On war

[Aldarion]

Moved reply from here to avoid offtopicing.

Dude the only country on the list you mentioned that was not a Monarchy or outright Empire was the US. And it is only 244 years old. And by your statement of wars not being the most terrible thing to happen to a country shows you have never been to a country that went through a mulit-decade long war. I have and trust me they would cuss you out if you said what they went through was not the worst thing that could have happened to them.

My point was that all of them have launched - in many cases unprovoked - attacks against other countries.

And no, war is not the worst thing which can happen, or else nobody would ever fight them. The worst thing is when somebody else decides your fate. Otherwise, no war is justified, and opposing a conquest through force of arms is wrong. Sorry, but I simply cannot agree with that, especially as we know what happens when people lose the ability to defend themselves by force. Hint, hint.

 

[Arch Dornan]

If you lose in a war of religion you could be required to pay the wrong think tax.

 

[Sailor.X]

Moved reply from here to avoid offtopicing.



My point was that all of them have launched - in many cases unprovoked - attacks against other countries.

And no, war is not the worst thing which can happen, or else nobody would ever fight them. The worst thing is when somebody else decides your fate. Otherwise, no war is justified, and opposing a conquest through force of arms is wrong. Sorry, but I simply cannot agree with that, especially as we know what happens when people lose the ability to defend themselves by force. Hint, hint.

Umm what do you think happens to a civilian populace during war. If you are in an active warzone as a non combatant and your whole city is being bombed into the stone age. Do you think those people who got blindsided chose their fate? Really dude. I get it you are anti war but come on man.

 

[Aldarion]

Umm what do you think happens to a civilian populace during war. If you are in an active warzone as a non combatant and your whole city is being bombed into the stone age. Do you think those people who got blindsided chose their fate? Really dude. I get it you are anti war but come on man.

If you are in an active warzone and your whole city is being bombed into the stone age you can still hide in the basement. I know people who did so. You really think that is somehow worse than letting government (or somebody else) decide whether you live or die without being able to get your own opinion / vote heard?

 

[Sailor.X]

If you are in an active warzone and your whole city is being bombed into the stone age you can still hide in the basement. I know people who did so. You really think that is somehow worse than letting government (or somebody else) decide whether you live or die without being able to get your own opinion / vote heard?

Yes it is worst. Because in the former you can be horribly maimed and killed and in the latter that may or may not happen. And hiding in a basement won't save your ass if certain ordinance hits the area you are at. That basement won't be deep enough.

 

[Aldarion]

Yes it is worst. Because in the former you can be horribly maimed and killed and in the latter that may or may not happen. And hiding in a basement won't save your ass if certain ordinance hits the area you are at. That basement won't be deep enough.

Except most wars are not "to the genocide" (though some admittedly are). Governmental policies however can easily lead to such purely by accident - and it won't always be an accident. For every government, main enemy are its own people.

 

[Sailor.X]

Except most wars are not "to the genocide" (though some admittedly are). Governmental policies however can easily lead to such purely by accident - and it won't always be an accident. For every government, main enemy are its own people.

Sigh I am just gonna post this here as an example of a series of wars in just one place. List of wars involving the Democratic Republic of the Congo - Wikipedia

I am not even including all the things from the ancient past. The wars in Central and South America and Shit that went down in World War I and II. War is a horrible thing. But if you haven't been in it or seen the direct aftermath with your own eyes you may not even grasp the full scope of how bad it can get.

 

[Aldarion]

Sigh I am just gonna post this here as an example of a series of wars in just one place. List of wars involving the Democratic Republic of the Congo - Wikipedia

I am not even including all the things from the ancient past. The wars in Central and South America and Shit that went down in World War I and II. War is a horrible thing. But if you haven't been in it or seen the direct aftermath with your own eyes you may not even grasp the full scope of how bad it can get.

And again, I am not saying that the war is not a terrible thing, just that it is not the WORST thing that can happen. Why is that so hard to understand? You really thing you would rather live through Holocaust / Holodomor / etc., or even your average totalitarian regime, than through an average war? In many cases, war leaves most of the country intact, with only areas close to conflict zone being affected - in Croatian Homeland war, only areas really hit heavily were those close to Serbia (Vukovar, Osijek, Dubrovnik) or to areas under rebel Serb control (Zadar, Zagreb). But if the enemy is your own government, the entire country will be affected. If you just surrender without a war, the entire country will be affected.

 

[Sailor.X]

And again, I am not saying that the war is not a terrible thing, just that it is not the WORST thing that can happen. Why is that so hard to understand? You really thing you would rather live through Holocaust / Holodomor / etc., or even your average totalitarian regime, than through an average war? In many cases, war leaves most of the country intact, with only areas close to conflict zone being affected - in Croatian Homeland war, only areas really hit heavily were those close to Serbia (Vukovar, Osijek, Dubrovnik) or to areas under rebel Serb control (Zadar, Zagreb). But if the enemy is your own government, the entire country will be affected. If you just surrender without a war, the entire country will be affected.

Dude in World War II you had the Japanese Military take people who were on Pacific Islands. Transport them to a certain unit. And did sick experiments on them. They were not a part of the Japanese Empire. They weren't enemy combatants. They were just regular people that a group at war decided to brutalize. And that is not even the worst things that happened in all of human history. When you go back and study what the Assyrian, The Greeks and the Romans did to some populations. I will make you vomit. You can go on about how war is not the worst thing that can happen. But you will find yourself in the minority opinion on that subject. Say war is not the worst thing that can happen to a bunch of people that had their town raped and pillaged. You can say what you say all day on the internet. But I bet you can't say that to their face.

 

[Aldarion]

Dude in World War II you had the Japanese Military take people who were on Pacific Islands. Transport them to a certain unit. And did sick experiments on them. They were not a part of the Japanese Empire. They weren't enemy combatants. They were just regular people that a group at war decided to brutalize. And that is not even the worst things that happened in all of human history. When you go back and study what the Assyrian, The Greeks and the Romans did to some populations. I will make you vomit. You can go on about how war is not the worst thing that can happen. But you will find yourself in the minority opinion on that subject. Say war is not the worst thing that can happen to a bunch of people that had their town raped and pillaged. You can say what you say all day on the internet. But I bet you can't say that to their face.

And none of that was a direct consequence of the war itself. If US and other Allies had decided not to fight the Japanese, brutalization that Japanese did would have still happened. If Nazis were not opposed in a war, their genocides would still have been carried out. Fact is, when somebody has decided to conquer you, and then possibly enslave / brutalize / genocide you, you can either fight - which means war - or surrender - which means conquest and whatever conqueror had decided to do to you. For all the people you have noted (except maybe those attacked by Romans, who did have strict laws of war), not fighting a war would not have made the situation any better. In fact, it would have made it worse for everyone else, because would-be conquerors would not have had to count the costs of conquest - which means that fighting a war was actually a good thing overall.

Summa summarum, pacifism is idiocy.

 

[Sailor.X]

And none of that was a direct consequence of the war itself. If US and other Allies had decided not to fight the Japanese, brutalization that Japanese did would have still happened. If Nazis were not opposed in a war, their genocides would still have been carried out. Fact is, when somebody has decided to conquer you, and then possibly enslave / brutalize / genocide you, you can either fight - which means war - or surrender - which means conquest and whatever conqueror had decided to do to you. For all the people you have noted (except maybe those attacked by Romans, who did have strict laws of war), not fighting a war would not have made the situation any better. In fact, it would have made it worse for everyone else, because would-be conquerors would not have had to count the costs of conquest - which means that fighting a war was actually a good thing overall.

Summa summarum, pacifism is idiocy.

Look let this sink in you have you world view and I have mine. You are not gonna convince me or 90% of the rest of the world population to see your point of view. And this back and forth is getting tiresome. You can believe what you want to believe. I quite frankly don't care. I just hope you don't find yourself in a warzone. Because that would be the worst way for you learn how wrong you are. And this is all I am saying on this subject. Don't expect any more replies.

 

[Aldarion]

Look let this sink in you have you world view and I have mine. You are not gonna convince me or 90% of the rest of the world population to see your point of view. And this back and forth is getting tiresome. You can believe what you want to believe. I quite frankly don't care. I just hope you don't find yourself in a warzone. Because that would be the worst way for you learn how wrong you are. And this is all I am saying on this subject. Don't expect any more replies.

My point is that your worldview is based on wrong premise: that mass slaughter and suffering only happen during the war, and/or cannot be prevented by the war. If you do not want to discuss it any more, fine, but I will ask you to think about what I said: that war can be used to prevent suffering worse than itself. And to reiterate: vast majority of causalties of authoritharian regimes were not a consequence of war. For Soviet regime, only about a quarter of those killed were due to war.

 

[Zachowon]

My point is that your worldview is based on wrong premise: that mass slaughter and suffering only happen during the war, and/or cannot be prevented by the war. If you do not want to discuss it any more, fine, but I will ask you to think about what I said: that war can be used to prevent suffering worse than itself. And to reiterate: vast majority of causalties of authoritharian regimes were not a consequence of war. For Soviet regime, only about a quarter of those killed were due to war.

War is the worse thing that can happen to people and a country.
Should I show you how a war can destroy the economy and lifestyle kf a country? How it can lead to rise in worse? Germany before and after the first world War. What Japan did to China during the 1930s and 40s.

Japan did what they did because if war. They wanted to make sure there were no rebellions because fear is the greatest tool.

Should I point out how many died in the Chinese Civil War? How about the warlords fighting in Somalia? Tell someone in Somalia there is worse things then War, because they will say fuck you as they have experienced war most of thier lives. Tell that to all those people trying to live simple lives in the middle east and ask them if life was worse before or after ISIS? Or in A-stan and woth the war there.

Every country that has had a major war will tell you straight up it is worse then anything else. Having a dictator is not worse as it only causes some strife and the like to certain people. A war brings strife to everyone.

Hell look at nK. A war would be worse then what they have right now, and what they have is horrible. More would die, more would be thrown at the enemy to protect thier dictator.

That is why you are wrong.

 

[Aldarion]

War is the worse thing that can happen to people and a country.
Should I show you how a war can destroy the economy and lifestyle kf a country? How it can lead to rise in worse? Germany before and after the first world War. What Japan did to China during the 1930s and 40s.

Japan did what they did because if war. They wanted to make sure there were no rebellions because fear is the greatest tool.

Should I point out how many died in the Chinese Civil War? How about the warlords fighting in Somalia? Tell someone in Somalia there is worse things then War, because they will say fuck you as they have experienced war most of thier lives. Tell that to all those people trying to live simple lives in the middle east and ask them if life was worse before or after ISIS? Or in A-stan and woth the war there.

Every country that has had a major war will tell you straight up it is worse then anything else. Having a dictator is not worse as it only causes some strife and the like to certain people. A war brings strife to everyone.

Hell look at nK. A war would be worse then what they have right now, and what they have is horrible. More would die, more would be thrown at the enemy to protect thier dictator.

That is why you are wrong.

Nope.
1) War can destroy the economy and lifestyle of a country, yes. So can a dictatorship, or a plague. In fact, efforts to construct a "perfect society" by various ideologies (most obviously Communism and Nazism) were far more lethal than warfare - and that is without accounting for the fact that World War II, Russian Civil War and Chinese Civil War were caused by those same ideologies attempting to create a perfect society in the first place. A war to overthrow such a dictatorship would have, in the long run, reduced number of the dead (say, had Whites been successful in Russian Civil War or had UK and France attacked Germany while it was busy with Poland).
2) Nazis and Communists did not engage in genocides because of war, they engaged in genocides because that is what they did according to their ideology. In fact, Nazi genocides hurt their war effort, as they a) redirected resources away from war effort and b) provoked rebellions among populaces which would have otherwise welcomed them with open hands thanks to living under terror previously.
3) 80% of people killed in 20th century were killed by "peaceful demicide", not by war-related causes. Soviet and Chinese Communist terror largely relaxed during the war for obvious reasons, though that was replaced by war-related deaths. USSR lost some 60 million to "peaceful" demicide and 20 million to war-related causes.
4) Even DURING World War II, non-warfare-related deaths exceeded those caused by war itself, at 34 million compared to 29 million war-related deaths.1
5) Number of people who died during Chinese civil war is again exceeded by those killed by the Cultural Revolution and other peacetime policies of the Communist government, at 12 million war dead, 49 million dead due to famine and 54 million killed by peacetime demicide 2
6) While you are most likely correct about Somalia, fact remains that they probably wouldn't be capable of organizing proper genocide in the first place outside of guys going around and shooting people. And in no way does it negate the above.
7) War too only brings strife to some people. Even during total war such as World War II, many remained unaffected beyond slightly worse living conditions.

EDIT: I just remembered that I wrote in more detail here:

An Argument for War

Catelyn waited until they had quieted. “My lords,” she said then, “Lord Eddard was your liege, but I shared his bed and bore his children. Do you think I love him any less than you?” Her voice almo…

militaryfantasy.home.blog

 

[Arch Dornan]

I'm confused what are you discussing about war?

 

[Aldarion]

I'm confused what are you discussing about war?

Whether war is or is not the worst thing which can happen / worst thing which humans can cause. I believe it is not, Zachowon believes it is.

 

[Zachowon]

Nope.
1) War can destroy the economy and lifestyle of a country, yes. So can a dictatorship, or a plague. In fact, efforts to construct a "perfect society" by various ideologies (most obviously Communism and Nazism) were far more lethal than warfare - and that is without accounting for the fact that World War II, Russian Civil War and Chinese Civil War were caused by those same ideologies attempting to create a perfect society in the first place. A war to overthrow such a dictatorship would have, in the long run, reduced number of the dead (say, had Whites been successful in Russian Civil War or had UK and France attacked Germany while it was busy with Poland).

I think we have somewhat of a disconnect. Wars helped fuel these things.

2) Nazis and Communists did not engage in genocides because of war, they engaged in genocides because that is what they did according to their ideology. In fact, Nazi genocides hurt their war effort, as they a) redirected resources away from war effort and b) provoked rebellions among populaces which would have otherwise welcomed them with open hands thanks to living under terror previously.

I mean, to get their way that went through wars and the like. Without wars Communism falls. Look at the USSR. They had a war, World War 2, and it boosted their economy and managed to have many wars in various countries, because it helped supply them constant money, but when peace started happening and a changing economy it crashed. China is also an example.

3) 80% of people killed in 20th century were killed by "peaceful demicide", not by war-related causes. Soviet and Chinese Communist terror largely relaxed during the war for obvious reasons, though that was replaced by war-related deaths. USSR lost some 60 million to "peaceful" demicide and 20 million to war-related causes.

I should point out that in order for such things to happen, War has been the cause of such things. There is also a difference between USSR and CHina vs third world countries in Africa which have been at war Longer then any country in Europe has since the middle ages. Somalaians would gladly have a dictator if it meant no war.

4) Even DURING World War II, non-warfare-related deaths exceeded those caused by war itself, at 34 million compared to 29 million war-related deaths.1

And the plague killed more people then a lot of wars at the time, yet Wars are still and will always be worse, especially nowadays.

5) Number of people who died during Chinese civil war is again exceeded by those killed by the Cultural Revolution and other peacetime policies of the Communist government, at 12 million war dead, 49 million dead due to famine and 54 million killed by peacetime demicide 2

And the CCP rise to power happened how? There is a cause and effect if such things. It all starts with War. Without war the Communists in Russia and China would have never risen. Without war Nukes would have never been made.

6) While you are most likely correct about Somalia, fact remains that they probably wouldn't be capable of organizing proper genocide in the first place outside of guys going around and shooting people. And in no way does it negate the above.

Yet they keep having a lot of their populace die because of the war. More have died in that country because of war then anything else.

7) War too only brings strife to some people. Even during total war such as World War II, many remained unaffected beyond slightly worse living conditions.



EDIT: I just remembered that I wrote in more detail here:

An Argument for War

Catelyn waited until they had quieted. “My lords,” she said then, “Lord Eddard was your liege, but I shared his bed and bore his children. Do you think I love him any less than you?” Her voice almo…

militaryfantasy.home.blog

When the fighting was not right around them. Look at the US most in the states weren't having to fear about dying because a foreign man was next to their house. The British were confident in their military.

Chinese and koreans were getting killed to make sure fear would prevent any one from fighting back. Ask any country where War crimes were committed against their people if War is not worse? Numbers don't mean something is worse btw. What makes war worse is the after affects. People don't have PTSD from Plagues, at least not the kind that has them end up killing loved ones when they are woken up in the middle of the night. Authoritarian governments don't cause people to have PTSD. nK defectors aren't having nightmares or stopping when they see something from their government.

The after effect is greater form a War then from anything else.

 

[Lanmandragon]

I think we have somewhat of a disconnect. Wars helped fuel these things.


I mean, to get their way that went through wars and the like. Without wars Communism falls. Look at the USSR. They had a war, World War 2, and it boosted their economy and managed to have many wars in various countries, because it helped supply them constant money, but when peace started happening and a changing economy it crashed. China is also an example.


I should point out that in order for such things to happen, War has been the cause of such things. There is also a difference between USSR and CHina vs third world countries in Africa which have been at war Longer then any country in Europe has since the middle ages. Somalaians would gladly have a dictator if it meant no war.


And the plague killed more people then a lot of wars at the time, yet Wars are still and will always be worse, especially nowadays.


And the CCP rise to power happened how? There is a cause and effect if such things. It all starts with War. Without war the Communists in Russia and China would have never risen. Without war Nukes would have never been made.


Yet they keep having a lot of their populace die because of the war. More have died in that country because of war then anything else.


When the fighting was not right around them. Look at the US most in the states weren't having to fear about dying because a foreign man was next to their house. The British were confident in their military.

Chinese and koreans were getting killed to make sure fear would prevent any one from fighting back. Ask any country where War crimes were committed against their people if War is not worse? Numbers don't mean something is worse btw. What makes war worse is the after affects. People don't have PTSD from Plagues, at least not the kind that has them end up killing loved ones when they are woken up in the middle of the night. Authoritarian governments don't cause people to have PTSD. nK defectors aren't having nightmares or stopping when they see something from their government.

The after effect is greater form a War then from anything else.

Ehh I'm damn sure there has been PTSD from tyrannical governments. Watching secret police execute your husband while your holding a screaming 3 year old child. Damn near certainly would do it among many other messed up things they do.

 

[Zachowon]

Ehh I'm damn sure there has been PTSD from tyrannical governments. Watching secret police execute your husband while your holding a screaming 3 year old child. Damn near certainly would do it among many other messed up things they do.

For sure. I am not saying they don't, but the amount of them especially these days.

Hell nK defectors that have been in Camps don't seem to have it and well..those camps are bad.

 

[Lanmandragon]

For sure. I am not saying they don't, but the amount of them especially these days.

Hell nK defectors that have been in Camps don't seem to have it and well..those camps are bad.

Dont get me wrong I tend to agree that war will cause it far more often. It's just that the statement you made was an absolute one. Consider also that there are cases where women who are brutally raped have it. Combat isnt the only way to trigger it.