Hacker News Reader

Comment by pc | Hacker News Reader

The underlying assumption -- that social connections will act as a barrier to war -- seems pretty flawed. Extensive connections didn't prevent any of the European wars between, say, 1700 and 1945. A country is more likely to have an internal war than one with any given outside nation.

Maybe, as an American, Scott associates wars with far-off, little-known lands. True in recent times for the US maybe, but certainly not for most conflicts.

View on HN

You make a good point, the main reason the EU started was to prevent wars and it has worked. Since the formation of the EU, there has been no wars between its member nations, and that's saying a lot when sneezing in a foreign country was about all the justification needed.

Merely connecting people won't act as a barrier to war, but I think forming a universal governing structure would; however unlikely it is to actually happen. There's a saying that states democracy is just a farce to control the masses by giving the illusion of control, well I would say the EU does the exact same thing.

I can't speak for EU politics of late, I've rarely been in the UK the past year, however last I was keeping track the UK had a major problem with French farming subsidies (basically French farmers were being paid to be uncompetative) and the French wanted the UK to stop getting discounted for payments to the EU (each country pays like a tax that's supposed to benefit the whole, however the UK was paying less than it was getting in even though we're the richest country in the EU).

So, personally, I would say no level of communication will prevent war unless you're economically and socially tied as in the EU. I mean Kings would marry their daughters to Kings of other countries in an attempt to prevent war, the British bloodline has French descent in it. Even look at Richard the Lionheart, he barely even spoke english! Yet no amount of ties between England and France ever stopped war until the EU. Simple fact.

Actually I think the European thing is just an example of a broader phenomenon: democracies never go to war with other democracies.

(I went googling to make sure that was true, and found this: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/demowar.htm which goes through all the potential counterexamples. So I'll amend my statement to say that democracies hardly ever go to war with other democracies.)

So the idea is really a bit redundant -- two countries probably won't go to war if the people have anything to say about it anyway. Only when you have decisions being made by a dictator on at least one side are disagreements likely to turn into wars; democracies tend to compromise.

I'm glad you went through and found that; the US has ravaged third-world democracies for a quite a while now.

And what about the McDonald's-rule: "Two countries with McDonald's don't go to war with each other."?

Does it hold up?

Edit: The answer is in the linked page. (It's "No, but better than the other rule.")

the US has ravaged third-world democracies for a quite a while now

That's only a counterexample if the US is a democracy... :)

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/163 "We live in violent times, an era of heightened warfare, genocide and senseless crime. Or so we've come to believe. Pinker charts a history of violence from Biblical times through the present, and says modern society has a little less to feel guilty about.".. i'd bet better communication between peoples does reduce violence.

most Americans do associate war with far-off, little-known lands.

Probably because we're not too good at geography, and we're a little isolated by two small bodies of water.

Also, since the US has been an aggressor in going to war, stopping the US , or at least slowing down the US war machine is probably a good idea

Reply on news.ycombinator.com