A lot of the things that worked at a local level had parallels in what worked at an international level, and they could learn a lot from one another. The Government has systematically cut off the heads of every organization for 20 years as a deliberate strategy to weaken them. That hasn't happened in meda where you have much organized gangs who organize their own version of te uan security. And so there'se some parallels there to what groups and nations do. But, but, i think im going to give us some peses of o, smaller conflicts. Just start small with like local gangs in chicago or meda. Yeand that's te kind of how i came to writing this
Shermer and Blattman discuss: Putin, Russia, and Ukraine • game theory and violent conflict • 5 Reasons for conflict and war • common elements of conflict in Medellin, Chicago, Sudan, Somalia, etc. • U.S. foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and elsewhere, and its consequences • human nature and conflict: are we wired to fight or do environments push us into conflicts? • cooperation vs. competition / selfish genes vs. collection action problems • inner demons and better angels • violence and wars in our paleolithic ancestors • why violence has declined over the centuries • Chicago as a test case for theories of conflict and peace • why gangs, groups, and even nations mostly avoid conflict and war because of its consequences • and whether international aid and economic development attenuate violence.
Dr. Christopher Blattman is the Ramalee E. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies (University of Chicago), where he coleads the Development Economics Center and directs the Obama Foundation Scholars program. His work on violence, crime, and poverty has been widely covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, Slate, Vox, and NPR.