Sunday, November 11, 2018

Ugo Bardi — Should we Prepare for a New World War? Answers from the Patterns of Past


Systemic uncertainty in a complex adaptive system. Spontaneous natural order is messy.

Cassandra's Legacy
Should we Prepare for a New World War? Answers from the Patterns of Past
Ugo Bardi | Professor in Physical Chemistry at the University of Florence

See also

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
Hey! Here’s what to do when you have two or more surveys on the same population!
Andrew Gelman | Professor of Statistics and Political Science and Director of the Applied Statistics Center, Columbia University

See also

Strategic Culture Foundation
We Are Heading for Another Tragedy Like World War I
Eric S. Margolis

2 comments:

Konrad said...

Should we prepare for a new world war? Answers from the patterns of past.

“Tolstoy had grasped the concept that war is not the result of mad dictators giving orders to their followers. It is not even a rational struggle for resources, or for money, although that factor plays a role. It is just something that happens beyond the human capability of controlling it, or even of understanding it.”

I don’t agree with this. As the world slides toward a dystopia of pollution, poverty, and inequality, we can clearly see the main causes of this (e.g. bankers) and we see how average people (most of them anyway) sleepwalk through their lives. We can see every step of the way, in real time, as it happens. Every action by politicians, financiers and corporations. Every uptick in the general madness, until the madness boils over into war.

Social and economic pressures caused European peasants to cheer when World War One began. They eagerly enlisted in the military, in search of “glory.” Their joy soon disappeared, and politicians had to forcibly conscript the peasants to keep them marching into the meat grinder.

During war, there is never any shortage of collaborators (e.g. local police departments) who enforce conscription so they themselves can avoid the meat grinder. It was the same in World War II. Police departments across the USA continually and relentlessly searched for draft dodgers (often using road blocks) so the police themselves would not have to go and die. Meanwhile in combat theatres, MPs searched for deserters so the MPs themselves would not have to go and die.

I don’t think that war is a mystery. Most people [not all] are selfish idiots. They are Frankos (i.e. fools who fancy themselves geniuses). Collective Franko-hood eventually results in war.

“If wars are like earthquakes, they are a thermodynamic phenomenon that dissipates accumulated energy.”

Agreed, but the article says that the accumulated energy is excess capital. I say that the accumulated energy is collective anguish, frustration, hopelessness and hate.

GLH said...

I know three people who aren't going, me and the two sob's that come after me.