Reading | Professor Harvard: When will the next war erupt?

Author:Zhanlu CHEERS Time:2022.09.22

Picture source: United Nations, 2022 International Peaceful Day Image Information

International Day of Peace

Peace is noble and necessary pursuit, and it is also the only realistic way to establish a better and fair world for everyone.

Today is the "International Peace Day" established by the United Nations General Assembly. The theme of 2022 is to end racial discrimination and create peace together.

How can we correct wars and peace in "long -term peace"? Is war champion a historical law?

To achieve real peace not only requires lowering weapons, but also to build a society that allows everyone to flourish, and build a world of compassion and sympathy than skepticism and hatred.

We all wish the world peace, but looking at most of the periods of human history, war has always been the most favored pastime in governments.

Picture source: movie "Persian class"

Peace seems to be only from the end of a war to the beginning of the war.

Stephen Pinke pointed out in the book: The duration of the war launched by the great powers became shorter and shorter, and the frequency of launch was getting lower and lower. However, as the troops in these countries are becoming more and more excellent, troops are more and more well -equipped, and armed equipment is becoming more and more advanced, and the actual war casualties have become worse.

In Pin Ke, today's world -class warfare has become shorter but more destructive.

After the smoke of the Second World War, the three indicators of the war, the frequency, duration, and destructive power in order, and the world entered the historical stage of "long -term peace".

Stephen Pinke

The head of the Massachusetts Institute of Cognitive Neurology, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and the world's 100 most influential figures in the world, twice by the "Foreign Policy" magazine as the world's top thinker.

It is true that after the end of World War II, we have experienced rare peace in the history of civilization.

Some scholars pointed out: As a Chinese, we not only experienced a long -lasting peaceful period, we also experienced an economic rise. One of the rare rises and development in the history of Chinese civilization in the history of Chinese civilization is also rare. Peaceful and rich age. In such a wealthy age, with the occurrence of a technological revolution, it has formed a new lifestyle that we have become accustomed to and do not think at all.

However, the statement of "long -term peace" has been challenged. For example, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, North Korea and South Korea. Fortunately, each of the conflict between the conflict can eventually take a step back to the sea and the sky, instead of upgrading the conflict to a comprehensive war.

Of course, this does not mean that it is completely impossible to rise from regional conflicts to comprehensive wars. Wars are regarded as an extreme means. Each country (almost) is avoiding this card at the expense. For example, we are experiencing and witnessed the "Russia and Ukraine War".

Ping Ke also reminded us: Many thinkers in the enlightenment era respect "mild business", and they believe that the sweetness of international trade will make the bitter wars suffocate. Quantitative analysis also confirms that under the same conditions, the possibility of war between countries with frequent trade between trade is relatively small.

In fact, war may be like a plague, famine and poverty in front of us, but it is another obstacle that we must overcome by the species that we have affected by enlightenment.

Picture source: movie "Castina and Little Tuesday"

Although the short -term interests brought by the war of aggression are very attractive, a better strategy is to avoid initiating a destructive conflict or causing unnecessary sacrifice. After all, if you become a threat in the eyes of others, it is equivalent to giving it for it It is a good reason for others to make people first.

In the long run, a world that avoids the mobilization of war is a better world for everyone. Emerging things such as international trade, democratic systems, economic development, peacekeeping forces, and international laws and norms are all effective forces to build such a world.

Many people will say: the world's trend, the long time must be divided. Especially in the current situation, we will inevitably worry: it has been more than half a century since the end of World War II. It has been a long time in the world. Is there a third World War?

The decrease in national war is always an important sign of the progress of human society. We need some timely answers, such as: What are the rules of time distribution in the outbreak of war?

Combined with Stephen Pinke's discussion, in the intensive reading class of "Good Angels in Humanity", Professor Xu Yingjin gave the following thinking:

When will the next war erupt?

Stephen Pin Ke proposed a core technical keyword in the book -Pusong process.

Mechanic, physicist and mathematician S.D. Poson (1781 ~ 1840)

Bo Song's full name is Simon Dennis Bo Song, a 19th -century mathematician and physicist, and has also achieved it statistically. Do you think we are not discussing violence before? Why did you get statistics again? Why do you get to Posong? Let me talk, why do we involve statistics in such a large context.

Let's think about it, what is the general way of thinking about our discussions about war?

According to Prussia's military scientist Clausetz, war is a political continuity. So why you happen to every war, and you will find the basis for its political roots and economic roots. So why does war happen and why? It seems that everyone can give some inevitable claims. This is also because the war is too big, so many people will die if you say that the occurrence of war is a thing without any reason, and you will feel that this seems to be the dead Dissatisfied, and people who have lived in the war fluke are also disrespectful, so you have to say a reason for your life.

This is probably an interpretation solution that everyone is easy to accept when they receive these macro historical education. According to historical inevitable terms, the occurrence of many major events has an inevitable historical law. Although it can also work by chance, its role is relatively secondary.

However, the law of Poson or Poson's process tells us that it is not the truth.

Picture source: movie "Jin Orange"

So what is the process of Poison? Can you tell it clearly without using a math language? I can make it clear in a word without a mathematical language:

We can divide the events of the world into two categories. One is random, and the other is artificially manipulated.

If you want to go to the casino to vote for the dice, if the game itself is fair, you throw a dice out. In this process, which side of the dice is up, this is a random process. However, if someone cheats the old thousands of thousands of thousands, or make some hands and feet in the material of the dice, the quality of this side is a little heavier than the other side, then one of its results can be predicted.

Therefore, the world of the world is nothing more than two types. One is the reason that cannot be talked about, that is, random, and the other is the reason why it is controlled, or there are some deeper reasons in front.

According to the point of Poison's process, that is to say, the previous type of event is a random event. Its final distribution state will reflect the so -called cluster phenomenon. What is the phenomenon of clusters? Just make together. The following types of incidents will reflect the so -called uniform distribution of this phenomenon, which is to separate each other.

What does this mean? Let me give you a few more examples, very intuitive, everyone can understand.

This example is an example of Pinke quoting biologists Gurdju. Biologist Gurd ran to the cave, and then saw a lot of fireflies. Fireflies were screaming in the sky, like stars. He was curious and took a picture of the fireflies.

Up: Fireflies schematic diagram

Below: Starry Sky Significance

You need to know, shooting the fireflies in a black background, it looks like a star in heaven, and then he took a picture of the stars outside the cave, and then he made these two photos for the two photos. A comparison.

Then there are many clusters of this picture about the stars. What is a cluster? Many highlights are together, and some places are very blank. There are no bright spots. This is a cluster. However, the image of fireflies reflects the distance between each highlights is relatively uniform.

The question comes: the arrangement between the highlights of the fireflies and the highlights between the stars in the sky, which one is random, and which one has some intentional designs in it?

According to our general common sense, we will feel that fireflies are designed to be designed to a considerable extent. Of course, this designer may be the group of fireflies itself, and the arrangement of the stars in the sky is random.

But it is very strange that although the separation between the spacing between fireflies can be said to be the product of the design, from intuitive, we also feel faintly feel that the cluster seems to be a manifestation of some law. This is a tension or contradiction between our human intuitive feelings and the prediction of the so -called Poson process.

The Posong process tells us that there is randomness in clustering, but we can feel the regularity in the clustering place. Is it not regular in some places?

It is precisely because our human beings' intuitive feelings about the statistical process are different from the scientific interpretation of statistical scholars, so many talents in gambling will be unlucky.

Picture source: movie "Old Nothing"

What do you think of this with gambling? Because gambling also has a random distribution problem. For example, you come to gambling with the simplest way to gamble, that is, throwing the coins six times in a row, all of them facing up, and then you have not thrown it for the seventh time. At this time, you have not thrown it. At this time Guess, did you recognize at this time, is it positive or back on your back? I believe many people will feel that they have been thrown up six times at this time, and they should always be facing the back, because this is randomly thrown.

However, from the perspective of Poison's process, you have no reasons to show that the probability of the seventh negative facing must be high, and there is no reason. It is possible that the seventh time is still upward, why? Because if the distribution of this specific situation reflects the so -called cluster effect, this is completely in line with the law of statistics. On the contrary, if you really have someone to throw it out: the first time, the second back, the third positive, the fourth time is the opposite ... if you can throw such a regular result, we can doubt the throwing throw There may be cheating in the process. After hearing this, maybe you feel a little strange, what does this have to do with the war?

Photo source: movie "Dunkirk"

Because from a macro perspective, the distribution of military conflicts also reflects a certain process of Pine pine.

So what does this mean? This means that there are three or four or five or six conflicts, which means that there must be peace in the future? Not necessarily, it may be war or war.

Or after a long peace, do you have to break out a war to break this law? This may not be, it is possible that peace will continue.

In the end, you will see that the distribution between war and peace reflects some cluster effects -a certain period of war between a certain period of time, and the number of peace in a certain period of time.

This is a manifestation of statistical laws, and does not mean that there must be some deep historical inevitability behind it.

Hearing this, we seem to sound a little scared. This means that if we are in a long -term peace, there is no fundamental explanation. If we are in a war environment, there is no one of this. The fundamental explanation seems to have only a statistical mechanism behind it.

What does this mean? This means that war and peace seem to be the front and opposite side of the coins played by God -God threw the coin up, war or peace, and then randomly determined whether we were in war or peace.

Picture source: movie "Boys with striped pajamas"

If so, isn't human life be in a huge state of uneasy state?

But according to the experience of reading Pinke's book, I think Pinke wants to say this: If you use a closer look to observe why a military conflict happens, then you can study the military conflict Causes.

But if you want to discuss a very grand issue, that is, there are so many military conflicts of human beings, the so -called historical laws arising from tens of thousands of war, you finally discover is not the historical law, but a statistical statistical law.

The above content comprehensively sorted out the intensive reading class of "Enlightenment Now", "Good Angels in Humanity"

The western ideological world has entered a large turning point. The advancement of technology is on the one hand that is disintegrated by our relatively familiar order, and on the one hand, it is providing a biological basis for many ethical concepts since the classical philosophy. How to understand and respond to such an era? A new enlightenment is likely to be necessary.

As one of the most influential thinkers in the West, Stephen Pinke's "Enlightenment Now" gives a kind of thinking that is worthy of attention. We must not only read this book, but we can also argue with the author. In this process of reading, participating in the reconstruction of this global cognitive framework, this is the real current enlightenment.