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Tom Johnson

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Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?

The Serious Games movement is looking for ways to develop games for serious
purposes. News.com
reports<http://news.com.com/Whats+wrong+with+serious+games/2100-1043_3-6052346.html?tag=nl>:

Serious games usually have a message promoting education, science, health
care or even the military. They're meant to educate people by simulating
real-world events and are often created with the best of intentions.

Earlier this week there was even a Serious Games
Summit,<http://www.gdconf.com/conference/seriousgamessummit.htm>a
subset of the Game
Developers Conference <http://www.gdconf.com/>.

Part of the larger conference was the question of whether game designers
could win the Noble Peace Prize. Then they voted on ideas. Here was one as
reported in this News.com
story<http://news.com.com/Game+designers+aim+for+Nobel+Peace+Prize/2100-1043-6052353.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e703>
:

Empathy" concept was built around the idea that people could learn to better
understand war by putting themselves in the position of the victims of
military conflict.

Players would take on the role of the father of a family of five and become
responsible for everyone's well-being as war drums sound and a full-blown
battle is joined.

To win, players must keep their families alive until war ends. If the family
dies, then the players lose.

(Epic Games lead designer Cliff) Bleszinski said his fantasy was that the
game would help world leaders avoid war through better understanding of the
consequences of their political actions.

"There should be a U.N. resolution passed," he said, "that those making the
call to war must log time in this program."

--tj
--
==============================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller
==============================================

--
==============================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller
==============================================
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Jim Rutt

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionary perspective

>Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?

Should they want to? Seems to me "world peace" could be an exceedingly
dangerous thing. I see nothing to ensure that if it were ever achieved,
that it would be an "evolutionary stable strategy" ie that other strategies
couldn't successfully invade and potentially overthrow it.

Imagine (lennon twinkling in the background) a world of no war for several
generations, where the skills and technolgies of war have atrophied. THEN
imagine the startup of a pernicious violence oriented social virus along
the lines of Marxist-Leninism, National Socialism, or Islamic
Jihadism. Could a "peaceful world" respond strongly enough to squash such
a dangerous social viruses?

The human race may have gotten lucky that three above named social viruses
all sprang up in a world where warfare was not a forgotten skill. At
considerably cost we were able to defeat the first two and will likely (if
we don't lose our will) defeat the Jihadists. One could then think of
warfare at less than a ruinous scale as a good exercise for the world's
immune system, prepping for future use against pernicious social
viruses.... our immune system evolves so that it is ready to handle (with
perhaps a bit of step up for major grade enemies) the current state of the
art social virus if (when!) they arise.
.

At 12:52 AM 3/25/2006, you wrote:

>Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
>
>The Serious Games movement is looking for ways to develop games for
>serious purposes.
><http://news.com.com/Whats+wrong+with+serious+games/2100-1043_3-6052346.html?tag=nl>News.com
>reports:
>Serious games usually have a message promoting education, science, health
>care or even the military. They're meant to educate people by simulating
>real-world events and are often created with the best of intentions.
>
>Earlier this week there was even a
><http://www.gdconf.com/conference/seriousgamessummit.htm>Serious Games
>Summit, a subset of the <http://www.gdconf.com/>Game Developers Conference.
>
>Part of the larger conference was the question of whether game designers
>could win the Noble Peace Prize. Then they voted on ideas. Here was one
><http://news.com.com/Game+designers+aim+for+Nobel+Peace+Prize/2100-1043-6052353.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e703>as
>reported in this News.com story :
>Empathy" concept was built around the idea that people could learn to
>better understand war by putting themselves in the position of the victims
>of military conflict.
>
>Players would take on the role of the father of a family of five and
>become responsible for everyone's well-being as war drums sound and a
>full-blown battle is joined.
>
>To win, players must keep their families alive until war ends. If the
>family dies, then the players lose.
>
>(Epic Games lead designer Cliff) Bleszinski said his fantasy was that the
>game would help world leaders avoid war through better understanding of
>the consequences of their political actions.
>
>"There should be a U.N. resolution passed," he said, "that those making
>the call to war must log time in this program."
>
>--tj
>--
>==============================================
>J. T. Johnson
>Institute for Analytic Journalism
><http://www.analyticjournalism.com>www.analyticjournalism.com
>505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
><http://www.jtjohnson.com>http://www.jtjohnson.com
><mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com>tom at jtjohnson.com
>
>"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
>To change something, build a new model that makes the
>existing model obsolete."
> -- Buckminster Fuller
>==============================================
>
>
>--
>==============================================
>J. T. Johnson
>Institute for Analytic Journalism
><http://www.analyticjournalism.com>www.analyticjournalism.com
>505.577.6482 (c) 505.473.9646(h)
><http://www.jtjohnson.com>http://www.jtjohnson.com
><mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com>tom at jtjohnson.com
>
>"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
>To change something, build a new model that makes the
>existing model obsolete."
> -- Buckminster Fuller
>==============================================
>============================================================
>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

===================================
Jim Rutt
voice: 505-989-1115

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Robert Holmes-2

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionary perspective

Actually, you're putting forward an argument against forgetting, not against
world peace per se. As Vegetius wrote: "igitur qui desiderat pacem,
praeparet bellum"

Robert

On 3/29/06, Jim Rutt <jim at jimrutt.com> wrote:

>
> >Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
>
> Should they want to? Seems to me "world peace" could be an exceedingly
> dangerous thing. I see nothing to ensure that if it were ever achieved,
> that it would be an "evolutionary stable strategy" ie that other strategies
> couldn't successfully invade and potentially overthrow it.
>
> Imagine (lennon twinkling in the background) a world of no war for
> several generations, where the skills and technolgies of war have
> atrophied. THEN imagine the startup of a pernicious violence oriented
> social virus along the lines of Marxist-Leninism, National Socialism, or
> Islamic Jihadism. Could a "peaceful world" respond strongly enough to
> squash such a dangerous social viruses?
>
> The human race may have gotten lucky that three above named social viruses
> all sprang up in a world where warfare was not a forgotten skill. At
> considerably cost we were able to defeat the first two and will likely (if
> we don't lose our will) defeat the Jihadists. One could then think of
> warfare at less than a ruinous scale as a good exercise for the world's
> immune system, prepping for future use against pernicious social
> viruses.... our immune system evolves so that it is ready to handle (with
> perhaps a bit of step up for major grade enemies) the current state of the
> art social virus if (when!) they arise.
> .
>
>

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doug carmichael

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

In reply to this post by Jim Rutt

The interesting "gaming" idea is that all three, fascism, communism and
Jihad, are reactions to the way markets and capital have worked, leading to
exclusions, and arising out of poverty. We should learn not to put
populations in a bad situation, the way Versailles did to the German
economy, the way oil impoverished and destabilized the middle east, the way
the Russian imitation of western opulence impoverish the serfs.

the idea that "peace" can be destabilized is of course true, but the
destabilization could be by other means than guns, bombs and lasers. Here is
where we would have to be creative. I am fascinated by the closing remarks
of Dawkins at the 30th anniversary meeting.

Reflections on the EDGE symposium on Dawkins Selfish Gene after thirty
years.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/selfish06/selfish06_index.html

"..in the concluding words of the original first edition of The Selfish
Gene:

"We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure,
disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something
that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are
built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power
to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth can rebel against the
tyranny of the selfish replicators."

________________________________

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Jim Rutt
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:21 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] the case against "World Peace" ... an
evolutionaryperspective

>Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?

Should they want to? Seems to me "world peace" could be an exceedingly
dangerous thing. I see nothing to ensure that if it were ever achieved,
that it would be an "evolutionary stable strategy" ie that other strategies
couldn't successfully invade and potentially overthrow it.

Imagine (lennon twinkling in the background) a world of no war for several
generations, where the skills and technolgies of war have atrophied. THEN
imagine the startup of a pernicious violence oriented social virus along the
lines of Marxist-Leninism, National Socialism, or Islamic Jihadism. Could
a "peaceful world" respond strongly enough to squash such a dangerous social
viruses?

The human race may have gotten lucky that three above named social viruses
all sprang up in a world where warfare was not a forgotten skill. At
considerably cost we were able to defeat the first two and will likely (if
we don't lose our will) defeat the Jihadists. One could then think of
warfare at less than a ruinous scale as a good exercise for the world's
immune system, prepping for future use against pernicious social viruses....
our immune system evolves so that it is ready to handle (with perhaps a bit
of step up for major grade enemies) the current state of the art social
virus if (when!) they arise.
.

Jim Rutt

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

>We should learn not to put populations in a bad situation

I'm a Madisonian, I strongly believe that governments will always be HIGHLY
imperfect. And will indeed be captured from time to time by "bad
people". It's easy to create a hypothetical utopia based on everybody
being good (why would we even need government in that case?). Cultural
systems, though, if they are to last, have to be very robust to blunders,
incompetence, malice, and bad luck. James Madison knew that, which is
probably why the US Constitution is now the world's oldest constitution in
force, and by a lot.

People and factions WILL exploit each other, or at least try
to. Disasters, both human and natural will occur. Variations in ability,
resources, power, and just plain luck will cause variation in lives and
life chances. In such a world a "world of peace" would be a sitting duck
to the inevitably arising "bad guys".

=jim

At 12:41 PM 3/29/2006, you wrote:

>The interesting "gaming" idea is that all three, fascism, communism and
>Jihad, are reactions to the way markets and capital have worked, leading to
>exclusions, and arising out of poverty. We should learn not to put
>populations in a bad situation, the way Versailles did to the German
>economy, the way oil impoverished and destabilized the middle east, the way
>the Russian imitation of western opulence impoverish the serfs.
>
>the idea that "peace" can be destabilized is of course true, but the
>destabilization could be by other means than guns, bombs and lasers. Here is
>where we would have to be creative. I am fascinated by the closing remarks
>of Dawkins at the 30th anniversary meeting.
>
>
>
>Reflections on the EDGE symposium on Dawkins Selfish Gene after thirty
>years.
>
>http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/selfish06/selfish06_index.html
>
>
>
> "..in the concluding words of the original first edition of The Selfish
>Gene:
>
>"We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure,
>disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something
>that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are
>built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power
>to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth can rebel against the
>tyranny of the selfish replicators."
>
>
>________________________________
>
>From: Friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:Friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf
>Of Jim Rutt
>Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:21 AM
>To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>Subject: [FRIAM] the case against "World Peace" ... an
>evolutionaryperspective
>
>
> >Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
>
>Should they want to? Seems to me "world peace" could be an exceedingly
>dangerous thing. I see nothing to ensure that if it were ever achieved,
>that it would be an "evolutionary stable strategy" ie that other strategies
>couldn't successfully invade and potentially overthrow it.
>
>Imagine (lennon twinkling in the background) a world of no war for several
>generations, where the skills and technolgies of war have atrophied. THEN
>imagine the startup of a pernicious violence oriented social virus along the
>lines of Marxist-Leninism, National Socialism, or Islamic Jihadism. Could
>a "peaceful world" respond strongly enough to squash such a dangerous social
>viruses?
>
>The human race may have gotten lucky that three above named social viruses
>all sprang up in a world where warfare was not a forgotten skill. At
>considerably cost we were able to defeat the first two and will likely (if
>we don't lose our will) defeat the Jihadists. One could then think of
>warfare at less than a ruinous scale as a good exercise for the world's
>immune system, prepping for future use against pernicious social viruses....
>our immune system evolves so that it is ready to handle (with perhaps a bit
>of step up for major grade enemies) the current state of the art social
>virus if (when!) they arise.
>.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>============================================================
>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

===================================
Jim Rutt
voice: 505-989-1115

Jim Rutt

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

In reply to this post by doug carmichael

>the way oil impoverished and destabilized the middle east
certainly didn't impoverished ... as bad as the Middle East is today, can
you imagine Saudi Arabia WITHOUT oil?

>put populations in a bad situation, the way Versailles did to the German
>economy

many countries have been put in "bad situations" ... few spun up a cult of
highly effective romantic mystic mass murders.

>the way the Russian imitation of western opulence impoverish the serfs.

Oppressive autocracy has been the norm of the human condition thru most of
time. And the occasional spasms of righteous revolt that go with it. The
social virus of Marxist-Leninism, that exploited such conditions with the
willful intent to enslave the human race, though, was a newly emergent
virus, and one of the most dangerous in history.

At 12:41 PM 3/29/2006, you wrote:

===================================
Jim Rutt
voice: 505-989-1115

Edward A. Puckett

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionary perspective

In reply to this post by Jim Rutt

It may be that "world peace" is a concept like "vacuum" which does
not hold up to microscopic scrutiny. And if so, then it is just an
illusory goal which cannot be a guiding light.

On Mar 29, 2006, at 11:20, Jim Rutt wrote:

> >Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
>
> Should they want to? Seems to me "world peace" could be an
> exceedingly dangerous thing. I see nothing to ensure that if it
> were ever achieved, that it would be an "evolutionary stable
> strategy" ie that other strategies couldn't successfully invade and
> potentially overthrow it.
>
> Imagine (lennon twinkling in the background) a world of no war for
> several generations, where the skills and technolgies of war have
> atrophied. THEN imagine the startup of a pernicious violence
> oriented social virus along the lines of Marxist-Leninism, National
> Socialism, or Islamic Jihadism. Could a "peaceful world" respond
> strongly enough to squash such a dangerous social viruses?
>
> The human race may have gotten lucky that three above named social
> viruses all sprang up in a world where warfare was not a forgotten
> skill. At considerably cost we were able to defeat the first two
> and will likely (if we don't lose our will) defeat the Jihadists.
> One could then think of warfare at less than a ruinous scale as a
> good exercise for the world's immune system, prepping for future
> use against pernicious social viruses.... our immune system
> evolves so that it is ready to handle (with perhaps a bit of step
> up for major grade enemies) the current state of the art social
> virus if (when!) they arise.
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At 12:52 AM 3/25/2006, you wrote:
>> Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
>>
>> The Serious Games movement is looking for ways to develop games
>> for serious purposes. News.com reports:
>> Serious games usually have a message promoting education, science,
>> health care or even the military. They're meant to educate people
>> by simulating real-world events and are often created with the
>> best of intentions.
>>
>> Earlier this week there was even a Serious Games Summit, a subset
>> of the Game Developers Conference.
>>
>> Part of the larger conference was the question of whether game
>> designers could win the Noble Peace Prize. Then they voted on
>> ideas. Here was one as reported in this News.com story :
>> Empathy" concept was built around the idea that people could learn
>> to better understand war by putting themselves in the position of
>> the victims of military conflict.
>>
>> Players would take on the role of the father of a family of five
>> and become responsible for everyone's well-being as war drums
>> sound and a full-blown battle is joined.
>>
>> To win, players must keep their families alive until war ends. If
>> the family dies, then the players lose.
>>
>> (Epic Games lead designer Cliff) Bleszinski said his fantasy was
>> that the game would help world leaders avoid war through better
>> understanding of the consequences of their political actions.
>>
>> "There should be a U.N. resolution passed," he said, "that those
>> making the call to war must log time in this program."
>>
>> --tj
>> --
>> ==============================================
>> J. T. Johnson
>> Institute for Analytic Journalism
>> www.analyticjournalism.com
>> 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
>> http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com
>>
>> "You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
>> To change something, build a new model that makes the
>> existing model obsolete."
>> -- Buckminster
>> Fuller
>> ==============================================
>>
>>
>> --
>> ==============================================
>> J. T. Johnson
>> Institute for Analytic Journalism
>> www.analyticjournalism.com
>> 505.577.6482 (c) 505.473.9646(h)
>> http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com
>>
>> "You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
>> To change something, build a new model that makes the
>> existing model obsolete."
>> -- Buckminster
>> Fuller
>> ==============================================
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> ===================================
> Jim Rutt
> voice: 505-989-1115
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

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Jim Rutt

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionary perspective

something like that - though the quantum nature of the vacuum seems a
necessity .... my preferred formulation: "world peace is not an
evolutionary stable strategy" is a statement about contingency.... just
because a strategy isn't evolutionary stable doesn't demand that it be
overthrown in finite time.

.

At 07:22 AM 3/30/2006, you wrote:

>It may be that "world peace" is a concept like "vacuum" which does not
>hold up to microscopic scrutiny. And if so, then it is just an illusory
>goal which cannot be a guiding light.
>
>On Mar 29, 2006, at 11:20, Jim Rutt wrote:
>
>> >Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
>>
>>Should they want to? Seems to me "world peace" could be an exceedingly
>>dangerous thing. I see nothing to ensure that if it were ever achieved,
>>that it would be an "evolutionary stable strategy" ie that other
>>strategies couldn't successfully invade and potentially overthrow it.
>>
>>Imagine (lennon twinkling in the background) a world of no war for
>>several generations, where the skills and technolgies of war have
>>atrophied. THEN imagine the startup of a pernicious violence oriented
>>social virus along the lines of Marxist-Leninism, National Socialism, or
>>Islamic Jihadism. Could a "peaceful world" respond strongly enough to
>>squash such a dangerous social viruses?
>>
>>The human race may have gotten lucky that three above named social
>>viruses all sprang up in a world where warfare was not a forgotten
>>skill. At considerably cost we were able to defeat the first two and
>>will likely (if we don't lose our will) defeat the Jihadists. One could
>>then think of warfare at less than a ruinous scale as a good exercise for
>>the world's immune system, prepping for future use against pernicious
>>social viruses.... our immune system evolves so that it is ready to
>>handle (with perhaps a bit of step up for major grade enemies) the
>>current state of the art social virus if (when!) they arise.
>>.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>At 12:52 AM 3/25/2006, you wrote:
>>>Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
>>>
>>>The Serious Games movement is looking for ways to develop games for
>>>serious purposes.
>>><http://news.com.com/Whats+wrong+with+serious+games/2100-1043_3-6052346.html?tag=nl>News.com
>>>reports:
>>>Serious games usually have a message promoting education, science,
>>>health care or even the military. They're meant to educate people by
>>>simulating real-world events and are often created with the best of
>>>intentions.
>>>
>>>Earlier this week there was even a
>>><http://www.gdconf.com/conference/seriousgamessummit.htm>Serious Games
>>>Summit, a subset of the <http://www.gdconf.com/>Game Developers Conference.
>>>
>>>Part of the larger conference was the question of whether game designers
>>>could win the Noble Peace Prize. Then they voted on ideas. Here was one
>>><http://news.com.com/Game+designers+aim+for+Nobel+Peace+Prize/2100-1043-6052353.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e703>as
>>>reported in this News.com story :
>>>Empathy" concept was built around the idea that people could learn to
>>>better understand war by putting themselves in the position of the
>>>victims of military conflict.
>>>Players would take on the role of the father of a family of five and
>>>become responsible for everyone's well-being as war drums sound and a
>>>full-blown battle is joined.
>>>To win, players must keep their families alive until war ends. If the
>>>family dies, then the players lose.
>>>(Epic Games lead designer Cliff) Bleszinski said his fantasy was that
>>>the game would help world leaders avoid war through better understanding
>>>of the consequences of their political actions.
>>>"There should be a U.N. resolution passed," he said, "that those making
>>>the call to war must log time in this program."
>>>
>>>--tj
>>>--
>>>==============================================
>>>J. T. Johnson
>>>Institute for Analytic Journalism
>>><http://www.analyticjournalism.com>www.analyticjournalism.com
>>>505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
>>><http://www.jtjohnson.com>http://www.jtjohnson.com
>>><mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com>tom at jtjohnson.com
>>>
>>>"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
>>>To change something, build a new model that makes the
>>>existing model obsolete."
>>> -- Buckminster Fuller
>>>==============================================
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>==============================================
>>>J. T. Johnson
>>>Institute for Analytic Journalism
>>><http://www.analyticjournalism.com>www.analyticjournalism.com
>>>505.577.6482 (c) 505.473.9646(h)
>>><http://www.jtjohnson.com>http://www.jtjohnson.com
>>><mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com>tom at jtjohnson.com
>>>
>>>"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
>>>To change something, build a new model that makes the
>>>existing model obsolete."
>>> -- Buckminster Fuller
>>>==============================================
>>>============================================================
>>>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>>lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>>
>>===================================
>>Jim Rutt
>>voice: 505-989-1115
>>
>>============================================================
>>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
>><http://www.friam.org>http://www.friam.org
>
>============================================================
>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

doug carmichael

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

In reply to this post by Edward A. Puckett

Interesting. Some species are more peaceful than others. None are entirely
"peaceful" as breeding and territory are always in tension with other
species, or sub groups. Does our intelligence make us necessarily less
peaceful? Given six billion people, the number of daily deaths from
violence is fairly low, much lower than death by auto accident. Seems to me
we are in a grey zone where culture is what makes the difference. Like the
difference between Hobbes and Locke.

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Giles Bowkett

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionary perspective

In reply to this post by Robert Holmes-2

therefore he who desires peace should prepare for war?

On 3/29/06, Robert Holmes <rholmes62 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Actually, you're putting forward an argument against forgetting, not against
> world peace per se. As Vegetius wrote: "igitur qui desiderat pacem,
> praeparet bellum"
>
> Robert
>
>
> On 3/29/06, Jim Rutt <jim at jimrutt.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > >Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
> >
> >
> > Should they want to? Seems to me "world peace" could be an exceedingly
> dangerous thing. I see nothing to ensure that if it were ever achieved,
> that it would be an "evolutionary stable strategy" ie that other strategies
> couldn't successfully invade and potentially overthrow it.
> >
> > Imagine (lennon twinkling in the background) a world of no war for
> several generations, where the skills and technolgies of war have atrophied.
> THEN imagine the startup of a pernicious violence oriented social virus
> along the lines of Marxist-Leninism, National Socialism, or Islamic
> Jihadism. Could a "peaceful world" respond strongly enough to squash such
> a dangerous social viruses?
> >
> > The human race may have gotten lucky that three above named social viruses
> all sprang up in a world where warfare was not a forgotten skill. At
> considerably cost we were able to defeat the first two and will likely (if
> we don't lose our will) defeat the Jihadists. One could then think of
> warfare at less than a ruinous scale as a good exercise for the world's
> immune system, prepping for future use against pernicious social viruses....
> our immune system evolves so that it is ready to handle (with perhaps a bit
> of step up for major grade enemies) the current state of the art social
> virus if (when!) they arise.
> > .
> >
> >
> >
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>

--
Giles Bowkett
www.gilesgoatboy.org

Giles Bowkett

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

In reply to this post by Jim Rutt

On 3/29/06, Jim Rutt <jim at jimrutt.com> wrote:

> >We should learn not to put populations in a bad situation
>
> I'm a Madisonian, I strongly believe that governments will always be HIGHLY
> imperfect. And will indeed be captured from time to time by "bad
> people". It's easy to create a hypothetical utopia based on everybody
> being good (why would we even need government in that case?). Cultural
> systems, though, if they are to last, have to be very robust to blunders,
> incompetence, malice, and bad luck. James Madison knew that, which is
> probably why the US Constitution is now the world's oldest constitution in
> force, and by a lot.
>
> People and factions WILL exploit each other, or at least try
> to. Disasters, both human and natural will occur. Variations in ability,
> resources, power, and just plain luck will cause variation in lives and
> life chances. In such a world a "world of peace" would be a sitting duck
> to the inevitably arising "bad guys".

This is basically why I'm not a full-fledged anarchist or libertarian.
In Belfast during the height of the IRA's war against England, British
police couldn't even enter large stretches of the city. This meant
that power passed from the government to local gangsters. These
gangsters were consequently a source of funding for the IRA. (Whether
they were a major source of funding or a minor one is a controversial
question but they definitely were involved at some level for reasons
that were not entirely idealistic.)

You can see something very similar with the demise of Communism.
Russia was supposed to become capitalist overnight; in fact, its
gangsters took over. And Russian gangsters make the Mafia look cuddly.
One racket they ran involved renting out apartment space in nice
apartments owned by senior citizens. They rang the bell, shot the
resident or residents, cleaned the blood off the rug, and rented the
apartment. They did it systematically all over Moscow in the early
90s.

All this leads me to believe that groups of people dominating other
people with violence are basically intrinsic to societies. The minute
a government loses its capacity of dominating people with violence,
some group of gangsters occupies that power void. I personally suspect
that this intrinsic presence of violent dominators is an emergent
property of human societies, and therefore unlikely to change,
although there is also some brain research indicating that the
predisposition to violence may in fact be genetic:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=39961

This prompts the question, could suppressing the genetic
predisposition to violence result in more peaceful societies? But it
also prompts the question, could suppressing the genetic
predisposition to violence also result in societies which were less
able to react appropriately to emergencies and danger? The gene
identified in the above link doesn't just correlate to a
predisposition to violent behavior, but also to a predisposition to
poor impulse control. In emergency situations, poor impulse control
can also be viewed as excellent response time, and eliminating that
from the gene pool would be risky at best.

So, I'm not a scientist, but my position on this topic is the
scientist cliche position, which is that we know a lot of interesting
stuff about the question and may one day be able to very cautiously do
something useful after a few more decades of research. ;-)

--
Giles Bowkett
www.gilesgoatboy.org

>
> =jim
>
>
> At 12:41 PM 3/29/2006, you wrote:
> >The interesting "gaming" idea is that all three, fascism, communism and
> >Jihad, are reactions to the way markets and capital have worked, leading to
> >exclusions, and arising out of poverty. We should learn not to put
> >populations in a bad situation, the way Versailles did to the German
> >economy, the way oil impoverished and destabilized the middle east, the way
> >the Russian imitation of western opulence impoverish the serfs.
> >
> >the idea that "peace" can be destabilized is of course true, but the
> >destabilization could be by other means than guns, bombs and lasers. Here is
> >where we would have to be creative. I am fascinated by the closing remarks
> >of Dawkins at the 30th anniversary meeting.
> >
> >
> >
> >Reflections on the EDGE symposium on Dawkins Selfish Gene after thirty
> >years.
> >
> >http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/selfish06/selfish06_index.html
> >
> >
> >
> > "..in the concluding words of the original first edition of The Selfish
> >Gene:
> >
> >"We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure,
> >disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something
> >that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are
> >built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power
> >to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth can rebel against the
> >tyranny of the selfish replicators."
> >
> >
> >________________________________
> >
> >From: Friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:Friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf
> >Of Jim Rutt
> >Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 10:21 AM
> >To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> >Subject: [FRIAM] the case against "World Peace" ... an
> >evolutionaryperspective
> >
> >
> > >Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
> >
> >Should they want to? Seems to me "world peace" could be an exceedingly
> >dangerous thing. I see nothing to ensure that if it were ever achieved,
> >that it would be an "evolutionary stable strategy" ie that other strategies
> >couldn't successfully invade and potentially overthrow it.
> >
> >Imagine (lennon twinkling in the background) a world of no war for several
> >generations, where the skills and technolgies of war have atrophied. THEN
> >imagine the startup of a pernicious violence oriented social virus along the
> >lines of Marxist-Leninism, National Socialism, or Islamic Jihadism. Could
> >a "peaceful world" respond strongly enough to squash such a dangerous social
> >viruses?
> >
> >The human race may have gotten lucky that three above named social viruses
> >all sprang up in a world where warfare was not a forgotten skill. At
> >considerably cost we were able to defeat the first two and will likely (if
> >we don't lose our will) defeat the Jihadists. One could then think of
> >warfare at less than a ruinous scale as a good exercise for the world's
> >immune system, prepping for future use against pernicious social viruses....
> >our immune system evolves so that it is ready to handle (with perhaps a bit
> >of step up for major grade enemies) the current state of the art social
> >virus if (when!) they arise.
> >.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >============================================================
> >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
> ===================================
> Jim Rutt
> voice: 505-989-1115
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

--
Giles Bowkett
www.gilesgoatboy.org

Roger Critchlow-2

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionary perspective

In reply to this post by Giles Bowkett

On 3/30/06, Giles Bowkett <gilesb at gmail.com> wrote:
> therefore he who desires peace should prepare for war?
>

Tit for tat, altruism persists only with strong reciprocation.

-- rec --

David Breecker

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

See "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Axelrod. Computer-based round-robin
of The Prisoner's Dilemma. Actually, "Tit for two Tats" turned out to be
the winner.
db

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Critchlow" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <Friam at redfish.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 11:08 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the case against "World Peace" ... an
evolutionaryperspective

> On 3/30/06, Giles Bowkett <gilesb at gmail.com> wrote:
>> therefore he who desires peace should prepare for war?
>>
>
> Tit for tat, altruism persists only with strong reciprocation.
>
> -- rec --
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

Jim Rutt

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

of course success of a strategy is substantially dependent on what other
strategies are in the ecosystem. While in a large pool of diverse
strategies tit-for-tat or one of it's variants (often two-tits-for-tat)
will often win but there are definitely ecosystems where other strategies
are better - for instance a system of all constant defectors ...
tit-for-tat will come in last every time!

At 02:16 PM 3/30/2006, you wrote:

>See "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Axelrod. Computer-based round-robin
>of The Prisoner's Dilemma. Actually, "Tit for two Tats" turned out to be
>the winner.
>db
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Roger Critchlow" <rec at elf.org>
>To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <Friam at redfish.com>
>Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 11:08 AM
>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the case against "World Peace" ... an
>evolutionaryperspective
>
>
> > On 3/30/06, Giles Bowkett <gilesb at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> therefore he who desires peace should prepare for war?
> >>
> >
> > Tit for tat, altruism persists only with strong reciprocation.
> >
> > -- rec --
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
>
>
>
>============================================================
>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

===================================
Jim Rutt
voice: 505-989-1115

Jim Rutt

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionary perspective

In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2

and reciprocity requires knowledge of the actors' history ... anonymity is
the antagonist of accountability ... why I'd hazard a guess crime rates and
general shitbirdness are lower in small towns than in large anonymous
cities, everything else being equal.

In terms of a thought experiment, that could well be an argument AGAINST
privacy. Would people be better or worse if all tax returns were made
public? I'd bet a cheese burger charitable contributions would go up if
you could easily go on the web, plug in your address and get the rank
ordered list of your neighbors by percent of income to charity!!!

.

>Tit for tat, altruism persists only with strong reciprocation.
>
>-- rec --
>
>============================================================
>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

===================================
Jim Rutt
voice: 505-989-1115

Roger Critchlow-2

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionary perspective

See the review in Science, Jan 6, 2006 (311:47), "When Does Economic
Man Prevail", for a discussion of outcomes in heterogenous populations
of cooperators, defectors, and reciprocators; and PNAS, Feb 1, 2005
(102:1803), "Experiments investigating cooperative types in humans: A
complement to evolutionary theory and simulations", for empirical
frequencies of cooperators, free-riders, and reciprocators (63%) in
Arizona.

-- rec --

On 3/30/06, Jim Rutt <jim at jimrutt.com> wrote:

> and reciprocity requires knowledge of the actors' history ... anonymity is
> the antagonist of accountability ... why I'd hazard a guess crime rates and
> general shitbirdness are lower in small towns than in large anonymous
> cities, everything else being equal.
>
> In terms of a thought experiment, that could well be an argument AGAINST
> privacy. Would people be better or worse if all tax returns were made
> public? I'd bet a cheese burger charitable contributions would go up if
> you could easily go on the web, plug in your address and get the rank
> ordered list of your neighbors by percent of income to charity!!!
>
>
> .
>
>
>
> >Tit for tat, altruism persists only with strong reciprocation.
> >
> >-- rec --
> >
> >============================================================
> >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
> ===================================
> Jim Rutt
> voice: 505-989-1115
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

doug carmichael

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

The time "When Does Economic Man Prevail" is dependent on the culture
he/she is embedded in. The interplay between culture and character is thick.

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 2:41 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the case against "World Peace" ... an
evolutionaryperspective

See the review in Science, Jan 6, 2006 (311:47), "When Does Economic Man
Prevail", for a discussion of outcomes in heterogenous populations of
cooperators, defectors, and reciprocators; ....

Giles Bowkett

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionary perspective

In reply to this post by Jim Rutt

> In terms of a thought experiment, that could well be an argument AGAINST
> privacy. Would people be better or worse if all tax returns were made
> public? I'd bet a cheese burger charitable contributions would go up if
> you could easily go on the web, plug in your address and get the rank
> ordered list of your neighbors by percent of income to charity!!!

I think there's a book about this, David Brin "The Transparent
Society." I should track that down and read it...

--
Giles Bowkett
www.gilesgoatboy.org

Jochen Fromm-3

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

What is all this talk about "World Peace" about ?
Isn't world peace something mentioned on beauty pageants ?
Reminds me of a scene in the terrible "Miss Congeniality"
film my girl-friend forced me to watch:

Stan Fields: What is the one most important thing our society needs?
Gracie Hart: That would be... harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan.
[crowd is silent]
Gracie Hart: And world peace!
[crowd cheers ecstatically]

-J.

Jim Rutt

the case against "World Peace" ... an evolutionaryperspective

my point more or less!

someone below was sawing away on "world peace", I thought it might be fun
to examine the cliche and see if there was something perhaps counter
intuitive inside it. That's one of the problems with cliches... they
become rubber stamps that people stop thinking about.

along the same lines is one my favorite bumper stickers: "Imagine Whirled Peas"

almost as good as:

"Earth First! Then Mars! - American Mining Association"

At 11:16 PM 3/30/2006, you wrote:

>What is all this talk about "World Peace" about ?
>Isn't world peace something mentioned on beauty pageants ?
>Reminds me of a scene in the terrible "Miss Congeniality"
>film my girl-friend forced me to watch:
>
>Stan Fields: What is the one most important thing our society needs?
>Gracie Hart: That would be... harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan.
>[crowd is silent]
>Gracie Hart: And world peace!
>[crowd cheers ecstatically]
>
>-J.
>
>
>============================================================
>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

===================================
Jim Rutt
voice: 505-989-1115