Isn't the idea that war is completely bad relatively new? Ancient people had gods of war, although how exactly they were regarded I'm not sure, but it seems to me there was a more balanced view of life and death, and the cycle of a society. So war was viewed as inevitable, especially since the world was so unknown and mysterious.
> competition is what drives societies to become more complex, building more hierarchical armies to fight ever-more-complex wars and organizing increasingly bureaucratic governments to manage diverse resources and growing populations.
This reminds me how the competition between the different species of humans millions of years ago engaged in a cognitive race, making more complex tools and language. The bigger brain homo-sapiens won the war it seems, but we then had to deal with our internal competition. Maybe war is some kind of continuation of the cognitive race.
> competition is what drives societies to become more complex, building more hierarchical armies to fight ever-more-complex wars and organizing increasingly bureaucratic governments to manage diverse resources and growing populations.
This reminds me how the competition between the different species of humans millions of years ago engaged in a cognitive race, making more complex tools and language. The bigger brain homo-sapiens won the war it seems, but we then had to deal with our internal competition. Maybe war is some kind of continuation of the cognitive race.