30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Capitalist Peace
Such findings have led some political scientists to entertain a heretical idea called the Capitalist Peace.243 The word liberal in Liberal Peace refers both to the political openness of democracy and to the economic openness of capitalism, and according to the Capitalist Peace heresy, it’s the economic openness that does most of the pacifying. In arguments that are sure to leave leftists speechless, advocates claim that many of Kant’s arguments about democracy apply just as well to capita...Folksonomies: capitalism peace
Folksonomies: capitalism peace
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notes24 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Technology is Information
The most revolutionary aspect of technology is its mobility. Anybody can learn it. It jumps easily over barriers of race and language. And its mobility is still increasing. The new technology of microchips and computer software is learned much faster than the old technology of coal and iron. It took three generations of misery for the older industrial countries to master the technology of coal and iron. The new industrial countries of East Asia, South Korea and Singapore and Taiwan, mastered ... 1 notes
notes24 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Resistance to World Government
The case for World Government as Hamilton and Einstein presented it is logically compelling. Fortunately or unfortunately, World Government has a fatal defect. Nobody wants it. At the time when Einstein preached World Government most seriously, he was bitterly attacked by Soviet scientific colleagues as well as by patriotic American politicians. "By the irony of fate," the Soviet scientists proclaimed, "Einstein has virtually become a supporter of the schemes and ambitions of the bitterest fo... 1 notes
notes16 AUG 2014 by ideonexus
Hitler's Appeal was His Promise of Strife and Warfare
Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; ti... 1 notes
notes27 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Post WWI vs Post WWII Human Civilization
After the horrific agonies of World War One, the progressive worldview was rejected both in America and abroad, partly due to narrow minded self-interest, but also because humanity was otherwise preoccupied. Like careening drunks, we commenced a long and horrible infatuation with ideologies — from communism and fascism to nationalist jingoism and every other "ism" imaginable. Hitler and Stalin were no more than particularly gruesome manifestations of this fever — a passion for simplistic ... 1 notes
notesDr. Brin describes one world-society obsessed with "isms" against one vowing to rebuild civilization, even those of our enemies.
09 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
War is an Alien Threat
More than a century ago a young Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America. After that visit he predicted that the two great powers of the future world would be, on one hand, the United States, which would be built, as he said, ``by the plowshare,'' and, on the other, Russia, which would go forward, again, as he said, ``by the sword.'' Yet need it be so? Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we ... 1 notes
notesRonald Reagan suggests we would put aside our differences if threatened by extraterrestrials, but then notes that war is an alien threat--alien to how we desire to live.
18 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
War Must Rely on Chemistry
It were indeed to be wish'd that our art had been less ingenious, in contriving means destructive to mankind; we mean those instruments of war, which were unknown to the ancients, and have made such havoc among the moderns. But as men have always been bent on seeking each other's destruction by continual wars; and as force, when brought against us, can only be repelled by force; the chief support of war, must, after money, be now sought in chemistry. 1 notes
notesA 1753 claim that it is the most important thing in support of war just behind money.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Humphry Davy Accepts and Award from France While England ...
Some people say I ought not to accept this prize; and there have been foolish paragraphs in the papers to that effect; but if the two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That would, indeed, be a civil war of the worst description: we should rather, through the instrumentality of men of science, soften the asperities of national hostility. 1 notes
notesHe says that while their countries may be at war, their men of science are not.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Military is Good For Space Exploration
The experience of space exploration gives no unique philosophy; to some
extent, each group tends to see its own philosophical view reflected, and not
always by the soundest logic: Nikita Khrushchev stressed that in the space flight of
Yuri Gagarin no angels or other supernatural beings were detected; and, in almost
perfect counterpoint, the Apollo 8 astronauts read from lunar orbit the Babylonian
cosmogony enshrined in Genesis, Chapter 1, as if to reassure their American
audience that the exp... 1 notes
notesThe competition against other militaries unites them against the public. Space flight would move them into a peacetime occupation.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Overcoming Inherited Bias to Live In Peace
In our earliest history, so far as we can tell, individuals held an allegiance
toward their immediate tribal group, which may have numbered no more than ten
or twenty individuals, all of whom were related by consanguinity. As time went on, the need for cooperative behavior – in the hunting of large animals or large
herds, in agriculture, and in the development of cities – forced human beings into
larger and larger groups. The group that was identified with, the tribal unit,
enlarged at ea...
1 Humans evolved to trust a small select group of individual, but as we live in a world community, a biologically diverse community, and eventually an outer space community, we must evolve culturally to see appreciate our differences.
