Can large scale warfare be abolished in the next 100 years?

[Ivan Seeking]

By whatever means that you may imagine, is this possible?

I say yes.

[Mattius_]

no primarily because it is so easy to break the rules... and the only way to cheat a cheater is to fight fire with fire.

[Zero]

As soon as we abolish religion and nationalism, we're there!nLet's declare war on war, that should be successful too!

[Frequency]

The only way I see is to completely wipe out the human race. It can definitely be done, but it's not that fun.

Otherwise, I don't think so.

Like Mattius said, it's just too easy for someone to do damage to others. Once someone gets hurt, they want revenge, and it can sometimes escelate to higher levels. If the 'victims' have some form of power, it'll likely be used. Enough power, and it'll become large scale.

So, that would be a yes.

[Mattius_]

abolish religon? possible, abolish nationalism? posible, abolish idealism? never

[Iacchus32]

I think it's all about anger management. Can we learn how to control our anger during peace time, without wanting to take it out on someone else?

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mattius_
abolish religon? possible, abolish nationalism? posible, abolish idealism? never Idealism has little to do with either of the other ideas, so I think it is safe.

[Mattius_]

you misinterpreted what i said; what i am saying is that people always have a preferred direction for advancement, and ofcourse not all people agree... Ideology causes more and greater wars than your religon and nationalism.

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mattius_
you misinterpreted what i said; what i am saying is that people always have a preferred direction for advancement, and ofcourse not all people agree... Ideology causes more and greater wars than your religon and nationalism.
Oh, ideology...gotcha, you 'imcompetent slob'.[g)]

[Mattius_]

idealism and ideology are one by all uses here...

[Zantra]

A large step would be to redistribute the world's wealth evenly, so that there would no longer be "3rd world contries" or a mass of poverty. It's cause and effect. Fanatical religions and dictatorships spring from poverty and lack of options. A dictator comes in and says "hey it's my way or the highway, but my way I will give yout food, and clothes, and a "somewhat viable" economy, and in return you'll follow my ideals no matter ho inhumane, weather they be religious or lacking in moral fiber" you see the same pattern in "gangs". The "gang" offers to take care of you, and in return you fight for them, or sacrifice yourself in the name of the cause. The only difference between gangland and dictatorships is the scale.

I'm not saying it would completely cure the problem, but it would definitely make large strides towards it.

[pace]

jep, the killing of thousands because of some ideological higher meaning, nazis, tutsis vs hutus, etc.

Not to mention poverty.

And dehumanisation of oneself and others in the name of groups is causing the most absurd attacks on humankinds.

[Mattius_]

i am surprised at the statistics so far.[8)]

[megashawn]

War for the most part seems incredibly stupid to me. Ok, you piss me off, so I'm coming to your country. I, and my 20,000 troops get there, start shooting your troops, and whoever has the most people left wins.

See, we should get the UN to force a Honor system, and replace guns with Paintball guns.

I mean, it seems that countrys should find a better means of settling disputes. Instead of declaring war, for example, the leaders of the country could battle to the death, or, perhaps a game of cards.

I mean, we're supposed to be modernized, civilized, etc. Seems like we could figure out a better way to achieve things.


On a side note, did you all know that Saddam had actually challenged lil bush and cheney to a duel?

How much money would that have saved us? Lives?

edit: Oh ya, it also seems that with technology advances, it will not really be like war anymore. More like "Robot Wars; Live from Iraq"(or wherever)

Perhaps thats what would end large warfare. One country becomes so advanced that any others would be foolish to oppose it. Really though, unless one group has total domination, I don't think its possible. Even in that scenario, there would be terrorism type acts, riots, etc.

[selfAdjoint]

Yes. The key is Large Scale, by which I assume is meant on the scale of WWI and WW2 - or even Korea and Vietnam. The countries that can mount warfare on this scale have become thermonuclear powers. I take it that this will prevent their fighting large scale wars agains each other. And fighting against one of the other states will be more like Afghanistan or Iraq. Not large scale.

[TENYEARS]

War is caused by greed, ego, fear and lack of understanding. These things will not disapear, but we might.

People must understand themselves before they can understand the world around them because in understanding themselves they understand the nature of their perspective. With this they can view the world more clearly for what it is and understand the nature of cause and effect. All action has result, be careful of what actions you cause.

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Zantra
A large step would be to redistribute the world's wealth evenly, so that there would no longer be "3rd world contries" or a mass of poverty. I really think thats naive. Thats Marx's vision and it depends on EVERY human being on earth being comitted soley to the good of the human race as a whole. Neither the "haves" nor the "have nots" would accept redistribution. The haves (us) would be angry at having to give up our hard earned money. The have nots would be bitter about NEEDING our money and would respond violently to attempts to help them (Somalia). Charity is a nice temporary solution, but charity is NOT a real solution. It doesn't change anything.

[Zantra]

Originally posted by russ_watters
I really think thats naive. Thats Marx's vision and it depends on EVERY human being on earth being comitted soley to the good of the human race as a whole. Neither the "haves" nor the "have nots" would accept redistribution. The haves (us) would be angry at having to give up our hard earned money. The have nots would be bitter about NEEDING our money and would respond violently to attempts to help them (Somalia). Charity is a nice temporary solution, but charity is NOT a real solution. It doesn't change anything.

I noticed you didn't quote my WHOLE post which also stated it wasn't a permenant solution, but a good start. There are other ways of approaching the problem. The world's economic system could be redone, embracing a single monetary unit. There's no way to obviously do this without stepping on toes. That's too utopian. There's an old story I heard that everyone in the world was given a bottle cap and told it was worth something. THen someone stole someone else's bottlecap, so then everyone wanted 2. it's human nature. Obivously whatever canada's doing is working, in regards to thier healthcare system, but then you find canadian doctors migrating to the US because there's a cap on doctor's salaries. However what if there weren't anywhere to go to? People would still become doctors. People still become teachers, and it's a low paying, sometimes thankless job.

Bottom line is that we could do it, but not without pissing people off. But if it was say, mandatory to work, and it was policed, and you were gauranteed a certain standard of living for that work, and perhaps there were caps put on wealth, then it would be a less steep approach. I'm sure if there were simple answers, it would have been implimented already.

[Shadow]

As soon as we abolish religion and nationalism, we're there!nLet's declare war on war, that should be successful too!

Surprise surprise. Not all war comes from religion and nationalism. The war on terror wasn't the fault of Islam so dont go blaming it on religion. It was the fault of a psycopathic freak that started the taliban, which did not follow real islam despite claims, ask an islamic person, they know. And was it caused by nationalism? No. Yes the US united and there was a strong flow of nationalism but that is not what caused the war. What caused the war was an act of terror and the deaths of thousands of civilians. Or will you dispute that too Zero? Abolish religion? What you want peoples right to freedom taken away just because you dont have a religion? ha.

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Zantra
I noticed you didn't quote my WHOLE post which also stated it wasn't a permenant solution, but a good start. No, I saw that part. I did say charity is a temporary solution, but Marxism is beyond charity. Its not a permanent OR temporary solution - it would make things worse instead of better.

My post was a little unclear in that.

[Ivan Seeking]

It’s looking like a horse race folks!

I say this is cause for optimism.

[Adam]

Is it possible? Yes. Also unlikely. According to a NASA report I read a while back, we currently possess the technology to build a space elevator. But do we have it? No.

Tactics do not change. Only the tools. You could get every nation on Earth to sign some new agreement about war, that they'll on;y act in limited form with assassins and such. But then all it would take is one nation to move a few tens of thousands of troops, and the agreement dies.

[Dal]

I sometimes suspect that making war is an instinct that is hard to get rid off. If we lost our guns we’ll be fighting with swords. If we lost our swords we’ll be fighting with stones. Ok,... fighting and making war is different in a way that fighting comes from greed and hatred of each individual and making war is the outcome of patriotism and excess love for your own nation. Redistributing the world's wealth evenly would calm things a bit, but as long as there are barriers between nations, races and religions a group of extremes can pop up anytime saying, “let’s get thing done in our ways” and that would trigger the war.
(I think)[:D]

So can large scale warfare be abolished in the next 100 years?
I think it is unlikely but it is possible. But I don't think it will last long.

[I, Brian]

No - not at all. War and social aggression are innate conditions of the human experience.

[merak]

In 100 years we will have better ways of killing... and we will use them.
someone needs to invent a system to remove the greed from humans.
then there will be no reason to kill anyone.

[selfAdjoint]

Nancy Kress has a wonderful new SF novel on exactly this theme, called "Nothing Human". Human beings are destroying themselves with war and technology and "someone" comes along to modify them so they'll stop it. But humans aren't really good for manipulating....

I highly recommend it.

[LordLoki]

Unless people gave up on religion and united as one world instead of sperate countries then no

[MillerTime111]

Unless people gave up on religion and united as one world instead of sperate countries then no


Even if that happened some people wouldn't like the world and would form an army to fight against the one country. People are never happy

[LENIN]

I think you forgot about the power of monay. Pepole don't fight just becouse of religion or nationalisem, netural resorces are allso a comen reson for wars.

And we souldn't forget about wars on terorisem and stuff like that. This may not be really large scale but it still sucks :yuck: if you live in a county which in war with a modern superpower. And it doesn't halp international reltionships as well.

[matt_chosen]

of course its possible its happening right now the fight of good and evil is the largest form of war of course this will go on for all time because good cannot rule over evil or the other way around it would break the invisble balence of good and evil making the world either to pure or to dark

[Temporarily Blah]

First of all, in order to stop war, you need to be absolutely sure what causes it.

Here's a small list:

Religion
Politics
Race
Morales
Greed

Those are the 5 major ones, tell me if there are more, and think of ways that those could be removed. Genetic behavioral modification would anger people who have some morales, and would also start "genetic-sism".

[Smurf]

Even if that happened some people wouldn't like the world and would form an army to fight against the one country. People are never happy
People always say this. What is it about humans that inherently believe every idiot who dislikes society can somehow start his own personal army and conquer the world, thus ruining everything good about humanity?

[Pengwuino]

We can stop large scale war NOW!

50 thermonuclear bombs, every major city.

No more war.

[deckart]

As long as we are breathing there will be war.

[sd01g]

Superpowers do not fight wars the old way--too much death and destruction. The new 'wars' are economic wars fought with economic power. Why destroy the enemy and possibly yourself when you can BUY them? Why do you think the Japanese and the Chinese are amassing so many hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars?

[0TheSwerve0]

First of all, in order to stop war, you need to be absolutely sure what causes it.

Here's a small list:

Religion
Politics
Race
Morales
Greed

Those are the 5 major ones, tell me if there are more, and think of ways that those could be removed. Genetic behavioral modification would anger people who have some morales, and would also start "genetic-sism".---watch "Serenity," don't want any reavers!


These are not causes, these are merely created structures thru which humans are able to effect control over other humans. Humans and chimps (and ants) are the only creatures to make war (as far as I've researched). Humans and chimps are socially structured into male-bonded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_bonding) kin groups. The way these groups make up for the loss of new female immigrants is by eliminating competition thru warfare - they go out on raids past their own territories and deliberately and aggressively attack lone chimps (in our case humans). The males make coalitions while the females are essentially under the control of the males and have no choice but to immigrate into other groups. You can read Demonic Males (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/demonicmales.htm) for further explanation.

Creatures that do this are better able to pass on their genes. The things you mentioned are just cultural justifications for social control. It's not necessarily greed (can you not call other animals greedy for competing?), it's survival tactics. Every organism is invested in their own self-interest, the ones who aren't don't pass on as many genes.

The only way to eliminate war is to eliminate the benefits gained by war....hard to do without destroying your livlihood. That's why societies like the Ju'wasi (small groups of foragers in Africa) have social controls for this - they make a big show of not giving too much attention or reward to accomplishments. When men come back from hunts, they almost ritually devalue what he brings back, calling the prey scrawny and joking with the man. Also, the woman who gave the man the arrow is the one to divy up the meat, so this keeps the control out of his hands, keeps the potential for hierarchy at bay. It really entails work to do this. And the more people involved the more difficult it will be to do this.

[MooMansun]

People never fail to learn from history...

The weapons will get bigger and more powerful...they will be used.

Its just a question of when and where.

[Jonny_trigonometry]

"If you will it, it is no dream" - Theadore Hertzl

with the right attitude, yes, humanity can be at peace with itself. People just have to have this viewpoint. On the other hand, if people don't think that humanity will ever be at peace with itself, then it won't.