> And you have still failed to present any compelling evidence that military conflict is detrimental to society.
You mean apart from thousands or millions dead, cities destroyed, children orphaned, starvation, depredation and death?
I don't think I understand your moral system, but I'm going to take a stab that you're thinking in a utilitarian way. Well all the dollars and inventions and stuff you're talking about? Their purpose is to make people happy.
But the economic bead game you're talking about starts looking pretty irrelevant when you compare the relative happiness that some people get from having more beads with the sheer cost of war in human misery and destruction.
Are you arguing that the thousands and millions of dead would not have died without warfare? Are they immortal apart from military conflict?
I am a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan and have been considerably closer to war than, arguably, 99% of the collective posting on Hacker News. My point was not a moral position and most of you seem incapable of grasping the nettle of the original discussion thread.
The gist was the sum total economic impact. Moral, ethical and sentimental values do not matter and, like in most economical discussion, they are to be discarded.
At no point have I stated I agree with war (I do in certain circumstances) - the original question was does war create more wealth than it destroys?
Your emotional appeal about dead children is nothing to do with the original question. Without war however, we would still live under Feudal yokes or Patriarchal societies. War was required in many cases to establish the liberal democracy most of us exist in.
When you talk about moving the beads from one side to the other you look only at beads such as money, dead bodies, widespread crime and the gory side of conflict.
How about those conflicts that resulted in freeing slaves, securing indepdendence and democracy? What about the civil wars fought to ensure that men and women are treated fairly under the law and not at the whim of a Royal Family? Do you make any allowance for the benefits (however callous) to the reduction of the human population?
I expect the storm of downvotes but I attribute them to HN respondents being unable to separate the rational academic question from the emotional impact of warfare.
> Are you arguing that the thousands and millions of dead would not have died without warfare? Are they immortal apart from military conflict?
Are you arguing inventions are made out of greed and chauvinism more often than out of curiosity? Are you arguing they wouldn't have been made anyway, at some point?
> Without war however, we would still live under Feudal yokes or Patriarchal societies. War was required in many cases to establish the liberal democracy most of us exist in.
Same question.
Also, when you talk about "freeing slaves", you are missing that to capture a slave could be considered an act of violence, and therefore war in the widest sense.
Capturing a slave cannot be considered war in any sense.
War is an organized and often prolonged conflict that is carried out by states or non-state actors. It is generally characterised by extreme violence, social disruption and economic destruction. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence or intervention.
Why is war greed and chauvinistic? It did not feel chauvnistic when I was delivering medical aid to children who would have died without military forces being present to administer it.
Aspects of war may be greedy and characterised by chauvinistic values but not the entirety of war which you seem incapable of discussing rationally.
This thread has reached it's conclusion the minute you refused to engage with legitimate questions. Your response reads like a genuine tantrum by a child.
I certainly do not think that the evolution of democratic societies could have occurred without acts of war to take freedom from those that would deny it.
I have answered your question. Now answer mine or at least answer the original aim of the thread with compelling evidence.
In economics, wealth in a commonly applied accounting sense is the net worth of a person, household, or nation, that is, the value of all assets owned net of all liabilities owed at a point in time. For national wealth as measured in the national accounts, the net liabilities are those owed to the rest of the world. The term may also be used more broadly as referring to the productive capacity of a society or as a contrast to poverty.
You mean apart from thousands or millions dead, cities destroyed, children orphaned, starvation, depredation and death?
I don't think I understand your moral system, but I'm going to take a stab that you're thinking in a utilitarian way. Well all the dollars and inventions and stuff you're talking about? Their purpose is to make people happy.
But the economic bead game you're talking about starts looking pretty irrelevant when you compare the relative happiness that some people get from having more beads with the sheer cost of war in human misery and destruction.