The world wars are similar to group madness?

 Panic selling on financial market,food hoarding and witch hunting are some well known cases of group madness.

But the world wars are similar ?

After all first world war started with a small conflict between Austria and Serbia and ended with all Europe in flames.

All activities above have 2 things in common:

1. The actors don't comunicate

2. Their actions try to avoid a loss, and they try to pass that loss on other actors.

In sort it is a null sum game.

In case of shares, if 2 actors agree not to sell shares, the one who cheats will gain by selling at a better price.

Both they have interest to sell fast their shares.

In case of war, the one who cheats the armistice gains unless it can be punished.

In case of wars the actors try to finish fast their conflict. The intensity and scale of war affects security of other actors who decide to intervine now rather than later when they will be alone 

Germany in WW1 was a threat for security stability so British empire had to contain it. Also invasion of Belgium was a dumb thing done by Germans. British empire being obliged by the treaties to intervine..

Because of powerfully economical connections between US and British empire, the German adventure threatened US security, and it was dragged in war.

Now with so much interconnection, further and further countries will be dragged in this war. Not with troops , despite mercenaries been recruited from Latin America and Middle East,but economically.

Beyond good and evil

 I just read a biography of Richard Nixon by John A. Farrell, and it was interesting to see how and idealist and ambitious WW2 veteran become a jaded, scheming politician.

According to the author Nixon at the end of his career didn't had values of good and bad. He signed Enviroment Protection Act, OSHA for safety of workers, aided people in Peru but he bombed Cambodgia and Laos ignoring the collateral damage done to the civilians from these neutral countries.  

I am thinking maybe the opposite to good is not evil, but lack of bad and evil.

After all Stalin and Mao were pragmatist. Stalin wanted to accelerate industrialization and moved with force peasants from country side into the city.

Forgotten revolution

 Yesterday Italian prime minister Menținut, reminded italiana about the fight against communism and the support of the Ukraine.

She mentioned the self immolated chezckoslovakian martyr  Jan Palach, the efforts of Pope John Paul 2, the fall of Berlin wall but she forgot the Romanian revolution where 2000 young people died for freedom.

Poor sould forgetfulness is worse than death for a hero.

Epic life

Religion makes life epic, heroic, meaningful.

Marriage is union of masculine and feminine under the watch of God.

Birth is coming a new soul in this world, death is ascension to heavens 

Modern world has transformed epic struggle of the people to feed themselves, by hunting, sowing and harvesting, in a uneventful 9 to 5 job and a trip to supermarket.

Marriage is a social contract, birth a medical procedure, death a disease.

Everything is uneventful and predictable, that becomes boring

Compare the dullness of modern life with the passion of religious life. Man is an actor in the divine plan. Devil and God, fight for his soul. 

His actions have cosmic consequences, he and people could in hell or in heaven.

No wonder that people will return to religious life and reclaim their individual importance.

Dune in Brazil

 While I was reading Dune, I heard about the religious war between the two contenders for Brazil presidency: Lula supported by Catholics and Bolsanaro supported by protestants.

I think Dune by Frank Herbert should be mandatory reading in schools to see how religion is used for political purposes.

It is gonna be a long war

 I just read a book regarding Romanian secret service during world war one.

The image painted by Romanian spies of the Austro Hungarian empire after first year of war it of war , is of exhaustion. The contingent of men in their '40 and '50 was drafted, the wheat flour was replaced with maize flour and sugar in production of bread.

In Budapest there were food riots.

Austro Hungary and Germany seek to make peace and they even thought of giving some land to Romania to avoid that it entered the war.

And yet, war continued for 3 years 

Austro Hungary didn't have the ethnic homogeneity of Russia. It didn't had the resources. It didn't had the internal control, the secret police, and a recording device in pocket of each citizen. But it dragged on for 3 years in the war.

Russia could drag also 3 years.

The situation from word war one should be lesson for Russia too. People then supported much heavier difficulties than now, and didn't gave up.

So if Putin is imagining that high bills will overthrow governments in west and stop the support for Ukraine, he is wrong.

Ulisses wisdom for a nuclear stand off

 Many pretenders competed for beautiful Helen. Her father feared that if one wins, the other will kill him, and then they will fight each other. He asked Ulisses what to do.

Ulisses proposed that the pretenders swear to defend the one who wins.

Replace Helen with world peace and pretenders with nuclear powers.

If all nuclear powers will retaliate in case someone strike first, do you think that someone will dare to use nuclear bombs?

He cannot hit all the world at once, and he will be exterminated.