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Comment by js8 | Hacker News Reader

"I don’t really understand how and why war happens."

I think we don't really know. We know that greed plays a role, but it is not always the case of someone stronger attacking someone weaker.

In Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature, this is shortly discussed. IIRC he says that no reason put forward as an explanation for war can be conclusively proven from the available data (he mentions some war databases containing over 20k conflicts of more than 100 people each).

So, I think, unfortunately, conflict is like rain. You know that condensation is the cause, yet you can't really predict when and with what intensity it will happen. But you know it will.

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I saw a chaos theory documentary recently that touched on this same thing. It compared the Three-body problem in physics with Franz Ferdinand getting shot. It's truly terrifying to think that a single man making the decision to pull a trigger would send the world to the brink of destruction. Granted the conditions had to be just right to have such a spiraling effect, but it just shows you that the system is so complex that one little thing can tip it over the edge.

Historically that's been held up as an interesting pivotal moment. But I don't think it bears scrutiny. Germany was itching to go to war (as a natural outgrowth of their manifest destiny). That shot was an excuse. They would have found another - the world was in turmoil.

I think that's exactly the point though. That event was the catalyst, but it just as easily could have been any number of other things and it is unpredictable when it will boil over.

Importantly, _Serbia_ wanted to cause a war that would pit Austria against Russia. One of the parts of https://www.amazon.com/Sleepwalkers-How-Europe-Went-1914/dp/... that struck me was the offhand mention that Serbia was the one country involved that accomplished all of its foreign policy goals as a result of WWI.

I suspect that even if the assassination had failed they would have kept trying other provocations at least until they provoked an Austria-Russia war.

The concept might frighten you, but as the chaos theory also predicts: you probably do know the direction where it is going, and the only thing you can't predict is the sole high-frequency feature of _the_ event that will cause the sudden change.

So it has nothing to do with a "single event", but rather the "pre-conditions" which allow for that single event to evolve into such consequences. Don't blame an idiot who broke a brittle system.

I agree that a single event that causes the tipping point doesn't really matter and knowing the general direction things are going is helpful. This does not mean necessarily though that you'll have any ability to change it. Even if you had the power to change anything, it assumes you actually know the correct actions to take.

I can't agree more. This is an excellent observation. Also, that last sentence. Bravo. I think this is the best allegory for conflict (or war) that I have ever seen.

Some of us know but would be shunned if we told you. As a combat vet I have spent years since I got out trying to understand the big picture... and all I can tell you is the truth is nastier, and stranger, than fiction. I started out with just Iraq, but by the end of it had learned the GWOT was only the latest iteration of a long game that has been played over centuries.

What is your conclusion? Can you share? (At the risk of being shunned..,?)

So are you posting this to taunt or to grandstand?

You're using an anonymous account, and I for one promise to upvote whatever "nastier, stranger" truth you post. Lay it on us, man!

Well, without going to deep down the rabbit hole, I think I'll put it like this:

At best, wars are primarily a tool of the bankers and the international elite in a path towards control of all countries economic and physical resources. They finance and play both sides, and no matter the victor, they win. This is essentially the John Perkins position.

Even John Perkins claims there is no "grand conspiracy" though... and I would simply claim otherwise. Of course I've heard all the common retorts. "It could never be kept secret." "It's all incompetence, not malice." (hanlons fallacy) "It's just self-interest manifesting nastily." and so on.

Look, after the war I realized I had been lied to about so much, I sat down and decided to do what I call my "Descartes reset". Essentially, it consists of two parts. One, if I were to start fresh as if I knew nothing, and then evaluate the inductive and deductive evidence, if my past conclusions were correct I should arrive at them again. (they were't, and I didn't). Two, you must decide what you desire the most. The truth, no matter how ugly? Or a beautiful lie? I chose truth.

I won't get into the details right now, but suffice it to say I walked away believing there is indeed a "grand conspiracy". Of course that doesn't mean the other points of view aren't true at the same time, because they aren't mutually exclusive. If anything, the self-interested and the incompetent creates a nice cover for the abuse of the compartmentalization of black operations. There are often competing factions within as well, that sometimes align in purpose and sometimes don't. I still update and check my information and model as well. It's a continuous process mostly gained by gleaming bits and peaces of information from just straight up voraciously reading the best books related to the subject I could get my hands on.

That said, there are three primary sources that have a hefty academic background I used to pivot to other things. Carroll Quigley, Peter Dale Scott, and Antony C. Sutton. A third that was less academic and more experience based was Fletcher Prouty.

There are many other sources that have interesting things to say, but aren't as unimpeachable as the others. For this, a mainstream board, if you are really interested, I will just leave it at those four as a good start to pry open the very obsfuscated subject just a bit.

Bonus: https://youtu.be/YUYCBfmIcHM?t=1380

Thanks for the pointers. Haha "Hanlon's Fallacy" I love it! I'll definitely be repeating that one.

I agree that the first step is taking stock of all the lies. There are some obvious untruths that most Americans physically can't even consider, let alone disagree with, because they've been lied to from childhood. My current favorite is, "USA military is powerful and effective". Historians to come will puzzle over how anyone could have believed that, based on its unblemished record of ignominious defeat from Korea to Iraq and back again. When I talk about it today, however, I can see people's brains locking up.

I think it's possible there is no grand conspiracy, or perhaps we should say that myriad small conspiracies are reinforced by a larger unconscious equilibrium of interests. I'm not sure whether it would be better to react to the conspiracies or try to destroy the equilibrium...

The US military is powerful and effective, just not in the way you might think.

First, discard any notions you may have regarding "winning" wars or "mission accomplished". The military hasn't been at war in a de jure legal sense since 1945. But it has been involved nearly continuously in de facto wars ever since then.

Is the world really such a dangerous place? Or is there another hypothesis that might explain it?

Here's one: the US military is an instrument for moving public funds from the Treasury into private hands with little or no public oversight, designed to work equally well when popular opinions swing in favor of the military or against it. To this end, media channels and public relations outlets are controlled through the use of financial incentives and proactively crafted narratives.

Milo Minderbinder is in charge. The US military spends $600 billion every year. Powerful means of moving money. Only $150 billion goes to personnel. Effective? Depends on what you think the intent may be.

...you might think.

In future I would suggest a less personal idiom such as, "...one might think". My HN posting history makes obvious that I completely agree with everything you've written here.

Before all those came the Major General Smedley Butler:

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

https://ia802605.us.archive.org/29/items/WarIsARacket/WarIsA...

As a Marine he was always my favorite Marine. (Even over Chesty) He straight up confronted an attempted facist coup! (The business plot for anyone interested)

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