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People tend to overlook the fact that the 20th century had its continued leak of non-industrialized conflict in the non-industrialized countries just as the 21st century will have.
For instance, over a million people were killed during the 1947 partition of Greater India. More than 25 million were killed during the Chinese revolution during the same period, with more than 40 million killed before Mao was finished. Nine million were killed in the Russian civil war and Stalin killed another 20 million.
It's hard for me to imagine replays of WWI (15 million) and WWII (66 million), the results of industrialized warfare. Without that, I don't think the non-industrialized wars will surpass that of the 20th century.
One of the horrors of WW1 was they didn't really know what they were playing with. They had new weapons which could kill far more people and more quickly, but were fighting Napolean in strategy. This set up a massively tragic killing field which everyone saw but nobody knew how to end until the tank broke the trench system. In WW2, besides acts of genocide and the murder of the citizens of some areas for political reasons, the war killed many but was a distant war. The generals were aware of using what they had in the most useful way. And above and beyond any before it was a true "world" war.
The wars since have been little wars, some over old reasons and some over loss of empire and some for reasons unlikely to change, but the sheer enormoity of the two world wars changed our view of war. And a generation that grew up wondering if that day the bomb would drop did not see war in the same terms as their grandfathers.
I don't see this century as being more bloody, but war will not stop. What's different is it we fight with proxies now. And we deal with interests which are not necessarily attached to a single nation. Radical movements draw interest sooner and are seen as threats easier. So there will be lots of little wars, but the political interests of the developed world have come to be more in tune with each other than with their philosophies, and we'll see more cooperative acts to slow or stop threats to developed world.
If and when resources become the flashpoint all bets could be off.
I personally think this century will be far bloodier than any period in history. Sooner than later, we will be fighting over everything from water to air to electricity, not to mention food and shelter. Oh yeah, then there is that oil thing,too. The next world war(yes, there will be one)will develop seemingly out of thin air, as a result of all the violence and indifference we have for each other.
Religion will be blamed, as well as greed and pride. I believe it will be from all those reasons. When it is over, we can only hope the human race finally learns the right lessons.
Now that we are firmly in the 21st century, while there still are lots of wars/battles going around, do you think that, overall, the 21st century will end up being the least bloodiest century since the beginning of recorded history? Or do you think we'll have a WWIII or something close? Or could this be a relatively peaceful century?
no. I fear that by mid century there will have been a reckoning. To think otherwise is to give our species more credit than our past record has deserved.
I personally think this century will be far bloodier than any period in history. Sooner than later, we will be fighting over everything from water to air to electricity, not to mention food and shelter. Oh yeah, then there is that oil thing,too. The next world war(yes, there will be one)will develop seemingly out of thin air, as a result of all the violence and indifference we have for each other.
Religion will be blamed, as well as greed and pride. I believe it will be from all those reasons. When it is over, we can only hope the human race finally learns the right lessons.
Nonsense -- but a very popular argument from those who think that Big Brother ought to "do something".
The population issue is slowly stabilizing; there are areas where things are still "out of control" -- India and the Philippines are two examples -- but many First World nations are actually losing population. Japan was the poster child for growth two decades ago, but its school systems and other infrastructure are now overbuilt. and as with Europe, it will have to cope with an aging population not disposed to expansionary misadventures.
In contrast, Canada -- possibly the most successful democracy of them all -- is welcoming immigrants in one of the world's least hospitable climates. It's possible that the population "bomb" might bring about new incidences of mass suffering along the lines of Bangladesh fifty years ago -- but a globalizing society is better prepared to deal with them today than back then.
And finally, thanks to continued technological advances, we have more options to deal with shortages and imbalances within the industrial processes than ever before. One resource can often be substituted for another, or we can temporarily revert to a former way of doing things. Despite the saber-rattling by the peddlers of class-consciousness, it is the inefficient, unnecessary and service-weighted "luxury" consumption which is the first to be weeded out in a period of "belt-tightening".
Most of the whining I encounter at this sight every day originates with jaded Millennials who, like most of us before them, (and myself included), simply grew up expecting too much. The process called "maturity" has a tendency to bring things back down to earth -- and without too many of us getting too badly hurt in the transition.
Won't be bloody, but the population will be decimated by an Ebola plague that will sweep across the world.
I remember back in the late 70s, early 80's when AIDS was first being identified. Everyone just scoffed at first. Then they saw. And then - overnight - we young people in the Atlanta area stopped sleeping around.
But HIV is detected and AIDS can be controlled. Ebola won't be. It won't be screened out at the airports. And it is not just for dirty people in some foreign land.
It has an incubation period of about 21 days, so you won't know you are carrying it.
Liberia had 200 doctors before Ebola showed up. Now they have 50. The rest fled for their lives.
The Flu Epidemic of 1918 swept across the world in basically ONE YEAR, and killed 21.5 million people, or 1.5% of the world population.
But people survived the flu.
No freaking way. If anything, it will go down in history as the bloodiest. Our world is steaming full-speed toward disaster with a broken rudder.
Sadly I think this post is correct. The major powers are deeply indebted and headed for economic collapse. The US is one of the worst, and it is also deeply politically divided. When its economy implodes it is possible that the nation will split along the Red/blue state divide. Both sides will blame the other, the blue will call for socialism, the red for a return to traditional values and that will be the end of it. It may be a peaceful split, or a second civil war in a worst case scenario. Either way the stabilizing effect of the US will disappear. The other western powers may not be as politically divided as the US, but they are just as economically vulnerable. If they are bankrupt then they will not be a stabilizing force either. Without the west containing the worlds dictators who knows what will happen. Russia and China will be on the move. An Islamic empire could rise out of the middle east. We all know that none of this will be peaceful. If all this is not enough to convince you that the world is headed for disaster, we also have oil, water and food shortages to take into account. Shortages of natural resources are one of the leading causes of war in history. When all these problems come to a head and wars erupt it will be done with the most advanced weapons in history. It may be done with nuclear, or even worse biological weapons. There is no reason to believe that the world will be peaceful the rest of the century. If I were a betting man I would be on war, its a far safer bet.
Won't be bloody, but the population will be decimated by an Ebola plague that will sweep across the world.
I remember back in the late 70s, early 80's when AIDS was first being identified. Everyone just scoffed at first. Then they saw. And then - overnight - we young people in the Atlanta area stopped sleeping around.
But HIV is detected and AIDS can be controlled. Ebola won't be. It won't be screened out at the airports. And it is not just for dirty people in some foreign land.
It has an incubation period of about 21 days, so you won't know you are carrying it.
Liberia had 200 doctors before Ebola showed up. Now they have 50. The rest fled for their lives.
The Flu Epidemic of 1918 swept across the world in basically ONE YEAR, and killed 21.5 million people, or 1.5% of the world population.
But people survived the flu.
War? Terrorism? That's nothing. Imagine how it would be if AIDS was transmitted by someone coughing near you.
Only once - now - has Africa, in all it's medically-backward disarray - ever been unable to quickly hold Ebola under an R-zero of 1 (I suggest you educate yourself on what that means, which you clearly do not know). The idea that the vastly better trained and equipped medical facilities of Europe or North America, not to mention places like Japan, Australia/New Zealand, and even much of the rest of Asia and most of Latin America, couldn't reliably do what Africa itself did every single time there was an Ebola outbreak between the discovery of the virus in 1975 and up until this current outbreak, is utterly laughable.
Clearly, on some level you love the idea of Ebola ravaging the globe. But that perverted wish is predicted on considerable ignorance. You're going to be very disappointed.
I'm not worried about ebola, and I think there will be less infantry warfare. But I think we're in trouble anyway, because we're likely to have a large increase in nuclear wars and terrorism. A single nuclear war can cause enough pollution to make most of the people in the world sick. A few bigger nuclear wars can give 99% terminal illness. The remaining 1% will probably die from lack of civilization. Killed by wolves, weather, infant mortality, and the kinds of diseases we cure easily in civilization, but which cause fatal epidemics in barbarian societies. Being the last people alive, waiting to die, will be very lonely and scary. I wonder which animals will survive, and if they will ever evolve intelligence. It will probably take billions of years. But that's nothing, in cosmic time. It probably happens all the time, on billions of planets.
I'm not worried about ebola, and I think there will be less infantry warfare. But I think we're in trouble anyway, because we're likely to have a large increase in nuclear wars and terrorism. A single nuclear war can cause enough pollution to make most of the people in the world sick.
A few bigger nuclear wars can give 99% terminal illness. The remaining 1% will probably die from lack of civilization. Killed by wolves, weather, infant mortality, and the kinds of diseases we cure easily in civilization, but which cause fatal epidemics in barbarian societies. Being the last people alive, waiting to die, will be very lonely and scary. I wonder which animals will survive, and if they will ever evolve intelligence. It will probably take billions of years. But that's nothing, in cosmic time. It probably happens all the time, on billions of planets.
Actually, as bad and terrifying as nukes are, nukes aren't that bad. Had the US and USSR gotten into their big nuclear battle, that might have been the outcome--but that would have been upwards of 30,000 nuclear detonations across a large area of the northern hemisphere within 48 hours or so.
But the most likely nuclear war would be Pakistan-India, and that won't go more than a half-dozen explosions. Otherwise, a detonation here and there won't end civilization and might not even cause a statistically significant rise in global illness.
Goodness! We are only 14 years into the 21st Century (technically, 13)! A lot of things can happen in the next 86 years!
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And then - overnight - we young people in the Atlanta area stopped sleeping around.
