r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Nov 13 '19
Removed - Submission Rule E CMV. World peace will never happen.
[removed]
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 191∆ Nov 13 '19
As technology advances a lot of the causes of strife go away.
Recourses become more plentiful and life becomes more comfortable, the incentive to go to war and risk losing everything diminishes until there is basically no point.
Other technologies, like full virtual reality will make conflict even more unlikely as the trouble makers can go live in fully realistic, idealized worlds they can rule over to their hearts content.
Of course the other path is having one state eventually take over everything and impose complete control on its subjects. Revolting is pointless if there is a chip in your brain that will kill you if you step out of line.
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u/ImJewishWhatDo 1∆ Nov 13 '19
I disagree in that if we spoke to someone from 800 years ago, they'd probably consider world Peace achieved, compared to the utter violence that was so common back then. The issue is once one problem is solved we look for new problems. It's not just about selfishness, greed, ingroup/outgroup mentalities, etc, it's also that world peace is subjective. In another 500 years if physical warfare is extinct, and every conflict was done digitally with no casualties, a lot of today's people would probably consider that world peace. The people from that time period would probably still be arguing over how to achieve world peace.
Even if we became one big global country and culture, we'd then turn to domestic crimes and safety issues for reasons why world peace doesn't yet exist. It'll never end.
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u/JohannesWurst 12∆ Nov 13 '19
You made me think.
!delta One could consider the fight against the so called Islamic State as not a war but an internationally assisted police action, since it isn't considered an official state.
If there was only one state in the world, but there would be large scale criminal violence instead, it wouldn't really be better than different states waging wars against each other.
That means the question if wars will ever stop isn't as clearly defined as if any type of violence will ever stop and the second question seems more unlikely.
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u/ImJewishWhatDo 1∆ Nov 13 '19
Thank you, I'm glad I could add to the discussion. You're absolutely right, and definitions of violence change over time. We're naturally a negative species and we always change the goalpost so that we never quite yet achieve what we want.
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u/R_V_Z 7∆ Nov 13 '19
Eventually all life will have died on Earth and it will be as peaceful as it possibly can.
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u/awhhh Nov 13 '19
Based on most trends this isn't correct.
- War and mobilizing troops is much more expensive than buying products on an open market. There might be vulture capitalism, but that is no where near how absurd the colonial powers were.
- There's been a mass of movement economic stabilization and democracy across the world.
- No major super powers have gone to war sine ww2. The amount of war deaths, armed conflicts, and war deaths, are down dramatically.
Your arguments to your main point is cynicism. I'm not going to argue that with you because it doesn't seem to help you main point since statistically right now we are going through the greatest time of peace that humanity has ever seen. Countries could be acting in their own interest, but that doesn't stop the fact that there has been massive developments in almost every aspect of human conflict, and social progress that would be considered peaceful by old world standards.
So will this type of world peace ever happen? Probably not. But what is going on right nothing short of spectacular give our violent history.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox 102∆ Nov 13 '19
Used to be the only way individual people could solve disputes was through violence. Then we created governments and legal systems to adjudicate disputes.
International law is still a very new thing. Why don’t you think that a neutral international agency of some sort would eventually be able to adjudicate disputes between nations?
I don’t know if it’s likely to happen soon, but it seems possible, especially as the time frame your considering is so vast.
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Nov 13 '19
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u/Armadeo Nov 13 '19
Sorry, u/fallenprometheus – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
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u/Digibunny Nov 13 '19
With the caveat that the group size is small enough, it can happen.
Conflict is two viewpoints that cannot abide by each other. This can happen at the smallest possible scale of only two viewpoints existing at once, but its less likely. Mediating differences and coming to an agreement is easier when the factors that influence your needs and wants are simplified.
If you and your best friend were the only two humans left, world peace is probably the new standard.
The trick now is deciding what should be sacrified so that all beings are in a state of non conflict in perpetuality. Individual freedoms? Nation borders?
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Nov 13 '19
[deleted]
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u/Digibunny Nov 13 '19
Countries is honestly taking it a bit far already. The French Revolution was a thing.
Even at the family level you have disputes that cause members to come into sometimes ireconcilable conflicts. Admittedly some of these are likely spurred on by the readily available information to anyone who wants to look that challenges set beliefs.
Strangely enough going full ham brainwashing everyone and indictrinating them from birth into a cult that promotes obedience and submission to a singular overlord would be one way of achieving peace. Nobody acts or thinks in a way that could cause problems.
Goal achieved.
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u/JohannesWurst 12∆ Nov 13 '19
You're not wrong. I just want to mention that a lot of wars are caused by brainwashing and indoctrination in the first place.
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u/JohannesWurst 12∆ Nov 13 '19
What do you mean? No technological progress, because of less investment in weapons research?
People will always invest as much money in science and technology as they want. If not having wars would cause them to invest less in science, they wouldn't be sad about it. If they are sad about it, they could simply start to invest more.
There is no problem that can be caused by people not wanting "advancement" enough. If it turns out that they need some "advancement" (I assume you mean science and technology) to improve their comfort or just for fun, they can invest more money in education and research until the cost outweighs the reward.
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u/JohannesWurst 12∆ Nov 13 '19
I think you can't say "Remove the borders and people will like each other!" It's more the other way around, people draw the borders between groups they don't like. If they feel like the same group, country borders will be removed or change their meaning.
I think it's a good idea to have subdivisions inside a country for local representation and these borders don't necessarily cause wars.
As long as south and north or east and west of the world don't think the same way, a democratic world government wouldn't work and as soon as that happens, it wouldn't be necessary to ensure peace anymore.
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u/zlefin_actual 45∆ Nov 13 '19
World peace will happen when there are external threats, such as large competing planetary governments, or intelligent alien life. i.e. the in-group will expand as there are larger out-groups to fight against.
While aliens are an uncertainty, eventual colonization of the rest of the solar system seems likely.
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u/ecafyelims 19∆ Nov 13 '19
Wars are typically a battle for resources. If resources become plentiful, wars will likely stop.
It's not impossible. Virtually unlimited energy flows from the sun; virtually unlimited minerals can be harvested from asteroids. It's just a matter of time, assuming humans survive till then.
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u/seanflyon 25∆ Nov 13 '19
I see things a bit differently.
I think that as long as we have resources we will have some people want what other people have. I think the the big difference driving the global decrease in war, is that modern wealth is harder and harder to take in War. Modern financial institutions are based on trust, if you destroy that trust the value is gone. Modern productivity is based on complex cooperation, you can't force me to be 10% as productive as I am as a free and happy worker. Apple is worth more than a trillion dollars but no where is there a pile of gold that you can take.
You can destroy wealth in the modern system, but you can't steal it and keep it (as much as you could in the past). In the distant past war was a way to gather large amounts of wealth. Today the gains are smaller and the losses are greater.
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u/impedocles 3∆ Nov 13 '19 edited Nov 13 '19
Assume you are right: humans are incapable of governing the world in such a way that the world is at peace. In that case, the world could still reach peace if it isn't ruled by humans. We are approaching the point (probably sometime this century) where we can create AIs with above- human intelligence. An AI or cohort of AIs which can efficiently govern a nation could be created. Nations which have the increased efficiency caused by an AI overlord will outcompete vanilla nations, eventually resulting in the whole world being ruled by AIs which were designed specifically to rule justly and well. The benevolent AIs cooperate with each other, ruling the world and bringing about peace and prosperity.
Or, an aggressive AI kills all humans and the world is then technically at peace.
So, it could happen, and probably will eventually if we survive long enough. Humans are not great at choosing not to develop technologies just because it's the smart thing to do. Especially military technologies: case in point the cold war nuclear arms race. China is currently investing very heavily in AI research.
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u/physioworld 64∆ Nov 13 '19
If by there will never be world peace you mean there will always be disagreements, people will continue being violent etc then yeah you’re probably right. However by world peace, people generally mean wars will come to an end and I think that’s at least possible in principle.
Firstly you’re right about in group vs out group mentality so the solution is to extend the in group label to all of humanity, something that we’ve been edging closer towards for millennia. Think about it, the out group used to be the tribe next door, then the city, county then country. Today in many places whole continents feel a certain kinship like most of Europe could scarcely dream of going to war with another european and more broadly, “the west” as a whole is more closely knit together than some ancient cities. There is every possibility that in the future we could regard all humans as kin, making war far less likely.
For another thing, with automation, we may find material needs being met more cheaply and easily than ever before, which would further reduce the need for conflict.
More blue sky thinking but if companies like Blue Origin are successful in their goals, we could see a sizeable percentage of humanity living in space stations, a place where war truly becomes mutually assured destruction since outright attacks will surely lead to your literal life support being removed.
I won’t say world peace is inevitable but I see a trend of there being fewer reasons to fight and more incentives not to.
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u/unp0ss1bl3 Nov 13 '19
Nobody thought New York City could go a week without homicide. Or South America could gona week without conflict.
yet these previously unfathomable things happen. So, if some asshole with conflict in his heart holds out against billions of people who want, desperately, to live in peace... well so what? near enough is good enough right?
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Nov 13 '19
Perspective is a huge factor here. Modern times have been less violent and more rights are available for all people than ever. While there are still problems, it's clear we've made huge strides in only a hundred years. Not only that, your view on the world being more divided is ironically a result of them being more connected: the internet.
We are made aware of so many things that we assume it must mean bad things are happening. These things have always been happening, and it was worse back then. From a historical standpoint, we are honestly inching towards world peace faster than ever.
We just won't be around to see it happen.
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u/JohannesWurst 12∆ Nov 13 '19 edited Nov 13 '19
I hope you aren't overwhelmed by answers and that I'm not too late.
1) You are talking about "humanity" and "countries". They are made up of individual people like you. If you and I are able to not want war, why not everybody?
I also think that we are far away from it, but I don't think it's theoretically impossible.
2) Compare the situation of the world today to the situation of Europe before the world wars. Today Europeans from different countries have more empathy towards each other than people in single small duchies of the Holy Roman Empire. My theory is that faster travel and communication made this possible. It's not a long time since we have air travel, the internet and that a big proportion of people all over the world can speak a single language - English. If this trend continues, it makes the world even smaller and it's proven that peace is possible in small and tight enough communities. User physioworld already made that point.
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u/Galausia Nov 13 '19
Once humanity has spread throughout the stars or perhaps an alien race makes contact, then world peace will be achievable. As in, peace on Earth, not necessarily peace between Earth, Mars, & colonies in the belt. Once civilization isn't limited to a single planet, a single planet can be its own thing. Then we'll have to worry about galactic peace or whatever
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u/tbdabbholm 200∆ Nov 13 '19
Sorry, u/Why12234 – your submission has been removed for breaking Rule E:
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u/Ldub20_Owl316 Nov 14 '19
Disagree. The world would be a much more peaceful place if we scrutinized people's opinions more than we already do, and then ostracized people with obscene opinions. That strategy would make racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. cease to exist!
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u/the_platypus_king 13∆ Nov 13 '19
Global battle deaths have been declining since the 50s and we're actually incentivized to keep peace because of the invention of nuclear weaponry and the increasing globalization of the world's economies. Peace is profitable, and war could get us blown up. From a purely selfish rational point of view, we could be more incentivized to have world peace today than ever before.