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People will not stop trying to establish domination over one another. If history has taught us anything, it's that. Status-seeking is built in to the human geno
by barrkel 9y ago
People will not stop trying to establish domination over one another. If history has taught us anything, it's that. Status-seeking is built in to the human genome, and what counts as status changes with fashion - one day it's empire building, another day it's moral crusades, yet another it's extermination of the Other.
You're right that 70 years is an eyeblink. Without nukes, I would expect bloodier wars than WWII every 50 to 100 years. We may still see it yet with autonomous drones, and we'll definitely see it if a realistic, reliable defence to ballistic missiles is established.
I don't see a way out beyond altering the psychological utility function of humans at the genetic level, but no such technology could be created and deployed without it being used for tyranny. We might slowly breed it out of the population, but we'd need a different economic structure that doesn't rely so heavily on competition, and that's not going to happen any time soon.
- jacquesm 9y ago> People will not stop trying to establish domination over one another. That depends on where in the world you are looking. There are plenty of places where people are not trying establish domination over neighboring countries. That something is in our nature does not mean automatically that as a society we can not transcend those elements. In fact, almost all of society is an effort at transcending those elements. We've come a long way in terms of organizing ourselves, we recognize that war is a 'means of last resort' and there are plenty of people who would not support wars of aggression.