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Comment by DrScientist | Hacker News Reader

Places like China and India etc have huge human resources and will inevitably [1] catch up the West in terms of economic power.

We have two broad choices

- brutally suppress development in these countries to remain 'top dog' or

- continue to build those international structures that were founded after the second world war - like the UN, that were designed to stop a repeat of WWII.

I fear the current approach of unpicking international norms and constraints in order to be able to do more of option 1 is leading us to WWWIII, not protecting us from it.

[1] If we don't take option 1 above.

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Seems like you are presenting a false choice. China has clearly stated its intention to compete and overtake the US as a core power. If the US is able to build and maintain strategic partnerships and military deterrence then that ascension of China would be less risky. I disagree with your whole premise of competition as “brutal suppression”. The most likely outcome of the trade war is that China will eventually have its own chip industries that are on par or more advanced then the US.

Obviously there are ways to muddle through the middle.

However let's be clear there are hawks that see war as a legitimate tool, and they are the people that are trying to undermine international mechanisms that shackle the unilateral action of states - because they want to use that freedom.

Nothing wrong with staying strong - though it can create fear if you don't also talk - and indeed you could argue that's the approach China is taking - it's not been involved in countless foreign wars like the US over the last few decades, but it has been building capability - but wouldn't you given the aggressive behaviour of the US?

The question is - is the solution further escalation or some descalation?

But fair would be to evaluate the success ratio of option 2 as well: look up "league of nations", "concert of Europe" and there have been several organizations before that ... They all are definitely structures founded to prevent war ... and now the consensus is mostly that they caused WW2 (they were the ones organizing the "Treaty of Versailles").

You mean the league of nations from which Germany and Japan withdrew from in 1933?

The notion that it is the UN and other such organisations that led to the period of (relative) peace in the 20th century post-WW2 is very far fetched. I would bet instead on these five horsemen of the peace, in order:

- Mutually Assured Destruction risks

- No unmanageable effects of CO2-induced climate disruption

- Plenty of available oil to burn, with high EROEI

- Plentiful resources and enough growth all-round

- The UN and other such organisations

You've made an important distinction between the real competition for resources - that's needed to survive, like water, food, energy - and simple nationalistic 'top dog' type competition.

And in reality, there is enough energy, food and water to go around - the only thing that creates conflict over those is excessive fear or greed. I'm arguing you need these international organisms to create peer shame on the greed, and reduce the fear through regular contact and peaceful ways to reduce conflict.

what about building robots?

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