Do you consider yourself to have a realistic idea of how the human population would be altered if world peace were to occur?

There is always another, worse horror just around the corner.

I have no idea… GQ, though!

We’ll still have diseases at least…

You are using flawed logic in thinking war somehow controls population. It’s akin to saying you’ve saved the world by swatting flies considering their high rate of reproduction. Nature will adjust the population accordingly through pestilence and other factors.

What if we could totally control population, that would be akin to peace.

@pdworkin Is it always worse?
@AstroChuck Is that directed at me? Because it was not my intention to imply such things. Nonetheless, do you believe that nature shall always find a means to reach equilibrium in this regard and if so, how?

Not every thing that happens is bad, but there is always something worse than whatever it was you thought was the worst that could happen.

I have a hard time entertaining the notion that war is beneficial to society.

As for how peace would affect the world, crime going down would be a good benefit.

We would also be able to use the resources we had previously put toward war toward more beneficial pursuits such as advancing medicine and exploring space.
Yes the population would rise so we would have to account for that as a society. Maybe we’d have to be like China and say “whoa everyone… one kid only please”.

@pdworkin I’m inclined to agree
@The_Compassionate_Heretic Would crime go down?

It seems like the people with the power, don’t use it for peace. And the people with the power, if they achieved peace it would be more like piece or “peace”. I would rather breath clean air, hug a tree, and walk around naked, than find out a four year degree is the new highschool diploma, go shoot that guy, or to lose everything just for an apology. Excuse me I lost my train of thought, need to go eat.

@Nially_Bob I don’t know for certain. Let’s create world peace and find out.

As long as there is a distinction between people, that is, people that have advantages vs those that do not, be it power, money, materials, precious natural resources or what have you, the advantaged will fight to maintain same or their right to gain more advantage whereas those disadvantaged will fight for benefit should their survival require it or when envy and greed drive them such is the case with crime. In addition, anything that segregates people into groups, such as nationalism, religion, culture, PC vs Mac, leads to an “us vs them” mentality and a group mentality which, with the proper catalyst, can result in rioting.
In my opinion, world peace would require an elimination of borders (to eliminate nationalism and “ownership” of resources) and an embracing of a pure form of socialism which in itself would require an abrupt and huge change in human nature, that is the elimination of greed. It would require that all materials and opportunities for betterment, be equally spread to every single person regardless of any other factor. That means that every single person, without exception, in developed countries would be willing to give up their iPhones and iPods and take five steps backwards as those in third world countries would be willing to take five steps forward and furthermore, would denounce any future opportunity to rape the earth and take advantage of others.
It would also require the elimination of prejudice and an embracing of all people as one regardless of color, religion, culture, the food you eat or how you prepare it. And if that can’t happen, you would need to homogenize the whole human race and eliminate individuality entirely.
Likely? I’ ll let you answer that as soon as you voluntarily send me your iPhone and iPod and denounce incentives to work harder or smarter and your “right” to better your circumstances. I won’t hold my breath. See you…Gary aka wtf

The benefits of peace will always outweight the benefits of war. How human population would be altered through world peace is something I don’t have a definitive answer about. Sorry.

Unfortunately, it’s not if this or if that. Even without world peace, the world population has already exceeded the ability of mankind to properly manage the resources necessary. 20,000 people starve to death every single day of the year.

I’m in the middle of reading an interesting book right now called Is Religion Killing Us? which explores the roots of theological violence.

It identifies five kinds of violence (1) the violence inflicted on oppressed people through hunger and poverty; (2) rebellion and armed resistance to oppression; (3) repression in the form of state terror, death squads and the paramilitarization of the police; (4) the dysfunctional deflective violence of impoverished people (e.g., crime in the ghetto, scapegoating, and the targeting of people for punishment because they are handy rather than because they oppress); and 5) spiritual violence in the form of divine threats, or human violence in God’s name (e.g., crusades, or purges in order to spiritually purify the world).

All these forms of violence would have to be eliminated in order to have true world peace. If that were to happen, the world would very likely develop economically, socially, ethically, politically, and every other way. Paradoxically, prosperity has a downward effect on the birth rate, since social security enables people to forgo having lots of children in the hopes that some of them wil survive long enough to provide for their parents in old age. Overpopulation is a chronic problem in war-torn, impoverished, and undeveloped countries, because disease and life low expectancy, coupled with lack of social security, make it necessary to produce as many offspring as possible. This produces a downward spiral of overtaxation of resources, disease and death, and overpopulation in order overcome it.

World peace presupposes a massive transformation of our currently inequitable status quo, in order to remove the causes of conflicts that lead to war. In such a world, there would be no famine, disease, and massive population displacements. In order to preserve the peace, the world would necessarily have to pull together to check environmental degradation, and would have means of attending to the needs of people struck by natural disasters. There would be little gulf between haves and have-nots, since everyone would have a dignified life as a matter of right.

Homicides and suicides will probably still occur, but will be greatly attenuated in a world where mutual respect is the dominant ethos.

Do I think such a view is “realistic”? Not in the sense of being easily achievable any time soon. But it is realistic in the sense that this is the sort of world we would have to have if we are to have true world peace. Anything less comprehensive would soon unravel.

Peace would mean the ridiculous competitive nationalism amongst countries would have ended. I surmise it would also have precipitated a cooperation in so many arenas like food sharing, resource allocation and a one world view that human population would be well served by increased productivity.

The story Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke covers this concept very well. The ending is a bit dodgy and quite unsettling, however.

If world peace will occur we will still have diseases homicides,suicides and phychological problems because this are not caused by war,but world peace is possible only if we modify our genes and if we’d do that probably we will be advanced enough to stop diseases and other problem by modifying our genes.

I would not worry about the consequences of world peace on human populations. We as humans are boud by default to destroy eachother. If ever this “world peace” will hapen, it will happen because one of two things:either there are no more humans to fight wars, or the humans will evolve to a more “non-beligerent” society.

Probably will be the first…

WTF? So man is doomed, history doesnt show that. Yeah as a whole we may skin our knees, break a bone, or get the flu, but we don’t spontaneously combust and die. Man marches on. Those who talk about the end of man, or the world, are the one’s perpetuating that idea and the cause of it.

This would would free up tremendous resources. Of course other challenges will remain such as climate change. But humanity would have a better chance dealing with them.