[mediocregopher]

War is a symptom of various causes, like over-population, changing geographical conditions, and just plain old greed. It is not a root cause. If humans had no bloodthirst we would still wage war, so long as we had a will to survive (something which would be difficult to take out of a lifeform).

The actual article only asserts that military innovation is a predictor for social complexity, which is pretty different from saying that "war makes society complex".

> “Nobody likes this ugly idea because obviously warfare is a horrible thing, and we don’t like to think it can have any positive effects.”

The implicit assumption being that a more complex society _is_ a good thing, which is not clear to me.

[ramraj07]

It may not be universally clear but to most people it clearly is a good thing to be in a more complex society. im definitely happy to not be sitting in a hut in a jungle with no other option.

[pbhjpbhj]

It's possible to cooperate to survive, it seems much harder (more complex!), but I don't agree that it's impossible. Much easier, I'm sure.

We'd need to forgo some autonomy to achieve it IMO, for example: we'd need to get a handle on population rises; we'd need to limit resource usage using some mechanism other than financial affordability; and lots else.