Like most educated people, I think that war is a tragedy that should be avoided. The existence of yet another proxy war in Europe that is expected to last years (perhaps two?, but could extend to engulf the whole world) and the WWII style rhetoric around the Ukraine war shows that humanity has failed yet again. There is no justification for war. It's a human tragedy and an environmental tragedy. Murder, torture and rape suddenly become tactics or weapons of war instead of something to condemn and avoid at all cost. Weapons are sent to kill people, bomb buildings and destroy roads. Each of these took many years and many resources to build. War has a large carbon footprint -- comparable to having an extra country on the map. Weapons kill and maim, produce carbon dioxide (they burn stuff, and any burn process produces more carbon dioxide), flatten cities and destroy infrastructure, which has to be rebuilt. The displacement of people, the moving of weapons, the planes that fly, the cars, the tanks, all polute. If society really cared about people or about the environment and about limiting climate change, they'd stop all wars.
So, why do we -- 8 billion of us -- still allow wars to happen? why do we use weapons that are just about to expire on people, bridges and houses instead of simply melting them and making useful stuff? why do we promote leaders who cannot lead and have people who don't understand the world take decisions that matter? who is hiding behind the puppets?
Well... we consistently tie our best people in paperwork in such a way that they cannot progress. Obama had to try to pass the Obamacare act over one hundred times. That he and his team had the energy to do it is amazing, but think of the wonderful changes he could have made instead. They were at the top and were simply wasting their time while being told there is no way around it. In spite of paperwork, Angela Merkel was behind the "the long peace" in Europe. She is an academic and she has had the common sense to retire when peace became an impossibility. Unfortunately, there is nobody to replace her that compares to her in aptitude. Just like there is nobody to replace Obama. Why? Well, it's because we gleefully practice intelectual genocide in all fields: Industry, politics, healthcare and law faithfully and in science. So we destroy our own future or send it elsewhere. We train people and send them to China, Russia, India, which should make the world a better place if they were allowed to thrive. But they are not. Instead of letting capable individuals in front, we have past-retirement age presidents who fail to even be good actors. They are a symptom of this general failure to promote the best that permeates all levels. Instead, we pat ourselves on the back and claim that it's the best that could be done given the rules. But who makes the rules?
So how does intelectual genocide work? One way to destroy talent is to simply bury it in paperwork. It works more efficiently than chains. Then most of those who are talented join "the not good enough pool" because they can't get right stuff that does not matter. The feeling that they are not good enough which is repeately enforced through panels who evaluate laws (or in science, grants) and other such nonesense creates virtual prisons. It also stops change and ultimately progress, and keeps our incompetent leaders, who are behind the monkeys we see on TV or the internet, temporarily safe. Instead of focusing on problems that need to be solved, we send weapons and applaud WWII style rhetoric. It's the best we can do given the rules. Wars are popular. Why? They create so much destruction and force young men and women to murder, use drugs, rape men and women, and lead battles with tanks. They also lead to pockets of change, but couldn't those pockets cost less? They cause displacement and migration of people in awful conditions like those who walked from Syria to Europe. Today more migrants climb in plastic boats and risk their life and that of their children and yet nothing is done to change the rules, which clearly don't work. But when almost all talent is destroyed there is nobody to change rules. I worry that slowly "the free" world disappears descending into a chaos in which nobody is safe. The zero-case policy for COVID-19 from 2020 is an example of how easy it is to turn our own homes into prisons.
I thank Linqing Wen (University of Western Australia) and Szabolcs Marka (Columbia University) for starting the discussion that led to this post. Note that the opinions I state on this blog are my own and do not reflect any institution.
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