You could say that it waged a silent war, and our kids' attention spans lost.

Very likely they got the causality backwards. Every time there’s a big war, technology advances because governments pour resources into it.

There were no massive devastative wars back then simply because people who went through WW2 were still alive and kept political power.

Hard times create strong men.

Strong men create good times.

Good times create weak men.

Weak men create hard times.

Some people say ww3 had already started.

Germany also went through hell in WW1. Hitler himself fought and was wounded. But still he was not a pacifistic politician.

The internet and mobile phones weren't paradigm shifts for warfare. There were already mobile radios in WWII, so they fall under the 'industrialized manufacturing of electronics' bucket.

You might look at what Ukraine is doing with mobile phones, satellite internet, and now Ai

Drones change everything we think we know about warfare, except for adage that logistics is what wins wars (post industrialization)

Just for the sake of argument, I don't think the internet and mobile phones are military technologies, nor to GP use those examples.

> Industrialized manufacturing of electronics?

Ukraine seems to be exploring this and rewriting military doctrine. The Iranian drones the Russians are using seem to be effective, too. The US has drones, too, and we've discovered that drone bombing is not helpful with insurgencies; we haven't been in any actual wars for a while, though.

> Industrialized manufacturing of intelligence

I don't think we've gotten far enough to discover how/if this is effective. If GP means AI, then we have no idea. If GP means fake news via social media, then we may already be seeing the beginning effects. Both Obama and Trump had a lot of their support from the social media.

Having written this, I think I flatly disagree with GP that technology causes wars because of its power. I think it may enable some wars because of its power differential, but I think a lot is discovered through war. WWI discovered the limitations of industrial warfare, also of chemical weapons. Ukraine is showing what constellations of mini drones (as opposed to the US' solitary maxi-drones) can do, simply because they are outnumbered and forced to get creative.

how do you not think the internet is a military technology? i mean (waves hands) like it's from ARPA, the military paid for it, it integrated cold war air defence, it made global comms resilient to attack, and made information non-local on a massive scale

GP's assertion about tech revolutions making wars doesn't make any sense to me on any level, but it's not just because the latest revolutions were 'not military tech'

i'm liking william spaniel's model : wars happen when 1 - there is a substantial disagreement between parties and 2 - there is a bargaining friction that prevents reaching a less-costly negotiated resolution.

I don't see how a technical revolution necessarily causes either, much less both, of those conditions. there sure is a lot of fear and hype going around - and that causes confusion and maybe poor decisions - but we should chill on the apocalyptics

I think a peer comment said it best, the commenter has causality backwards

It seems you may be extending this

If you don't think internet is a vital tech on the front line drone war, I would invite you to watch Perun's recent video on Starlink

Yeah this was my thought as well

Yugoslav civil war and Bosnian genocide. Rwandan civil war and Tutsi genocide. US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Syrian civil war and Yazidi genocide. Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ongoing genocide in Palestine suddenly becoming more intense in Gaza.

Future generations will call this ongoing conflict starting in the 90s the Eugenics Wars.