From: pksuk@mothra.syr.EDU (Peter K. Suk)
Subject: Space Warfare Pointless! (Was: Re: Space Warfare Pointless?)
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.science
Summary: Humanity w/o birth control is a bad idea.
Keywords: space combat prisoner's dilemma
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 14:03:19 EST

Here goes.  Asbestos underwear?  Check.

In article <1055@dgaust.dg.oz> young@wattle.dg.oz (Philip Young) writes:
>In article <1992Nov14.124756.23296@newstand.syr.edu>, 
>pksuk@mothra.syr.EDU (Peter K. Suk) writes:
>|> ----- treitel@gracie.IntelliCorp.COM (Richard Treitel) writes:
>|> 
>[...]
>||> population control is generally cheaper than warfare.]
>|> 
>|> Any takers?
>|> 
>|> 	--Peter Kwangjun Suk
>
>But it's a whole lot harder to implement - ask the Indians and Chinese  8^}
>

One could imagine humanity going out to the stars in all of its diversity of
beliefs and cultures.  Some of these would not practice population control --
Garret Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons" -- and conflicts would arise between
factions.  This would result in pockets of intra-species warfare infecting
human-controlled space.  Humanspace, then would be a bubble of chaos and
destruction in cubic expansion.  The energies released by a starfaring
civilization in warfare would be truly horrific.  Innocent bystander species
are bound to get hurt.

Therefore, any previously established species rational enough to practice
birth-control would then see humanity as a kind of cosmic cancer.  If such
a race possesed technology more advanced than ours, but not so sufficiently
advanced as to be invulnerable to our warmaking, they'd have no choices but:

	1) live with the occasional mass slaughter of their folks
	2) flee
	3) wipe the floor with our faces
	4) warn us to be good, wait a bit, grow impatient, then 
		excercise options 1-4

Clearly, the most convenient option is 3. *

In fact, one could imagine a "federation" of intelligent races which
monitors upcoming species, much like the galactic civilization in 
David Brin's "Earthclan" stories.  If a species -- by the time it has
begun space exploration -- does not practice birth-control, then
they have got to be wiped out before too many of them get off-planet
to track down.  

It seems that we get a result from interacting starfaring species much
like Axelrod's prisoner's dilemma tournaments. **  Groups of cooperating
species will mutually strengthen each other and eventually crush all
of the 'non-nice' or 'defecting' species.  Of course, 'defection' in
this context means outright aggression, uncontrolled expansion, or a
total disregard for environmental issues (of which, expansion is just
a sub-issue.)

If we accept all of the above, then we are led to some really uncomfortable
conclusions.  (I'll leave that to any sordid imaginations out there.)  I am
NOT advocating any of these conclusions, except: Warfare with starfaring
technology is pointless, and that we need effective population control.

	--Peter Kwangjun Suk

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(As told to me by my father: "We, being the best school in Seoul, had all
of the smartest kids -- not the toughest ones.  So we were always getting 
kicked in the butt.  There was this one teacher that we had who was really
cool, sort of like Mr. Chips, and we decided to ask HIM what to do.  He
said, 'Well, according to the Chinese there are 36 methods known to man for
self-defense.  I recommend #36.  Run like hell.'")
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(* - A 'Macro-life' civilization could conceivably take what is basically
option 2, and _never_ have to fight a war.  Such a civilization could
practice the ultimate in enlightened pacifism.  Also, such a civilization --
if ever it _did_ decide to fight a war, would automatically win a conflict
with a non-macro-life civ.  Any takers?

For those of you not familiar with Niven's terminology, a Macro-life is
a civilzation that has abandoned planets and permanent worlds for 
artificial ones that they can move.  He discusses this in "Larger Than
Worlds" from his _A Hole In Space_ anthology.)


(** - For any of you not familiar with Axelrod's tournament, the winner was
always TIT-FOR-TAT, or a variant.  TIT-FOR-TAT was simply:

	1) Start out cooperating.
	2) From then on, do what was just done to you.	

'Non-nice' programs rarely ever got in the top 10.
A good discussion of this is in _Metamagical Themas_ by Douglas Hofstadter.)


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