NationStates Jolt Archive

Well what do you think about it? Can total peace be achieved or is peace just a state between war? Will there always be someone who starts conflict?

There shall be peace when there are no longer any people.

I don't think it's possible. Someone will always disagree with their government or some other government enough to kill over it.

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.

Is that not proof enough?

I like to think there could come a time of complete peace but I don't think it will happen. There's always someone around out there who thinks a gun or a club or a bomb is the only way to get redress of grievances.

There shall be peace when there are no longer any people.

Not really. There will probably still be ants and termites to fight wars among each other.

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.

Is that not proof enough?

I feel bad for not finishing that book.. :(

I'm sorry to say that the human animal is far too greedy, selfish and violent to achieve total peace.

complete peace is neither achievable nor desirable. humanity cannot thrive without conflict and war is merely the highest form of conflict. anyone up for a debate? :)

Not really. There will probably still be ants and termites to fight wars among each other.I don't consider the notions of war and peace to apply to ants and such really.
Although, I suppose, to be consistent I'd have to admit that without humans (or other sufficiently conscious entities) there can't be peace either.

Sadly, it would appear that global peace, while a good idea in theory, would probably lead to stagnation. If any one lesson can be learned from the wild success of capitalism in contrast to socialism, it is that humanity functions best when there is a drive, a need to out-perform, out-produce, and gain dominance. A society where people work and produce purely from altruistic motives is inherently inferior.

To sum up...

Nope.

Peace is a foolish ideal that is to be sought for, but never reached. Inherent in the actions of humans is conflict, and getting rid of violence is impossible.

I am willing to gamble that if a sort of 'everlasting' peace were ever achieved, people would probably just start tearing each other apart, after a while.

A while ago, I wrote a short story about the future where instead of actually going to war, the people used giant supercomputers to calculate the outcome. Given how the war would most likely end, leaders would then make compromises, given how much harm their nations could potentially suffer. Whoever would potentially suffer the least generally was given the right to make the decisions. Eventually there is a disagreement about the calculated outcome, and the people go to real war about it.

Peace is a foolish ideal that is to be sought for, but never reached. Inherent in the actions of humans is conflict, and getting rid of violence is impossible.

What makes you say that?

I feel bad for not finishing that book.. :(

I think Orwell should of added pictures

Sadly, it would appear that global peace, while a good idea in theory, would probably lead to stagnation. If any one lesson can be learned from the wild success of capitalism in contrast to socialism

what about Social democracy that does much better than capitalism :p

and my input is "war is hell, but peace is boring" (a cookie for the reference)

Total peace in any form of context is not realistic. It goes against all laws of nature. For example take ants, apes or most other creatures, also plants, they are always struggling and fighting to outdue the other species to secure the resources.
Mother nature is without doubt one of the most perverse, violent and cruel beings to dictate these ways.
Of course we humans brought it to a whole other level, no longer using our fingernails and fists but firebombing cities and eliminating tens of thousands in a matter of seconds. And possess the ability to do even more.
The very concept of peace is self-defeating, by being non-aggressive you put yourself at a disadvantage to aggressive creatures. If we humans had not been aggressive we would all still live on the same tree, because going to another tree means kicking out the inhabitants of that tree.
Our unpeaceful nature is the reason of humanities superiority and success to many degrees. Through it we secured homelands, defeated all who we considered threats, even among ourselves (which we still do). But it is exactly this nature that will secure our survival in the long run, when we get to space colonisation and expansion. Our curiousity, aggressiveness and incompatibility with peace.
Of course looking at it from another perspective, anyone with a small knowledge in biology knows that every second in your body there is fighting and war going on. Your immune system, more specifically white blood cells are eradicating all foreign bodies that enter the system and serve no purpose but to harm. Our very build up from a molecular structure is one of aggression, extreme xenophobia (to all foreign objects trying to enter our body; why wrong blood type transfusions can end very badly or organ donations). So why is a problem when it goes from a molecular structure to our social structure as well?

So no I don't believe peace is ever possible, only periods of extreme violence and periods of low violence.

As long as Injustice exists anywhere in the world Peace should not be strived for.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=510966

This brings us another question, will anyone create coexistance? :p