"WHY WARS DON’T STOP Then who can end a war? The leaders of embattled nations? They aren’t bleeding, except by proxy. It’s only their own imaginations that make war different from a complex chess game. The citizens at home? They are usually assured that they are winning, or that the enemy are inhuman monsters, or that to lose would be annihilation, or all of the above. Aside from all this, surrender is dishonorable. This is only partly an ethical judgment. It feels dishonorable. Nobody fakes a surrender reflex without cost. Surrender is losing a fight, and we aren’t wired to take that lightly. All of evolution is against losing casually, for trout as well as men. Wars continue because there is nobody who can end them. WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT You can’t do anything about it."
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Activists from the United StatesScience fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesAnti-war activistsAgnostics from the United States
Original Language: English
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Sources
Why Men Fight Wars (pp. 564-565)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Larry_Niven
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Larry Niven
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