Is world peace even possible?

Peace is indeed possible, but lots and lots of people are going to have to give up cherished beliefs and ideals before it can happen. It’s going to hurt… BIG time!

None of us asked to be here, and none of us are getting out of this alive. The prolem is what we chose to believe in between. If, for example, you believe that when you die as a martyr for your religion, you go directly to paradise, you’re going to behave a LOT differently than will someone who believes that we are to stay alive as long as possible.

The world is at peace. You just don’t see the rational in it.

@ChazMaz elaborate?

I personally don’t see world peace as being possible unless all minds were of one accord.

Look at us as a machine. Action, reaction.
What is going on is currently how the machine is designed to work.

Peace or War has nothing to do with it. It just is a byproduct of the process.

I hate to be pessimistic about this, no one abhors war more than a professional soldier. Man is by nature competitive, possessive, territorial and violent. Trying to work out differences peacefully fails when the disadvantaged party has the option of violent aggression. Ultimately, might does make right, as history is written by the victors.

Guess it depends on how we define “peace.” If you mean the absence of wars—or maybe a better way to put it, warring—I don’t think it’s possible. There are simply too many at odds with too many others for too long, too fundamentally over differences in religion, land rights, oh, the list is endless. Me, I think we could have real progress toward global calm if there were an end to nuclear armement and a dial-down of world terrorism.

If there was never war. How would we know what peace was?

I do think peace is possible, but not probable.

Due to religion, no.

@ChazMaz how the machine was designed to work? How about we use your machine analogy and use inputs and outputs. If one inputs shit we are going to get shit as an output. Why cant we change what we are putting into the equation? Why cant we use these same algorithms of action and reaction, but change our actions for the better? I dont see why it has to be like this…..

If one inputs shit we are going to get shit as an output.
See, you are hypothesizing an action. If “shit” is coming out then the machine is making “shit”. Doing what it is currently engineered to do.
And doing a great job of it. So all is running great.

I sit on the toilet, Take a GREAT shit. It’s a good thing and an important part of the process.

Only if free will is eliminated or everyone is lobotomized.

@ChazMaz so the world isnt at peace…. it is just following natural action/reaction. Balanced in that effect sure, but peace? Not at all.

@uberbatman – Right!

Plain and simple, NO! We have not had peace from Biblical times till now. We have not had peace during the whole history of man.

@ChazMaz RIGHT!?!?! but….but….. “The world is at peace.” whaaaaaa

No The human species is basically an aggressive one. We can at least agree to make war a little less nasty especially for the civilian population. In spite of what some conspiracy theorists say, international bodies can be effective for example NATO and the European Union have kept Europe a relatively peaceful place.

Maybe it’s a time thing?

There are so many violent practices that have dissolved over time, at least in the west.
Most recently think of capital and corporal punishment in schools. I know I got hit with a slipper a few times, my father the cane – any of this would have a teacher arrested these days.

Perhaps it may take a couple of hundred years or so but it’s possible. That of course does not predict the likelihood, but simply recognizes the possibility of it.

I don’t think so. We are aggressive, as @basstrom188 says, but it seems like there is a good reason for it. It’s good old Darwin’s “survival of the fittest.” We are constantly competing to be more successful. In this competition one would expect the fittest survivors to change from time to time as external circumstances change.

For example, a virus could come along that kills 90% of people with certain genetic similarities. Those who had a different make-up would survive. That’s war against a disease, but diseases have played a huge role in human conflicts.

Now, it could be that cooperative societies have an evolutionary advantage. We have a worldwide experiment/competition with various forms of cooperation going on right now. Some have been pretty dysfunctional—look at the middle east. Other people have learned from their experience with genocidal conflicts (Ireland, Rwanda, Liberia).

Some of the difference between these different kinds of cooperative societies are fairly subtle. We’ve got the US which tries to have a balance between capitalism and socialism that is more capitalistic than that of many nations in Europe. Who is doing better? From what I’ve heard, Europe is gaining an edge.

Europe is also working to build greater cooperation amongst it’s nations. Again, they do this as an evolutionary adaptation to enhance their survivability in competition with the rest of world.

NAFTA brings the US, Mexico and Canada closer. There are organizations in Asia and SE Asia and even Africa with similar goals.

Clearly cooperation offers a competitive advantage. The big question, for me, is how far can this cooperation go? Could we make it to the point where we are all cooperating together—- all 8 billion of us—or however many there are at that time?

I think it will become necessary to have such global cooperation. I think it will also become necessary to distribute education, medical care and even resources more equitably around the world. However, this can not happen using a central authority. Worldwide cooperation and redistribution of worldwide resources can only work if every individual (or maybe 60% of them) perceives this policy as being to their advantage.

The problem with worldwide cooperation is that there are so many competing ways to do it. There is the Muslim way, the Christian way, the UN way, the American way, The Chinese way and on and on. Some of these ways believe they have the only possible route to achieve world cooperation. Unlike me, some of them believe it can be done through a central authority.

I think we will need to worldwide cooperation—peace? But I’m not sure cooperation can stay together without competition.

I highly doubt it. Have you ever attended a local government or town council meeting? No one can agree on that level and I have often wondered when weapons would appear. How could divergent nations agree if the local council can’t???

Not to mention the fact that humans still have enough animal in them to be very predatory.

“Here’s an interesting form of murder we come up with: assassination… Have you ever stopped to think about who it is we kill? It’s always people who tell us to live together in harmony and try to love one another… BAM! Right in the f****** head. Apparently we’re not ready for that.”
– George Carlin

I read somewhere that there have been over 13,000 wars in recorded history, never minding a definition of war that may be a little fuzzy around the edges.

The Peace of Rome (Pax Romana) made travel in the ancient Mediterranean area safe, but the peace Rome produced came at the price of violent regional pacification. Utopia is enforced (and defined) by Leviathan then as now.

Otherwise to accomplish world peace all we need is an alteration in human nature. But whose interests would be met in accomplishing that deed, were it possible?

Yes. We’ll get there eventually.

Peace is a state of mind. Nothing more.

Eh, just kill everybody, it’ll be peaceful enough then.

@Winters in a way you are right. We humans are the only creatures that bring up the issue.

@ChazMaz I think he’s thinking of the lions and the lambs and all that.

The only time that the world will be at peace is when Jesus comes again. But, we don’t and will never know when that is until he is here once again.

I’m not holding my breath.