[hayst4ck]

I think I am quite liberal and I could be considered a warmonger.

If you have never met a truly delusional person in your life, it's easy to have pacifist ideals. As soon as you meet a truly delusional person and those delusions directly conflict with what you need or a right you think you have, you quickly learn that "war" is sometimes the only option. If there are situations that require war, then you must make sure you are capable of exerting force.

I think the quote "If you want peace, prepare for war," is quite accurate. It is perceived weakness that opens you up to having war thrust upon you by someone who has estimated they have more power. In that sense, I think pacifism is a warmongering ideology because I view "despots that have too much power will exist" as an axiom upon which any political philosophy must be built. To a despot, pacifism is opportunity to subjugate. The foundation of despotism is built upon people who will not risk what they hold dear.

Nuclear annihilation is bad, but I would rather live in a world under threat of nuclear annihilation rather than a world where only Putin or Xi could threaten the force of nuclear weapons to subjugate those they wish.

[Nomentatus]

I was a pacifist until I read Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings," a very long pro-war (warmonger) screed that he consciously designed to counter pre-WWII pacifism in England. Also entertaining. But long.

Or perhaps, Tolkein convinced me that I was kidding myself if I thought I was a pacifist, in the first place. If you would break someone's arm to save a million lives, then you're not a pacifist. Which is a sorta kinda okay rough summary of the book's underlying argument.

[andrepd]

> Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings," a very long pro-war (warmonger) screed that he consciously designed to counter pre-WWII pacifism in England

This is hilariously off-mark. Tolkien was a very anti-war person (shaped by his experience in the Great War).

[Nomentatus]

Tolkien was an able soldier at the front in WWI. He despised war as veterans do, but by the same token he was obviously no pacifist. He also despised the NAZIs, but was confronted by students, and a nation of voters, who declared themselves uninterested in defending their country or opposing the NAZIs. Tolkein began writing LOTR in 1937. Lewis, very similar views. It is impossible to construe TLOTR as a pacifist work; although it clearly warns against pursuing "any means possible" against an enemy (as is consistent with his Christian faith.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_Country_debate

https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2017/11/tolkien-lewis...

(I can't vouch for the latter journal, it's just consistent with what I've previously read.)

Winston Churchill, in the first volume of his history of WWII, goes into great detail re this ubiquitous democratic feckless pseudo-pacifism of the thirties. This is the context Tolkien was writing against; a thoroughgoing refusal to consider arms. It was well worth opposing, and had armed opposition been used earlier, England would have experienced only a very short, sharp war.

"Unlike other members of the "Lost Generation" who spent their words rejecting time-honored concepts such as heroism and virtue, Tolkien and Lewis borrowed heavily from the great epic stories of the past. ... According to the C.S. Lewis Institute, "In the stories of Tolkien and Lewis, there is this very important idea about our responsibility to resist evil and choose to do the right thing, even when it looks very risky. This is what heroes do." Both men learned these lessons while on the battlefields of France during the so-called "War to End All Wars." "

https://www.grunge.com/596312/the-c-s-lewis-and-j-r-r-tolkie...

[wsgeorge]

> screed

I will not use that word to describe The Lord of the Rings

[Nomentatus]

It's hyperbole, no question, but I'm going to say it's kinda sorta justified by the sheer length. Meant to be humorous, but hyperbole is a relatively rare taste in humor.

[lurquer]

The delusion, perhaps, is the average person worrying about whether they are or are not, or should or should not be, a pacifist.

It doesn’t matter.

Wars are waged by powerful interests over which the average person has no control.

I suppose on a personal level — confronted with a mugger or burglar — one could implement one’s philosophy. Thankfully, though, those occasions are rare and regardless of one’s outlook, the decision in the moment is based less on philosophy and more on adrenaline, panic, fear, rage, etc. (which can lead a ‘warmonger’ to capitulate and cower in fear or a ‘pacifist’ the knock the crap out of someone… one never knows.)

If there are any dictators, emperors, prime minister, or presidents on this board, perhaps their musings on the subject would mean something. If not, it’s just navel-gazing.

[godelski]

I've met delusional people, but I disagree with your stance. I think there has to be a better way. The reason we go to war is not because these delusional people exist, but because they are able to garner massive support. War can't exist without people willing to die for a cause. Those causes are frequently lies or exaggerations. Or issues caused by autocrats (delusional people) seeking to expand their power. The existential threat to humanity isn't so much that delusional people exist, but that the average person still holds celebrities in high regard. Because we treat men like gods.

[tekknik]

So let’s bring this out of the theoretical realm and into reality. How does this apply to the current Ukraine / Russian war? What is the better way to thwart Russias illegal advance?

[godelski]

First off, I think you're trying to pigeonhole me. I hope you're holding the counter proposal to the same degree of scrutiny. But also recognize that just because someone doesn't have the answer to everything doesn't mean it is wrong (I'll also say that people have been saying the other thing for thousands of years and it has not prevented us from having wars either).

Second off, I don't think it can. It's too late already. But I think there are still elements that show the dangers of what I'm saying. Many Russians left the country. There's even some hiding in the woods. I said the danger is when people support mad men. The problem is that despite this, there are still plenty of people willing to fight his war.

But what I'm proposing is much harder and longer term. There's lots of unknowns to me. I don't know how you get people to stop worshiping leaders. It seems like it is a fundamental aspect of humanity. I'm just a computer scientist, I don't know everything about human psychology. I'm not an expert in everything, none of us are.

But I do know people over simplify things but also hold onto their opinions very strongly. So one aspect is teaching people that their ideas are not part of their identities. Doing this prevents us from taking disagreements personally. I know it means teaching people that you can be proud of your country but that blind nationalism is dangerous. I do know it means teaching people to scrutinize the power of leadership, as power often corrupts and living extremely different lifestyles often distances us. I know it means doing much more than this too. But I'm not sure how to even teach all these things to people. But I do know there are far too many people who do not wish to go to war in either country.

So how do you give them the power and prevent charismatic authoritarians from abusing them? I don't know. It is probably similar to the answer of how you prevent people from being in abusive relationships. I'm sure neither of us knows that answer but we both agree that those relationships are bad.

[tekknik]

I’m not sure how any of this stops Russians from shooting at you.

> But also recognize that just because someone doesn't have the answer to everything doesn't mean it is wrong.

We can all want and wish for things, at some point we have to grow up and accept reality. If you don’t have a solution, then you don’t have the answers. You should’ve kept your mouth closed as you’ve said “i don’t like war, there’s a better way, but i don’t know what it is”. How many veterans that have watched their friends die do you think are on this board (you’re talking to one now)?

War is horrible but when we fight there is no other option.

[hayst4ck]

Your problem is one of the iron laws of being human:

While you may be able to influence another person, you can not change another person.

You are in a state of denial (a delusion) about people and both their capacity for good and capacity for change. You elevate your own ideals against animal (whoever has the most power wins) ideals while failing to recognize your own animal nature. You think your ideals are better than, say a republicans, and yet they are fundamentally equal to you. They might be trying to change you so that you become a nationalist, in the same way you would wish for them to be globalist. You have a false sense of the superiority of your beliefs and a false sense of authority to spread them. As we saw in 2016, they can get into power and co-opt the institutions of indoctrination to indoctrinate in the ways they see fit. Power is the factor that determines who gets to use the institutions of indoctrination.

> It seems like it is a fundamental aspect of humanity.

You recognize one important axiom, but fail to find the contradicting axiom.

War is the state of two irreconcilable delusions, or a delusion and reality. War determines who is wrong, and who is left.

> So one aspect is teaching people that their ideas are not part of their identities.

Do you see how republicans talk about how schools are indoctrination centers for kids and are fighting public education because they don't like this liberal indoctrination?

What do you think it would take for people to drop Christianity?

> But I do know there are far too many people who do not wish to go to war in either country.

I smashed my lego set in anger as a kid. It felt right at the time, but the end result was that what I had built was utterly destroyed, some individual pieces were permanently broken. I did not have the maturity or forethought to see how sad I would be at the destruction of my creations.

Global warming, much like obesity, is a march of small concessions until it gets to a point where the snowball is too big. War is a small march of appeasements until the despot starts seeing appeasements as submissions and becomes emboldened.

[godelski]

I disagree with this simply because there are plenty of people who aren't the things you are saying. This thread is proof of this. How many people don't want to go to war. You are breaking a an important axiom: there is no one size fits all for humans. But clearly we know there is something that makes these humans tick differently than other humans. So the question is if it is more nature or more nurture. I personally believe the latter, and if that is true then these pacifist qualities can be taught to people world wide. Then we can teach people to not treat men like gods. But that will require personalized journies and I do recognize the complexity in that. But I'd rather have a complex and difficult to implement system than a system that sends men to die on the whims of those that are willing to risk the livelihoods of others.

You are also moving the bar of the conversation because we first were talking about leaders who wield abusive powers and defining them as delusional. Thus my response is about how to prevent people like this from obtaining power in the first place. A preventative measure (which is why my above response is attempting to explain that preventative measures aren't good solutions for problems already occurring. i.e. a goal post moved). You have incorporated a wider definition of delusion and this moves the goal post for me to defend my position further. But in the war mongering position the widening of the goal post in this direction gets us to where we are: which is a deep seated division. That politics becomes good vs evil. While I agree that the ideas of these people are reprehensible I do not believe that discussing in this framework is productive. People never see themselves as evil and calling them such creates division rather than salvation. I can recognize that we are in this terrible position and that my thoughts do not solve this while also recognizing that once a solution is created we need to act further before rejoicing. We need to prevent this cycle of of casting out out of touch leaders who will abuse us and wait for the next one to come along. We've been doing this for tens of thousands of years, don't you think it is time we start discussing preventative measures?

[hayst4ck]

> How many people don't want to go to war.

Nobody wants to go to war. All war is based on rhetoric about its necessity. I think war with china is necessary, and I think the longer we don't go to war, the more pain China will be able to deal us when war breaks out (willing to accept alternative argument, for example, that unchecked dictatorship will rot china's ability to wage war). I absolutely don't want to go to war with China, but Xi is clearly delusional and has embedded into the Chinese system of government a future declaration of war against Taiwan and has made no shortage of rhetoric about using force if necessary. He's even demonstrated colonial imperial ambition directly against Hong Kong showing that his threats are not idle.

I don't want the war at all, but Xi does. I can't change Xi. That leaves one choice: prepare for war.

> there is no one size fits all for humans.

Humans have blood that carry oxygen to their brains. We have to eat to obtain energy to function. We don't know the extent to which other chemicals or structures govern our thoughts (including social ones) or not. So if you believe that our consciousness has a basis in physicality, we can't know to what extent this statement is false or to what degree it is false.

That also ignores that there are systems that govern us. All humans are subject to the idea that "the most powerful entity wins." All humans are subject to death.

That's ignoring that:

> there is no one size fits all for humans.

and

> Then we can teach people to not treat men like gods.

are a contradiction. You are trying to make one size (no gods) fit all.

If there is no one size, then conflict is necessary, and war is just a degree of conflict.

> Then we can teach people to not treat men like gods.

You want to teach people to not treat mean like gods, while they want you to teach you to have the same gods they do. You are asserting the authority and superiority of your own belief system under the implicit condition that you have more power than they do. I identify as liberal, so I believe liberal systems are better, but unless liberals can maintain power, then liberal belief systems don't matter. We are seeing America slowly become a white christian state because ethnic forces have used their power to corrupt the judicial branch while we see liberal forces floundering and incapable of achieving any goals like rule of law (the idea that laws apply to people with power).

So there is a cycle:

Ideology -> power -> war -> ideology

Ideologies generate power, which are used to win wars, which are used to increase ideology. In this way ideologies are competitive and naturally selected.

As for the second statement, you are quick to blame a leader for their delusion, and you seem to have a top down view. My view is bottom up, that small scale (a single person) delusions grow into large scale delusions, and once there are two incompatible large scale delusions, there is war.

I don't think I've moved any goal posts, I think you need to confront the idea that there is probably a person who exists with the direct opposite opinions of yours with the same desire to spread their opinion, and who is functionally equivalent in power.

> We've been doing this for tens of thousands of years, don't you think it is time we start discussing preventative measures?

If we've been doing it for tens of thousands of years, then it seems like those memes (in the technical sense of the word) have been naturally selected for because they are more viable than other memes, that is to say, we have the privilege of living in high resource times and therefore having high resource privilege, but in low resource times, we might choose to kill rather than starve. Whether the resource is food, microchips, oil, or anything else that modern society depends upon, it might be that willingness to kill your neighbor could be a competitive advantage and we see the results of those forces of natural selection alive today.

We are animals and I think we both believe in fighting our animal nature and the animal law (natural selection) that binds us, but we can't do it in violation of reality.

[data_maan]

In other words: You'd rather die (and have also all your children die) than live under Putin or Xi.

Are you sure about that?

Dictators come and go, nuclear winter stays.

[hayst4ck]

Definitely. "Live free or die" means more than anything, that if no one will sacrifice themselves in the fight for justice, then you will be oppressed, your family will be oppressed, and your children will be oppressed as will your friends and their families.

If everyone believes in the idea of "live free or die" then there is a chance to not live and die a slave to a dictator.

I prefer living to life.

I was extremely moved by the Hong Kong protestors who were living the morals of my forefathers, while my peers here in America were busy bootlicking while talking about how awesome their freedom to lick boots is.

This quote is the parent quote of "live free or die":

> "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

It captures the idea clearly.

[data_maan]

I on the other hand met in person someone from Hong Kong whose uncle, I believe, had been imprisoned during a much earlier demonstration for a different cause.

He didn't exclaim any morally high-flying attitude and said that after the demonstration was over and he was in jail, no public really remembered him, the news didn't write great stories about his heroic deeds and he suffered tremendously as a small cog caught between the wheels of history.

You're attitude also reminds me strongly of pre-world-war Germany where there was also a sentiment that a war with the unjust oppressors is much better than the current rotten piece; you can see where this has lead.

Ending, I don't what to dismiss your positive attitude to oush against oppression, but I want show that there is more to the issue than "live free or don't live at all".

So what you say sounds great - in theory. But letting Mike Tyson answer: "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face".

[hayst4ck]

> He didn't exclaim any morally high-flying attitude and said that after the demonstration was over and he was in jail, no public really remembered him, the news didn't write great stories about his heroic deeds and he suffered tremendously as a small cog caught between the wheels of history.

You've identified the prisoners dilemma that dictators use to attain power. Every person is faced with a dilemma. Do I defect (submit to the oppressive regime) or do I cooperate (fight the oppressive regime). Cooperation has very high cost when other people choose defect. The more people that defect, the more costly cooperation is.

Liberty requires that sacrifice, but no one wants it to be their sacrifice, and a despot uses that property to enslave everyone. Martyrs are a necessary, but not sufficient component of liberty.

> You're attitude also reminds me strongly of pre-world-war Germany where there was also a sentiment that a war with the unjust oppressors is much better than the current rotten piece; you can see where this has lead.

Russia has the same rhetoric against "Nazi oppressors" in Ukraine. China pushed rhetoric about America causing civil unrest in Hong Kong. The civil war, revolutionary war, ww2, etc. all seem to push the same sentiment.

It might not be the rhetoric itself, but the values behind the rhetoric and the consistency between rhetoric and actions.

> But letting Mike Tyson answer: "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face".

And Mike Tyson better than anyone knows you can't be the greatest ever without getting punched in the face a few times. What sacrifices do you think he made to get where he got? I find irony in quoting someone that literally risked their life and limb to achieve what they achieved while defending the idea that choosing slavery over risking life and limb is rational.

It is clear that it is rational to make either decision. The prisoner's dilemma is a dilemma, it is not clear what the choice should be. Education can help inform what the best strategy is or at least what the outcomes of various strategies are.

Conscripts in Russia are literally being marched off to their death because they have been enslaved. Had they fought their mafioso kelptocratic oppressors (at great sacrafice), they could be enjoying the fruits of their labor and incredibly rich natural resources rather than being forced to ethnically cleanse themselves (at least the non muscovites) in the meat grinder.

[data_maan]

I get what you are saying.

It is a personal tradeoff everyone has to make and find, when, in your words, to defect or to cooperate. Yes, indeed

In your original comment you seemed to be making an unusual hard tradeoff in terms of freedom, that is why I invoked the example of the imprisoned demonstrator.

Make Tyson was obviously exceptional. I think our discussion is more what regular people would do. Top athletes also have coaches that mentally keep them to overcome resistance. Regular people typically (unfortunately) don't have access to that .

And yes, the example you give regarding Russia is exceptionally and probability a good counterexample to mine, to illustrate the other side of the Coin.

[tekknik]

Not the parent, but yes absolutely. If I can’t speak out against things I don’t like then I am not living. You can hole up and wait out the nuke tossing then join the workers party rebuilding their palaces after you come out. Your children will likely be forced into labor as well, that’s Poohbears favorite move.