Two sides agree that war is a negative sum game and instead decide to use a seemingly more peaceful contest as the dispute resolution method of last resort. Let's say, chess (maybe Armenia versus Azerbaijan).
However, both sides realize the tremendous importance of discovering and training strong chess players: territories and resources may be won or lost, forced migrations, tributes, tariffs, all the typical spoils and outcomes of war. Therefore, they rationally completely reorient their educational systems and economies around chess instead of military spending.
The critical question is, is this better than the old system of war? Or is the economic disruption ultimately the same?
Chess per se is probably not a great idea given the many potential ways to cheat using computers, especially with so much on the line. Cyborgs will probably happen.
1 comment :
It might arguably end up being a similar waste of economic resources which could be spent more usefully (general education, health care, ecology, etc), but a significant obvious difference is that at least there would not be thousands of injured and killed people and destroyed buildings, infrastructure, etc after a chess match, as opposed to after a war.
So it seems like an obvious improvement, clearly better than the old system of war!
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