Warfare and Peace Keeping

I figured that a good extension of the previous articles (dealing with force, violence and a meat eating diet), would be to extend these ideas into an explanation of how Open Empire would deal with such things as warfare and peace-keeping … especially since such things are large scale issues that are not typically dealt with by other proposals of distributed economics and politics.

First of all, the most important thing to say at the outset, is that Open Empire is all of us as one equivalent “nation-like” collective, spanning not only multiple species, but also including the non-living elements of ecosystems … and in that regard, there’s no one to go to war against … BUT … this is not to say a group of people might not reject the Open Empire vision, and seek to control or destroy it … and given the ecological damage already done, there’s also the issue of peacekeeping between people whom are desperate for basic resources, or greedily trying to ignore the principles of Open Empire to gain an unfair, undeserved or otherwise unwarranted access to or control of scarce resources.

In other words: I’m not so delusional as to believe Open Empire would suddenly and magically make all existing problems (& their momentum) disappear.

PLEASE NOTE: at the outset we should also acknowledge that one of the greatest causes for military conflict in the modern world, is the profit motive for control of resources … so if we implement a new foundation for society where such motivation ceases to exist, it is arguable that we’re only (to some degree) going to be dealing with this problem in the first place because it was caused by the status quo, and we’re now having to clean up its mess.

So let’s use a few hypothetical scenarios to extrapolate the possibilities:

1. Peacekeeping between desperate people where many resources for basic survival remain scarce:

   There are 2 sub-scenarios here in this hypothetical:

   1. where you live internally or externally to this region of conflict, and;
   2. where the conflict is global (or in the virtual global community).

   So the real question is, are you personally impacted by it, or just concerned with helping resolve it.

   In our existing civilisation of nation states, big players like nations themselves, some corporations (including private mercenary groups), plus militias and other paramilitary groups; each holds an arsenal of weapons for various agendas. Where society is stable, it tends to be because society is reasonable safe and resources are reasonably abundant and easily accessible to a significant proportion or majority of the populace … tensions that arise in such stable communities, tend to be restricted to political protests and personal, economic or cultural conflicts … but these rarely flash into full blown engagements of deadly force between large opposing groups. Hence the issue of violence within such contexts is largely dealt with by my previous articles (or extrapolated reasonably easily from the points made in them).

   So what we know for this general scenario, is that where basic survival is the issue, conflict can arise, but this is usually highly localised, or at most across adjacent locations within a region.

   For those actually inside and affected by such conflict over basic resources, no matter what system you propose, they are not likely going to care … their primary concern is survival of themselves and their loved ones, and they’ll do anything it takes to get those resources. Thus we can reasonably conclude there’ll be very few people within that region with enough security to both care for their own concerns, and simultaneously help solve the problem for everyone else (depending on the actual cause of the scarcity).

   So the response from Open Empire is this:

   Firstly conflict helps no one, so it’s advantageous to all to remove it … because everyone (no matter where you live and what you do), is at least in some small way directly or indirectly affected, whether they realise it or not.

   A quantification of the damage being done, combined with the opportunities being lost as a result of both the resource starvation and the conflict, would most likely be an extremely valuable problem to solve … therefore, people are motivated to solve it, and to solve it for the largest majority of people for which it can be solved … they’re also motivated not to propose anything which can be shown to be biased in any unjustified way, because all someone else has to do is prove that bias AT ANY STAGE (even retrospectively), and the consequences are that your gain will drop, plummet, or in the worst case scenario become the inverse of its former self (ie – negative statistics) … so no one is going to “go off half cocked” (unless the consequences of inaction are so dire they warrant the risk, and you’re out of time to do any further research).

   Obviously therefore, the very first thing you can do which is non-biased, is just help resolve the resource starvation, by any combination of the following:

   • Provide resources &/or the capacity to generate resources;
   • Resolve the cause of resource scarcity in some other manner;
   • Relocate people or in some other way reduce demand without harm.

… having done any of these, the motivation for conflict is reduced, but lets also look at ways of dealing with the conflict more directly.

If you’re a good communicator, conflict resolver, counsellor, negotiator or any other such skills, you could communicate with the parties to help them reduce or cease conflict, perhaps by pointing out they’re making it difficult for others to help them solve it.

Others might actually have military experience, and become a self appointed peace keeping force to assist others in delivering solutions, including helping people within the region to solve these resource issues … and any such military groups will be motivated just like anyone else within Open Empire, to avoid being responsible for harm, by properly doing their research and seeking expert advice and assistance themselves.

1. Peacekeeping between people arguing over access to non-survival issue (yet nonetheless scarce) resources:

   People don’t want to survive, they want to live, and live well … so as situations evolve and change, conflict may also arise where disagreements occur over non-survival basics, but which are nonetheless scarce.

   Open Empire reduces such conflict, because if it’s not a survival issue, then arguably your community is more stable, and thus it’s easier to both identify the trouble makers, and to prove their lack of acceptance of where resources are being allocated by the principles that govern us all, is causing a quantifiably detrimental impact.

   In other words, it’s one thing to complain … but it’s another thing entirely to form a military group and lead your complaint into conflict.

   If a person actually has a valid point about improving the algorithms that determine resource allocation, all they have to do is argue the case reasonably well, and others with the skill to prove and quantify it will be motivated to do so, and also motivated to credit the originator of the idea … So it doesn’t really make sense to go to war over it.

   However for arguments sake, let’s just say someone does start a serious military fight over it, what the then? Well, as before, if it gets military, there are a range of ways already covered which insiders and outsiders will be motivated to engage in solving the problem, because solving such problems will be quantifiably valuable.

2. Peacekeeping / warfare versus those trying to control or undermine Open Empire:

   So now we get into evil territory … what if some cabal of fuckwits can’t see their hegemony of power is not in their own interests, and that despite the change it represents, Open Empire will deliver them a better world to live in than they could ever gain by power and control? What then?

   Well, I’ve given this a lot of thought, and there are some strategies I’m not going into because they’re best kept secret … but, sticking with the theme of answers so far, and in line with previous posts, let’s liken them to the psychopathic serial killer … and basically if people find out and can prove what these people are doing, especially if it involves blackmail, extortion, exploitation, slavery, torture, killing etc. … they may very well be signing their own death warrant by having such fucked up attitudes … because in this hypothetical scenario, murder is no longer a crime per se, it’s simply an action like any other that has quantifiable consequences … and the more damage you do, the more beneficial becomes your imprisonment and/or death. So don’t fuck with the people, and they won’t fuck with you.

   Again, people will be cautious about making mistakes, as previously explained on the topic, they bear responsibility for the quantification of their own mistakes too … but if you’re a nasty prick, and they do a lot of good, that variable boundary in which your death become forgivable, is really giving them a lot of leeway before it’s a mistake.

3. Warfare versus an aggressive sentient alien species from some other planet:

   I’ve raised this one not because I think it’s likely, but because I love sci-fi, and because it deals with the question as to whether a military really serves a valid purpose, and if so how is it formed and operated in a non-hierarchical civilisation.

   First of all, since there’s no hierarchy, there’s not really a nation anymore … just a united world of localised communities and cultures … but we came from a world with nations and military forces, so here’s how I’m hoping Open Empire could engage with such people:

   • As the system grows and evolves and is recognised by the world for the good it does, and its potential to do much more … certain people within the military and armaments manufacturers may begin a discussion about a decentralised military and what it can do;
   • Within is discussion it agrees up front to abide by the same principles as everyone else, and thus agrees that it should aim to minimise harm and maximise gain;
   • Thus it agrees to cease taking orders from corporate interests, and indeed to pursue the worst of them as criminals, eventually bringing them to justice;
   • It agrees to be far more sensitive to ecological damage caused by its activities, and to engage in seriously cleaning up its past messes, not to mention actively supporting ecological rescue and regeneration efforts;
   • It agrees to develop far more ecologically sensitive technologies that don’t require cleanup (which to their credit, some of them are already doing to some degree);
   • It actively engages in assisting the peacekeeping efforts required from time to time, and pursuing other people who do serious ecological &/or social damage;
   • It trains its regular staff and anyone else who is interested, in techniques of fighting, and runs training scenarios that deal with alien invasion (even if we’re all convinced it will never be needed), but within the scope of resource consumption which can actually be justified according to the principles we’re all agreeing on;
   • MOSTLY WHAT IT DOES is engages in humanitarian efforts such as disaster relief and rescue operations.

Conclusion:

So this is all a pretty wild set of hypotheticals, and again I don’t really know exactly how it would play out … I’m just trying to extrapolate a best guess which encompasses all possibilities, allows for how the system works to determine right action, and demonstrates some important answers to what I feel are significant questions (even if the hypothetical used in the demonstration is a little bizarre).

Having said all the above, the final thing I want to point out, is that supporting a military crew is something that requires a lot of food, other resources and systems … so the transition time required to being a serious military force completely within the system would likely be a long and arduous process, but ultimately one that is worth the effort, as we cannot have an undefeated world if there does turn out to be hostile aliens in existence … but as we move towards becoming a more space faring species, we also can’t afford to become that hostile alien to others, as that is simply asking to get wiped out the moment we meet one more technically advanced and aggressive than ourselves. Our movies want to tell us we will always prevail, but let’s face it, that’s pure speculation and wishful thinking … the best course is not going out there to pick fights in the first place, and this not running economic systems that insanely believe such behaviour to be “profitable” and/or “worth the risk” … that’s what an arsehole thinks with the poo that is their brain.