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War

nolla

Senor Membrane
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May 22, 2008
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Damn you! You dug that thread up! It's death was exactly the beauty in it... :steam:
 

Nicodemus

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I revived it. When it died, it was Jesus the carpenter; now it is Jesus the god. Okay?
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
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Jesus' story is a lot more fun too when you think of him as a carpenter who thinks he is a god and then dies. It is more beautiful too, in a way. The resurrection is too much of a Hollywood ending for my liking.
 

Mole

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Byzantine Intelligence and Diplomacy

Tell me something controversial or interesting about war.

We would be better to follow the Byzantine path of Intelligence and Diplomacy with War only as a last resort and only for material objectives rather than ideological objectives.

This would mean leaving our enemies with no one to fight except themselves - and we could rely upon that.
 

Nicodemus

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We would be better to follow the Byzantine path of Intelligence and Diplomacy with War only as a last resort and only for material objectives rather than ideological objectives.

This would mean leaving our enemies with no one to fight except themselves - and we could rely upon that.
If we refrain from ideological objectives in war (some people think they are mere pretenses anyway), why would that make the enemy do the same? We still are his enemy, we still come to murder and steal.
 

Beargryllz

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Create an ideological objective to empower your soldiers and collaborators in the war effort (namely, the entire population), but direct actions based entirely on the material objectives.
 

Mole

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Tocqueville, Erasmus and Byzantium

If we refrain from ideological objectives in war (some people think they are mere pretenses anyway), why would that make the enemy do the same? We still are his enemy, we still come to murder and steal.

Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville points out that although America is a simple ideological society, Britain is a complex traditional society. So whether we refrain from ideology in war may be out of our hands, and may depend on the society that bore us.

And it seems you agree with Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam who taught all war is evil, but who might have thought that sometimes it is necessary to choose the lesser of two evils, and that war should be our last resort except in the case of genocide, where it should be our first.

And where the Western Roman Empire succumbed to the superior Huns, the Eastern Roman Empire, called Byzantium, was successful for a very long time, practising Intelligence and Diplomacy backed by a well trained army that only fought as a last resort, and then only for material objectives.

And today we notice our enemy kills themselves more than they kill us, so withdrawal from the lands of our enemy, and building our own societies, may serve us as well as it did Byzantium.
 

Nicodemus

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And it seems you agree with Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam who taught all war is evil, but who might have thought that sometimes it is necessary to choose the lesser of two evils, and that war should be our last resort except in the case of genocide, where it should be our first.
Appearances are deceptive.

And today we notice our enemy kills themselves more than they kills us, so withdrawal from the lands of our enemy, and building our own societies, may serve us as well as it did Byzantium.
That sounds different...
 
G

Ginkgo

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War and Peace are two oppositional parts of the same whole. While they do not necessarily cause each other, they are two finite states of being. While many believe that war is fundamentally evil, I believe that war is only evil when peace is preferable over war. When war is preferable, then peace is evil. If you were to ask me which "way" I prefer, I would tell you that the only way I prefer is choosing my battles wisely. Neither pacifism or perpetual conflict are principles that I can follow consistently. If a principle does not apply in all cases, it shouldn't be followed in all cases.
 
G

Ginkgo

Guest
We would be better to follow the Byzantine path of Intelligence and Diplomacy with War only as a last resort and only for material objectives rather than ideological objectives.

This would mean leaving our enemies with no one to fight except themselves - and we could rely upon that.

Isn't a belief in obtaining material an ideology?
 

Savage Idealist

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War, despite all the great evil in evokes upon the world is largely inevitable.
 

Mole

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The Economy, Religion, Ideology, the Enlightenment and Statistics

War, despite all the great evil in evokes upon the world is largely inevitable.

War is inevitable if military spending is the flywheel of the economy.

Whereas if welfare spending is the Keynsian flywheel of the economy, war is less inevitable.

And if your society is based on religion or ideology, war is more inevitable.

But if your society is based on the Enlightenment, was is less inevitable.

And if you look at the statistics, we find wars are becoming less frequent around the globe as we become more prosperous and educated.
 

Daedalus

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Tell me something controversial or interesting about war.

reminds me of Thomas Hardy's poem, "The man he Killed"

Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.

Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half a crown.
 
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