Comment by aw124 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aw124 | Hacker News Reader

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Question number one. Is dominance really a necessary part of a country's existence? Can't you just have peaceful relations and supportive relationships with other countries to live in harmony, when artificial intelligence brings benefits to all countries, not just the USA? Can't you build on the technological foundations that have been laid to create sustainable development for your society?

The desire for more. To have more than others, is a key problem that generates unhealthy politics. Unhealthy foreign policy towards other countries. In your pursuit of being first in everything. Being first in everything, preventing the development of other countries, holding onto technologies for yourself. You create an imbalance. You create an imbalance in the global economy, in politics, in the social sphere, and in the social environment.

Isn't there an alternative to having sustainable development? Built on the principles of mutual support and focused not on dominance, but on collaboration between peaceful states. Between peaceful states.

>~Is dominance necessary?

Not necessarily — it's about respect. And a time-tested method is to exert your dominance (typically with violence). Maintaining power[1] is about maintaining respect [2].

[I love that certain groups of sub-ordinate apes have been observed literally tearing the alpha monkey apart, killing him; effectively ending excessive tyrannies]

As a counter-example, among the most respected persons in a prison system is the one who is generous[0] with their commisary. Snickers bars end wars.

"You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar"

>~The desire for more.

"The problem with always winning is you end up having to win all the time." —John Candy

[0] without reciprical expectations

[1] "everything is about sex, except sex; sex is about POWER" — without further commentary, other than are you reading these headlines (PS: he didn't kill himself)?!

[2] If you have not, Tim Urban's book What's Our Problem[3] is among my favorite datageek sociology books. It helped me better understand both my world and my lawyer brothers. He's the author of the excellent Wait But Why? blog.

[3] <https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Our-Problem-Self-Help-Societies...>

Stasis is the quickest way to be 'sustainible' but is a far from ideal outcome. Even if we ignore the squandered potential, take a look at what happened to Japan and others who pursued policies of stagnation for the sake of stability. The lucky ones only got admiral Perry-ied. The unlucky ones were brutally colonized or conquered. The really unlucky ones no longer exist.

States are what can be called superorganisms literally made entirely out of coercion to get others to serve their goals without their consent. Despite the claims of social contract, nobody ever signed one. Asking statew not to seek dominance is like asking a wolf to take up vegetarianism. They technically could do it but it goes fundamentally against its entire design and purpose.

Not to mention that saying no to 'more' isn't kumbaya everyone has peace and freedom. It means active suppression of ambitions of others. States are made of coercion, remember?

> Can't you just have peaceful relations and supportive relationships with other countries to live in harmony

"I can picture a world without fear, without hate. I can picture us conquering that world, because they'd never expect it."

Yes, dominance is preferred. Countries’ resources aren’t evenly distributed, and this fact determines foreign policy more than anything else.

There’s no world govt or global authority. Every country must look after its own interests.

Having every country cooperate requires trusting some entity as a global enforcer, one that wont abuse their unchecked power. Obviously, america has played this role since ww2 but not without plenty of mistakes and oversights.

We as humans haven’t found an alternative to this yet.

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