this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
34 points (92.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35393 readers
2 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 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] 2 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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The complete extinction of the human race

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

Through evolution or genetic engineering

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 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] 7 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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [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] 4 points 1 year ago

Kill every human being. No people no war.

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 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!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [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] 3 points 1 year ago

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

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

Universal basic income, universal food and shelter and education.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 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] 3 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.

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

Make those who declare war to actually fight the war. Put the two countries president on each side of an arena with some swords to fight to death, the one who lives wins the war. I'd record and pay pee view or something and the money raised would pay for homes for the poor in each country

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

A single world spanning country.

If we don't kill ourselves off first it will probably happen eventually. Country sized used to be limited by things like communication latency, and the time it took to move forces around. Technology has shrunk the world so that those things no longer matter. The natural size limit on a country is almost certainly as large as the earth now.

It won't happen soon, cultures will take time to become similar enough to merge. Leadership structures take time to be absorbed into a greater one (EU style) or have to forcefully taken over (Chechnya style, thankfully very rare these days). But with no real impediment to countries growing larger, it will happen eventually. With no-one able to fund or support rebellion and modern technology making police actions extremely effective it may well last effectively forever.

Whether it's a democratic utopia, a dictatorial nightmare, or something in between for the common citizen is not yet defined. Either way, war, as in peer to peer conflict between sovereigns, will be over.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

How about massive free psychedelic doses?

[–] [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.

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

This one is at least worth trying.

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

Eradicate fear.

Fear of losing power. Fear of "them". Fear of going to hell because you didn't convert someone. Fear of lost resources.

It all boils down to fear. The problem is that fear is contagious. It's easier to convince someone to back your side if you make them afraid vs hopeful.

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

How do you eradicate fear?

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

You face it, permit it to pass over you and through you. And when it has gone past you turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only you will remain.

/S, I'm just hype about the new dune trailer.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 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] 4 points 1 year ago

Britain has left the chat

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

Send everyone in charge to an Enya concert. "We can sail, we can sail, With the Orinoco flow..."

[–] [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] 2 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)

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

An unfortunate combination of somehow achieving a post-scarcity, non-capitalist society with robust resource and population control.

But people are greedy and want "freedoms" that run counter to this.

[–] [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

load more comments
view more: next ›