@houba @jeremy_pm @bob_zim @Natasha_Jay

Nothing applies universally. Nothing. Even spacetime itself, though the most "universal" of all things in the universe, presents different characteristics in different parts of the universe. In our part of the universe, for example, spacetime is very much different than the spacetime near a black hole. Humans call them both "spacetime" but that's just a human naming convention. It's not physics.

Freedom from war propaganda is an aspirational ideal. It's not happening in real life. Alas.

If we confine our definition of "active war" to kinetic engagements between people and/or robots we miss the whole other rest of the conflicts that engulf us. It's like studying the universe itself, but only its ordinary matter while ignoring the dark matter which is the most common form of matter there is. We just can't see it, that's all.

As Sun Tzu demonstrated over two millennia ago, a conflict is a conflict is a conflict. They follow rules. If you know the rules, too, you have a much better chance of avoiding defeat. What you call "active war" is but one kind or war. There are others.

Not all conflicts manifest as loud noises and blood. As Sun Tzu himself said, "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."

The most important of all the conflict modalities that shape current history is economic warfare. Economic warfare propaganda is ubiquitous. We call it advertising.

Some men rob you with a sixgun, and some with a fountain pen. A man who is robbing you with whatever is waging war against you. In a very real sense, it's class war, whatever his personal motivations of level of political analysis might be.

Last year the world's richest man murdered at least 300,000 of the world's poorest children.

It's almost always a man, BTW, but that's another subject, far too complex for a single toot.