Mangan cites a remarkably naive — or willfully ignorant — Discover piece by John Horgan, Has Science Found a Way to End All Wars?
Still, when asked point-blank if humans can stop fighting wars, LeBlanc replies, “Yes, I think it’s completely possible.” He notes that many warlike societies — notably Nazi Germany and imperial Japan and even the Yanomami, a notoriously fierce Amazonian tribe — have embraced peace. “Under certain circumstances,” he says, warfare “stops on a dime” as a result of ecological or cultural change. Two keys to peace, he believes, are controlling population growth and finding cheap alternatives to fossil fuels. “I was just in Germany,” LeBlanc exults, “and there are windmills everywhere!”
Mangan’s response:
That will give you an idea of where some of these scientists are coming from. Gosh, windmills, just think. The subtitle of the article says it all: Given adequate food, fuel, and gender equality, mass conflict just might disappear.
I love commenter Martin’s counter to the original article:
“Under certain circumstances,” he says, warfare “stops on a dime” as a result of ecological or cultural change.Or, in the case of Germany and Japan, getting stomped into the ground. This clown and others like him (such as Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat guy) know not of what they speak. History doesn’t end. Europe enjoyed a hundred years of peace (mostly, barring a few smallish wars and a revolution or two) between 1815 and 1914. Until they didn’t anymore.
Commenter Tommy has this to add:
That was my first thought. As these two examples illustrate, crushing the enemy in a war can stop war. I’d like to call this Conan’s First Iron Law of Peace after a certain “primitive” peacemaker who would have instinctively understood this principle many social scientists have so far failed to grasp.Conan’s Second Iron Law of Peace states that the more completely the enemy is crushed, the less likely a future war becomes. Genocide is the most extreme example of the Second Iron Law in action.
I’ll ask that you forgo showering me with praise for these insightful contributions to sociology and to the attainment of world peace.