi in southern Scandanevia we have zero evidence of violence. Similarly the Tripolye culture in modern Ukraine/Moldova/Romania is famous for building megaworks and housing for up to 15,000 people. But despite this large population there is virtually zero evidence of walls/forts/moats/any defensive fortifications. Not specialized weapons.
Evidence of large-scale warfare in prehistoric periods is also extremely rare in general. Most violence we have evidence for seems to be driven by personal conflict. This could just be due to decreased population densities but the conclusion that humans have always widely used war or organized violence is certainly not supported by the existing evidence
right, but NO ONE was expecting this from FIFA Peace Award winner
Speaking of the 1800s, I wonder if we could learn anything about peace in a multipolar world by studying the Concert of Europe. Might be a good topic for a historian to write a book about. I'm looking right now, and it's kinda sad to see so many books about WW1 and so few about the peaceful period which came before.
Just the 1800s? We’ve been doing for the past 150 years at least
Isn't it literally all of history??
Years of advocating against bullies, my takeaway from this thread is “the US did this because it can”. So bullying is ok now I guess.
I’m sure it had nothing to do with oil too, just about democracy.
When has the US not been the bully?
How about when Carter made peace between Egypt and Israel? Carter also gave the canal back to Panama and normalized ties with China.
Carter may not have won the FIFA Peace Prize. But he did win the Nobel one. My father respected Carter more than almost any other living person, and I trust his judgement.
A lot of people woke up to the news and had their initial "Are we the bad guys?" moment.
As a non American its pretty funny to watch.
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I think the shock is more of a shift from the lawful evil spectrum, where the US either did things covertly or had a much better narrative prepared, to chaotic evil. Apparently Congress had no clue here, and Trump simply called them "leakers".
To be more blunt, we knew America was a pompous asshole, but it always pretended to be orderly. This is the US putting in a toupe and plucking its mustache. The act isn't surprising, the shift in attitude is.
Thats all of human history.
Our biggest problem is us, the Earth will be a much better place when we are gone.