nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

Would a Global War make for a better world afterwards?

Hitchens

Millions would die fairly quickly but everyone alive now will die anyway.

Cities would be demolished completely but the rebuilding would mean no unemployment.

So perhaps the survivors and future generations would benefit from a vastly reduced population.

All humanity equal afterwards.............. hopefully?

Then a great peace for a long time................. maybe?

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

wakka12

jimgoose wrote: »

Didn't work the last two times.

Well, ww2 did help bring europe together and make it as peaceful as it is today

130Kph

Uncle Jim received the wet package on Monday
The green chicken has left the coop
The coal train leaves for the East at 11pm
The pink rabbit has returned to the hutch

Duiske

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

Male to Female ratio in Russia has still not recovered due to effects of World War II. A serious indication of how nasty and brutish wars are.

I think there may be other causes for that. Search "Russian Dashcam" on youtube.

Your Face

No thanks.

Calibos

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I wonder how long it would take us to reclaim lost technology, a new renaissance in a way.

Never.

In a post apocalyptic scenario bad enough to 'Lose technology', we'll never get it back. Doesn't even matter that we'd lost all the expertise. A few hundred years of archaeology and research and population rebuilding would solve that aspect. No the problem is that our modern society has already consumed all the easily accessible resources and now we need heavy industry and high tech to access whats left deeper down etc That industry and tech was initially built on the easily accessible resources. We'd be stuck in a catch 22. You need the resources to redevelop the industry and tech but you cant get at the remaining resources without already having the industry and tech.

If something happens to knock us back to pre-industrial tech levels globally we'll be stuck there forever more.

Capt'n Midnight

seamus wrote: »

And six years after that started we dropped the first nukes. Imagine if for whatever reason WWII hadn't started until 1949, when the US and Germany had already invented nuclear weapons.

It would have been the Brits with the bomb rather than the Americans. They only let the US know about Tube Alloys and other fancy technology because their backs were to the wall.

By 1949 the UK, Canada and Oz could have built the bomb.

The Tizzard mission also gave the US the jet engine and the cavity magnetron.

Radar won the war. It's what allowed the UK to defeat the Italian Navy and German surface fleet and later on the US to defeat the Japanese Navy and both to defeat the U Boats. And the whole Battle of Britain thing, as well as allowing bombing in bad weather. And allowed proximity shells for anti aircraft.

Code breaking helped but the Allies codes weren't that strong so it balanced out. Radar was the key technical difference , and having more resources.

Anyway wouldn't happened. Germany was bankrupt from rearming, it would have imploded by '49 even if Stalin hadn't invaded in '42 or '43

Samaris

We've tried this before many times. Didn't work then, probably won't work another time.

StudentDad

What a daft thread.

It makes me think of a 6 year old going, 'mommy, mommy, I do want another sweetie.' Only in this version he's going, 'Mommy, mommy, only an 'ickle war, please mommy, just a 'ickle war. It'd be so much fun.' Etc etc

SD

milehip

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

Male to Female ratio in Russia has still not recovered due to effects of World War II. A serious indication of how nasty and brutish wars are.

Russian men die on average 12 years younger than Russisan women. Something to do with alchool consumption it reckoned.

luftmensch wrote: »

If there's a hostile civilization that is advanced enough to invade another planet, or in our case solar system, then a unified resistance would be futile. Might as well kiss our arse's goodbye.

If we're going to reduce population, then we should bunk off of all the idiots. Facebook would be a good hunting ground. :P

Maybe we could defeat them with bird flu or something.(the aliens not the facebook hordes)

Arghus

I'd rather not try Nuclear Annihilation, just on the off chance that things might turn out okay afterwards.

topmanamillion

Interesting premise to a thread.
The world is over populated and it's only going to get worse.
I can only guess that at some point in the not to distant future a world strategy on reducing births will be needed.
Whether that will involve all nations uniting and agreeing to promote family planning/education and all the things that naturally reduce birth rates or whether it will require a mushroom cloud/epidemic is anyone's guess.

The world at the moment faces a lot of challenges, such as over population, hunger, climate change etc.
A reduction in the world's population due to a global conflict may well serve to address those issues but at a very high price.
There were certainly many benefits to WW2 such as platforms for peace between previously hostile nations such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Britain.
Of course I don't need to mention the many negative consequences of that war.

BuilderPlumber

No. The current enemy are not nation states. They are drug cartels like ISIS hiding behind religion. They can drug their dirty work doers up to the eyeballs to do anything and the doer thinks they have 7 virgins and feel a painless death while high on cocaine. 9/11 is proof of that. Even Hitler did not have that idea - he was reliant on rational men. If a war started, the drug dealers win. They did 9/11 to coax them to start that rubbish in Iraq and Bush fell for it. So did low level drug dealer bin Laden. That idiot should have known his life was limited after he agreed to take the blame for the cartel's initial attempts to dominate the world. But I guess that clown thought he was invincible (I hope the same egotistical flaw exists with his bosses too). The drug dealers could of course get people stoned to deliver dirty nuclear devices to kill millions and get rid of cities. The West/East could respond with anything from conventional to nuclear but the drug dealers would get more of their doped idiots to do worse and shout Allahu Akhbar despite being 100% atheist. Mad Max 100% .. without Max is the outcome.

Capt'n Midnight

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

Mad Max .. without Max is the outcome.

:eek:

Like waterworld :eek::eek:

DoozerT6

Has the OP never seen 'Threads?'

I don't think we'd need a global war to thin the herd. Just turn off the electricity for good.

I remember seeing a documentary (probably on Nat Geo or Discovery) about what would happen if for some reason the electricity system failed worldwide and could not be restored (kinda like that fictional series 'Revolution' on Sky a couple of years back). Initially, after a few days of being able to cope, society worldwide would break down, there would be rioting, looting, killing, all that stuff. This would continue for some time and basically the weak would die either from violence, or eventually starvation as food ran out. Basically the world would be a very very bleak place for a long time (typical post-apocalypse) but they surmised that eventually society would start to recover, the remaining population would become pretty much completely agrarian and begin to form societies based on co-operation and trade. Cities would become large kitchen gardens, old homesteading skills would have to be relearned from books, and once society reached an equilibrium those who were left could start to try to figure out how to get industry, commerce and production started again on a larger scale. I think they even figured out how to turn the leccy back on again in the end (after a couple of generations I think?) Does anybody else remember this programme, or what it was called?

KomradeBishop

mickrock wrote: »

The following scheme would work better and there'd be no bloodshed.

Scheme for Full Employment

Recommends that:
1.Jobless people be employed as security guards
1. in their own homes.
2. They have official-looking uniforms.
Benefits:
• Reduces the number of unemployed.
• They no longer sit around all day doing nothing.
• Instead, they sit around all day maintaining the
security of the premises.
• Fosters social responsibility.
• Increases self-respect (from wearing nice uniform).
• Develops skill-set.
• Reduces neighbourhood crime/terrorism.
Alternative role:
• For those who prefer not to be security guards, we
recommend employment as Home Administrators.
Funding:
• To be funded by the government (ie public funding).
Why should the government fund it? Well, the government already spends billions of pounds of public money funding job creation – eg schemes such as the New Deal, Regional Selective Assistance Grants, etc. Why not go a small step further to fight the evil of unemployment?
And, anyway, would you prefer public funding of idleness? Surely it's better to fund respectable jobs.

http://www.anxietyculture.com/scheme.htm

The thing I don't get about this, is that there really is no lack of worthwhile jobs that can be created for the unemployed to work in, or be trained into - so I don't see why that site makes the suggestion satirically.

On the one hand it makes a lot of good/obvious points about why a Full Employment program is better - on the other hand it makes a bit of a wasted satirical point, by implying that there aren't worthwhile jobs/work to be done.

A proper Full Employment (i.e. Job Guarantee) program, if made possible politically, pretty much is one of the best things that could possibly happen for a country - it'd make all economic crises way easier for people to weather.

KomradeBishop

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

...
Anyway wouldn't happened. Germany was bankrupt from rearming, it would have imploded by '49 even if Stalin hadn't invaded in '42 or '43

Germany had no shortage of funds for arming themselves - they literally printed money, to sidestep economic restrictions on rearmament prior to the war - so long as Germany had the physical resources and labour (the availability of which expanded as they advanced more), finding the money to put the two (resources + labour) together wasn't hard - it's when either resources or labour becomes scarce, that it becomes a problem, as no amount of money will fix that.

Germany understood properly and was willing to use the full power behind money, better than any other country before or since - a country armed with that knowledge, can't go 'bankrupt', because they control their own currency - their central bank head early on, Hjalmar Schacht, was a genius, who unfortunately paved the way for the war that followed.

Capt'n Midnight

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Germany had no shortage of funds for arming themselves - they literally printed money, to sidestep economic restrictions on rearmament prior to the war - so long as Germany had the physical resources and labour (the availability of which expanded as they advanced more), finding the money to put the two (resources + labour) together wasn't hard - it's when either resources or labour becomes scarce, that it becomes a problem, as no amount of money will fix that.

You can't buy Russia Oil or Romanian Oil with printed money nor Swedish iron ore or manganese or chromium or rubber or coffee or ...

KomradeBishop

In Germany's case, they used it internally as a parallel currency - and no other country had any problems accepting the national currency (which the parallel currency was effectively a mirror of).

The prevalent myths about 'printed money' (it's all fiat/printed now...), are more than a century old and out of date.

Timberrrrrrrr

saabsaab wrote: »

Probably as long as the last time. (10 to 20 thousand years, depending on the way it pans out) Knowledge would become legends in the new stone age world as survival would be all people can think about.

Care to elaborate?

Skylinehead

wakka12 wrote: »

Well, ww2 did help bring europe together and make it as peaceful as it is today

I guess you missed the whole Iron Curtain bit.

josip

Calibos wrote: »

Never.

In a post apocalyptic scenario bad enough to 'Lose technology', we'll never get it back. Doesn't even matter that we'd lost all the expertise. A few hundred years of archaeology and research and population rebuilding would solve that aspect. No the problem is that our modern society has already consumed all the easily accessible resources and now we need heavy industry and high tech to access whats left deeper down etc That industry and tech was initially built on the easily accessible resources. We'd be stuck in a catch 22. You need the resources to redevelop the industry and tech but you cant get at the remaining resources without already having the industry and tech.

If something happens to knock us back to pre-industrial tech levels globally we'll be stuck there forever more.

Once every so often I read a new pesrpective on things here on boards.
May not work out that way in the end, but great to set your mind thinking for a bit all the same. Thanks.

Shint0

Hitchens wrote: »

So perhaps the survivors and future generations would benefit from a vastly reduced population.

All humanity equal afterwards.............. hopefully?

Then a great peace for a long time................. maybe?

...where all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

Would only work where all the altruists survive and the "nasty, brutish" get annihilated. So who gets to fire the first warning shot?

Dr Crayfish

I would imagine climate change will eventually lead to mass migration, political unrest, and ultimately world war some time in this century. This time around I'm not sure if it will be a better world afterwards, unless a massively decreased population counts as better.
Nowadays it's a bit 1935-1939, we all know something bad is coming, but don't know quite when or what we can do. Plastic bag taxes etc are just like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
Give how we're milling through our finite resources at the moment, perhaps a World War would kick us into check next time around. But I doubt it, greed comes first with humans.

Dr Crayfish

topmanamillion wrote: »

Interesting premise to a thread.
The world is over populated and it's only going to get worse.
I can only guess that at some point in the not to distant future a world strategy on reducing births will be needed.
Whether that will involve all nations uniting and agreeing to promote family planning/education and all the things that naturally reduce birth rates or whether it will require a mushroom cloud/epidemic is anyone's guess.

Realistically to combat the problems of over consumption and over population, we would need to give way to democracy for a while.

BattleCorp

If there was a nuclear war, surely there would be countries that wouldn't be nuked or bombed in some sort of way. Maybe out of the way countries like New Zealand or somewhere remote like that.

What I'm trying to get at is how bad would the war have to be to bomb us back to the stone age?

If Ireland was levelled, we could be knocked back to the stone age but surely all learning and technology wouldn't be lost as maybe another country that wasn't badly hit would have the ability to supply technology etc. and therefore speed up the rebuilding process.

Although we'd probably starve in the meantime waiting for help.

Timberrrrrrrr

BattleCorp wrote: »

If there was a nuclear war, surely there would be countries that wouldn't be nuked or bombed in some sort of way. Maybe out of the way countries like New Zealand or somewhere remote like that.

What I'm trying to get at is how bad would the war have to be to bomb us back to the stone age?

If Ireland was levelled, we could be knocked back to the stone age but surely all learning and technology wouldn't be lost as maybe another country that wasn't badly hit would have the ability to supply technology etc. and therefore speed up the rebuilding process.

Although we'd probably starve in the meantime waiting for help.

In an all out nuke war any country not hut would still feel the affects either frome disastrous weather due to nuclear winter or radiation poisoning. An all out nuclear war would indeed touch every country on the planet one way or another.

josip

The French would probably drop one on New Zealand for fun anyway.

BattleCorp

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

In an all out nuke war any country not hut would still feel the affects either frome disastrous weather due to nuclear winter or radiation poisoning. An all out nuclear war would indeed touch every country on the planet one way or another.

Yes, I understand that part.

My point is that if every piece of infrastructure and technology is destroyed worldwide, how long would it take us to get back to the technology that we have today. I'm guessing hundreds of years.

But, if say one country survived relatively intact, lets pretend that New Zealand was left intact (apart from having to deal with poxy weather, nuclear fallout etc., their technology would help speed up the world recovery.

Timberrrrrrrr

BattleCorp wrote: »

Yes, I understand that part.

My point is that if every piece of infrastructure and technology is destroyed worldwide, how long would it take us to get back to the technology that we have today. I'm guessing hundreds of years.

But, if say one country survived relatively intact, lets pretend that New Zealand was left intact (apart from having to deal with poxy weather, nuclear fallout etc., their technology would help speed up the world recovery.

I see where you are coming from but if this happened NZ wouldn't be shipping off their best and brightest minds or resources to other countries to help they would be keeping them at home to make sure their own society survived.

Then there would be the logistical nightmare of garnering resources to build these things

josip

BattleCorp wrote: »

... New Zealand... their technology...

Now there's an oxymoron.
Technology in New Zealand is using a hammer to dispatch a newly born bull calf.