Do we still live in an archaic society?

[Dezerte]

War isn't barbarism. Its a natural mechanism for shaking up an established power ladder.

Until we a) move into a post-scarcity environment and b) figure out a way to remove any distinguishing features between people (e.g. eliminate individuality) there will always be wars. War (or violence in general) is a physical manifestation of competitive wiring of our species. Until you completely re-wire people, war isn't going to go anywhere.

War is barbaric. I never said it wasn't natural, but just because violence is in our nature it doesn't mean that we can't overcome it. And there are people who can overcome, people who'd rather die than resort to violence.

I find it very petty to make excuses for war. It's no different from making excuses for rape and other violent behavior. (not pointing any fingers at anyone here in the thread, just saying)

Edit: I'll agree with you on that there is no quick way of getting rid of war. Better education and a more fair/equal society is probably the way to go to achieve that.

[Ashnazg]

War is barbaric.

I find it very petty to make excuses for war. It's no different from making excuses for rape and other violent behavior.

Edit: I'll agree with you on that there is no quick way of getting rid of war. Better education and a more fair/equal society is probably the way to go to achieve that.

Violence (for the most part) stems from desire to have what your neighbor has and you do not. To put it in basic terms, if I live in a desert, and you live in an oasis, and you will not or cannot invite me into your house, then I am driven to take it from you by force.

Barring some extreme high tech development that would equalize all humans, there will always be inequity among us, and as a result of such inequity there will be situations where deadly force is the only choice. Sure, war might be abolished once we have world government, but violence? Impossible, shy of massive mind-control shenanigans.

[Dezerte]

Violence (for the most part) stems from desire to have what your neighbor has and you do not. To put it in basic terms, if I live in a desert, and you live in an oasis, and you will not or cannot invite me into your house, then I am driven to take it from you by force.

Barring some extreme high tech development that would equalize all humans, there will always be inequity among us, and as a result of such inequity there will be situations where deadly force is the only choice. Sure, war might be abolished once we have world government, but violence? Impossible, shy of massive mind-control shenanigans.

In simpler terms, greed.

You assume everyone would take to violence, when history has shown that is not always the case. In your analogy, not every man or woman would take to violence. In fact, I think many would try elsewhere or wander off, some would rather starve to death than to do violence upon on another human.

(why did you leave out that part of my quote?)

[Difuid]

Until people are only caring about the "me", which given the current situation of robber capitalism pushing many into proverty in countries so money becomes more valuable than human virtues, is hard to achieve. Until our economic system is reworked we won't progress much in this regard or very slowly.

This "crush everyone under your heels because that is the right thing to do" crap is flowing out of the tap nowadays. There are many areas with problems, which once solved would benefit everyone, to where people could divert their competitive energies. But it is easier to take stuff from somebody than to make it for yourself and that IS why imho wars are started.

[Shiny212]

The answer is, to stop all major conflict between humans we need to advance technology to the point where no human wants for anything. Then the acquisition of wealth will no longer be the driving force in our lives and we can work to better ourselves and humanity as a whole.

yes this is from star trek.

[Dragon2K]

Until we a) move into a post-scarcity environment and b) figure out a way to remove any distinguishing features between people (e.g. eliminate individuality) there will always be wars. War (or violence in general) is a physical manifestation of competitive wiring of our species. Until you completely re-wire people, war isn't going to go anywhere.

There are some ~290 million people (I excluded military veterans; and then there are probably immigrants fleeing wars) alive in the United States alone who have never experienced war first-hand. The entire currently alive population of that nation has never known war on its own soil with the exception of Pearl Harbor, and that only for those over 73. The last ACTUAL war on American soil was over a century and a half ago, well beyond living memory.
Much of a culturally diverse western Europe has had no major societal upheavals since the second world war. The same goes for Japan and many other countries. Even the Cultural Revolution of China is becoming a memory (though I think that nation probably has some significant growing pains left to go through). South America finally seems to be ridding itself of its legacy of dictatorships.

If such a large part of the world population can go without war, how can you possibly insist that war is an unavoidable and universal constant among all peoples. In fact war (especially total war such as was waged in Europe for centuries as opposed to the 'wars' in Iraq and Afghanistan, which look more like police actions from that respect) is to me, and I think many here, so alien as to be almost inconceivable.

Despite ongoing conflicts, we live in the most peaceful period in recorded history. The much maligned United Nations is a standing monument to our species' resolve to end war and work towards a fairer world (and it's also a lot more effective than people give it credit for).

Does this mean war can not and will not flare up again? Of course not. But on average the world is moving away from violence to solve its problems and looks instead to democracy and strong civil institutions.
What will happen if our resource usage really outpaces our production is anyone's guess and neither do we know what will happen when the oppressed citizens in many parts of the world find their voices.
But that doesn't change the fact that clearly human beings can live together in peace.

We're not there yet; but never forget how far we've come.

[Twoddle]

My question to you is: How can this be fixed. Can it be fixed and how long do we have to wait before our societies realize there is a better way.

You can't because there will always be a lump in the carpet, push it down and another pops up. One country comes out of its problem but the problem has to have somewhere to go. That and the fact that we're mortal.

[Knight Gil]

We live in an archaic society because technology has improved, whereas mindsets have not.

You could have interstellar space travel and unlimited information storage, teleport stations or iPhones 50, but as long as there are ignorant, greedy, prejudiced, cruel, warmongering, and other scum people, we can't say that humanity is more advanced than before.

War isn't barbarism. Its a natural mechanism for shaking up an established power ladder.

Missiles are natural? Modern war strategy is natural? Drones are natural?

Why is it that 99% of the time that people say the word "natural" it is in a completely incoherent way?

[Kurioxan]

yes we do live in an archaic society, the means are different by the ideas are still the same.
Hierarchy, poverty, ruling families, scarcity based economy, no real planning but simple reactions, profit minded, social conflict, law enforcement, crime and many others, is still very archaic.

But sadly you cant change that from day to night, takes a lot of time to change that stuff, its slowly evolving for sure, but still based on many archaic principles.

[Avada Kedavra]

The answer is, to stop all major conflict between humans we need to advance technology to the point where no human wants for anything. Then the acquisition of wealth will no longer be the driving force in our lives and we can work to better ourselves and humanity as a whole.

yes this is from star trek.

OMG, I feel like we are on the same level. I LOVE TNG and Voyager, seen every episode....twice. And I think that is where my idealistic thinking comes from. Can everybody just watch Star Trek and get to this point? REPLICATORS....THE WORLD NEEDS REPLICATORS!!

But seeing the different civilizations that were created and shown in the show being peaceful and not stuck in the times we are today, then seeing civilization that were a pre-warp, fighting and not united with no higher evolved thinking. i must say that if the Federation was looking at earth, they would say absolutely not, we are centuries away from first contact. I will just preemptively smother the rebuttal " That's just a TV show, fiction is fiction" by saying that if people can create the societal structures in the show, and people can act it out, there is ZERO limitation on people actually doing that in real life.

[Endus]

So, what would you say that has exactly happened within the EU? War between the members has become some kind of unthinkable matter, and even war as a tool of external policy, against someone outside the EU, is extremely frowned upon. It definitely doesn't come natural to us.

The EU is still very young. Even 200 years would be "young" for a uniting nation. Nor is that any necessary protection from eventual schism and collapse.

Also, the EU isn't exactly being pacifistic. They're not as militaristic as the US, but who is these days? Compare the EU to, say, Canada, and it looks a lot more similar.

The answer is, to stop all major conflict between humans we need to advance technology to the point where no human wants for anything. Then the acquisition of wealth will no longer be the driving force in our lives and we can work to better ourselves and humanity as a whole.

yes this is from star trek.

It's a post-scarcity argument. The issue is that scarcity is a constant. We don't always fight because of scarcity of food, or land, we also fight because of scarcity of ideas. We're wired to find things that we have to treat as a big deal. That's why a teenager will throw hissy fits if their cell phone is shut off. Because to them, it's like if your country was struggling to get basic food and water, and you'd just put them on half rations. Objectively, it's not the same thing, but subjectively, our brains ramp up that minor issue until it's as big a subjective deal. By removing the bigger causes of conflict, it just allows other, more minor causes to come forward.

Once we have the capacity to just make self-sustaining ark ships for yuks, maybe, because these different groups can just make a new ship, back it with their people, and take off in a different direction. The galaxy is big enough that we're likely to evolve well past being able to label the variety of new species that result as "homo sapiens" before necessary conflict would arise again. But that's not so much because we've ended war, it's because there's a universe we can "war" against, expanding and spreading into new systems. We need that conflict. Every species does.

[Deleted]

Why do we have to fight? Why is there war?
[...snip...]
I live in the USA and am very proud to be an American.

Don't you see the irony here?

[Avada Kedavra]

Don't you see the irony here?

they are not mutually exclusive. I have no control of what the US government decides to do. Am I proud to be free, and not oppressed to the point where I lose my individuality. So no, Im sorry, I do not see the irony. They are not related.

[Dezerte]

We need that conflict. Every species does.

I can understand that, but I'm assuming you mean that conflict doesn't have to involve violence.

[Underverse]

We need that conflict. Every species does.

We only need conflict when we overcome the carrying capacity of our environment. I don't think humans are naturally violent; just look at bonobos.

Of course, with our nice system of capitalism we have created the illusion that we have overcome the carrying capacity of our environment and thus are threatened by our neighbors (or we are the threat to them). Governments use this illusion to wage war.

[kakihara]

There are so many uncessesary conflicts in this world. the best example would be isreal vs palestina . not that i really am well informed about the case but what i hear they mostly argue abut some land they both want. so they trey to get eachother to surrender by firing rockets into the houses of the "enemies" which propably mostly dont care whose land it is anyway.
why cant they just share that land and be done with it? i thing because they are stupid and seflish.
but mostly very very stupid.
its like little kids fighting over a shovel. but little kids mostly forget what they fought over afterwards and continue to play with eachother.
if those leaders want something they should kill eachother and be done with it but stop killing people that have nothing to do with it.

[Roose]

You have obviously never been to Alabama, OP.

Some people are proud to be roadblocks for progress. My guess is that this is part of human nature. See them in almost every society. We just have a whole lot more of them here. Logic and reason do not work against those that live their lives based on faith and emotion.

[Endus]

I can understand that, but I'm assuming you mean that conflict doesn't have to involve violence.

Not necessarily, no. But if it's not violence, it'll be something else meaningful. Violence is the common tool because it's immediately clear who's the victor regardless of culture or background. It would be possible to settle issues through, say, a video game tournament, but only if said tournament carries the same weight that military action carries today. Otherwise, one or both sides will see it as pointless and things will escalate into "meaningful" conflict anyway.

If crushing the enemy's gamers in a bout of SC2 won't demoralize the entire nation and have them surrender to your will, then it's not a replacement for violent warfare. That's the issue. Basically, we're too bloody-minded as a species to just roll over unless we're made to.

We only need conflict when we overcome the carrying capacity of our environment. I don't think humans are naturally violent; just look at bonobos.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...free-love.html

Bonobos ain't all that, really. They're not as internally violent, which is possibly a good lesson to us, but they're not pacifists, either.

Of course, with our nice system of capitalism we have created the illusion that we have overcome the carrying capacity of our environment and thus are threatened by our neighbors (or we are the threat to them). Governments use this illusion to wage war.

You don't need to be past the carrying capacity of the environment to spark a war. Carrying capacity refers to basic survival. Wars can be fought over any scarcity, even if it's not relevant to survival, even to protect against future scarcity.

Post-scarcity theories hypothesize a world where "scarcity" can't be a factor. Not "currently isn't". Where you can eat and drink and entertain yourself in whatever manner you see fit without any limitations whatsoever, and without any concept of "wealth" or "income" to justify it. Even Star Trek isn't quite there; they have certain budgetary restrictions on things; they can't just "print off" another starship, for instance, meaning starships are suffering issues of scarcity.

The current world isn't even remotely post-scarcity. Scarcity is a real, massive issue. Even in the US, as I pulled out for another thread, something like 15% of households can't afford enough food.

[Cybran]

as long as the feeling "I want..." stays in this world, conflict will never end

"if wants and needs divide me then I might as well be gone"

[Underverse]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...free-love.html

Bonobos ain't all that, really. They're not as internally violent, which is possibly a good lesson to us, but they're not pacifists, either.

Yeah of course they aren't pacifists. But you said it yourself, they don't kill each other. They kill non great ape monkeys.

You don't need to be past the carrying capacity of the environment to spark a war. Carrying capacity refers to basic survival. Wars can be fought over any scarcity, even if it's not relevant to survival, even to protect against future scarcity.

Post-scarcity theories hypothesize a world where "scarcity" can't be a factor. Not "currently isn't". Where you can eat and drink and entertain yourself in whatever manner you see fit without any limitations whatsoever, and without any concept of "wealth" or "income" to justify it. Even Star Trek isn't quite there; they have certain budgetary restrictions on things; they can't just "print off" another starship, for instance, meaning starships are suffering issues of scarcity.

The current world isn't even remotely post-scarcity. Scarcity is a real, massive issue. Even in the US, as I pulled out for another thread, something like 15% of households can't afford enough food.

That's what I mean by overcoming carrying capacity - presence of scarcity, whether real or perceived. Carrying capacity refers to the environmental influences on survival and the ability of an environment to sustain a population.

I think the main thing here is that much scarcity (not all of it obviously) is perceived (thank you media telling us we need the best of everything).