Thread

1. andsoitis · 1790687134 · focus · HN ↗

   The more countries trade with each other and depend on each other, the better things are for peace and human advancement.

   The zero-sum mindset that's de rigueur at the moment needs to die soon or the world that we'll inhabit is gonna suck.

   1. adrianmsmith · 1790691929 · focus · HN ↗

      > The more countries trade with each other and depend on each other, the better things are for peace

      I previously thought the same, with Europe and Russia doing lots of trade e.g. Germany buying lots of gas from Russia, and many western companies being present in Russia. It seems obviously true.

      But Russia still started a war anyway, so I guess it's not actually true.

      1. utopiah · 1790693136 · focus · HN ↗

         I think it's true but only in equitable societies.

         Putin or Trump are totally isolated from economical and political consequences so they have no problem severing ties. If there are genuine co-dependencies, including for the leaders, they it's much harder to break peace.

         I imagine the ideological aspect is the deeper motivation but it only matters with the right circumstances.

         1. nirui · 1790702484 · focus · HN ↗

            This don't make things better through.

            Putin and Trump sits in the opposite side of the political spectrum, so as the country they lead, and yet they still managed to archive something similar.

            It's not that hard to manage the country to a point where nothing in the country, even law, can hurt it's leader anymore. Sometime a bit of time and patient is all it takes.

      2. ajsnigrutin · 1790693467 · focus · HN ↗

         I mean, we in europe did a a lot of trade with US too, and between other (then and still) EU countries, but the americans (and brits, and a few others) decided to attack Iraq for example ("Iraq has WMDs!"), and there were no sanctions and trade went on. And many other conflicts and bombings all around the world.

         So it's not actually caring about the war and dead people (if we did, we'd do something about what israel is doing in gaza), but "us vs them", and russia is "them" while US was traditionally "us", until daddy Trump came along.

         Someone probably told the EU politicians that russia will cave after a month or two of sanctions, there will be some kind of a "revolution" there, someone "pro EU" will be set there, and gas would be even cheaper.... A similar scenario was probably given to Trump for iran (just bomb the government, they'll cave, and you can set up a new pro-US leader there again).

      3. jacquesm · 1790696150 · focus · HN ↗

         You can never rule out irrational acts. Merkel was ignoring the writing on the wall for much too long, it was pretty obvious that russia was on the war path long before she was still happily inking contracts that financed russia's machinery. You can not get a country that is already waging irrational wars to change their way by trading with them. But I'm pretty sure that for instance Trump right now is restrained to some degree by the certain knowledge that the US economy is at the mercy of outsiders.

         1. someonebaggy · 1790696492 · focus · HN ↗

            None of that stopped Trump raising the gas price to $10, or ending the petrodollar, either. It seems to have been empirically demonstrated that economics cannot restrain powerful idiots.

            1. jacquesm · 1790702593 · focus · HN ↗

               We can only live in one world, but I can easily imagine a much worse alternative where there had been no restrictions at all. The question here is a matter of degree, it isn't an on-off switch.

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