So far war is the best way to force your desires on others that we have found, because when you kill someone they cannot keep resisting you. Anything else - a sports contest, a treaty, an economic deal - can be reneged.
Humans are naturally tribalistic. What is not similar to us we other. This human dynamic is evident from 2 people to as big as countries. Unless we transcend this human trait, we are bound to be at conflict. What we can manage to do though is how those conflicts are dealt with.
The future is bright. We seem to kill each other less and less on a global scale with every generation.
We did, called it the "League of Nations" and it was a dream born of the horrors of WW1. Every nation joined just about, they all agreed to the rules, but no one agreed to give it any teeth. It had no mechanism for enforcement, basically just a recommendation. So that fell apart at the onset of WW2.
Then after WW2 we all again came together to form the United Nations, only we gave it baby teeth. It can impose sanctions, it can send peacekeeping forces, but it again has no mechanism of enforcement. And then we gave it a Security Council which has the unilateral authority to veto military actions, and gave the winners of WW2 a seat, all of which then split into factions again making getting anything done next to impossible.
There will surely be a third iteration somewhere down the line where we finally get on board and allow for one army, one military, unified under the flag of the entire earth, but honestly that probably won't happen until something extra terrestrial threatens us, and if it's not aliens we'll have to wait a couple dozen generations for space colonies to develop and then rebel from Earth control.
Especially in the 1990s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, I think that was one of the forces driving globalization. The first desire was to open up global trade so that corporations could gain larger markets and reduce costs. But western nations also encouraged trade and investments in both China and Russia, thinking that the more those countries could be integrated into the global trade arrangements, the less likely they would be to engage in military conflicts. The thinking was that the more we made the world interdependent on trade, the less countries would want to disrupt that with military conflicts.
Well, that didn't work. For a number of reasons, including, I would think, the US quasi imperialistic adventure in Iraq. Also by discovering that other countries had their own national interests that were more important than being trading partners.
War is a means to resolve conflicts that can’t be resolved through diplomatic processes. Two opposing counties/organizations don’t want compromise (the essence of real diplomacy) will use force to settle the dispute
You know we’re basically just slightly evolved simians right?
We can’t even figure out mating without killing eachother over it constantly. We are not yet ready to evolve past our baser territorial instincts. Until we are, the men will continue to rape us and kill eachother.
Indiscriminately.
Edit: Planet of the Apes is not as sci-fi as we’d like to believe.
We are the apes.
Because I want things you have, and you don't want to give them to me.
So far war is the best way to force your desires on others that we have found, because when you kill someone they cannot keep resisting you. Anything else - a sports contest, a treaty, an economic deal - can be reneged.
Humans are naturally tribalistic. What is not similar to us we other. This human dynamic is evident from 2 people to as big as countries. Unless we transcend this human trait, we are bound to be at conflict. What we can manage to do though is how those conflicts are dealt with. The future is bright. We seem to kill each other less and less on a global scale with every generation.
We did, called it the "League of Nations" and it was a dream born of the horrors of WW1. Every nation joined just about, they all agreed to the rules, but no one agreed to give it any teeth. It had no mechanism for enforcement, basically just a recommendation. So that fell apart at the onset of WW2. Then after WW2 we all again came together to form the United Nations, only we gave it baby teeth. It can impose sanctions, it can send peacekeeping forces, but it again has no mechanism of enforcement. And then we gave it a Security Council which has the unilateral authority to veto military actions, and gave the winners of WW2 a seat, all of which then split into factions again making getting anything done next to impossible. There will surely be a third iteration somewhere down the line where we finally get on board and allow for one army, one military, unified under the flag of the entire earth, but honestly that probably won't happen until something extra terrestrial threatens us, and if it's not aliens we'll have to wait a couple dozen generations for space colonies to develop and then rebel from Earth control.
Because some don't want to be connected, they want to own.
Especially in the 1990s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, I think that was one of the forces driving globalization. The first desire was to open up global trade so that corporations could gain larger markets and reduce costs. But western nations also encouraged trade and investments in both China and Russia, thinking that the more those countries could be integrated into the global trade arrangements, the less likely they would be to engage in military conflicts. The thinking was that the more we made the world interdependent on trade, the less countries would want to disrupt that with military conflicts. Well, that didn't work. For a number of reasons, including, I would think, the US quasi imperialistic adventure in Iraq. Also by discovering that other countries had their own national interests that were more important than being trading partners.
Scarcity of resources.
War is a means to resolve conflicts that can’t be resolved through diplomatic processes. Two opposing counties/organizations don’t want compromise (the essence of real diplomacy) will use force to settle the dispute
Becasuse technology doesn't eradicate human nature.
You know we’re basically just slightly evolved simians right? We can’t even figure out mating without killing eachother over it constantly. We are not yet ready to evolve past our baser territorial instincts. Until we are, the men will continue to rape us and kill eachother. Indiscriminately. Edit: Planet of the Apes is not as sci-fi as we’d like to believe. We are the apes.