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TitaniumDragon comments on Exterminating life is rational - Less Wrong
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Capital is also easier to capture than it is to create. Your argument looks like saying that it's better to avoid wars than to lose them. Well, yeah. But what about winning wars?
In which meaning are you using the word "never"? :-D
The problem is that asymmetric warfare, which is the best way to win a war, is the worst way to acquire capital. Cruise missiles and drones are excellent for winning without any risk at all, but they're not good for actually keeping the capital you are trying to take intact.
Spying, subversion, and purchasing are far cheaper, safer, and more effective means of capturing capital than violence.
As far as "never" goes - the last time any two "Western" countries were at war was World War II, which was more or less when the "West" came to be in the first place. It isn't the longest of time spans, but over time armed conflict in Europe has greatly diminished and been pushed further and further east.
The best way to win a war is to have an overwhelming advantage. That sort is situation is much better described by the word "lopsided". Asymmetric warfare is something different.
Example: Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Spying can capture technology, but technology is not the same thing as capital. Neither subversion nor purchasing are "means of capturing capital" at all. Subversion destroys capital and purchases are exchanges of assets.
That's an unusual idea of the West. It looks to me like it was custom-made to fit your thesis.
Can you provide a definition? One sufficiently precise to be able to allocate countries like Poland, Israel, Chile, British Virgin Islands, Estonia, etc. to either "West" or "not-West".