this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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What are your ideas, that if you could implement would likely stop our species from warring so much?

I'm asking for a reasonable ones, but if not - at least make them funny :P

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Restructure society to value cooperatation over competition.

Break down unjustifiable hierarchies where possible and reasonable. The flatter the power structure is without sacrificing much in the way of efficiency, the better.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I feel like this is the way. It's more or less the idea with the EU, and I would say it's working great. I just hope this level of cooperation reaches the whole world

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The complete extinction of the human race

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Through evolution or genetic engineering

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree with genetics engineering as the answer.
Our DNA has greed, power tripping, paranoia etc. hard coded somewhere. The correct combinations might stop all wars.
But all in all, wouldn't it make humanity dull and unsatisfied? I wonder.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What if we genetically engineered ourselves to make beans taste like lasagna and kindness feel as satisfying as getting a promotion?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Rename to “armed conflict” or “special military operations”

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

There is this dystopia anime series called From the New World. The premise is a portion of humanity gained psychic power and led to the collapse of society because it's so powerful that order could not be enforced. Far into the future there's a cluster of communities that's able to exist, and the way they went about it was to genetically engineered humans so when they harm another human it triggers body functions that make it harder for them to breath and other things. Killing another human also kills the aggressor. It kind of works on the interpretative level so it's possible that using drones could still have an effect, probably.

Even in the story they explored ways to circumvent it though, but that's kind of a tangent.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This one was great, highly recommend it.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Kill everyone. No people, no wars! Win/win in my book

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Mass extinction event. Breed out aggression from our species we seem to be doing that but slowly. Space mining could potentially stop us from having war in Earth at least. AI takeover have everyone live on their own virtual reality paradise. For the most reasonable I think the best way to end wars is education and uplifting poverty nations not exploit them.

Edit: Or we can just be like Switzerland be a direct democracy, with how slow they decide things it will be highly unlikely to go to war at all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

When there's no war, people like Hitler won't have any opposition to their rise to power. Haiti never gains independence. We'd never have escaped feudalism.

Most wars are stupid bullshit and suck ass. The military, especially the US military, is the biggest waste of money ever. That doesn't mean that war isn't directly tied to lots of positive things like innovation. There's so much medical, industrial, and geographical knowledge we wouldn't have if it wasn't for some war, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. People's ideas will always conflict because different groups of people are going to have goals unique to them that clash with others

Now if you were to ask how to stop unnecessary wars, better more efficient rulers. Most of the people in power today are complete hacks. It's crazy

But I don't think we'll ever get rid of war and I don't know if that's necessarily that crazy? Ultimately it's apart of how we grow as societies

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Make everyone bulletproof and bombproof. If it is no longer possible to kill people using weapons of war, then there will no longer be a point to fighting the wars. Either that, or things will escalate to a point where it is no longer sustainable to fight wars that way, also solving it. Mind control, or gelatinising everyone into a singular hivemind is also an option.


Somewhat more realistically, I think that exchanges and the internet are the ways to go when it comes to ending wars. It's a lot harder to fight wars when you can empathise with the other side, and see them as your peers. It's one of the reasons why soldiers who took part in the Christmas Armistice were shuffled around, since they became friendly during the ceasefire, and would be less wanting to fire weapons on the friends that they made.

A lot of wars tend to centre around dehumnaising the other side, and treating them as the "enemy". Allowing people to co-operate and communicate mutually makes it a lot harder for that to take place, since you have experience with the "enemy", they're not that bad. You've even got friends there, and training a gun on them with the expectation and desire to turn them into a corpse is just not on.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Since you stipulated our species, to me, the answer is an external threat to the whole. Aliens, higher or lower dimensional creatures, cryptids, flame unicorns sharting lava, even angels or demons if we want to get real wild.

Even just the threat of an existential terror such as these and probably a lot I missed, (feel free to add to the list! Feed me your existential threats!) has the potential to bring the species together to fight on a larger scale.

However this doesn't eliminate war just moves the focus. So I'm not sure if I've answered your question or not but I had fun doing it!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I feel like the cultural/political responses to both global warming and COVID-19 have shaken my faith in this sort-of Watchmen scenario working out. No matter how universal the threat, seems like some groups will always find an angle to work that cuts against the "greater good."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is something my old history teacher once mentioned: we have games like COD and other esports titles. Just have all conflicts resolved via virtual combat instead of in real world violence

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But that would require the loser to accept the loss.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Benevolent global AI dictator. These never go wrong in sci-fi after all.

(has to be true AI like Daneel Olivaw, not this fake LLM crap though)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The Culture has entered the chat.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Equal distribution of wealth and power, along with trying to create universal standards of communication (I.E. speaking reading and writing) would help probably.

Plus universal access to education and birth control. And ENFORCING equality by making sure there is no such thing as inherited wealth. Each new generation would have to start form the same point. I know it might seem a little extreme, but I think it's the only way to prevent oligarchies, monarchies, and huge concentrations of power that distort society from forming.

Plus, guaranteed clean food, water, housing, and basic healthcare for all. Get rid of the reasons for conflict, and make sure those who want to start conflicts can't ever mass enough power to start wars and we won't have them. A lot harder to justify fighting when you personally have to do it all yourself because you can't order others to just do it for you.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Impossible. There is 1-5% of the population who are born anti-social. It's very difficult to socialise them, and some never do. They are vastly overrepresented in prisons. These people sometimes get into positions of power. Particularly in societies which value authoritarianism, like Russia and China. This cannot be helped. Instead, we must mitigate the effects of their reach. NATO, for example, is an excellent way to stymy these dictators.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nuclear deterrent. If that fails, nuclear annihilation. Either way, there will be no more wars.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

The question is ill-posed.

War is just a tool, a collective act of violence that a group of people do against another in order to obtain a result. It's always sad and it's always bring sufference, but one could say sometimes it's necessary. If you cancel war from the world witouth changin anything else, you will ends up probably damagin more the one with actually less power, since violence is usually the last resort in order to confront someone that hold political, economical and soft power upon you.

If you wanted to ask how we go to a situation when wars are not necessary and they are actually the less convenient and effective way to obtain collective or personal results, so that we ends up with no actual war are started, here's my answer. We need to build a system that minimize close to zero the difference in power (every kind of power) between people, and we need to build an efficient an relieble system to intermediate and resolve the inevitable conflict between people and groups.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Put all leaders together in a hall with good music and cozy interior and give everyone MDMA.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Democracies rarely go to war with each other. Add mutual economical dependency to that and you have a strong base to avoid armed conflict. The EU is a good example for that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A global 'EU' is the most likely way to end all wars, yes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Britain has left the chat

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Kill every human being. No people no war.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

There is no solution to that. It is a cold, hard reality of living on a planet with limited resources. We all might hate war (and for good reason, obviously), but it isn't like animals don't fight for territory either. Just happens that humans found a way to make it a few orders of magnitude more extreme.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

How about massive free psychedelic doses?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Universal basic income, universal food and shelter and education.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Implantation of the post-scarcity society and the end of capitalism ez gg

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's another rule. No wishes containing the word 'all'. Guaranteed ironic consequences.

I don't think anyone's going to miss wars.

Star Wars, Thumb wars, wow, Storage Wars!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Abolish Money and increase global distribution of goods aka socialism.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah yes, the Star Trek approach.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Although it did take them at least one apocalypse, alien intervention, and 200 - 300 years before they actually got around to it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

That would probably create more reasons for people/groups to go to war with each other than it eliminates.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And who decides who has to produce those goods for everyone? Also who decides who gets how much? ... Probably some kind of war. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Let's first address all the "nature" and "biological" not-really-true claims.

The Batek people of Malaysia are so averse of killing other humans that refuse to do it even when threatened with slavery https://peacefulsocieties.uncg.edu/societies/batek/

So, war is cultural, not biological.

Second, why do we do war?

At first glance, is for scarce resources, for survival.

But look at the modern wars. Are they for survival? Are they for resources that we need to survive?
No they are not.
They are for power.

But whose power?
The power of those who actually have to fight and die?
Certainly not.

The power of the rulers, who are greedy for more power.

Most people need to be scared into going to war, need to be convinced that they are defending their families and their "people".

This is why rulers work very hard to build national identities, the good "us" vs the evil "them".

Here we need three things:

  1. We need a culture that knows how to recognize those greedy for power, those with a desire to dominate, and see them as the threat to freedom that they are, ie some sort of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveling_mechanism
    There are several cultures that do that, but it has to be a deliberate and conscious thing.

  2. We need to rethink our identities, national and not, because those identities are used to define the "other" that is ok to harm and kill.
    A way to do this is to make sure that people who want to travel and visit other groups can do so easily: this will help the various groups understand and humanize each other.

  3. We need a culture that stresses the importance of non-violent conflict resolution.
    Because if all you know is violence, then that's what you will use.

I mean, easier said than done of course, but I think that knowing the direction makes it easier to reach it.

For further reading on the subject, I would recommend Bob Altemeyer's "The Authoritarians" and Graeber & Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything" from the top of my head.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A death match between the presidents / prime ministers of the rival countries. The country of the winner of that match will win the war, and the country of the loser has to deal with the following consequences.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I once asked my dad, wouldn't it be better if wars were determined by rock-paper-scissors? He explained, that even if, the citizens of the losing country would probably get so upset, they would take matters into their own hands and start a riot, which would effectively lead to regular war.

(He explained it better than that, but it was long ago and I only remember the general sense of what he said)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You'll have to find a way to eliminate greed

Edit: or no people so you have nobody to start wars

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Like others said, struggle is in human nature. But it is possible to shift it to other domains: art, science, exploration. To prevent this stuggle spill back into physical violence, there should be broad consensus on basic rules, effectively enforced.

So I'd say, build this consensus, which will probably need to rely on abundant renewable enengy, some form of UBI, equality, and stronger international institutions, but will not spotaneously evolve towards unsupportable preferences of some groups.

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