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Catalin Popovici's avatar

While I do agree with most of the points in your analysis, I cannot stop from thinking that all this complex analysis, including the comments that I read so far, start from the fundamental assumption that violence was, is, and will be a given for humanity. This begs the question: for how long? The answer is not what we would like:

1. Until we learn, as a species, that violence is not in our advantage (though we are quite far from that target by all means) or,

2. We self-annihilate when our technological capabilities exceed our ability to control their usage in beneficial purposes (we may already be at that point).

The conclusion is dire: even if we are not on the brink of self-destruction, we will be soon (technology advances almost exponentially while our humane side does not visibly evolve at all at the time scale we measure these changes). The worst aspect is that it does not take a statistically large number of evil people to bring the civilization down. The critical mass is probably very low, due to the human nature itself. Decent and moral people usually stay out of politics or, if getting there, are either pushed aside, blackmailed, or even killed before they can accomplish anything meaningful - unless they get themselves corrupt as well. Democracy fails when harsh conditions knock the society out of its comfort zone of stability. People become more radicalized, disinformation creates dissensions, the equilibrium breaks.

Another real danger of constantly being in conflict rather than cooperating with each other (up to the highest level) is the enormous waste of resources and lack of coherent effort to pursue a clean and truly renewable energy source. Fossil fuels are running out and we still burn them to kill each other more efficiently. I start having doubts that our civilization has enough time (at the current rate of change in the right direction) to get past the fossil fuel exhaustion moment (compounded with climate change and war). The so-called renewables are not as sustainable as we may wish. I am an EE engineer and looking to understand what would be a feasible path towards a stable and prosperous society past the fossil fuels age. Honestly, I did not find any broad study that demonstrates how we will make progress in this direction. We have wonderful technologies, but the required material resources to keep them running are also limited and recycling efficiency is sometimes low and requires a lot of additional energy. So far the worst (and quite probable) future is a population overshoot (due to shrinking resources, war, massive migration and mostly food scarcity) that results in a societal collapse. If we keep fighting each other, we will enter the catabolic phase much sooner than expected (i.e., before we make a successful transition to clean energy). And don't yet bet on fusion, it's not here and it may not be for some time.

Bottom line:

How can we avoid conflict altogether? Is it even possible? What would it take? Where should we start? Education? An entirely different political and economic system?

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Alex Golubev's avatar

Well done, Tomas.

1. Thank you for being equally "fair" to US, UK, and Russia. There's a whole lot more that can be said about terrible US policies domestically and internationally. Sunset time.

2. I totally agree with you that Europe/EUR CAN navigate this crisis and play both sides US/UK and China/Russia (and India... check that UN vote scorecard...). Literally >75% of hedge fund folks in the public blogosphere are onto chess "match" that the pigeon is stumbling into since 2014 quite directly, with respect to US$ hegemony and the subsequent moves Putin/China have at their disposal.

3. Some of these folks are however not calling this for Europe, far from it. European financials seem to be taking it on the chin... Few are seeing that Germany/France can and will pivot back and forth, because they cannot afford to separate from China/India in the future.

That's just something some us feel is happening... so good call, amigo.

Sure seems that even though Trump was the first US president to not START any new wars in many administrations, he still shat all over the geopolitical chessboard with his chest out and turned all the other countries completely off from aligning with US in the future.... and there's some payback for WW2 and siding with Nazis against communisms all over the geopolitical chessboard for DECADES. Bloody and ruthless pigeons, ey. (Subconsciously Americans voted against Hillary in 2016, cause Maidan was fresh enough).

Best case scenario, China and US renegotiate the new techno/metaverse P2E ponzi economy, but sure seems that US just steps on gas the closer it gets to that wall. But there's just no way that Europe follows US/UK into the oblivion. Macron in fact senses the opportunity to at least "play" a more leading role along with Germany. BUT for the time being, they're playing the US/UK side, before "gridlocking" back into a stalemate that sides with the Asian/multipolar future.

Finally a little Ukrainian joke from 2014 days: "Americans and Russians will fight each other until the last... Ukrainian"... I don't think Hillary understands. She doesn't play chess, she plays NYT crossword puzzles and bingo perhaps.

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