Is War Neccesary to Humanity?

[Michaelangelica]

Viola... the origin of war. :evil:

 

:angel:

Yes maybe, BUT we only live beacuse of the symbiotic cells, bacteria and fungi that share with us, this bag of water we call a body.

 

It may be too that we are a part of a greater whole. A Gaia if you like.

Certainly we are dependant/interdependant on our environment which includes lots of soil bugs and microbes apart from the bigger things like lettuce and cows which we eat.

 

Although I can see war as a positive effect on everyday technology,

Yes it does but perhaps in the wrong direction. We have great technology for Bio-weapons (& and still keep some nasties alive because one day we might need them when any sensible race would have killed them years ago.

Occasionally something is developed in war that serendipity is useful in peace

it is hard to see war encouraging research into Global Cooling or Solar Power or even Peace.

 

Weapons to help us organize what we know, weapons that explain how we know what we know, and then we need to know how to use that knowledge to expose more truth about existence. And we should never fear to target what we think we know.

 

Hypography is a start and has given us a glimpse of what is coming. My gut feeling is that this is the path to world peace. We need to worship the act of discovering the truth and the methodologies that get us there. And we need to allow people, all people, a way to plug into that process.

 

That is the war we should be fighting. So, yes it is necessary to Humanity.

Wow.:Waldo:

Put me down for any Religion or Political Party you start, ldsoftwaresteve

Do you want to elaborate on the process of "getting there"?

[ldsoftwaresteve]

MichaelAngelica, that was awfully nice of you to say that.

 

Such an undertaking would affect politics and it would most likely become very much like a religion in its own right. It's not something that will happen very quickly, at least, not under my direction. It's got to happen at the bleeding edge of, well, this right here. The internet. Hypography. Maybe Wikipedia. Maybe a collaboration of the two of them and others. It's happening right now.

 

I see it happening over time and I see us incorporating formalized logical argument (DoctorDick would say "mathematics") and the submission of proof in the form of the actual experiments that are used to support a theoretical position (connected literally to the theory). And, most importantly, I see us following the logical chains built on certain assumptions and connecting them (literally). And I see us being able to challenge underlying assumptions and affecting the entire logical chain built upon those assumptions. We'd name such a structure for one thing (I don't even know if we have a name for such a thing today. 'theory' perhaps?).

 

And the validity of that structure would be permanently affected by the challenges made against its assumptions. And as the strength of the challenge increased, the efficacy of the structure would decrease. So it would drive a focused reaction to challenges and not allow us to ignore them. And it would be great if structures of current thought could be color coded. Say black was considered 'true'. As a structure became doubt-ridden, it would change to a lighter color. Red might indicate, 'in trouble'. :Waldo: It would give us a way to automatically bring in a new theoretical structure to replace a failing old one. But it would be done logically, and fairly. And it would give us a history of failure to analyze for nuggets of gold in the form of mistake patterns.

 

What I also see is the need to break down explanations into component parts and validating each of the components. The point would be to look for logical flaws. I don't even know how many kinds of logical flaws there are. So I'm certain that we'll discover stuff here we aren't aware of today. I think we'd need to know that so we'd know what to look for in the analytical process. We'll find patterns we never dreamt of too. Patterns that we don't have the tools to see today. I suspect that some of the tools Tormod and the staff are working on right now are moving in that direction.

 

Keep in mind that when I said let all people plug into that process, I really meant it literally. Ants. Like ants. Ants with the purpose of helping to create a crystaline structure representing the whole of mankind's understanding.

 

That's my goal here. To help get that image out there and to plant some thought seeds. When you come at a nasty problem like this it helps to see it from many directions and my view is just one of them.

[gribbon]

It depends what type of war it is-a civil war does virtually no-one any good, and ends up devestating the country. But other ones like the cold war actually pushed things forward.

[eric l]

It depends what type of war it is-a civil war does virtually no-one any good, and ends up devestating the country. But other ones like the cold war actually pushed things forward.

Ever tried to figure out how much damage was done in the countries where it was fought violently, but by proxy (startin with Korea for example) ?

[Michaelangelica]

Did not one ameoba eating another initiate the evolutionary arms race? No, it didn't. It happened well before the ameoba, and happened molecularly.

 

Is there a chemist in the house? I need you to explain the evolution of war!

 

This afternoon I sat by the lake and watched a big crab chase another out of his/her territory

The need for "Territory" seems to be innate in animals. They fight for their space.

We also have our own "Personal Space" and can become uncomfortable when another person encroaches on it

One of the reasons for war?

 

Walking home I came across some kids (boys mainly) having a water fight with powerful, futuristic-looking water guns and balloon bombs (It was about 36C today maybe 40C tomorrow-yuck). It seems to me here is another innate drive that of the hunter. We hunted and gathered for what 80,000 years?, farmed for only 10,000. There must be a few stray bits of DNA that still code for hunting and killing.

One of the reasons for war?

[IDMclean]

Just incase it was lost in the swath of other posts, I would like to reiterate.

 

I would sooner accept that; War is the effect of growth panic. Or restated: Growth panic is the cause of War.

 

Growth Panic arises from innovative periods which in turn are caused by systematic uprisings in the psychoclass populations. So war results from changes in child rearing practices and the internal friction that is created from advanced psychoclasses clashing with psychoclass fossils.

 

Both World War I and World War II resulted at the conclusion of the first Industrial revolution which was in time with the systematic rise of the intrusive psychoclass.

 

The Indio-Asian wars (Korean, Vietnam, and the Cold War) resulted at the conclusion of the Second Industrial revolution which was in time with the rise of the Socializing psychoclass.

 

I expect that the war on drugs, war on terror and wars yet to come will result from the Information revolution, and the rise of the Helper psychoclass.

 

This analysis of course is currently limited to the United States, but I am sure would hold irregardless of space-time positioning.

 

I seriously question the age old adage that war precedes innovation on the basis of empirical, historical evidence.

[eric l]

 

I would sooner accept that; War is the effect of growth panic. Or restated: Growth panic is the cause of War.

 

 

I think you have a point here - just remember Hittler's cry for "Lebensraum". Looking further back in history gives you dozens of cases to confirm this.

 

But panic reactions are rarely the best reactions, and with war and growth panic it is just the same.

 

What do we actually fear in this growth panic ? Probably most of all that we cannot uphold our current status / wealth / comfort... And is there any chance that war will improve that status ? Maybe for a very few, such as a soldier who can show his value and increase in rank mucht faster than he could have done in peacetime, or - more probably - arms traders and the like.

 

But for the rest of us .... ?

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Michaelangelica:

The need for "Territory" seems to be innate in animals. They fight for their space.

We also have our own "Personal Space" and can become uncomfortable when another person encroaches on it

One of the reasons for war?

This is the reason in a nutshell. In order to whip the 'masses' into a warlike frenzy you need to convince them that their space is being invaded, that, or indoctrinate them with the idea that they are warriors fulfilling someone's grand plan, usually a diety. You do that because you have to get by the problem of the 'common man' viewing the enemy as human. Racism is a technique for doing this.

Neurotics have no problem justifying the initiation of force.

Anyone will retaliate. Pearl Harbor, 911.

So, enable the attack or create a nation of neurotics. And don't forget fear. Fear is a common denominator for both methods.

And neither is possible without the common man's support and fear unlocks that particular door.

[Michaelangelica]

Just incase it was lost in the swath of other posts, I would like to reiterate.

 

I would sooner accept that; War is the effect of growth panic. Or restated: Growth panic is the cause of War.

 

Growth Panic arises from innovative periods which in turn are caused by systematic uprisings in the psychoclass populations. So war results from changes in child rearing practices and the internal friction that is created from advanced psychoclasses clashing with psychoclass fossils.

 

This is gobeldegook

It does not make sense

[gribbon]

I'm not sure if this belongs in this thread or whether this is a different question, but does anyone one want to debate whether peacful protest works or not? My belief is that most of the time it doesn't, but I;m happy to debate that. Does anyone want to discuss it here?

[Michaelangelica]

I'm not sure if this belongs in this thread or whether this is a different question, but does anyone one want to debate whether peacful protest works or not? My belief is that most of the time it doesn't, but I;m happy to debate that. Does anyone want to discuss it here?

It's a big topic- includes things like Mahatma Gandhi, the Dali Lama, Nelson Mandella and the Vietnam war etc.

Why not start a new thread? It could be interesting

[rocket art]

I'm not sure if this belongs in this thread or whether this is a different question, but does anyone one want to debate whether peacful protest works or not? My belief is that most of the time it doesn't, but I;m happy to debate that. Does anyone want to discuss it here?

 

More than 20 yrs ago the country I'm in did the so called People Power, a bloodless revolution that ousted a dictator who ruled for more than a decade. When the people were finally fed up with a rigged up election, a break-away military decided to side with the widowed presidential candidate who obviously won the election. As the dictator's tanks and army rumbled to crush the rebels, calls were made to the citizenry to protect the overwhelmed soldiers. A million citizens took to the streets to block the incoming army, where men, women, even children, from all walks of life bravely faced the dictator's tanks and guns, refusing to vacate the streets. The dicator finally succumbed and fled to Hawaii.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

I'm not sure if this belongs in this thread or whether this is a different question, but does anyone one want to debate whether peacful protest works or not? My belief is that most of the time it doesn't, but I;m happy to debate that. Does anyone want to discuss it here?

You make a point that shows somewhat the difficulty in moving any discussion forward. Any discussion at all. When a tree falls in the forest, the vibrations eventually stop. Many times, discussions are exactly like that. The remnants remain in the minds of the folks who take part but in our age today we have ways of persisting the thoughts outside of pure memory and tedious notes. So much of this stuff is interconnected. And when we create tools to track the connections, I suspect that the volume of connections will overwhelm us too. And so we'll create more tools to handle that stuff better as well. Very interesting though I suspect we'll have to move backwards before we can come forward again.

[chill]

Necessary? No. Inevitable? Perhaps. It's all about conflicts of interest betwenn people/groups of people.

[IDMclean]

michaelangelica, could you elaborate on what you find to be gobeldegook?

 

If you need reference material I would suggest taking a look at Foundations of Psychohistory by Lloyd deMause.

 

Psychogenic modes