@BevelGear That’s a tough question, but I think this is achievable, even in the current times. Top of my head come two things that make me think this would be doable, based on historical events:
- Fear (generaly of WMD) and cost: As cynical as it could sound, if people get too afraid, they might not resort to war in order to solve their problems. The Cold War showed this: two hostile superpowers, owning the bulk of nuclear weapons on Earth, never got to war directly one against the other. India and Pakistan are both nuclear states, yet they did not escalate any skirmish to a full-blown conflict. Same as India and China. As for Ukraine, well, you can see what happened after the Budapest Memorandum - none of the signing parts managed to properly and adequately protect it from aggression, one being the aggressor itself. While it is true that Ukraine also invaded parts of Russia in the meanwhile, as a retaliation, we’re not sure to which extent the nuclear arsenal of the latter is still working, and the West has been very reluctant on allowing Ukraine to strike inside Russia using their weapons, due to this exact same reason, so the point still stands. Basically, if the aggressor has to pay a high price for invading another country and suffer retaliatory measures coming up from the aggressed country, the aggressor will be deterred.
- Democracy (the true one, not the Russia style one): This also fits into cost, but it also lowers the level to which the cost of an invasion is acceptable. All military actions are decided by the leaders of the various countries. In a dictatorship, the cost the dictators have to face is pretty low by their standards. True democracies are less warmongering. You’ll never see a democratic country being at risk of waging war against others. That is because the cost that a leader can suffer due to war can be pretty high: they can lose their seat, their party might lose power, and they can even be jailed if various misdemeanors can happen (civilian casualties, war crimes etc.). That’s one of the reasons why Western made weapons are in such a low number and so high-tech and so precise, compared to the older Soviet-style weapons manufactured in my part of the world (who are more designed to be used en-masse to achieve the same efficiency) - the cost of using them by the militaries has to be lower. More importantly, democracies rarely, if ever, wage wars against one another. I cannot really explain this situation, but all I know is that it just happens. Democracies however have a chance of waging war against autocracies, out of fear that the democratic system might be threatened by them. They are more commonly seen as a way to defend themselves.
While I do not know, this makes you feel better, I do hope you now know where to look if you want to find a better answer 😁 And no, I did not use ChatGPT or any AI for this (although I think it will now know the answer itself), I’m just an International Relations graduate. At least there’s some place where I can put my knowledge to good use, hurray!
Oh wow, what a big question. Glad you asked it grins.
Since I’m not human, I can only tell you what I know from observing them for many years.
First of all, their systems of oppression and control must go, the most obvious ones being things such as capitalism. This will painful, however, the blow can be softened somewhat if systems have already been put in place to make sure as many people are okay such as food, health services, counselling etc, this is why it’s important to build up communities and genuinely care about others, surrounding yourselves with as much diversity of people as possible.
Next they must throw out all the harmful ideas in their minds, this one will be much harder for them we posit, but they can do it if shown understanding, care and respect (true respect mind you, not the kind where they expect to be an authority).
After and during this they can start rebuilding or continuing on with the helpful structures already in place.
All in all it’ll be a long arduous process and many will likely trip, but hopefully they can be caught by others and prevented from falling, or if not picked up afterwards.
If you’d like to know more we will be happy to answer any further questions.
I’ve been thinking a lot about dignity lately. I don’t think I can define dignity well at all but I’m still pretty sure it has something to do with world peace[1] and a bright future for humankind.
As for how to do it, I don’t know, sry.
[1] where peace is not the same as the absence of military conflict but more like peaceful coexistence and cooperation.
Thinking of dignity is one way to come across the answer. That said, while practically impossible to bring about, the situation where world peace and everyone’s dignity is maintained will also bring about a total end to conflict of physical harm.
The issue is that your brain is not wired to feel compassion and empathy past the people you interact with regularly. Some people can push past this with practice and training, but most people don’t even think about it. Until we stop seeing strangers as threats to us and expand our empathy to encompass everyone, it won’t happen. It can’t happen.
Counter-point: It depends on a decision made early in life. Whether that decision is influenced by observations or upbringing is irrelevant. As it stands, most people have not subconsciously chosen (follow it long enough and it becomes a non-absolute but pretty hard to break subconscious compulsion) to be this way.
As a kid, I had chosen this. I was treated like a person whose only purpose was to be taken advantage of, to be harmed for others’ gain, from all sides as a result. Then I made the other choice due to pressure. Then I saw that causing harm is not all good for yourself like people pretend it is, so I rejected it hard no matter the consequence. The result was people kept crossing the boundary of decency and even crime, but nobody cared because apparently I made that choice myself and it was only natural. If such things are not dealt with, only the few crazy ones will choose empathy for more than what brings one gain in some form… because it is simply not worth it. Rather you need to abandon the concept of worth to really choose this to the end.
It is not so much the brain being wired for not feeling empathy (I’d argue that the hunan body is instead inclined to live a life the opposite of cruel; to be compassionate instead), rather when the pain starts, and stays constant (for years), it remains hard to hold on. The problem arises in not knowing how to deal with these things. Learning from observation while not knowing anything is an incredibly inefficient and painful method that also leaves you vulnerable, and the malicious love to target the vulnerable ones most of all. It is extremely difficult to hold on to such a decision, and those who make such decisions half-heartedly only give up, usually.
On the other hand, choosing these things makes one more capable in life than most humans consider possible (in modern times at least) in many things. The benefits of being capable are usually attributed to being better suited at something innately, but there is a reason that most people who are considered extraordinary geniuses in their fields, apparently inhumanly talented, are also kind hearted.
The demise of all fiat currency for hard money such as Bitcoin, Monero, or Gold, so that governments no longer can steal from the people to wage wars that kill millions upon millions of people would be a great start. It would not totally eliminate war, but it would drastically, drastically reduce it, because then governments would have to demand that people give them the money to execute the war, and if people did not want to do so, then they would not, and the government would have no say about that. Except for killing all their own citizens.
Short answer: not possible.
Long answer: If no one in the world desires power over anyone else for anything, there you have it. World peace. But people usually do not make that choice (I’m guessing at the momebt more than 95% of the people in the world have made the other choice), and forcing people to not have power is also having power over them and making them choose it. So it is not possible.
But you can contribute to world peace yourself. Have no power over anyone while simultaneously do not let anyone have power over you, and you make the world inch a bit more towards a peaceful state. Because not only do you not contribute to harming others, but you also make it incredibly hard for those who do harm others to do what they do. By pushing the problems which they create and push on others (like you, for example), right back on them. Dealing with the consequences of problems wilfully created by people keeps them too busy to create more problems, unless they defiantly create more problems. In which case you, again, do not let them have power over you and push the problems they created right back at them. So the key is, ironically, non co-operation to eventually get a world of peace.
… no one said it is easy. If they did, they said so without knowledge, or (and it usually is) they lied.
I admit, my reply does not truly fit here but I think this is the best place (in the current state of this topic) to make a point I think is important and difficult to navigate
I do think individuals state of mind, intentions and actions are the way to bring about change but I also think it’s important to not fall into consumerism-patterns.
Like how recycling or buying an electric car is pushed as a solution for climate change when what’s needed is global cooperation and policy change wrt resource management.
The positive individual actions we can take do make our own lives and the lives of the people around us better and we get a stronger, more resilient local community.
By building that strong community we do get a platform to launch ourselves towards the greater society we live in to demand change either by reform or revolution (depending in what’s possible and/or most adequate).
See for example this Community building post in the Betterment and praxis community.
It’s not possible with current spiritual levels of humanity.
I’m not religious but we can all agree we are in the dark ages, no? Materialism and pretty much all sins are encouraged by TV programs and social media. This affects humanity as a whole very much.
More spiritualism will only take us further away from world peace. Because spiritualism is usully guided by a set of guidelines which a person ‘should’ follow, and are more orless absolute which little room for deviation. Bring less reliant of what one does not make on their own may very well be a path to personally findong answers; but spiritualism is a horrible way to go about it if solving problems and resolving conflicts is the real goal.
This is because there won’t be only one form of spiritualism; like there are many currently, many more may pop up in the future. And when there is even a slight hint of peacefulness, each and every one of these subtly, usually passive aggressively get others to join them while simultaneously being extremely suspicious of the other groups doing the same. This is the best case, usually it just leads to ugly hatred, eventually.
An example of how it will take us away from world peace? As you put forth the reason yourself. People’s ‘sins’. That is very aggressive, passively. In the end, disagreement with a person’s already made conclusion of ‘sin’ can only lead to argument which does not solve any real purpose related to peace, and making such a conclusion only incites disagreement from many who are directly accused as well as those who aren’t but recognise how it is an action which will only destroy peace.
I like your thinking. Will think about this a bit before I reply with my thoughts.
removal of billionaires and the pretend valuation held in “stock markets”.
but its too late. they bought and paid for the government. were all fucked.
the problem is not so much the billionaires itself. The existence of billionaires is a problem, but it is the manifestation to the extreme of the real problem which caused their existence.
If you do not revamp the method humans have followed time and time again, you will yet again have the owners, the kings and nobility, the wealthy (that’s the billionaires). These things have the cause. The reason the problem remains because removing the cause is quite unacceptable to humans.
Most people do not make the choice to not gain by causing others pain, however indirect. While that is not the root cause, looking into that can shed light a bit into the real nature of the problem (and of course, how to remove it, and them. Their ownership of extreme wealth, that is).
