How could you create 'true' world peace by the 21st century?

[Beatriz]

Humans wouldn't be competitive vis-a-vis elephants with the neuro-connectivity of crows, much less city-sized clusters of synthetic cerebral tissue. L.

city sized targets of stationary brain tissue or metal doesn’t seem an attractive option - some form of more flexible body makes sense even if not human. Have you read Kosemen’s All Tomorrow

 

[extraterrestris]

city sized targets of stationary brain tissue or metal doesn’t seem an attractive option

I assume that maximal intelligence would compensate for a lot.

Have you read Kosemen’s All Tomorrow

No. Not yet at least.

 

[octaviuz]

You would have to remove all the people. And even then you would have to limit your definition to exclude conflict between groups of animals.

We, and indeed most social creatures, define ourselves by our belonging to groups. Our family, our community, our region, our state, our faith, our ideology. That is how we define ourselves. And a part of that belonging is a choice to prioritize the needs of that group over those of others outside of that group. It’s as much about protection from the world outside as about succour within. In a world of limited resources (and possibly even one without limits) this will lead to conflict. Often that conflict will be physical.

Thus to remove the possibility of war you would need to remove our ability to socialize in groups. To identify with communities. And that would remove our ability to function as a civilization. The possibility of armed conflict is the fallen fruit of the same tree that allows us to care for other human beings. You cannot fully remove one without destroying the other.

I really think this is silly. The OP doesn't request the end of interpersonal conflicts. The target society is one where people still stab or shoot each other, and still form gangs and Camorra etc it's just one where states achieve the minimum expectation of kindergarten students, "use your words not your fists". Is it likely, not really but it's kind of nuts to suggest that it's basically ASB

 

[ArtosStark]

I really think this is silly. The OP doesn't request the end of interpersonal conflicts. The target society is one where people still stab or shoot each other, and still form gangs and Camorra etc it's just one where states achieve the minimum expectation of kindergarten students, "use your words not your fists". Is it likely, not really but it's kind of nuts to suggest that it's basically ASB

You haven’t spent a lot of time around kindergarten students have you?

That expectation is an ideal, not a reality. One only somewhat followed when enforced from above, and even then often honoured only in the breach.

International politics, in many ways, has more in common with the school yard than the court room. There is no judge. No teacher. No parent. There is no outside force to keep order or enforce a set of rules. Just bigger and smaller kids.

So if kids can’t manage it with supervision, how are nations supposed to without it?

 

[Spherical_light]

@steamboy has the right idea.

To get world peace, human nature must be changed. The thing is, to get to where humanity wants peace, first, things have to get so bad as to burn images of war related tragedies into the collective human psyche.

As for peace before 2000... That would've required some interesting things to take place. Perhaps where the Able Archer exercise led to ww3 and half of Eurasia was explosively divested of civilization stacking that on top of casualties on all the major continents. Enough for the remainder of the world to go "hold on, we can't keep doing this to ourselves..."

Its a nice WI to ponder, but there is that sort of time coming. Just...

Spoiler

...Read the book of Revelations in the bible. Funny how no one mentioned this before, but its obvious enough [also, the OP never mentioned anything about religion that I could see, so... But I know mentioning these things is frowned upon enough that I least spoilered it].

 

[ArtosStark]

@steamboy has the right idea.

To get world peace, human nature must be changed. The thing is, to get to where humanity wants peace, first, things have to get so bad as to burn images of war related tragedies into the collective human psyche.

As for peace before 2000... That would've required some interesting things to take place. Perhaps where the Able Archer exercise led to ww3 and half of Eurasia was explosively divested of civilization stacking that on top of casualties on all the major continents. Enough for the remainder of the world to go "hold on, we can't keep doing this to ourselves..."

Its a nice WI to ponder, but there is that sort of time coming. Just...

Spoiler

...Read the book of Revelations in the bible. Funny how no one mentioned this before, but its obvious enough [also, the OP never mentioned anything about religion that I could see, so... But I know mentioning these things is frowned upon enough that I least spoilered it].

Revelation doesn’t have the impetus for global peace be from humans. It is a peace sustained by the presence of Christ who had defeated the “Beast” (often understood to be the Anti-Christ) and the “Dragon” (often understood to be the Devil) and their armies. And even that makes room for a final battle after the release of the Dragon 1000 years later which includes a massive number of people.

Additionally, prophesy in scripture tends to be hard to interpret due to the figurative and metaphorical language used. Probably for a reason. The coming of the Anti-Christ, for example, has been predicted or proclaimed many times. The exact meaning of everything is likely not going to be clear until (or unless if you prefer) it happens. So even if Revelation had shown world peace brought by human hands, it’s not exactly a “how to” guide.

 

[steamboy]

Honestly religion is part of the problem. I mean....*glances towards a certain other part of the globe right now* it causes shenanigans, so depending on what you view as *true* world peace, that might entail the changing of to make it less "Well MY God is better than yours!" or basically mass rejection of religion.

 

[ArtosStark]

Honestly religion is part of the problem. I mean....*glances towards a certain other part of the globe right now* it causes shenanigans, so depending on what you view as *true* world peace, that might entail the changing of to make it less "Well MY God is better than yours!" or basically mass rejection of religion.

This is an old trope that I don’t find holds up to scrutiny. Rejecting religion did not noticeably decrease the number of wars that the Soviets engaged in. Nor were the wars of the Nazi’s, Napoleon, or the French Revolutionaries motivated by faith. So if the worst wars in our history had little to do with religion, it seems unlikely that removing it would stop conflict?

Even looking at it sociologically, if you remove faith as a cause for people to see outsiders as “other” then people simply default to other cultural or societal attributes that make them different. Even those conflicts when faith is a contributing factor are rarely fought specifically over faith differences. Even in Palestine in the 30’s and 40’s, Palestinian Arabs would have been little more happy if the group of people from other continents that were buying up all the land were Muslim. It very well might have made integration easier, but it is not guaranteed to stop major conflict. Nations of the same faith certainly have been able to find reasons to fight each other.

 

[Lalli]

Honestly religion is part of the problem. I mean....*glances towards a certain other part of the globe right now* it causes shenanigans, so depending on what you view as *true* world peace, that might entail the changing of to make it less "Well MY God is better than yours!" or basically mass rejection of religion.

Religion usually just was excuse to go to war. Religions rarely promote warfare. It is just leaders who want to use religion as excuse. Even if humanity never would had invented religion, there would be wars. And even irreligious countries or countries who didn't care religion very much waged wars. Check First French Republic, Soviet Union, nazi Germany or PRC just as few examples.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

Honestly religion is part of the problem. I mean....*glances towards a certain other part of the globe right now* it causes shenanigans, so depending on what you view as *true* world peace, that might entail the changing of to make it less "Well MY God is better than yours!" or basically mass rejection of religion.

Take religion out of the equation and world peace would still not happen overnight. More lives have been taken by atheist regimes than by religious wars. The root of all conflict isn't religion. It's human greed.

 

[Spherical_light]

My point was that without human nature being changed, "true peace" to get world peace will not happen. We humans are too self focused in the end to attain true peace, much less world peace that has....

No squabbles over any kind of resources.

No greed, hoarding, envy, crime.

A satisfaction with one's life.

Sounds impossible doesn't it? We humans are never satisfied with our lives, searching for something that eludes us physically, but we don't find it in part because we are too focused on what our own gain could be.

This could be attained by greater levels of communication, but without a rewrite of our basic nature; even more communication will not solve the underlying issues that humanity has.

----------------------

Let's look at an alternative Versailles/Arms treaty.

A long time ago, someone had an alternative arms treaty that focused primarily on armies rather than navies. Running with that, and limiting armies to sizes only enough to defend their countries' present borders while restricting navies from building capital sized ships [BBs, CVs, BCs, LCAs, etc] while allowing latitude to build enough smaller ships for commerce lane patrols and such. Something towards peace could be achieved with this, but [as stated below] everyone wants a degree of self sufficiency.

Part of the problem with self sufficiency was the scientific advancements sprouting up all over from late 1800s on, and suddenly you had to engage in international diplomacy for things that one never thought they would ever need before. Materials for electricity conduction and production, items of greater mobility than the horse and buggy that could be used for transportation and industry. This greatly expanded the definition of self sufficiency to the point of misinterpretation at a national level, because again; every nation looked to the benefits for themselves. Those who had to bargain for those materials to a degree or more became envious of those controlling the resources, thusly resulting in what we know as the world wars.

Now, if any of you started a reply already that perhaps includes some form of the word "but", then you have just validated my earlier point that we humans are too selfish for world peace [or see above].

We like peace, but as the naval treaties and subsequent world events spiraling from that era have shown; humans like security even more. We want to be secure and to feel safe, the Naval treaties canceled out that feeling of safety.

This is a good thought exercise to do, but the main point is that on our own terms, we humans will not have true peace without either complete self-extinction or otherworldly/supernatural help.