I think I'm much more in favor of human evolution than I am some form of Gort. which would still have to depend of force and killing and would be opposed. The specter of a New World Order also seems to rush into my head about this approach.

I really do believe that humans are capable of saving themselves but we've never really tried that approach.

 

Tough to say but nothing is going to be solved by bringing in weapons of mass destruction because people are too quick to show what they have as a weapon to cause mass hysteria.

 

Believe it or not, but I'm inclined to agree Stumbly. As I said, the vast majority of people on the planet today, regardless of nation, want peace. Seriously, who wants their arms and legs blown off, or that of their family?

I'd love to think of a world without WMD or even CWMD. The problem is, how do we achieve it? TCL's post makes sense, but how would you make sure the voting was accurate and fair? And the power of propaganda is a fearsome tool. Easy to convince a fearful nation that "if you lay down your arms, someone will bomb the hell out of you." Look how many times we've seen people post here from the US alone about "how they have their handguns, to defend their country." How do you combat such thinking, however ridiculous and ill-informed it might be?

I'd personally love a Star Trek, utopian world. One where money and energy is spent on benefiting humanity, rather than killing it. Sadly, we live in dystopian times. We keep killing and having wars, because we can. Unless someone takes action to prevent that from happening, it'll keep happening. And short of a Gort, I don't see humanity changing that, any time soon.

There is one other alternative, though it's even more outlandish than Gort. It's to give everyone nuclear weapons. Iraq, Iran, N&S Korea, all the Middle East states, Japan, New Zealand... everyone. A level playing field. Makes sure everyone has enough to destroy any enemy, and create a nuclear winter that would wipe us all out. A couple of hundred for each country should do it.

Then calmly say to all, "now we all can kill each other fifty times over, and no-one can win any war they start with anyone else for fear of being annihilated ... how about we find a way to end all wars, forever?"

M.A.D indeed. But maybe from madness, will come sanity. Maybe.

Bye for now - Fluffy McNoo.

 

I agree with most of what you are saying here and share your concerns when past history would indicate that humans can always come up with an excuse to go to war with each other and so far there is no end in sight.

But one thing I don't think we can deny is it is getting to be a smaller world everyday and the differences to seem to get smaller with that. My greatest hope now and has been for years is what we're using right now to communicate and that is the internet. I've noticed that no matter how countries try to clamp down in the internet there is still news getting out and if it can get out it also has to be able to get in.

But I'm trying not to fool myself either. Before this world can find peace we've got to address the root causes of what actually makes people willing to go to war and that is actually fighting for the resources to live on. Until we address war we have to address the causes of them. And what I see as the biggest cause is a very tough one to tackle and that is over population.

And I don't see any of these things happening anytime soon. I'm just hoping we can continue to take steps that will buy us that time.

 

To be honest Fluff...whether or not the voting was fair is fairly immaterial.
If we were to reach the stage whereby everyone on Earth realised that they were at least being given a choice in the matter, then I believe the momentum brought on by that, and the ensuing discussion would carry us all forward into a peaceful coexistence.

 

I think Fluffy was right in a sense...what we need is an outside enemy, one powerful enough to squash us like a bug, mean enough to threaten us with annihilation, but benevolent enough not to do it. We as a species need to be taken down a few pegs, and made to understand that not only are we not the masters of the universe, as we like to think, but are in reality like ants crawling around by the swimming pool, vulnerable to being stomped by the size 13s of the REAL dominant species. Our petty international squabbles are meaningless in such a context.

Now where will we find such an enemy?

 

Kill 'em all and let... the cockroaches sort 'em out.

-S-

 

Good question Kimi.

Tell you what....maybe all the brilliant brainiac atheists should get together and invent an invisible one to do just as you suggest....

and maybe with those self same atheists first in the queue for the treatment!!

(Sorry Fluff, a bit off topic but I just couldn't resist it)

 

S.A. L.T. and START,(1970s) were supposed to be for limiting nuclear proliferation.
There are reductions going on re: US and USSR, right?
More reductions in arms(missiles), the world does not need all these weapons.
However, many would fail or be shot down in a war. This I believe is the rationale for the overkill in numbers.
what we have, for many decades now, is gross overkill imo.

 

We burned nearly half of japan and eradiated an enormous area for years with two 'young' bombs, america has a huge overkill and before we bug the little guys who could maybe hit our eastern seaboard why dont we look at america, the power that could kill the world twice if it used its whole stockpile.

 

Maybe "Gort" has already arrived, and is watching us? Look at the credible organizations and governments that have admitted to UFO's.

 

UFO does not mean alien.

-S-

 

The Crown of God. Evil heat, heavy glow. Feel it in my soul. No rest for me. No rest for you. Burning feeling. Guiding light. Still one star in sight. Into the darkness. Still my heart is true. Across the abyss. Riding on the pandemonic waves to you. Turn steel to gold. Keep on trying. Going down in style. Keep on trying. Into the darkness. As deep as I can go. The light is within me. Star of blasphemy. The crown of death is going to kill them all. Feels so fine it blows my mind. Gets me every time. Kill them all.

 

Well, what can we do now that nuclear pandora is out of her box? Now that the atomic cat is out of the bag, so to speak, we cannot put it back. Think of it this way. If you live in Russia, or China, or any of the nuclear superpowers, would you want to be the only one without the bomb?

It's like a "mexican standoff", and frankly I'm not going to be the one who puts his gun down first, if I have any say. I wish I could say something more inspired, but honestly I just can't. War by and large is good for the species. We weed each other out, stronger (not necessarily better) ideas and peoples survive. But global nuclear war would be a horrible thing and would weed us all out.

Environmentally? Don't worry about the planet. Earth will keep spinning, and revolving around the Sun. Just like it has for billions of years, the sun will illuminate about half at a time, and the energy will cause chemical reactions, and someday maybe life will again flourish.

It's a depressing question you ask, McNoo. I've just realized I'd rather not think about it. As you can see it's led me to a wide view lens through which all of humanity is just a fraction of a moment, on a fraction of a dot, in a fraction of a galaxy... Thanks for ruining my night. Remember your close up cameras folks, they're the only ones we matter to.

 

You're not going to get anybody to relinquish nuclear weapons through diplomacy, especially not the fruitcakes of Pyongyang or Tehran. There is really only one solution, the same one that kept the USSR at bay: Mutual Assured Destruction. We still hold a vast nuclear arsenal. What will happen is that some time soon, the mad mullahs will be told that if a nuclear warhead happens to explode in Israel, all of Iran will be a sheet of glass within 1/2 hour. Somebody will explain to the stalinists in North Korea that if one of their nuclear devices explodes anywhere outside their national borders, in a very short while the wasteland they've already created will be irradiated to an extent that not even they will be able to repress peasants.

You can go on about how "The One" will use his unique skills to bring peace in our time, but this is what will really happen.

 

Nobody said "The One" will bring peace in our time but he's at least working on the right step and you're a step behind. It would me naive to think that Iran and North Korea don't already know that if they resorted to nuclear weapons they would be wiped from the earth.

 

Well, in that case, we shouldn't get all worked up about Iran or North Korea acquiring nuclear technology, should we?

 

BINGO! you got it. The only reason we are against proliferation is because the more people have them the more likely a M.A.D. situation is to occur.

 

"'What was that last bang?'" Chan asked grimly. "You know it's bad when a nuke going off is anticlimactic."

-Hell's Faire by John Ringo​

The above just goes to show that I read waaaay too much SF, but I admit that nukes don't seem all that scary to me. They're really just very big, very nasty bombs. Hell, I think we've actually gone and built a few MOABs that hit with more oomph than the WWII era bombs. (The Russians have something similiar, known as FOABs.) But especially not with the world as it is. All the major powers realize what a bad idea they are, and pretty much the only ones that are actively pursuing them are either A) Crazy, or B) neighbors to the Crazy ones.

As far as America having nukes, whats so bad about that? The number of cut-outs, arming codes, and sheer number of people involved makes it as difficult to launch a warhead as it can possibly get at this point, especially since as far as I know no one person, not even the President, as full access to everything. If my hazy memory of protocol is close, Obama has some of the codes needed, the Joint Chiefs have the rest of the code. Release needs a third party to ok, and then a hard initiation at the launch point. Anyone involved can say no and cancel the attack. And hell, we're working to reduce, and all our efforts in the past 20 years or so have been defensive, Star Wars type stuff. We're one of the most responsible nuke carriers out there.

For my personal concerns, I say North Korea and (sort of) Pakistan. I don't know what the cut out rules are for NK, and while a rational person can see that it won't end well for NK, Jong hasn't exactly been the paragon of intelligence, and if he does/did have a stroke or anything else to affect his mental capacity, well, he hasn't exactly been a paragon of intelligence.

Pakistan is a mild concern because of the insurgency and its nature, and all it would take is one bad luck battle or a back stabbing general, and the Taliban would have nuclear material. Whether they could make it go off is another question (and would probably depend on how they got access to it in the first place) but they'd at least be able to cook up and ship the materials for a dirty bomb. Not sure they'd be able to ship it all the way to North America, but an inside job on a European target remains a decent possibility. Fortunately it looks like the Pakistani forces have the insurgents contained, if not outright beaten.

Iran doesn't really bother me. Dinnerjacket (Sorry, saw it on an Iranian twitter, and liked it enough to steal it) is probably commitable, but Kohmeini is the real power behind the throne, and unlike Jong works through the Council of Mullahs, so if he goes off his rocker they can take over from him.

All in all, I'd be more concerned with a Captain Tripps scenario more than anything else. A superbug would just be nasty, and its doubtful that there'd be anywhere that such a bug could miss.

Sweet dreams!

 

Yes, we should, because they're crazy enough to pass the technology (or actual weapons) along to anyone who will help keep them in power, or shares their wacko ideology.