Let’s Play War: Could war games replace the real thing? | Hacker News Reader

Let’s Play War: Could war games replace the real thing?

nautil.us

43 pointsdnetesn52 comments

There’s a classic argument against this:

“Death. Destruction, disease, horror. That’s what war is all about, Anan. That’s what makes it a thing to be avoided. You’ve made it neat and painless. So neat and painless you’ve had no reason to stop it.”

— Captain Kirk, A Taste of Armageddon, 1967¹

① https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon

Probably one of the best episodes of the original series for the message it delivered. The sad reality is that far too many planners who delve into these games come up with the idea they can actually win with "acceptable" losses.

The quote that shows the futility of war games is “No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy” from German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke

Great episode. One of my favorite lines is when Spock tells Kirk if he shoots this one computer with his phaser, they all will blow up.

Wow! Folks have always said to be careful with volatile variables, but they weren't kidding: they really are dangerous.

TOS is my favorite series, not necessarily because it was great sci-fi, but because it subtly reminds us of how the human condition has changed in 50 years. So many things that they simply took for granted, like Kirk would have an electronic clipboard that he simply signed -- not played games on or spent hours staring at -- can teach us profound things about how our attitude towards tech has changed.

I personally blame Apple. Tablets could have been omnitools from scifi Instead we got a retarded toy bauble Hopefully,in a few years we will be blessed by a next gen tablet (Dunno,maybe something with high/low power cpu combo,a bit like dual gpu laptops,dedicated keyboard with extras (hdd?, powerful gpu?, somehow toss in a huge eink screen in the mix too) Id be able to bin my tablet,laptop,10inch ereader and live in a future)

You are blaming Apple for human nature. The only reason you don't see people playing games on their Star Trek PADDs is that they were theoretically at work and because the writers were a little shortsighted in that regard.

The writers assumed that holodecks would make computer games obsolete because in their heart everybody is a LARPer.

> The quote that shows the futility of war games is “No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy” from German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke

How does that show the futility of war games? War games are one venue in which military leaders develop skill in adapting to the unexpected. The accuracy of von Moltke's quote certainly suggests that planning can't completely substitute for skill in execution, but it doesn't mean that planning is unnecessary or that war gaming is not valuable.

In a way, haven't we already done this? Our media and movies rarely depict death and grievous injury directly anymore. Everything is cut out so as to not upset or offend viewers. For example: "The War Photo No One Would Publish" http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the... , and recent movies such as the Avengers, where a massive attack on New York is depicted without showing a single on-screen civilian death.

War has become a thing that takes place far away from those who vote in favor of them. Soon, thanks to drone technology, it'll become a thing that takes place far away from those who wage it as well.

Perhaps, if both sides do it remotely, it will be a good thing. A lot of technological assets will be lost, but the victory criteria will be that, rather than loss of life.

Those photos from that article are truly powerful. It's a shame that media coverage of war isn't more like that. It is brutal and disgusting, and if you are going to support it, at least look it in the face.

I'm not convinced that remote war will ever be a good thing, however. It is still fundamentally about controlling people and territory, and that comes as the cost of human lives, both civilian and enlisted.

Reminds me of reading a story about the first uncensored photographs of the aftermath of Civil War battles hitting the North. Often just a few days after the fighting. It removed some of the "charm" of war for the people who saw the results that they never really heard about.

Forget the Avengers, at least they made a point to attempt to contain the violence to a certain area.

In Man of Steel, that epic fight would have killed upwards of ten thousand people, or more.

One of the interesting ideas from this article is how simulations can map out how a war is going to turn out _badly_ for the people who wish to engage in it, such as Vietnam. Of course, the wargamers' advice was not heeded in the case of Vietnam, but this strikes me as probably one of the best ways in how war games could "replace the real thing", because a computer simulated it, and turns out the war is a terrible idea.

This leads to the other interesting idea from Buckminster Fuller: that Earth is a (ONE) spaceship, and we need to quit acting like each nation is on a different ship...

The article's section about "peace games", with its hopeful notion that if countries really cooperated everything could turn out wonderful, completely misses the point that sometimes there is no good outcome for everyone. If resources are limited, and people are going to die without them, and there isn't enough for everyone to live on, people WILL (as individuals and/or organized groups) abandon civilized rules and engage in any means necessary to acquire what's needed to not die, willing to risk death to win because they will die if they lose.

The section also conveniently avoids any discussion of the human tendency toward acquiring power over others for power's sake. ISIS is currently leading the way, literally killing anyone who does not abjectly subject to theocracy; these are not people interested in "peace games".

"Let's play war" is childish naivety about the ways of the world. That the needs of the many may outweigh the needs of the few does not mean the few will meekly accept suffering and death, as human nature is (generally) to survive at all costs.

True if that's how it happens. But in this modern post-scarcity world its ideology that causes wars, not lack of bread and milk. Look at the Kurds gassed under Sadam. The wars between Iraq and Iran - two peoples who, from safely here in American, I couldn't even tell apart - spent a generation fighting to the last man in the 80s. All over border disputes and worries about religious uprising - totally imaginary things (vs real things like food and water).

Hence my second paragraph: power for power's sake, frequent human desire to dominate others. Witness the political "progressive"'s desire to make the world a better place by unilaterally deciding how to achieve it and threatening to incarcerate (even kill) anyone who dissents.

One of the problems is briefly touched on in the article - human ingenuity finding new ways of waging war. From the Japanese Kamikaze to more modern forms of "hybrid warfare" currently being waged by Russia in Ukraine. Western leaders don't fully appreciate quite what hybrid war is yet, so wargames can help play out ideas about it but if you don't know what your opponent is actually conceptually capable of doing it is very much in the "free game" end of the spectrum and not necessarily of any assistance.

Humans are far more complex than mere games can compute. Many WW2 strategy games have to artificially adjust forces involved in the Battle of France in 1940 because rational AI players should not be beaten by the Germans.

So, how do you get people to accept the consequences of such games?

How do you explain to Japan that one of their inhabited islands belong to China now, because the Computer says so? And what do you do when it turns out the initial simulation was wrong, but since China moved half a million people over in the mean time, there's really no way to take it back any more?

The simulation wasn't wrong; the Chinese hackers clearly beat the Japanese ones in the cyberwar fought over the control of the simulation program that decided the outcome of the war. So, they won the war.

I think OP is asking about enforceability. Okay, your country loses. So what? Why must you comply with what the computer says?

My country loses. I don't like that, so I give my people guns, invade your country, and kill your people.

That's what I imagine would happen, anyway.

Answer: no.

Player one: "You lose." Player two: [shoots player one] "No I don't."

The proposition presumes all parties involved adhere to abstract rules and consent to the outcome thereof, whatever the cost. This is known as "rule of law" and "consent of the governed".

The whole point of war is rejection of rules and refusing to consent thereto, or compelling other to submit thereto - both positions carried out on the premise that one's death is an acceptable risk, and killing is an acceptable means to that end.

This topic comes up in one of the Culture books, Surface Detail:

http://www.amazon.com/Surface-Detail-Culture-Iain-Banks/dp/B...

I won't spoil it but as you might imagine... There are issues. :)

I enjoyed the book. However, I have a minor complaint : even if it describes extensively virtual hells, it never mentions what determined if you went to hell or not, and for how long. Even if its a minor plot detail missing, in itself it could have been an interesting topic.

In the case of Surface Detail the characters who were in Hell had chosen to go there - I thought it was reasonably clear that the other souls in Hell there were there because they were "bad" (for some suitable local definition of "bad").

That's the bad part that is bothering me. Did they replay your whole life once you died and gave you some score for each event or decision ? Who established the rules and the scoring ? Would it change with societal change in a given society ? Could you evaluate yourself at any point if your life to see if you were a "good" or "bad" person ? Could you hack the system by implanting false memory ? Or could you wipe out some embarrassing parts? You could write a book on that topic only.

I agree those are interesting questions not directly addressed by Surface Detail.

However, on a related topic the novella A Colder War by Charlie Stross has a particularly creepy ending if the idea of virtual hells bothers you - the idea that an intelligent entity actually enjoys running simulations of minds and exploring the ways they can end:

There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.

http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm

Vernor Vinge hints that transcendent Powers can sometimes do similar things with the minds of lesser entities:

"This innocent's ego might end up smeared across a million death cubes, running a million million simulations of human nature."

The virtual hells computers were a sort of AWS for civilizations that became space faring and had religions that instituted them. But did not want to run the hardware themselves, because it was too icky. So a whole collection of hells ran on those computers for different societies and different reasons.

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

Quoting time !

If there is a flaw in chess as a game of war, it is this. Unlike war, the rules of chess are constant; the pieces - unchangeable. You'll never win the heart of a rook or the mind of a knight. They are deaf to your arguements. And so be it. The goal of a chess game is total annihilation. But in war, even as the blood beats in your ears and you race after your enemy, there is the hope that saner minds than yours will stop you before you reach your target. In war, unlike chess, rules can be changed. Truces can be called. The greatest of enemies can become the best of friends. In war there is hope.

> In war, unlike chess, rules can be changed. Truces can be called. The greatest of enemies can become the best of friends.

This did happen during World War I between the soldiers of the opposing sides during the Christmas Truces of December 1914 [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

> The goal of a chess game is total annihilation

This isn't true at all. The win condition in Chess is undeniable threat of assassination of the King. You can win without taking a single piece.

I won't argue your point. Domination would be a better world.

For anyone interested in this a good search term for GS is "serious games". "Simulation and Gaming" is a good journal to browse.

Another related sci-fi pointer and one of my favourite books:

Stanislaw Lem's 1987 novel "Peace on Earth" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_on_Earth_(novel) ).

It's interesting to note that the title of this article is the idea behind the esports behemoth known as "League of Legends". Players dispute wars around the fictional world by battling on a 'Rift' to decide the fate of nations. Furthermore its impressive that last years culminating Worlds match up drew in more viewers than the NBA finals [1]. This year's should be even greater.

[1]http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/12/league-of-legends-worlds-vie...

Actually that's been retconned. The characters within the game "League of Legends" are slowly getting their own story, in the fictional world of Runeterra. However Summoners Rift, and the League of Legends itself does not exist within the canon. There is no central battlefield where the fate of nations is decided anymore.

No because who will enforce the result - outwith the Culture/ Alien Space Bats

Actually, even with the Culture there was a virtual war over the Hells, with the Culture naturally being very much on the anti hell side and even that carefully managed virtual war broke out into the real when it didn't go the "right" way.

Tangential, but it reminded a little of the crazy black humour novel "Year of the Angry Rabbit"

    "Wars are soon conducted as harmless arena games
    which are heavily promoted like the Olympics"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Angry_Rabbit

See Cordwainer Smith's "War no 81Q" for a sci-fi exploration of this.

For those that don't know Cordwainer Smith (and maybe even some that only know him for his beautifully weird stories) in real life was Paul M. A. Linebarger, one of the pioneers of psychological warfare and wrote one of the classics in the field, "Psychological Warfare"(1948).

His father was a lawyer and activist that supported the 1911 Chinese Revolution, and had such strong connections with the revolution that Cordwainer Smith's god-father was Sun Yat-sen, the first Provisional President of the Republic of China (Jan-Mar 1912), then Premier of the Kuomintang of China (Oct 1919 - March 1925).

"As a Far East specialist [Linebarger] was involved in the formation of the Office of War Information and of the Operation Planning and Intelligence Board. He also helped organize the Army's first psychological warfare section." - John J. Pierce, Science Fiction critic/historian

Certainly an interesting chap, as he managed all that, and then in his spare time came up with quite a number of short stories (and one novel) set along a time-line he had mapped out several millenia into the future. The stories themselves tend to centre around events and people and only illustrate the larger/longer universe incidentally.

I love it, personally, though it is all very weird and often quite funny (see "From Gustible's Planet").

His complete works fit in one fat volume. I recommend Buy it. One of the finest collections ever written.

Does said fat-volume usually contain the novel "Norstrilia" ? I had to buy that one separately.

But yes, go buy it!

See original series Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon".

A better plan might be to let women decide on fighting a war or not. Or my favorite plan which is to assign the congresspeople who vote for war a spot in the front.

I quite like the idea of politician's kids fighting to the death (if over 18). In the event of a mexican standoff we start sending in friends and then increasingly distant relatives.

This would have seen George Bush Jr fighting Sadam's kids. I think it's hard to reject this idea.

I think in Ancient Rome this was a tradition. That those on the Senate would have some of their own lead the armies into battle (like in the Third Punic War).

> let women decide on fighting a war or not

Cf. Aristophanes' play "Lysistrata" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata) in which the women of Athens persuade their menfolk to end their war against Sparta by refusing all sexual relations until they do.

War generally happens when two clashing social systems are trying to occupy the same physical space. As long as the systems are tolerable to each other, then war can be replaced by a game called democracy. If they are not, then no, war cannot be replaced by a game.

Time to start playing it then! Where can I go to participate?

Most of the world. You just need to be prepared to lose quite often. As long as you don't react to losing by grabbing a gun, you're still playing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

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