[switch]

Great theory. Having lived on 3 continents and observed how countries and people behave and reading lots of history -> There might be a lot of truth to what you say.

The standard quote about all the peace in Switzerland leading to nothing other than the Cuckoo Clock and all the strife in Italy leading to the Renaissance comes to mind.

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As human beings we want to give 'meaning' to our lives and underplay the role genetics and survival of the fittest play.

We also want to pretend that we don't have a baser nature and that we can 100% 'civilize' ourselves.

So we often make the wrong assumption that the perfect natural state is perfect harmony where everyone taps into some global 'peace wave frequency'.

Is it possible? Who knows.

It's just interesting that it's never happened. Ever. There has never been a point of time when the entire world was at peace. There are always wars because human nature never changes - no amount of 'civilizing' can change that, nor can everyone pretending that we are flawless perfect peace-loving creatures.

[winestock]

Orson Wells came up with that line in the motion picture _The Third Man_. The screenwriters didn't come up with it. The author of the original novel didn't come up with it either (though he liked it). There was a space of time in the film that needed to be filled, so Orson Wells filled it.

The full quote is:

Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love — they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.