From: Max M (maxmcorp@worldonline.dk)
Date: Tue Jan 21 2003 - 04:41:52 MST
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> Precisely how bad do things have to get before
> one says "you may not cross this line"? And
> then are you willing to suffer the consequences
> of allowing things to have gotten to that point?
One idea that has influenced my outlook on war is Lewis Fry Richardson's
Richter Scale of war:
Wired - Killing By the Numbers
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/view.html?pg=2
Septemberhearts - Of War and Murder: The Failure of "Thinginess"
http://septemberhearts.com/2002B/warandmurder.htm
American Scientist - Statistics of Deadly Quarrels
http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/Issues/Comsci02/Compsci2002-01.html
Especially the last paragraph in the Wired article suggest that it could
very well be more rational to have several small wars to prevent a
bigger one.
"Richardson's data does suggest one clear policy imperative: At all
costs, avoid the clash of the titans. However painful a series of
brushfire wars may be to the participants, it is the world wars that
threaten us most. Those two magnitude-7 conflagrations were responsible
for three-fifths of all the deaths that Richardson recorded. We now have
it in our power to stage a magnitude-8 or -9 war (100 million, or 1
billion dead). In the aftermath of such an event, no one would say that
war is demographically insignificant. After a war of magnitude 9.8, no
one would say anything at all."
-- hilsen/regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark http://www.futureport.dk/ Fremtiden, videnskab, skeptiscisme og transhumanisme
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