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hutzlibu

" Stop the cycle of war and poverty, and then see how naturally malevolent people are."

So far it is only a hypothesis, that war can be avoided if people just would not starve anymore.

(I don't think there was really hunger in europe pre WW1 for example)

Also, assuming we would distribute ressources equally (nevermind the political means to achieve that for a moment):

It no doubt would be enough for everyone today.

But the world population is already going steeply up - with people starving.

So if it would go even much more up, if no one would be starving - would it then also be enough for 10 billion people? 20 billion? How much more roundup can the fields take?

So don't get me wrong. A world with no wars and where no one has to starve is definitely a noble cause I agree to. I just thinkt it is not so easy, if it is possible at all, since there was never a time in human history without. We don't know whether it can work out at all.

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> But the world population is already going steeply up - with people starving.

The interesting part is that it is only really going up in nations that have not yet the comfort-level of western civilizations. I don't have the exact numbers at hand but in most European countries, and I guess vast parts of the US too, the population is actually stagnant or even shrinking if immigration is not considered.

Thats the hope, I know. But it might just as well have to do mainly with culture.

Meaning, if peoples culture does not change, but the avaiable food does - we get the "unwanted" result of the ugly word of overpopulation - or birth control. Which is ugly as hell, too.

> But it might just as well have to do mainly with culture.

Absolutely not. Fertility rates have been going down steadily for decades in every developed nation - when children are no longer a requirement to have someone that will care for you once you reach old age, fertility rates start to drop.

Well, this I call change of culture ...

It happens. But not overnight. And being rich in children is not only viewed as retirement savings, there are other reasons too ... which might change with general development. But again, maybe not overnight. Which was the scenario I was talking about.

> (I don't think there was really hunger in europe pre WW1 for example)

IIRC gaining and ensuring continued access to food production centers in central Europe was one of Germany's primary motivating factors leading into WWI.

I learned it a bit different, but in either case - you don't have to starve if you can buy food. And the market was working in europe.

So it was more about hunger for power. Because sure, owning something is better than having to buy something.

Pre-WWI gets a lot of rose-tinted views due to fact that a lot of our accounts of living from that time come from well off folks - there isn't much literature and art that came out of the working classes - there were certainly a few good examples but it would become much more prominent when the great depression equalized classes and forced well educated folks to endure the same life the poor had been enduring.

I would still consider WWI the last hurrah of prestige wars (where an essentially divine monarch instigated war for personal reasons and had the authority to enforce his will over the entire nation) but the hardships were real going into it.

Content people tend to lean away from conflict - the marshall plan in europe seems to bear that out pretty clearly in my eyes. I think it's a rather successful demonstration of the fact that stability breeds peace and, honestly, the US military agrees with me... a decent chunk of money in Iraqi Freedom was invested into infrastructure repair and, especially, education.

To achieve peace you need to make life worth more than death.

"I would still consider WWI the last hurrah of prestige wars (where an essentially divine monarch instigated war for personal reasons and had the authority to enforce his will over the entire nation)"

I agree to that, but I would add, that the monarch did not had to enforce their will on the nation. At least germany was very willing to go cheering into war. And I believe england, too and france (without a monarch), too. In russia it was more enforced, but the tsar eventually lost his power and life over it.

It was a nationalistic war - each side fought for the glory and power of their nation (whether with a monarch, or not). And maybe yes, the last big hurah war - where war was welcomed by the majority of the population.

WW2 had to be presented as neccessary and forced upon from the outside. Even in Nazi-germany. Some youth went into the fight eagerly, but most of the elder generations had way too many memories of the last one, which was not so glorious alltoghether.

(Oh and I certainly do not have a rose tinted view of pre WW1.)

> But the world population is already going steeply up - with people starving.

True, but the growth rate is on a steady decline and looks like it will be negative soon. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#growthrate

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