Reviews for Preventing Genocide: Practical Steps toward Early Detection and Effective Action

The average rating for Preventing Genocide: Practical Steps toward Early Detection and Effective Action based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-05-18 00:00:00 Charles Ernest Younger is a nuclear scientist who was in charge of USA nuclear weapons research and director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. It is his contention that the speed at which challenges face humanity has become too fast for humans to handle. Combine this with the availability of WMD to lower and lower levels of potentially hostile entities and you have a recipe for sure disaster. Although he has many valid points. I do not believe that he offered much data to back up his claim that humans lack the ability to respond fast enough, relying, as he does, on anecdotal information and common sense oriented analysis. Yes, the world has sped up. So what? He also shows rather surprising naiveté for someone so up there in government. For instance, he holds up western democracy as the best of all possible forms of government, in terms of avoiding large scale conflict, yet fails to perceive some contemporary threats. And wasn't Hitler elected? P 45 One of the problems with previous implementations of democracy was that, once in power, the government could change the laws to suit its own purposes. The American system avoids this temptation by separating the making of laws from their implementation. [I guess he has not been paying much attention to the bush administration's success tin making the Republican Congress abandon its oversight role/.] P 118 Culture is more than desirable; it is essential in helping us satisfy our strong need for companionship. In the early twentieth century, British doctors worried about orphaned infants being exposed to unnecessary germs and thought that minimizing their contact with caregivers would reduce the incidence of illness. But exactly the opposite happened: mortality rates of almost 100 percent occurred among babied deprived of human contact…companionship is more than a want; it is a need as critical to human beings as food and water, a need that must be met to maintain sanity and life itself. P 122 Many people have heard at least parts of President John Kennedy's 1961 speech where he announced his intention "to send a man to the Moon and return him safely to the Earth." Fewer people know why President Kennedy chose to spend so much of the nation's treasure on what was, despite the many scientific and technological spinoffs of the space program, essentially a stunt. In the late 1950s American leaders were concerned that, contrary to all expectations, Soviet communism seemed to be working very well. Lenin's dream of world socialism might actually happen. The Soviets were training legions of talented scientists and engineers, a fact shockingly demonstrated by their launch of the first artificial satellite, while American students majored in liberal arts and business, thinking of scientists (and most other intellectuals) as "eggheads." Kennedy knew that he needed to change American opinion about science and he needed to do it fast. And he knew that success required more than the invention of another government program, putting more money into science education, or giving bigger contracts to defense contractors'he had to get the whole population behind an idea that would make people want to learn about science…Science and engineering went from un-cool to cool, the place for bright kids to be. So when people ask whether the Apollo program was worth the cost, we can answer that it was a bargain: never before has such far-reaching social change been accomplished so quickly for so small an investment P 140 - a very interesting item re tolerance Several years ago, I had the idea to combine my interests in modeling and philosophy by using computers to simulate human society, especially the effect of different ethical systems on social performance. I wanted to simulate more than just what people do but why they do it. Are there fundamental reasons why we act the way that we do and why our social organizations are the way that we find them? Are some ethical systems better than others at reducing violence?...[in his model] what would happen…if all the participants shared altruistically with one another, or, conversely, what would happen if everyone was a thief…My simulations showed the expected result that sharing was an effective way of distributing scarce resources in a group, insuring that everyone got enough to survive and hence enable them to mate and produce the next generation. However, I found that stealing was equally effective at distributing resources. …What happens when, in the interest of social harmony, you forgive occasional transgressions rather than retaliating in an eye-for-an-eye manner? WE normally think of tolerance as a virtue, but how much forgiveness is a good thing before the bad guys begin to win? Hundreds of simulations told me that my model society could only survive with either very little tolerance or very high tolerance; in between there was a high probability that the society would collapse. Digging into the details, I found that people in intolerant societies quickly corrected bad behavior among their peers, with the result that everyone shared and treated one another equitably. Conversely, at very high tolerance levels, there were no consequences to stealing and everyone could get away with everything. The result was a population of thieves. The problem at intermediate values of tolerance was that sharers were so abused by thieves that, over time, they died out. That let a population of thieves, who, unfortunately, couldn't tolerate one another enough to mate and reproduce. The result was population extinction. P 145 The breakthrough idea in the Treaty of Westphalia [1648] was the concept of national sovereignty, something that we take for granted today but which was relatively novel at the time. Each nation-state was to be considered sovereign and equal on the international stage; what that nation did within its own borders was its own concern, not to be interfered with by others. It was wrong for one country to attack a sovereign state without some outstanding reason, usually one related to its own self defense. P 150 President Bush's belief in the power of democracy was based on a widely accepted bloc of political theory, namely, that the main cause of international violence is failures in the internal governance of nations rather than the lack of world governance. Dictators, so the argument goes, are greedy and prone to attack their neighbors, while democracies are slower to go to war since the leader typically has to first secure the approval of the legislature, and, ultimately, must explain his or her actions to the people…democracy reduces the probability of violence between nation-states and the probability of violence within a country. [Younger appears to be more than a bit a Bushie here. He goes on to make excuses for him going to war in Iraq] P 159 Globalization is certainly a trend n the right direction, but to rely on it to reduce the occurrences of mass violence is little more than hoping that "things will somehow turn out all right." P 178 The greatest long-term benefit from [foreign] aid occurs from tackling the fundamental causes of problems rather than their symptoms, by thinking ahead to prevent a catastrophe before it occurs. Considered this way, aid is more than an altruistic handout to people who should be able to take care of themselves'it is a hard-nosed investment to prevent problems from occurring in the future, problems that may directly affect the United States. P 208 [He actually claims that until 9/11 we did not know] that the enemy existed until they struck, by which time it was too late. [It is clear that this guy needs to do a lot of reading to catch up. The USA was aware of Al Qaeda for years prior. He conveniently ignores the African embassy bombings, the Cole, the Saudi bombings. Yes we knew. That was how some people could react to the event instantaneously with recognition of the perpetrators. Sheesh!] p 217 when people feel that the deck is stacked against them and that nothing that they can do within the system is likely to improve their lot, then the attraction of violent groups becomes much greater.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-01-24 00:00:00 Art Derouin A very good book. The ideas Younger presents are very well thought out and interesting. Though I don't share his confidence in humans as he does. I don't think we are capable of ever living in peace. Our very nature has been destruction from our introduction into this world. Though I give him an A for his effort in presenting valid ideas.