Hacker News Reader

You can't change that paradigm. Everything ultimately cashes out in force, unless you want to invent a new universe with new physics or something.

View on HN

What usually happens nowadays, is that technology greatly increases the amount of force which can be cashed out for. The start of the Nuclear age was literally applying a "new" (heretofore not yet applied to war) physics.

Applying space forces actively to war could well be applying a new part of the universe to war. (Airplanes and submarines were also this.)

Ok. How does that change the paradigm? It’s still a use of force ...

In potentially the same way that nuclear weapons did. No one can "win" a nuclear exchange, unlike those who thought many of the previous non-nuclear large conflicts would be over quickly (both World Wars and the US Civil War come to mind). Nuclear weapons are still use of force, but provide deterrence in a way conventional forces can not.

But not _everything_. Is your city going to invade a neighboring city if it decides it wants a better property tax base?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com