[extropy-chat] War Is Easy To Explain - Peace is Not

[Lee Corbin]

Gordon (gts) writes

> On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:43:38 -0400, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> 
>> If you want to explain something, explain why
> 
>> 4.  why there has been a uniform decrease of warfare per
>>      living human being during the course of history
> 
> A possible contributing factor is the difference between the growth of the  
> human population and the growth in the number of nation-states capable of  
> waging the kinds of wars about which have any statistics.

I doubt it.  The trend is just too unmistakeable.  If you were to just 
look at the wars between France and England over 500 years alone,
the advance of peace is relentless. 

Whereas you can scarcely pick up a history book on pre-literate peoples
without accounts of almost constant warring, or at least preparation for
war.  The history of Central Asia, to take another example, is one long
string of peoples violently displacing other peoples.

The Maya provide another shocking account.  The book "Maya Kings
and Queens" seems often to be little more than a thousand year account
of one war right on top of another.  It's systematic.  It's darwinian.

My own idea is that wars began to decrease among civilized peoples
when they become too costly in dollars and cents. It used to make
economic sense to go plundering (e.g. Goth and Vandal style), but
over time wealth has become concentrated in less stealable forms.

Lee