Winning the ultimate battle: How humans could end war

[Swede]

OPTIMISTS called the first world war "the war to end all wars". Philosopher George Santayana demurred. In its aftermath he declared: "Only the dead have seen the end of war". History has proved him right, of course. What's more, today virtually nobody believes that humankind will ever transcend the violence and bloodshed of warfare. I know this because for years I have conducted numerous surveys asking people if they think war is inevitable. Whether male or female, liberal or conservative, old or young, most people believe it is. For example, when I asked students at my university "Will humans ever stop fighting wars?" more than 90 per cent answered "No". Many justified their assertion by adding that war is "part of human nature" or "in our genes". But is it really?

Among the revisionists are anthropologists Carolyn and Melvin Ember from Yale University, who argue that biology alone cannot explain documented patterns of warfare. They oversee the Human Relations Area Files, a database of information on some 360 cultures, past and present. More than nine-tenths of these societies have engaged in warfare, but some fight constantly, others rarely, and a few have never been observed fighting. "There is variation in the frequency of warfare when you look around the world at any given time," says Melvin Ember. "That suggests to me that we are not dealing with genes or a biological propensity."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327151.500-winning-the-ultimate-battle-how-humans-could-end-war.html?page=1

[AdHocSolver]

1. War, what is it good for....? Fun and profit, what else?

As long as people are gullible, so that those who profit from war can convince other people to fight wars for them, there will be wars.

The Iraq war for Big Oil and corporations like Halliburton comes to mind.

In addition, there is the military/industrial complex, building weapons systems that don't work for a militery that doesn't want them.

So long as a majority of any population can be kept fearful and unable to think for themselves, there will be wars.

[wildflower]

2. I really hope this is true

I want so badly to believe it. So did Peace Pilgrim.

[yodermon]

3. Key quote:

"War emerged when humans shifted from a nomadic existence to a settled one and was commonly tied to agriculture"
Paging Daniel Quinn.

[qazplm]

4. Once you start getting stuff

then sooner or later, you have to fight for your stuff, and once you have free time to think about something other than survival, then you start coming up with ideas, like religion, or ideologies, and those have to be fought for/against as well.

The only way to stop war would be to have no need ("infinite" energy and stuff) AND no ideology.

The former we can do eventually given enough time and technology, but the latter?

[Orsino]

7. Once deterrents are imbalanced, yes.

There must be a sweet spot where stealing your stuff becomes too risky for potential raiders/invaders, but power balances are shifting constantly.

[HamdenRice]

6. Except that it wasn't the agriculturalists necessarily engaging in war

One early pattern (not the only one) was that when people settled down and began accumulating grain stores and livestock, they became targets for less settled nomads, hunters, and herders.

The Viking raids on England and continental Europe, the Mongol raids into China, the Berber and Hausa raids from the southern Sahara into farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa, etc., etc., the list goes on and on.

[redqueen]

5. It's true.

Sure there will always be some people who insist on bad behavior, but a cultural shift away from the acceptance of violence as a tool in conflict resolution would change society in fundamental ways.

[joshcryer]

8. The concept that "war is natural" is a part of our social darwinist conditioning.

Particularly when it is (implicitly) forced upon us by our hierarchies.

[qazplm]

9. so all the war that went on even before hierarcies?

heck, odds are great that we killed the neanderthal at least partially through actually killing them.

Many of our closest primate relatives go to war as well.

[redqueen]

10. Those were still heirarchies.

Most animals who live in groups live in hierarchical systems.

From an evolutionary standpoint it's obviously been advantageous for those species that use it, but among humans I think it's debatable whether it's still useful.