5) Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless. - Larry Niven

"They used to teach us that evolution of intelligent beings wasn't possible," she said. "Societies protect their weaker members. Civilizations tend to make wheel chairs and spectacles and hearing aids as soon as they have the tools for them. When a society makes war, the men generally have to pass a fitness test before they're allowed, to risk their lives. I suppose it helps win the war." She smiled. "But it leaves precious little room for the survival of the fittest."

Once you know about critics, you know about literature. Literature is whatever survives the critics.

WHY WARS DON’T STOP
Then who can end a war? The leaders of embattled nations? They aren’t bleeding, except by proxy. It’s only their own imaginations that make war different from a complex chess game.
The citizens at home? They are usually assured that they are winning, or that the enemy are inhuman monsters, or that to lose would be annihilation, or all of the above.
Aside from all this, surrender is dishonorable. This is only partly an ethical judgment. It feels dishonorable. Nobody fakes a surrender reflex without cost. Surrender is losing a fight, and we aren’t wired to take that lightly. All of evolution is against losing casually, for trout as well as men.
Wars continue because there is nobody who can end them. WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
You can’t do anything about it.