A Hopeless Species
More than a dozen people were killed Saturday in Belgorod, where local officials described a chaotic scene.
"There are two dead children and a hit in the residential sector," regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Kyiv used banned cluster munitions in what the Kremlin called an "indiscriminate" strike. More than a hundred people were injured.
In a statement, the Russian military warned of "immeasurably severe" consequences. Russia, the ministry lied, ta
Too bad the NY Times article sits behind a paywall…
When that happens I go to the library.
We have met the enemy….
H-Man, it seems we cannot escape the biblical rule of an “eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” as the standard for resolving any dispute. I agree with you that risk appears to be hardwired into our DNA as a species.
That’s a Hebrew philosophy. Jesus would never agree.
That’s Babylonian philosophy. Hammurabi would totally agree.
One of many problems with that philosophy is greed or taking a head for an eye. In fact current Gaza genocide is a case in point of how out of balance we measure the eye for eye that is justified by the parable.
This isn’t the main topic of your article, but you reminded me of Keynes’ prediction that in perhaps 100 years (so maybe 20 from now?), humanity (or at least the “developed world”) would be in a vastly improved state of material comfort “which science and compound interest would have won us”.
Although science has brought the masses many technologies and advancements which have materially improved our lives, do you think Keynes would be shocked as to how bad the median person has it today in terms of personal finances?
Yes, that was in fact the reference. Good eye. The year would’ve actually been 2028 (or 2031). So, just four (or seven) years from now.
“Yet the poor fellows think they are safe! They think that the war is over! Only the dead have seen the end of war.” – George Santayana
Very good! Most people misattribute that to Plato. Smart readers we have here.
Connect this to the lesson in thermodynamics contained in the last Disgraceland contribution. The drift into disorder cannot be stopped, but with enough energy input one can minimize local entropy (pick up trash, maintain one’s property, volunteer….) I have no idea how to minimize it on a global scale. Maybe it can’t be done. Even saner, mythical civilizations would have trouble dealing with the chaos of entropy.
That Disgraceland post nailed it.