Is World Peace Something Possible? Something Is Coming.
It depends. We have been getting increasingly better in preserving the peace, by transfering the battle field online and in the economy. We are living in a perpetual cold war.
What's stopping us from creating a world where people live together in harmony?
Two words? Human Nature. I despise this answer, because it takes away from the complexity of the issue, but it is a solid point. Humans have been killing each other for most of our existence. If you create a time machine, you better stay away from the 20th century and back.
What is it with humans? Do we have a deathwish? We know that smoking kills you, yet we still buy the godamn cigarettes! We are sucking the dark nipple of Prometheus. We want to feel in danger. Close to death. We want to die, because death is our state of being. Life is just a transient stage. A bug in the code.
OK, that went too far, wow. Point is, I need to show that my dick is bigger than yours, so instead of flashing you, I choose to invade your country and fuck your virgins. I just summed up the entire human fucking history.
"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace"
This is what idealism on steroids looks like. This little song, can be actually dangerous. It creates a very intense duality. If this is what you strive for, then how ugly is the world in your eyes?
Look, I know war is bad, but let's get real. Distinct nations and religions are useful, we need those things. I get it, you and I may not actually need it, but I am not sure if you've gone out lately, humas can be mindnumbingly stupid AND ruthless savages. They actually need a premade ethics code (religion) and some basic rules to obey. I know, religion hasn't always been that effective, but it's not religions itself, rather the monstrous people in leadership.
But What Has Changed In The Last 50-60 Years? Why We Haven't Killed Each Other And Blown The Earth With Our Nuclear Weapons?
Money makes the world go around. And the internet.
Internet created a global hive, encapsulating the collective unconscious. While it's true we can get easily manipulated, we also have the opportunity to communicate with the rest of the world and get organized. It's hard to invade a country, if 300k people won't vote for you in the next elections. It's hard to commit war crimes if there are cameras every 2 blocks. See my point?
Almost everything is out in the open and every secret will eventually come out and bite the perpetrators back in the ass.
Besides, why bother killing valuable human resources to accumulate your billions? You can easily put pressure and place millitary power and take the money (oil or whatever) anyway. This period of peace has created a sense of "we have it perfect, let's not ruin this" and everyone is tip-toeing around the ticking bomb, that is a WW3 and plays nice.
Why start a war in Venezuela, if you can fuck the country over while being the president? Why take the power by force, if you can create a campaign and become a legal dictator?
I have a warning for you.
While we aren't seeing the large scale millitary operations that happened in the past, the way war is conducted is more convoluted and sophisticated. There may be a major economical collapse in the future. I am not 100% sure, but all the previous signs are popping up again.
-Thatredbeardguy
P.S- Before you get drafted for a meaningless war, you should check my superb posts NOW, before you regret it later! "Why didn't I read Redbeardguy's posts", you cried as the bullets ricochet all around you:
Why Chasing Happiness Is Futile
Never Worship Another Human Being
Why Self-Improvement Sucks
Speak Like You Speak Right Before You Cum
Hi @redbeardguy !
I'd like to say a few things about this.
First, it's really hard to speak of wars in history before the printing press (and even after for some time) as history was perpetually rewritten each time a new ruler arrived and needed to create a legend around him. So lot of the wars we think happened may have not. And a lot we think never happened might have.
Then, you can't compare wars before the second industrial revolution / discovery of oil and wars after. Before, the economy was a state's affair and wars were made to replenish the coffers. It might have been used (with raiding) to encourage farmers to become soldiers or government officials or merchants to populate and boost growth in emerging cities, as these were a major and necessary tool (and are still today) to build a strong central administration. It also served to strengthen the sense of national unity. As in that time, they were few to no way(s) for the central power to communicate with the majority of his territory. So wars were really economical and political.
After the industrial revolution, wars became almost essentially economics. It was now a way for the state to subsidize his economy by taking large contracts with private societies. And even more recently, it's purely economical and wars are now declared by private-sector companies (and even fought by them) for the increase in their stock prices that they generate. Think of it as a economically virtuous (but humanly unhealthy circle) : You're paid to produce bombs, planes, tanks and such -> You're paid to put soldiers in the field -> You're paid to reconstruct the damage done -> Next country. And once the loop is closed , you start all over.
For your other remarks, there are still traditional wars (as explained just above) going on today : Syria and Yemen for example, that fully respect the schema I described. And no Internet nor election results seem to matter for the real instigators (Europe / America / Saudi Arabia - the profiteers) as they control the media to put the blame on anyone they see fit.
Wars always had an open front and an hidden one. All wars were cold, all wars were hot, and often at the same time. It depends on your location and your situation.
And to answer (or try to) to your main question : "Is World Peace Something Possible?"
Yes it is, but a lot of things need to change. All economics related to war must fall back in the public sector, so there's no private profit to be made from it.
People need to understand that there's no "hero death" possible in war, as you're just doing your job.
And after that, political power must be given back to the people, as nobody wants to see their sons / daughters killed. But as long as we're living in fake democracies, with falsified election results, putting in power people who have vested interests in the banking, military and industrial sectors (all the war profiteers) there's no hope for a change.
I don't disagree. Of course there are wars happening right now, but they've been going for ages and they aren't testament of how the future will unfold, rather they're a relic of the past. The war in Syria has been going on since I can remember myself, but I don't regard it as a full millitary operation.
Obviously, I am not literally saying that we can stop a war by voting on Facebook. But we can certainly hold the perpetrators accountable.
The crisis in the future is going to be a crisis of culture and economy.
I couldn't agree more with your last sentence, and you're right saying it's already profiling on the horizon.
The problem with Internet / Social Networks / YouTube is that states' propaganda is as present as on television and there are a lot of paid people in there. So it's good for archiving events, but it doesn't particularly improve the discovery of the truth as quality content will remain hidden and promoted, sponsored lies will be largely diffused.
For Syria, I personally see it as a traditional war, with the implementations I spoke about (private military contractors / Daech and consorts in this case) but it's just semantics.
The future is going to be VERY interesting nonetheless.