Humanity's greatest political achievement has been the decline of war.

[TomWilm]

Gunpowder has become less lethal than sugar
By Yuval Noah Harari

At the heart of the Ukraine crisis lies a fundamental question about the nature of history and the nature of humanity: is change possible? ... In the past few generations, however, for the first time in history the world became dominated by elites who see war as both evil and avoidable. ...

As a result of all these changes, most governments stopped seeing wars of aggression as an acceptable tool to advance their interests, and most nations stopped fantasising about conquering and annexing their neighbours. It is simply not true that military force alone prevents Brazil from conquering Uruguay or prevents Spain from invading Morocco. ...

The decline of war is evident in numerous statistics. Since 1945, it has become relatively rare for international borders to be redrawn by foreign invasion. ... The decline of war didn’t result from a divine miracle or from a change in the laws of nature. It resulted from humans making better choices. It is arguably the greatest political and moral achievement of modern civilisation. ...

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/02/09/yuval-noah-harari-argues-that-whats-at-stake-in-ukraine-is-the-direction-of-human-history

[elleng]

1. 'At the heart of the Ukraine crisis lies a fundamental question

about the nature of history and the nature of humanity: is change possible?'

Really?

[msongs]

2. must be the onion nt

[brush]

3. It's the 21st century and Putin remains a mid-20th century ex-KGB agent...

who thinks he's the reincarnation of Peter the Great, destined to reconstitute the Russian Empire.

[TomWilm]

4. I am still waiting for somebody to actually read this article ...

... When taking all types of conflict into account, in the first two decades of the 21st century human violence has killed fewer people than suicide, car accidents or obesity-related diseases. ... This is why the Russian threat to invade Ukraine should concern every person on Earth. If it again becomes normative for powerful countries to wolf down their weaker neighbours, it would affect the way people all over the world feel and behave. ...

If you believe that historic change is impossible, and that humanity never left the jungle and never will, the only choice left is whether to play the part of predator or prey. Given such a choice, most leaders would prefer to go down in history as alpha predators ... He will go down in history as the man who ruined our greatest achievement. Just when we thought we were out of the jungle, he pulled us back in.