Hacker News Reader

Comment by liquidify | Hacker News Reader

I think the author's point could be broadened to just say, if you want peace, study the historical reasons for conflicts and how to avoid them.

Or even more broadly, if you want peace, study history and make it an important part of your decision making process.

View on HN

> if you want peace, study the historical reasons for conflicts and how to avoid them

I've always heard: if you want peace, prepare for war

My father would drill that into me as a kid.

That and the fact that war is not like in books or movies: it is ugly and best avoided.

Also interesting how that's the approach of Krav Maga as martial art. The 1st rule is, run if you can. The 2nd rule is, finish the fight ASAP and run. The rest derives from those two rules.

With such a motto, you'd expect them to practice sprinting a lot, but curiously, I've never seen that happen!

Well, you can see the first rule as "try not to use what you learn".

Can't speak for all instructors, but mine went directly to technique for those who ran/cycled to the gym and stretched before the class, letting the rest warm up in the meantime... running.

Also most demonstrations you can see on the Internet always end with running and most comments make fun of that, so it's certainly included in the practice.

I stand corrected

I was taught the same through Shotokan Karate. The credo spoken at every training (called "Dojo Kun") starts with "Seek perfection of character" and ends with "Refrain from violent behavior."

From the classic Latin “Si vis pacem para bellum” [0]

I’d always interpreted this to imply that deterrence was good - appear strong to prevent others picking a fight with you, rather than studying.

I always wondered if the 9mm Parabellum cartridge was named after the saying too, but no such enlightenment is available on the Wikipedia page at least [1]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9×19mm_Parabellum

Yes, it is derived from the saying.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabellumpistole

While it's true even today,I think at the time it was heavily related to the fact that most countries usually had to raise money and hire majority of soldiers when facing/declaring war rather then keeping them on payroll permanently. So if an enemy is banging at the gate, it's a bit too late to start sending message around 'we are hiring'.

> I've always heard: if you want peace, prepare for war

Yes, this is conventional wisdom. But it's time to give it up and try something new before someone accidentally annihilates the world as we know it.

Studying history is not a bad start.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com