> Was any force ever able to get close to world domination? At one point in history the US had nuclear power and no one else had it. Was that edge enough?
I'd rebut that most current technologically and financially leading-edge civilizations have optimized for that, at the expense of world domination. Even China has indeed evolved into a more financially (rather than physically) optimized state.
The last time we had major superpowers devoted to total expansionist war was Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and neither of them possessed nuclear weapons (or ISTAR, chemical or biological weapons, space capabilities, logistics, or data networks in the modern sense).
If a modern superpower (which is to say, excluding the current Russian government) devoted itself to preparing for and then launching a war of global conquest, who's to say?
I think what does cut against the rebuttal and buttress the "there can never be physical world domination" is the sheer amount of space, relative to a potential aggressor.
There are no world-spanning empires anymore. Consequently, you would have to fight through opponents sequentially, meaning each one is better prepared than the last. And that sounds like futility.
What the Gwern timeline does accurately identify is that the key element is time.
Either everything is over quickly and before opposition begins to mobilize, or there can be no world domination.
I'd rebut that most current technologically and financially leading-edge civilizations have optimized for that, at the expense of world domination. Even China has indeed evolved into a more financially (rather than physically) optimized state.
The last time we had major superpowers devoted to total expansionist war was Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and neither of them possessed nuclear weapons (or ISTAR, chemical or biological weapons, space capabilities, logistics, or data networks in the modern sense).
If a modern superpower (which is to say, excluding the current Russian government) devoted itself to preparing for and then launching a war of global conquest, who's to say?
I think what does cut against the rebuttal and buttress the "there can never be physical world domination" is the sheer amount of space, relative to a potential aggressor.
There are no world-spanning empires anymore. Consequently, you would have to fight through opponents sequentially, meaning each one is better prepared than the last. And that sounds like futility.
What the Gwern timeline does accurately identify is that the key element is time.
Either everything is over quickly and before opposition begins to mobilize, or there can be no world domination.