New Scientist: End of nations: Is there an alternative to countries?

bookish · Apr 22, 2017

I used to be in favor of a large number of nations with diverse forms of government. It cuts down on the likelyhood of a despot gaining control of the whole planet. Sadly there is already a global criminal regime effectively controlling most or all nations and they look more than capable of doing it regardless of how many nations or what forms of superficial government they have.

heypa · May 2, 2017

Seems to me that the only way this crap could work is to continuously kill off those that don't accept the conditions.Perhaps as Russia has done in the past on a global scale selectively killing off those that resist. We humans are the top predator on the planet and we do kill each other. The problem is who would decide who dies? How in such a world would the chosen one be chosen? Additionally at what age would the killing be done? So many questions and so few answers.Just thinking about this as wasteful of time as as the question how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. IMHO

OddTrader · May 10, 2017

Online Library of Liberty: Kant: Perpetual Peace free ebook: http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php?title=357&Itemid=27

http://www.classicsofstrategy.com/2016/01/kant-perpetual-peace-1795.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_peace

This theory has been well developed in recent years. Mansfield and Pollins, writing in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, summarize a large body of empirical work which, for the most part, supports the thesis.[3] There are various exceptions and qualifications which seem to limit the circumstances under which economic interdependence results in conflict reduction. On the other hand, moving beyond economic interdependence to the issue of economic freedom within states, Erik Gartzke has found empirical evidence that economic freedom (as measured by the Fraser Institute Economic Freedom Index) is about fifty times more effective than democracy in reducing violent conflict.[4]

The third leg is the old idea that a confederation of peaceable princes could produce a perpetual peace. Kant had distinguished his league from a universal state; Clarence Streit proposed, in Union Now (1938), a union of the democratic states modelled after the Constitution of the United States. He argued that trade and the peaceable ways of democracy would keep this Union perpetual, and counted on the combined power of the Union to deter the Axis from war.

In "A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace", part IV of Principles of International Law (1786–89), Jeremy Bentham proposed that disarmament, arbitration, and the renunciation of colonies would produce perpetual peace,[5] thus relying merely on Kant's preliminary articles and on none of the three main points; contrary to the modern theorists, he relied on public opinion, even against the absolute monarchy in Sweden.

Since 2008, the Perpetual Peace Project—a partnership between the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC), the International Peace Institute (IPI), the United Nations University, Slought Foundation, and Syracuse University—is engaging Kant's essay in an ongoing philosophical and curatorial initiative that is conceptualized around ultimately "re-writing" Kant's 1795 treatise,[6] as well as a republication of the essay.[7] Thinking through the ideas behind the project and its links to Kant, Gregg Lambert, Aaron Levy, and Martin Rauchbauer rely on the secret article contained in the second supplement which "is detached from the main body of the public treatise that outlines the preliminary and definitive articles, and offered as a secret pact".[8] They draw on the ironic tone of Kant's writing to argue that the treatise performs the idea that the conditions for peace are best considered silently. Secretly, that is, statesmen and politicians can take the idea of peace seriously, since it will never be associated with them. As such, the project brings together theorists and practitioners, such as diplomats, policy experts, philosophers, and artists, in order to revisit 21st century prospects for international peace through Kant's essay, in order to "change people's minds, get them to take the idea seriously, start to imagine what it would be like to live in a peaceful society".[9] The Perpetual Peace Project finds its public form in symposia, exhibitions, lectures, as well as a feature film.[10]
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OddTrader · May 10, 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory

Defining war

Quantitative research on international wars usually define war as a military conflict with more than 1000 killed in battle in one year. This is the definition used in the Correlates of War Project which has also supplied the data for many studies on war. It turns out that most of the military conflicts in question fall clearly above or below this threshold (Ray 1995, p. 103).

Some researchers have used different definitions. For example, Weart (1998) defines war as more than 200 battle deaths. Russett (1993, p. 50), when looking at Ancient Greece, only requires some real battle engagement, involving on both sides forces under state authorization.

Militarized Interstate Disputes (MIDs), in the Correlates of War Project classification, are lesser conflicts than wars. Such a conflict may be no more than military display of force with no battle deaths. MIDs and wars together are "militarized interstate conflicts" or MICs. MIDs include the conflicts that precede a war; so the difference between MIDs and MICs may be less than it appears.

Statistical analysis and concerns about degrees of freedom are the primary reasons for using MID's instead of actual wars. Wars are relatively rare. An average ratio of 30 MIDs to one war provides a richer statistical environment for analysis.[9]
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New Scientist: End of nations: Is there an alternative to countries?

bookish

heypa

OddTrader

OddTrader