Replying to the "dead" comment below (I wish HN killed only spam comments):
> Mainly because i feel the rest of the world lives in a Disneyland like state of fake security that is guaranteed by the United States and never has to contend with the actual reality of the world.
> The actual realities of statehood say the ICC is a joke.
> As for your contention of thuggery.. again, referencing my Disneyland allegation... Thuggery is the basis of statehood and if that makes you uncomfortable, it's because you've been raised in Pax Americana.
> It's really time most countries started paying tribute to the United States, but I do understand the strategic benefit of magnanimity.
I get this viewpoint.
Basically, the idea is that humans can only exist as a society of thugs, and everything else is just fairy tales. In that theory, the best possible outcome is achieved when one of the thugs is much more powerfull than all others, thus enforcing "some" order. Therefore, we should all pay tribute to it.
I have issues with that theory though.
Firstly, I do not believe it. Secondly, even if I did I would consider it a moral duty to still fight it for the small chance it's false. A finally, it does not say what to do in a situation like today when the former bigger thug is becoming weaker and is challenged by the competition. Are we supposed to wait patiently underground the next 20 years until the next contender takes the throne?
There is another theory, according to which human societies _evolve_ as any organism do. It can actually be shown that humans did tame themselves, and became less aggressive/more cooperative after tens of thousands of years of living cooperatively, first in small scale then in larger and larger scale. I take everyone's repulsion against the current state of affairs, or against any sociopathic bahavior for that matter, as another hint of this.
We _did_ evolve out of a primitive condition where there was no conceivable human made law or justice into a society where the rule of law was just a trick, into a condition where the rule of law was desirable, and possibly one day into a condition where the rule of law appears natural.
I believe the cynical viewpoint that you expressed, and that I share sometimes when my mood is low, is actually the fantasy.
> Mainly because i feel the rest of the world lives in a Disneyland like state of fake security that is guaranteed by the United States and never has to contend with the actual reality of the world.
> The actual realities of statehood say the ICC is a joke.
> As for your contention of thuggery.. again, referencing my Disneyland allegation... Thuggery is the basis of statehood and if that makes you uncomfortable, it's because you've been raised in Pax Americana.
> It's really time most countries started paying tribute to the United States, but I do understand the strategic benefit of magnanimity.
I get this viewpoint. Basically, the idea is that humans can only exist as a society of thugs, and everything else is just fairy tales. In that theory, the best possible outcome is achieved when one of the thugs is much more powerfull than all others, thus enforcing "some" order. Therefore, we should all pay tribute to it. I have issues with that theory though. Firstly, I do not believe it. Secondly, even if I did I would consider it a moral duty to still fight it for the small chance it's false. A finally, it does not say what to do in a situation like today when the former bigger thug is becoming weaker and is challenged by the competition. Are we supposed to wait patiently underground the next 20 years until the next contender takes the throne?
There is another theory, according to which human societies _evolve_ as any organism do. It can actually be shown that humans did tame themselves, and became less aggressive/more cooperative after tens of thousands of years of living cooperatively, first in small scale then in larger and larger scale. I take everyone's repulsion against the current state of affairs, or against any sociopathic bahavior for that matter, as another hint of this.
We _did_ evolve out of a primitive condition where there was no conceivable human made law or justice into a society where the rule of law was just a trick, into a condition where the rule of law was desirable, and possibly one day into a condition where the rule of law appears natural.
I believe the cynical viewpoint that you expressed, and that I share sometimes when my mood is low, is actually the fantasy.