America’s wars change regimes in other countries. This ain’t ritualized combat.
That’s exactly the purpose of ritualised combat. Change regimes without total war. Animals (including humans) change their relative standing in the tribe. Coalitions of animals use ritualised combat to change intratribal regimes. Intertribal combat often has some degree of ritual element, although this of course varies based on the ability of tribes to ‘cooperate’ in combat without total war.
In international battles there have been times where the combat has been completely non-ritualised and brutal. But right now if combat was not ritualised countries would be annihilated by nuclear battles. That’s the whole point of ritual combat. Fight with the claws retracted, submit to the stronger party without going for the kill. Because if powerful countries with current technology levels, or powerful animals, fight each other without restriction both will end up crippled. That can either mean infections from relatively minor flesh wounds in a fight to the death or half your continent being reduced to an uninhabited and somewhat radioactive wasteland in a war you ‘won’.
Other countries have to fight “honorably” lest America deny them their right of conquest.
The point I argue here is that America is allowed to make such interference only because its rivals choose to cooperate in the ‘ritualised combat’ prisoners dilemma. They accept America’s dominance in conventional warfare because total war would result in mutual destruction. In a world where multiple countries have the ability to destroy each other (or, if particularly desperate, all mammalian life on the planet) combat is necessarily ritualised or the species goes extinct.
This ain’t ritualized combat.
You misunderstand the purpose of ritualised combat. In animals this isn’t the play fighting that pups do to practice fighting. This is real, regime changing, win-or-don’t-get-laid-till-later combat-and-get-fewer-resources.
(ETA: I note that we are arguing here over how to apply an analogy. Since analogies are more useful as an explanatory tool and an intuition pump than a tool for argument it is usually unproductive to delve too deeply into how they ‘correctly’ apply. It is better to directly discuss the subject. I would be somewhat surprised if cousin_it and I disagree to such an absolute degree on the actual state of the current global military/political situation.)
You seem to be living on an alternate Earth where America fights ritualized wars against countries that have nuclear weapons. In our world America attacks much weaker countries whose leaders have absolutely no reason to fight with claws rectracted, because if they lose they get hanged like Saddam Hussein or die in prison like Milosevic. No other country does that today.
America’s wars change regimes in other countries. This ain’t ritualized combat.
That’s exactly the purpose of ritualised combat. Change regimes without total war. Animals (including humans) change their relative standing in the tribe. Coalitions of animals use ritualised combat to change intratribal regimes. Intertribal combat often has some degree of ritual element, although this of course varies based on the ability of tribes to ‘cooperate’ in combat without total war.
In international battles there have been times where the combat has been completely non-ritualised and brutal. But right now if combat was not ritualised countries would be annihilated by nuclear battles. That’s the whole point of ritual combat. Fight with the claws retracted, submit to the stronger party without going for the kill. Because if powerful countries with current technology levels, or powerful animals, fight each other without restriction both will end up crippled. That can either mean infections from relatively minor flesh wounds in a fight to the death or half your continent being reduced to an uninhabited and somewhat radioactive wasteland in a war you ‘won’.
The point I argue here is that America is allowed to make such interference only because its rivals choose to cooperate in the ‘ritualised combat’ prisoners dilemma. They accept America’s dominance in conventional warfare because total war would result in mutual destruction. In a world where multiple countries have the ability to destroy each other (or, if particularly desperate, all mammalian life on the planet) combat is necessarily ritualised or the species goes extinct.
You misunderstand the purpose of ritualised combat. In animals this isn’t the play fighting that pups do to practice fighting. This is real, regime changing, win-or-don’t-get-laid-till-later combat-and-get-fewer-resources.
(ETA: I note that we are arguing here over how to apply an analogy. Since analogies are more useful as an explanatory tool and an intuition pump than a tool for argument it is usually unproductive to delve too deeply into how they ‘correctly’ apply. It is better to directly discuss the subject. I would be somewhat surprised if cousin_it and I disagree to such an absolute degree on the actual state of the current global military/political situation.)
You seem to be living on an alternate Earth where America fights ritualized wars against countries that have nuclear weapons. In our world America attacks much weaker countries whose leaders have absolutely no reason to fight with claws rectracted, because if they lose they get hanged like Saddam Hussein or die in prison like Milosevic. No other country does that today.
Countries aren’t that coherent and certainly aren’t their leaders. I don’t think the analogy makes sense either way.
It would seem that I need to retract the last sentence in my ETA.