The butter side up/down does make war seem absurd. And a lot of war has happened over things that seem that absurd to me.<p>But war also happens over important things. The USSR really did have a different political and economic system. Was it really a threat to the U.S. or its allies? Maybe not. But the issue at hand was not a trivial one.<p>And I'll point out that the U.S. Constitution is still a radical document even among Western countries. Rights to speech and peaceful assembly, and the right to due process of law are not universal. Even some aspects of Canada's handling of the trucker protest would probably have been unconstitutional in the US.
Dr. Seuss authored political cartoons during WW2 so this is perhaps less out of character than one might think at first glance.<p>Dr. Seuss is a pen name. His real last name is Geisel. My recollection is he needed a pen name either to break some rule or because he had broken some rule in college.<p>He lived in San Diego County for at least part of his life. It is an area with an unusual biome. Some of trees have pink bark and/or other unusual features. If you've spent time there, his drawings look less whimsical and creative and more like he just drew the world around him and his world didn't look the world I grew up in in Columbus, Georgia.<p>The Geisel Library at the university there is named after him. On the grounds is statuary showing The Cat in the Hat as part of a tribute him.<p>He wrote for children but never had children of his own. He had an affair while his first wife was battling cancer. His first wife ultimately killed herself and he married the other woman.<p>It's perhaps a little late for the world to be reading children's books and wondering how to stop the current mess, though the works of Dr. Seuss are typically a good read and he lived an interesting life from what I gather.
>> [Defensive escalation] is common in nations where people are not taught the art of systems thinking.<p>I see that as the moral of the article. Sometimes feedback loops can make a joint system unstable even though they appear to ostensibly be stabilizing locally. When observed over longer time periods, negative feedback drives the system off the rails.<p>Perhaps resisting the impulse to react, or reacting minimally would seem like a general policy to consider (damping).
"The moral of this story is crystal clear: Our real-life systems of nationalism, militarization, and escalation are comically absurd and potentially lethal — it’s up to the youth to change the systems before it’s too late."<p>As comically absurd as it might be, how should the youth change the systems to do something about it? I hope the youth don't find it comical for Ukraine to defend itself. This morning, having armaments for defense feels less absurd than it did last week.
About that... <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60542877" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60542877</a><p>On a positive note, I guess those doomsday clock guys can finally have their 12:00 lunch.
The next political platform dujour will entail calling the other sides' nuclear bluff. I can see the slogan now: "Let's get it over with!"
"the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything"<p>This is a strange message, given the rest of the article. It could be interpreted to mean we need to make weapons to stop evil people around the world. But I guess the auther wants us to think all people who participate in war (defensive or offensive) are evil and must be stopped.<p>EDIT: I sincerely don't follow the author's point with that quotation. Can someone elaborate?