[Bruce_the_vii]

I've been reading The Economist but also watch history documentaries, especially of Britain. It's amazing that so much of history was about conflict and still is. There has been this distraction from the economy. Even now conflict is rife around the world while certain countries, China, have emphasized business and done well. It amazes me that people around the world don't just settle down and work on building their country. The Middle East, Africa these places all consider fighting, having your own country, religion as more important. Apparently it's always been the way in history. Any comments on the way this works, the way people work.

[Thanos]

Statistically speaking there's actually less ongoing conflict in the world right now than at any other point in modern history. There's some terrorism and the activities of the US military in the Muslim world, yeah, but the days of empire-building through land-grabbing are essentially over, for the forseeable future anyway. Ditto for any recognized or traditional conflicts between established nation-states or between any of the current great powers.

This is another ill effect of the 24/7/365 cable punditry cycle and of internet propaganda sites. It still manages to convince far too many people that things now are worse than they've ever been before. I'm hardly a hopeless optimist. The mosgt glaring example it that the economic situation in the United States in particular is really going to cause a lot of long-term problems for everyone and I highly doubt that anyone from any side of the political spectrum is able to provide any sort of solution to it. But in terms of the war-vs-peace cycle on a global scale? Objectively things have rarely been better as far as the illness of war and mass violence is concerned. A state of squishy stability and semi-comfortable peace might have actually arrived within our lifetime but no one's noticed it yet.

Turn of the news for a while, people. It's really not all that bad out there.

[Bruce_the_vii]

Maybe so. The bomb has certainly caused big power peace. But places like Africa are full of conflict. What needs to be done in the Middle East is for Israel to get on with building it's economy, it's soft, and for the state of Palestine to become an attached economy to Israel.

Thanks for the comment though.

[andyt]

There may be less global conflict, but 9/11 brought it home to Americans (and us) and so people feel way less safe. Vietnam was actually pretty easy to ignore - it was over there and anybody with brains knew "they" weren't going to come marching over Golden Gate bridge any time soon. Sure there was MAD and NUTS, but that was so surreal it was just kind of funny and not to be taken too seriously. The Americans (and us) felt on top of the world - not anymore.

[Thanos]

If we had the 24-hour-a-day cable news cycle back in World War II, Hitler would have won it all by the middle of 1943 because by that point in the conflict we would have all been terrorized into paralysis. Imagine how FOX would have behaved in 1942. "Nazis here! Japs there! NaziJaps under your bed and sleeping with your wife while you're on the battlefield! And behind them millions of Commies that are gonna march on Main Street USA, unionize your workers, and force you to pay them more! Plus Roosevelt's one of them! And he's a Jew too!".

It isn't news anymore. It's toxic fearmongering poison. Anything that gets immersed in it inevitably corrodes and disintegrates.