this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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collapse of the old society
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I know this is a popular view right now, but it isn't actually how such things work.
In your theoretical 9 peaceful vs. 1 war-liking group, the latter needs to be very careful not to pose too much of a threat to avoid the others banding together. In addition once you force others to invest in an arms race the side focussing on defence is the one that gets away more cheaply resources wise and thus making attacking a losing proposition in the long run.
Thus as a result the one war-liking group either gets wiped out or resigns itself to a more parasite like state where it cycles through raiding the 9 others but keeps it at a level where all the others at an individual level are not feeling sufficiently threatend to invest in real defense or band together with the others.
In addition the historical record actually shows that neither is a strategy that is really successful, and what rather happens is that the successful war-liking groups try to install themselves as the leaders of an peaceful group and then expand mostly through extortion and threat of violence but not actual attacks.
I'm fairly certain everything you wrote is perfectly consistent with my original statement.
Is pretty much the opposite of what I wrote 🤷
No... everything you described falls under "behave like that one asshole"
How? The most common strategy is to do nothing at all because the one asshole is too afraid to do anything but minor incursions.
Yeah but why is the asshole afraid? The peaceful groups armed themselves. Once everybody is armed how do you disarm?
No they didn't. But the asshole doesn't want to risk that happening.
I think we need to go back to the beginning.
We have 9 peaceful tribes/societies/states/whatever. They're happy to just live within their means and cooperate with each other when needed. In a vacuum, this will continue indefinitely because why fight when you don't need much and can share?
Now, the asshole tribe moves into the region. They're greedy, their population is outgrowing their resources because they're using all they have, furthermore they have few qualms about taking their neighbors' stuff.
The existence of this tribe forces all the others to arm themselves and maintain some sort of military. The only possible way a peaceful existence will be restored is if the troublemaker is removed. However even that isn't guaranteed to work now that all have militaries and nothing to do with them.
I feel like you were describing various scenarios the previous paragraph could play out, but ultimately the existence of the violent tribe forces the cooperative tribes to defend themselves or perish.
The problem with you argument is that the violent tribe is not a pure evil that is just violent for the sake of it. Outside of fantasy stories (and war propaganda) something like that doesn't exist.
They might be for various reasons prone to violence, but they still need to factor in outside factors and their own resources.
In reality such dynamics rarely play out like you describe them because it is not a very successful strategy for anyone involved and mostly just a waste of resources.
Ffs, it doesn't matter whether they're good, evil, or somewhere in between. It doesn't matter why they're prone to violence. The fact that they're willing and capable means all other must be ready to fight.
In reality such dynamics are currently playing out and they have played out from the beginning of time. Our current world is a product of this process. This is like, game theory or something. It's like you're trying to tell me 2+2 doesn't equal 4 because we don't really know if there are two twos or some nonsense.
I recommend you read some actual history and anthropology because that is absolutely not how things have played out since the beginning of time. The world is a lot more complex than over-simplified understandings of game-theory.
I have read plenty, hence why I'm baffled at your denial of this concept. Frankly, I don't think you're arguing in good faith. Underneath all the complexity you keep trying to use as a counterargument is a simple concept that has manifested itself in countless ways throughout history and today.