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ewbrownv comments on Fight Zero-Sum Bias - Less Wrong
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Even in that case, the war as a whole is a negative sum. The sum of resources after a war is less than the sum of resources before a war. Net resources have been lost due to consumption in the war.
If you discount the value of resources owned by your opponent in war to zero (while your opponent owns them), but not when you own them after the war you can come up with something positive, but I see that as an accounting gimmick.
Then you're missing the point. Historically, the kind of people who start wars of conquest tend to hold philosophies that value only their own in-group and its associated resources. When you don't value the happiness or prosperity of your victims it's quite easy to "win" a war. You just have to make sure the cost isn't so astronomical that it wipes out the benifits your in-group can reap by exploiting your victims over the next few generations.