Jay writes:
>Even if your statement of my premise were correct, it still would not be
sufficient.
>All that is required is for another Saddam Hussein...
>...and poof, we've got war again. Soldiers may be averse to killing people,
but they do it
>anyway as long as someone with the authority to do so tells them to.
>This is why it takes unanimous consent.

Okay.  So a reluctant group can be set on another group by manipulative
individuals who do not share scruples in common with the rest of us.  But
when you state "Peace is fundamentally impossible, because it requires the
unanimous consent of the entire human population" are you sure that you
should be so demanding?

If everyone on the planet but two teenagers in Beijing opt for peace, and
these teenagers have a fight, then would it be fair to say that the world is
not at peace? This example would inhabit one end of a spectrum with everyone
at each others throats at the other end.  Peace does not require "unanimous
consent", only that enough people deem that war is failure and not a viable
solution.  You're right, of course, all it takes is another <insert
dictators name here> but I suggest that if the prevailing moral climate is
one in which war has no place other than as an historic artefact, then the
"blips" that these people introduce in the timeline of peace will only be
temporary aberrations.  If my interpretation is right that people have to be
actively manipulated to act aggressively towards one another, then in this
light it looks easier to achieve peace than it does war, since our natural
inclinations are for one rather than the other.

Richard



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