Max Tegmark

It's a matter of pride.

We've staked so much on it that it would be seen as a huge loss of the credibility of the West if we don't drive Russia out entirely of the Ukraine.

And on the other hand, you have Russia who has, and you have the Russian leadership who knows that if they get completely driven out of Ukraine, you know, it might, it's not just gonna be very humiliating for them, but they might, it often happens when countries lose wars that things don't go so well for their leadership either.

Like, you remember when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands?

The military junta that ordered that, right?

People were cheering on the streets at first when they took it.

And then when they got their butt kicked by the British, you know what happened to those guys?

They were out.

And I believe those who are still alive are in jail now, right?

So, you know, the Russian leadership is entirely cornered where they know that just...

getting driven out of Ukraine is not an option.

So this to me is a typical example of Moloch.

You have these incentives of the two parties where both of them are just driven to escalate more and more, right?

If Russia starts losing in the conventional warfare,

The only thing they can do against the war is to keep escalating.

And the West has put itself in the situation now where we've sort of already committed to drive Russia out.

So the only option the West has is to call Russia's bluff and keep sending in more weapons.

This really bothers me because Moloch can sometimes drive competing parties to do something which is ultimately just really bad for both of them.

And what makes me even more worried is not just that it's difficult to see an ending, a quick, peaceful ending to this tragedy that doesn't involve some horrible escalation, but also that we understand more clearly now just how horrible it would be.

There was an amazing paper that was published in Nature Food this August,