Status Updates From The Blank Slate: The Modern...

"As we saw in proceeding chapters, the visual system of the brain comprises some 50 regions that take raw pixels and effortlessly organize them into surfaces, colors, motions, and three dimensional objects. We can no more turn the system off and get immediate access to pure sensory experience than we can override our stomachs and tell them when to release their digestive enzymes."

The political scientist John Vasquez has made the point quantitatively. Using a database of hundreds of conflicts from the past two centuries, he concludes that the ingredients of a Hobbesian trap- concern with security, and tangling alliances, and arms races- can statistically predict the escalation of friction into war.