[extropy-chat] Back to Causes of War

[Lee Corbin]

Keith writes, quoting Gat

> "The main point of all this is that resource competition and conflict 
> existed in most
> hunter-gatherer societies; but how significant they were, how they ranked 
> in comparison to
> other possible reasons for conflict, and what resource specifically was 
> mostly in conflict -
> depended on the particular conditions of the human and natural environment 
> in question.
> Scarcities and stresses, and hence the causes and occurrence of conflict, 
> varied. The
> concept of 'territoriality', which was brought to the fore in the 1960s by 
> Ardrey (1966),
> Page 8
> Lorenz (1966), and Tinbergen (1968), has been more subtly defined in this 
> light. Like
> aggression, territoriality is not a blind instinct. It is subservient to 
> the evolutionary
> calculus, especially in humans, whose habitats are so diverse. Among 
> hunter-gatherers,
> territories vary dramatically in size - territorial behaviour itself can 
> gain or lose in
> significance - in direct relation to the resources and resource 
> competition. The same
> applies to population density, another popular explanation in the 1960s for 
> violence. In
> other than the most extreme cases,
> 
> _it [violence] is mainly in relation to resource scarcity and hence as a 
> factor in resource competition_
> 
> that population density would function as a trigger for fighting.
> Otherwise, Tokyo and the Netherlands would have been
> among the most violent places on earth."

Yes, those places would today soon revert to a "Lord of 
the Flies" scenario. But I *thought* that our inquiry was
more general, namely into the causes---proximal or distal
---of war throughout history.

>>And the original main purpose of this thread and its predecessors was
>>to address the causes of all wars, not just primitive fighting.
>>
>>I *will* summarize what I have written here on the topic.  First, civilized
>>societies are not necessarily more peaceful, even the literate ones!  E.g. the
>>Maya or the proto-nations and nations of Western Europe 500 AD -
>>1500 AD  Sometimes peace was establish in the old days---as in
>>approximately 100 AD - 180 AD---when some fairly reasonable empire
>>could maintain it (by force).
>>
>>Second, a sea-change seems to have overcome the West around 1700 or
>>1800:  gone were the constant wars of preceding generations. Especially
>>per capita, wars became fewer and fewer over time.  Go graph the number
>>of wars and the amount of blood shed between England and France:  it
>>monotonically decreases from 1000 AD to 1815, and then stops altogether.
>>(Of course there were fluctuations, but my point is that the wars really did
>>become fewer over the centuries and of less severity.)  What caused this
>>sea-change?
> 
> You need to consider what else happened over this time.  There was a huge 
> growth of income over this period of time, and some of the time even a 
> growth in income per capita.

Yes, of course.  Such growth went hand in hand with leaders of
nations being less rapacious. 

>>My answer is that it simply became more profitable to maintain peace than
>>to try to plunder adjacent nations. For one thing, there was less comparative
>>plunder than ever before (compared to the wealth of generating your own),
>>and another thing, the dang wars just got too expensive and the ability of
>>the other nation to inflict reciprocal damage kept growing.  So an era
>>of game-theoretic cooperation has emerged.
>>
>>Three, the causes of modern era war are too numerous to allow generalization.
>>Keith sometimes said that population pressure causes war,
> 
> That not exactly the case.
> 
> "All wars arise from population pressure."  (Heinlein 1959 p. 145)
> "Major Reid (Heinlein's character in Starship Troopers)was on the mark if 
> you take "population pressure" to mean a falling ratio of resources to 
> population (roughly income per capita in modern terms).  There are sound 
> evolutionary reasons why falling resources per capita (or the prospect of 
> same) usually drives human populations into war. Wars and related social 
> disruptions are here seen to be the outcome of a behavioral switch 
> activated by particular environmental situations and mediated by xenophobic 
> memes.[1]"

Au contraire, it *is* exactly the case.  Heinlein is quite wrong.  While falling
resources per capita is *one* reason indeed, you have been giving the
impression, and Heinlein certainly does above, that it is the *sole* cause.
It's not, as I have demonstrated with example after example.  Sometimes
very prosperous nations with very good prospects go to war because their
leaders get greedy, or they are playing a game of international one-
upsmanship, or they simply want to expand their nation's territory at
the expense of smaller weaker adjacent nations.

>>and it is true that
>>high population growth in modern nations *facilitates* war, but it doesn't
>>cause it.  For example, the high birth rates in Germany, England, and France
>>before WWI made for aggressive nations in two ways:  first, young people
>>are usually quite willing and able to go to war (until 1950 or so in the 
>>West);
>>they have the vitality and the group instinct I submit, and second, they
>>provide enough cannon fodder to make the wars a go.
>>
>>Keith sometimes said that it was 'grim prospects' that caused war.
> 
> Again not exactly that simple.  Grim prospects are sensed.  They are *part* 
> of a causation chain.

Yes.

> In the EEA (and even today) it was usually population growth that led to 
> grim prospects.
> 
> Sensing grim prospects turned up the average population gain on xenophobic 
> memes.
> 
> High levels of xenophobic memes caused war violence.

But this is *not* the only mechanism, at least since we've left the EEA.
As I said,

>>Certainly
>>that is a factor, maybe a major factor, in the EEA as Professor Gat documents.
>>And *sometimes* it is a contributing factor in modern wars, if taken not too
>>literally.  Again WWI affords a great example:  the English were scared to
>>death that the Germans would overtake them economically (1914 in fact
>>was the very first year in which this occurred---see "The Illusion of 
>>Victory",
>>a rather new book by Thomas Fleming).  And the Germans were scared to
>>death that Russia and the Slavs in general were going to surpass them in a
>>variety of ways.  Paul Johnson in "Modern Times" states this as a attitudinal
>>fact among the German intelligencia apparently stemming from various
>>wacked-out German philosophers.
> 
> I should add that fear of others *is* the result of xenophobic memes (such 
> as the English fearing the Germans or the Germans fearing the Russians and 
> Slavs).

Yes, but your tone implies that this is to be considered a bad thing.
Of course, it would be relatively heavenly if a magic wand were
passed over the Earth, and there was no xenophobia.  But it wouldn't
last long, becuse it's not an ESS. Sooner or later some gang would
get going, and we'd be right back to Sargon I and the first empires.
Realistically, the main thing about xenophobic genes is that you don't
want *your side* to lose them, or into the dustbin of history you go.
Or are going, like now.

>>But throughout pre-modern times in the last millenium, a typical cause of
>>war was one prince's avarice towards the domains of his neighbors. Most
>>of the English-French wars were of this kind, for example, as were the
>>endless wars between the various Italian city states. Another typical
>>cause was vast population movement---the Avars or the Huns or someone
>>would be on the move (chased by another tribe even more formidable) and
>>the poor Romans or anyone else within range had to bear the consequences.
>>
>>Yet none of these explanations account for all modern wars---exceptions
>>can be found for any and all of them. E.g. the Great Patriotic war, which
>>included the largest and most deadly battles ever fought,  was caused
>>entirely by one man's irrational urges and his warped philosophy.
> 
> I think you put too much causation on particular people and too little on 
> the situation that allowed their madness to flourish.

To some degree, we have perhaps been arguing between distal and proximal
causes. But it's not alway "madness" either.  It's often a good survival 
strategy. Especially in some some circumstances as Machiavelli explained.

> Consider forest fires as an analogy.  You can classify fires by how they 
> were started, lightening, careless campers, power lines sparking and 
> aircraft crashes.  You can also say a lot about the influence of the 
> weather, with forest fires being more likely when the temperature is high, 
> the humidity low and gusty winds.
> 
> But the ultimate reason you get a forest fire is the slow accumulation of fuel.

In the forest fire case, yes, it can come to be an inevitability. That is, if
a people becomes deprived enough, then they will either individually
or socially get violent.  But to the degree---again---that this is also a
historical inquiry, then we simply have that this does *not* explain
all modern wars. Too many wars occurred in which evidence of over-
population, resource depravation, etc., is not present.

> The ultimate reason you get a war is the slow accumulation of people (in 
> excess of what the economy can support).  Slow it down till the economic 
> growth is as high or higher than the population growth and no wars.

You don't think that of all the wars in Europe between 1300 and 
1800 I could not find ones in which economic growth on both
sides was as high as the population growth?

> Incidentally, where you mention "young people are usually quite willing and 
> able to go to war," this is the "excess males" causation theory of war.  I 
> forget what the proposed threshold was, but China (due to selective 
> abortion) is way above the point these researchers said would cause a 
> war.  The EP model say China will not be inclined to start a war as long as 
> its population is experiencing a growth in income per capita.

I would counter that they are *less* likely to go on a rampage.
But even the U.S.---as seen by its enemies in the rest of the
world---has gone on a rampage even though there has been
prosperity beyond economic growth. In fact, a leader of China
could very well use a well-known historical gambit:  get into a
war if you feel that you are losing political control at home.

> Of course, China could get into a war if it were attacked.
> Before you say that's impossible, consider Pearl Harbor.

What?   You're kidding!  You mean nations actually get into
wars when other nations attack them?  Well---I guess I'll
just have to add that to my list of the causes of war  :-)

Lee