What if having a proliferation of deadly technologies makes it damned near impossible to figure out who is going to win? That could result in a lot more wars.
Yes. That would be bad.
Now “the great filter” comes to mind again.
Yes. Good point.
Do you know of anyone who has written about:
A. Whether it is likely for technological advancement to make it significantly more difficult to figure out who will win wars.
B. Whether it’s more likely for people to initiate wars when there’s a lot of uncertainty.
I do not know, but am interested.
Hmm. I wonder if this situation is comparable to any of the situations we know about.
Clarifies my questions:
When humans feel confused about whether they’re likely to win a deadly conflict that they would hypothetically initiate, are they more likely to react to that confusion by acknowledging it and avoiding conflict, or by being overconfident / denying the risk / going irrational and taking the gamble?
If humans are normally more likely to acknowledge the confusion, what circumstances may make them take a gamble on initiating war?
When humans feel confused about whether a competitor has enough power to destroy them, do they react by staying peaceful? The “obvious” answer to this is yes, but it’s not good to feel certain about things immediately before even thinking about them. For an example: if animals are backed into a corner by a human, they fight, even despite the obvious size difference. There might be certain situations where a power imbalance triggers the “backed into a corner” instinct. For some ideas about what those situations might be, I’d wonder about situations in which people over-react to confusion by “erring on the side of caution” (deciding that the opponent is a threat) and then initiating war to take advantage of the element of surprise as part of an effort at self-preservation. I would guess that whether people initiate war in this scenario probably has a lot to do with how big the element of surprise advantage is and how quickly they can kill their opponent.
Does the imbalance between defense and offense grow over time? If so, would people be more or less likely to initiate conflict if defense essentially didn’t exist?
Now I’m thinking about whether we have data that answers these or similar questions.
Hmm. I wonder if this situation is comparable to any of the situations we know about.
Clarifies my questions:
When humans feel confused about whether they’re likely to win a deadly conflict that they would hypothetically initiate, are they more likely to react to that confusion by acknowledging it and avoiding conflict, or by being overconfident / denying the risk / going irrational and taking the gamble?
If humans are normally more likely to acknowledge the confusion, what circumstances may make them take a gamble on initiating war?
When humans feel confused about whether a competitor has enough power to destroy them, do they react by staying peaceful? The “obvious” answer to this is yes, but it’s not good to feel certain about things immediately before even thinking about them. For an example: if animals are backed into a corner by a human, they fight, even despite the obvious size difference. There might be certain situations where a power imbalance triggers the “backed into a corner” instinct. For some ideas about what those situations might be, I’d wonder about situations in which people over-react to confusion by “erring on the side of caution” (deciding that the opponent is a threat) and then initiating war to take advantage of the element of surprise as part of an effort at self-preservation. I would guess that whether people initiate war in this scenario probably has a lot to do with how big the element of surprise advantage is and how quickly they can kill their opponent.
Does the imbalance between defense and offense grow over time? If so, would people be more or less likely to initiate conflict if defense essentially didn’t exist?
Now I’m thinking about whether we have data that answers these or similar questions.
I think a more important question than “how likely am I to win this conflict?” is “will my odds increase or decrease by waiting?”