Do you think humanity will ever evolve/adapt/learn to not engage in violence/warfare?

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I want to say no, but today im feeling optimistic.

Ill have to say (wait this prolyl a thread already whaetver bleh) that humanity will either learn to not practice warfare of any sort or we will all end up dying.

gunpowder fueled guns are common stuff, and theya re extremely effective at killing.

we have other types, explosives mainly, and nuclear weapons.
Explosives are easy to acquire compared to nukes. and they deal alot more damage than bullets.

So if we get any weapons more advanced than these, i mean seriously. If they are as commonplace as our guns of today, anyone who wants to take over is going to end up starting a brutal war.

I dont really think any one world government will take over, as some say. but that we will all end up as a global community, with little if any laws.

I think a form of government will, after about 25-50 years i think there will be less and less governments like ones that condone honor killings, etc. More and more people will have no choice but to find truth, and correct knowledge due to the internet.And one will take place that has either very lax but common sense laws, letting people do whatever they want unless it harms someone else, or very strict laws.

But im not a pyschic.

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@OGIONIK,

I think a government that is both capitalistic and socialistic will end up #1.

capitalism to the extreme leads us to our situation today, usign the system to take over monetarily. and socialism corrupted fails, and pure socialism stifles everyones creativeness.

but yeah.. im bored, thinking of stuff, engage in this thread if u are also bored.

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as long as there is religion there will never be peace, in my opinion

unless one religion finally succeeds in killing off all competitors

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@djjd62,

To solely blame religion for all lack of peace is rather narrow minded.

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@Intrepid,

but most likely true :/

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@OGIONIK,

Do you really believe that? Do you think that the world wars were religiously motivated?

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@Intrepid,

a certain amount of enlightenment has eased this situation a bit, but not much, and it's not just war, it's the question of violence i was addressing

northern ireland, a political violence with religious undertones, radical islam, tibet, abortion clinic bombings, hate crimes, some would say that the people who engage in the latter are not religious, but many classify themselves as such

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@djjd62,

I am not saying that a lot of violence and death cannot be attributed to religion. It is all too prevalent. However, it is just part of violence and death.

There is violence on the streets every day and religion has nothing to do with it. There are wars all over the world and religion has nothing to do with it. etc. etc.

For you to say that it will not stop until one religion kills off other religions is far removed from the truth.

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@OGIONIK,

If that should happen we will no longer be human to say the least! We are as must of a predator as a lions pride or a wolf pack or my house cats now lying on my bed for that matter. In my opinion that is part of the drive that had create our technology and culture.

We do need to keep/setup some control/limit as we had done since WW2 however. See that there had been no used of atom weapons for the last 64 years.

Force and conflict of one kind or another will always be part of us.

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@OGIONIK,

Oh if you guys had been reading the news carefully you will had taken note that both China and Russia is now in the process of testing our new president.

Chinese navel warships had been annoying some of our unarm navel vessels and we had response by sending arm ships into the area in question and Russian government is making noises about basing bombers in Cuba.

North Korea is threatening to launch a long-range missile and we are threatening to shoot it down.

In other word, everything is normal even in this period of major powers “peace”.

Wolf packs marking the borders of their territories and nations it all the same.

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@Intrepid,

Intrepid wrote:

To solely blame religion for all lack of peace is rather narrow minded.

Quite true. But on the whole, I think religion does more harm than good for humanity.

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@OGIONIK,

OGIONIK wrote:

Do you think humanity will ever evolve/adapt/learn to not engage in violence/warfare?

No. I think it will be with us forever. I think we will learn to control the behavior and minimize it (much as happens already in societies with systems of law and enforcement), but it will always be with us, ready to erupt if we are not wary.

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@Intrepid,

Intrepid wrote:

Do you really believe that? Do you think that the world wars were religiously motivated?

He doesn't have to. Remember, Ogionik's question for this thread was, "Do you think humanity will ever [...] learn to not engage in violence/warfare?" To give Ogionik's answer to this, you don't have to believe that all wars are religious -- only that some wars are religious, and that humanity can't end religious wars as long as there are many religions.

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I am going to (wisely) avoid the religion thing (at least for now) and raise another issue to tackle.

Being violent and engaging in warfare is part of human nature. Would we be able to rid ourselves of such an integral part of what it means to be human without losing our humanity?

What would be the cost of such a change?

(I think I would be against it.)

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@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

Being violent and engaging in warfare is part of human nature. Would we be able to rid ourselves of such an integral part of what it means to be human without losing our humanity?

Arguments from human nature are often arguments from lack of imagination. In my opinion, this is one such case. Until three hundred years ago, we could have sat around a table somewhere and discussed whether we could ever get rid of slavery. And you could have argued, with just as much reason as you do today, that we won't -- because enslaving each other is part of human nature.

Personally, I think it's quite possible to remove the material reasons for warfare within a few human generations. But I don't believe we can end religious conflicts. And when I say "religious", I mean that in the broad sense that includes secular religions like communism, fascism, and the like.

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@Thomas,

I will not make the unimaginative argument that we have failed to get rid of slavery-- and that (although we have changed the mores in modern Western societies) we certainly have done nothing to change that part of human nature that leads to slavery.

Rather, let's have the imaginative discussion about what a world without violence or warfare would be like.

- Would it be at the cost of diversity (the idea of getting rid of religious differences has been raised-- an idea that I find distasteful if not scary)? I don't want to live in a world where I can't choose to be part of whatever religion I meaningful.

- What would we do with individuals who didn't want to evolve, adapt or learn to not engage in violence or warfare? I assume violence is out of the question.

- Are we talking about a social program that all individuals will be forced to participate in? Or are we really talking about eugenics here (where humans will change genetically).

If we are not talking about an unchangeable part of human nature, how would we go about changing it?

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@ebrown p,

I hate to tell you this shocking news but slavery is still with us!

Yes hardly as common as it once was but everywhere it still make economic sense there is slavery.

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@ebrown p,

and that (although we have changed the mores in modern Western societies) we certainly have done nothing to change that part of human nature that leads to slavery.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mores hell it is because it no longer make economic sense that we are not selling people in downtown LA.

Yes it is nice that we can claim it is a moral driven change instead of a economic driven change but sadly it is not.

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@OGIONIK,

Both violence and religiosity appear to be evolutionary traits in humans.
Human cognition with its intellectualized concepts of "group identity" and "forward planning" have extended and systematised the natural competetive aggressiveness found in other animals to formal "warfare" which Clausewitz "sterilized" as "the continuity of politics by another means". Religion having ostensibly condemned individual aggression, ironically sanctifies such group activity by "blessing the righteous" before battle, and soothing the bereaved by promising a happy ending for the glorious dead in the hereafter. With such an insiduous opiate, what chance have we got ?

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@Intrepid,

I think that religion has caused a serious amount of ignorance.

this latest war lead by bush in my opinion is religious. hes a fantical christian.

but not all wars are religious.

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Do you think humanity will ever evolve/adapt/learn to not engage in violence/warfare?

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