World peace

[polybius]

There already are powerful people working at achieving world peace. Unfortunately, the way it will likely happen includes an enormous culling. With 7 billion people it is impossible to resolve all the differences in opinion and culture to please everyone to a point that world peace can be realized. What will likely happen is the most powerful people have decided what's in the best interest of everyone as a whole and may slowly start to implement this change. This includes toppling governments, sedating the public via media and other ways which I won't get into, and finally, enacting draconian laws in the name of love and peace and inclusivity to exterminate the dissonant. This still won't be enough, so wars need to be engineered in which nukes will be used and the majority of people will die. Sounds bleak, but this is the most realistic scenario for, "world peace". The banks already have every country on their knees in debt, politicians, borders, countries, alliances, etc, it's all an illusion, and all the lines are blurred behind the scenes. I know this is vague, it's conceptual in my mind, however, there is enough evidence and speculation from experts along these lines to give credence to this theory.

 

[Infjente]

I think you are committing a rather dangerous false dilemma fallacy, as well as the fallacy of equivocation between suffering from war and unhappiness. There is probably a fallacy related to over-generalization of happiness in there as well.

You're essentially saying that world peace isn't better than the current state of the world, because peace is not enough to guarantee happiness. But the fact that peace is not enough to guarantee happiness (we agree on that) is by no means enough of a ground to conclude that world peace isn't better than the current state of the world. What would be the harmful consequences of having more peace, or total peace, in the world, compared to the current state of affairs? Surely world peace + some unhappiness is better than the innumerable horrors and casualties of war + some unhappiness.

Happiness is irrelevant to the conversation about peace. You're introducing it by falsely equating it to "absence of suffering".

If happiness is the opposite of suffering, it is relevant, they come as a pair.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

@Infjente raises a good point here about balance.

I agree. I don't think 'world peace' is some abstract goal that we can attain independent of other sacrifices - it's a function of power.

And either it will take a lot of power to achieve world peace, or a fundamental overhaul of the international system.

I'll give you a example. Michael Mann - one of my favourite 'theoretical historians' (they call him a sociologist, screw that) - came up with a really simple and elegant conception of power that I think holds up to scrutiny (in The Autonomous Power of the State).

Essentially state power is conceived as a function of two axes - despotic power (vertical, arbitrary power, intensity) and infrastructural power (horizontal, the ability to reach people, scope).

So medieval kingdoms had a lot of despotic power but not much infrastructural power - some kings could order the death of prectically anyone, but they couldn't reach everyone.

Modern states are the opposite - lots of infrastructural power but not much despotic. Almost everybody can be reached by the state, but they are bound by what you can do to them.

The value of this theory is validated by the predictions it makes - more despotic usually means less infrastructural, more infrastructural usually means less despotic. High levels of both tend to be intolerable, and don't survive long (totalitarianism). Low levels of both of course mean a failed state.

It plays out in the history of crime. Despotic power needs serious deterrence (e.g. Death penalty) to work, infrastructural power does not (because of the certainty of arrest). However, more infrastructural power means less freedom, by definition.

In terms of world peace, I think unfortunately it might take lots of infrastructural power to really achieve, whereas what we have now is peace enforced by despotic deterrence (nuclear threat). In this sense, the US is the 'overstate'.

This means, of course, that a lot of state and individual freedom will have to be sacrificed to achieve it. In other words, Rousseau was right.

 

[Ren]

If happiness is the opposite of suffering, it is relevant, they come as a pair.

Let's look at the opposite pole. You have suffering from war on the one hand, and suffering from postmodern alienation on the other. These are fundamentally different kinds of suffering. If world peace can reduce the first kind of suffering, it should of course be promoted - even if it doesn't reduce the second kind.

Unless your point is that peace increases suffering from postmodern alienation? But do you really think it is peace that does that?

 

[Deleted member 16771]

Let's look at the opposite pole. You have suffering from war on the one hand, and suffering from postmodern alienation on the other. These are fundamentally different kinds of suffering. If world peace can reduce the first kind of suffering, it should of course be promoted - even if it doesn't reduce the second kind.

Unless your point is that peace increases suffering from postmodern alienation? But do you really think it is peace that does that?

If you accept it as a function of power, then yes, that's what we're saying.

 

[Ren]

If you accept it as a function of power, then yes, that's what we're saying.

I think I understand your perspective. Also, you implicitly raise an important point, which is that in the contemporary era, the question of peace targets more often war within states than war between states. I agree with you that to move towards world peace (as an ideal pole) more infrastructural power would be needed. And yes, in a sense infrastructural power comes at the expense of individual freedom. There is a contract involving a trade-off going on here.

The thing is, this relative surrendering of freedom seems to me still more desirable than the permanent threat of being terrorized by armed groups within one's state, when the state is undergoing civil war. It is not obvious to me that there is actually more freedom of the individual when the armed groups, though not states, tend to develop as rogue states in the modern era (benefits of technology, etc.) What is the freedom of the individual citizen in an infra-structurally weak state like the Democratic Republic of Congo? It seems to me that on top of the drastically reduced life expectancy, one does not earn more freedom, because one lacks the capability to action that freedom.

I am not familiar with Mann's model, admittedly, and I may well be distorting his theory. But it seems to me that in the modern era, the trade-off between freedom and peace isn't really there. And NGOs who function as freedom watches tend to universally rate individual freedom as higher in democracies with strong infrastructural power. It's not that these democracies don't impinge on freedom somewhat, but that they seem to impinge less on freedom than infrastructurally weak, conflict-ridden states where armed groups proliferate. On top of all the other horrors of war.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

I think I understand your perspective. Also, you implicitly raise an important point, which is that in the contemporary era, the question of peace targets more often war within states than war between states. I agree with you that to move towards world peace (as an ideal pole) more infrastructural power would be needed. And yes, in a sense infrastructural power comes at the expense of individual freedom. There is a contract involving a trade-off going on here.

The thing is, this relative surrendering of freedom seems to me still more desirable than the permanent threat of being terrorized by armed groups within one's state, when the state is undergoing civil war. It is not obvious to me that there is actually more freedom of the individual when the armed groups, though not states, tend to develop as rogue states in the modern era (benefits of technology, etc.) What is the freedom of the individual citizen in an infra-structurally weak state like the Democratic Republic of Congo? It seems to me that on top of the drastically reduced life expectancy, one does not earn more freedom, because one lacks the capability to action that freedom.

I am not familiar with Mann's model, admittedly, and I may well be distorting his theory. But it seems to me that in the modern era, the trade-off between freedom and peace isn't really there. And NGOs who function as freedom watches tend to universally rate individual freedom as higher in democracies with strong infrastructural power. It's not that these democracies don't impinge on freedom somewhat, but that they seem to impinge less on freedom than infrastructurally weak, conflict-ridden states where armed groups proliferate. On top of all the other horrors of war.

You're right of course, and Rousseau had the same realisation.

Maybe we should speak instead of rights and obligations in reference to power.

So in order for states to attain infrastructural power, individuals must submit to having obligations to the state placed upon their person. This of course is a reduction of freedom.

However, in submitting to those obligations, the very foundational idea of the social contract is that the rights and benefits we receive in return far outweigh the small obligations we submit to.

So in Europe we tend to pay higher taxes than in the US, but in return we are given access to universal health care. The benefit clearly outweighs the cost.

I think what we're suggesting, however, is that world peace is such an extreme goal in many ways, that we might risk destroying the mutually beneficial nature of the social contact. It might be worth accepting some risk in order to preserve some freedoms, for instance (like phone tapping).

The amount of infrastructural power necessary to achieve it might be too burdensome for the individual. It's not a straight road of progress, it's a choice I think.

What we're talking about here, however, is mostly the hegemonic mode of achieving peace.

There's another way, of course, which is a classical balance of power model. Simply make it that war is in no one's interest. This requires very careful engineering and management of the system, however, and you can't stop the total nutters without infrastructural power anyway.

So ultimately our case is this - world peace is not a desirable goal if it necessitates a tyrannical level of infrastructural state power, and therefore we may have to (as we currently do) accept a certain level of risk to preseve basic freedoms.

The scary part going into the future is that even a small amount of risk might be too much to bear because of things like nuclear terrorism. Once that first bomb is detonated, the weight of the balance will change, and a previously intolerable level of infrastructural power will become necessary, and then we'll be living under a tyranny, but a necessary one.

 

[Infjente]

Let's look at the opposite pole. You have suffering from war on the one hand, and suffering from postmodern alienation on the other. These are fundamentally different kinds of suffering. If world peace can reduce the first kind of suffering, it should of course be promoted - even if it doesn't reduce the second kind.

Unless your point is that peace increases suffering from postmodern alienation? But do you really think it is peace that does that?

You're in love with details

Imagine your self as an average person, you're doing not too good, not too bad. It's healthy. You have been through traumas and extreme joys in life. Now, put every person in the world in one body, and the outcome look pretty much like you. Now if you were able to delete your painful memories, would you still be as healthy and balanced? No because you wouldn't be able to enjoy the good as much anymore. You wouldn't be very happy with your life. Would that be fair? So as much as we as individuals need the contrast between pain and joy to be in harmony, the population does to.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

You're in love with details

Imagine your self as an average person, you're doing not too good, not too bad. It's healthy. You have been through traumas and extreme joys in life. Now, put every person in the world in one body, and the outcome look pretty much like you. Now if you were able to delete your painful memories, would you still be as healthy and balanced? No because you wouldn't be able to enjoy the good as much anymore. You wouldn't be very happy with your life. Would that be fair? So as much as we as individuals need the contrast between pain and joy to be in harmony, the population does to.

I've noticed that a lot of Middle Class people tend to be thrillseekers. It's like they never experienced real danger, so they seek it out in extreme sports and things like that. Perhaps they're filling some void of experience in their lives. It's like the people raised in the safest environments are also the most likely to seek out an experience of danger.

Does that match with your argument?

P.S. I think Ren is in love with whatever the opposite of details are, actually! It's just that the damn things keep getting in the way.

 

[Infjente]

I've noticed that a lot of Middle Class people tend to be thrillseekers. It's like they never experienced real danger, so they seek it out in extreme sports and things like that. Perhaps they're filling some void of experience in their lives. It's like the people raised in the safest environments are also the most likely to seek out an experience of danger.

Does that match with your argument?

P.S. I think Ren is in love with whatever the opposite of details are, actually! It's just that the damn things keep getting in the way.

Hmm maybe? I'll have to think about it

 

[Infjente]

Hmm maybe? I'll have to think about it

Been thinking ... I think you're right actually. The world's middle class do strike me as energetic and fearless