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So it would be in Canada’s best interests not to agree to settle wars by oracular prediction.
#Black oracles granted strategic war plans free#
America might just ask “Hey, oracle, what would happen if we invaded Canada and tried to capture Toronto?” The oracle might answer “Well, after 20,000 deaths on both sides and hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, you would eventually capture Toronto.” Then the Americans could tell Canada, “You heard the oracle! Give us Toronto!” – which would be free and easy – when maybe they would never be able to muster the political and economic will to actually launch the invasion.
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If there were a tradition of countries settling wars by appeal to oracle, “invasions” would become much easier. One factor that prevents wars is countries being unwilling to pay the cost even of wars they know they’ll win. If both Mexico and America had access to an oracle who could promise them that the war would end with Mexico ceding the Southwest to the US, could Mexico just agree to cede the Southwest to the US at the beginning, and save both sides tens of thousands of deaths and tens of millions of dollars? What about when the aggressor wins? For example, the Mexican-American War, where the United States won the entire Southwest at a cost of “only” ten thousand American casualties and $100 million (with an additional 20,000 Mexican deaths and $50 million in costs to Mexico)? If an oracle told the US that the Vietnam War would cost 50,000 lives and a few hundred billion dollars, and the communists would conquer Vietnam anyway, the US probably would have said no thank you. When the oracle predicts the aggressor loses, it might prevent wars from breaking out. What if oracles gave clear and accurate answers to this sort of question? What if anyone could ask an oracle the outcome of any war, or planned war, and expect a useful response? Croesus supposedly asked the Oracle what would happen in a war between him and Persia, and the Oracle answered such a conflict would “destroy a great empire”.