Warfare

[crovv]

Recently, Sarin gas was used in Syria. If you are not aware, Sarin gas - and most chemical warfare, if not all, is banned in warfare because it is considered a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" (WoMD or WMD), and is the basically a gas which chemically disables your body's ability to relax muscles. Any and every muscle in your body could seize up or cramp, and painfully, leading to such things as your throat closing, your heart not working properly, and other terrible, painful deaths. Being colorless and odorless, as well, means its a perfect weapon for its use, but also a terrible one.

Weapons of mass destruction include nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons. Many treaties have been signed to ban or forbid the use of WMDs, but some countries (such as North Korea, for example) have decided to go against these treaties.

The discussion I wish to have now is, given the background above, why does war still exist? If we don't want mass destruction or mass death, why do we let war continue, just putting bars on what happens? Two countries battling it out, one having nuclear weapons and one having machine guns, is the equivalent of a man with a gun against someone unarmed without hand to hand combat skills of any sort, so do we want to keep the thrill of war alive? Are we smart enough to not allow millions upon millions of people to die *cough* World War II *cough* but dumb enough to still want to kill each other?

As you can see from above, I'm against war. Then again, my main CG server is one in which terrorists shoot each other until all the counter-terrorists die or vice versa, so I'm not exactly a pacifist (though in real life I tend to be). Basically, I don't think war is the right way to do things, and using science to promote war instead of growth or a better living is idiotic. Then again, I'm willing to submit that humans are both dumb enough and "Oh it's just human nature" enough (accepting/abstaining enough) to not do anything about it and let it continue, either because they like it or its fun or whatever the reason may be.

Discuss.

Edit:
I don't think I made my point clear enough.
1) Why do we allow war to continue?
2) Why do we put restrictions and rules on war, but then participate in it anyway?

[Kwaurtz]

Human nature is war. The biggest of pushes of our technology have been in times of war. Canning of food and learning how to preserve it and keep it safe longer? War. Some of our biggest advances in Medicine? War.

[crovv]

Human nature is war. The biggest of pushes of our technology have been in times of war. Canning of food and learning how to preserve it and keep it safe longer? War. Some of our biggest advances in Medicine? War.

I'm not saying war hasn't pushed technology, but rather am wondering why the stress of war has to be the spark to ignite the flame of inspiration. The ocean flooding our cities, running out of non-renewable resources, shouldn't scientists be more focused on issues of self-preservation, rather than self-defense, let alone attack?

[Christovski]

Human nature is war. The biggest of pushes of our technology have been in times of war. Canning of food and learning how to preserve it and keep it safe longer? War. Some of our biggest advances in Medicine? War.

This.

Also war will exist as long as people hold beliefs they are willing to kill people over.  As long as people retain the belief that it is justified to kill people to get what they want, war will be there.

Personally i wish we could just have like, international boxing or something to settle disputes, or like, international LAN party

[Obviously not Gopib]

War and conflict will ALWAYS exist.
No matter what in the future, Humans will find reasons and causes for war and cruelty. Murder is in our nature, we will always have an insatiable urge for conflict. As long as there is free human thought, there will be disagreements, and spawned from those "disagreements" will be conflicts of ideas or opinions, and from those conflicts, causes. And from those causes, people will group together and savagely attack anyone who disagrees with their group and their causes or opinions.
This is why we have the term "touchy subject", to label things people break out into argument over. Such as religious topics.
Oh and its not just about beliefs people are willing to kill over. Because all beliefs and opinions have the potential for that. If pushed too far people will cling to the first thing they can and hold it above their heads as "reason" as they rampage out of control.
Our species loves to battle. And when their is no other thing to attack, we will attack ourselves.

Human nature is war. The biggest of pushes of our technology have been in times of war. Canning of food and learning how to preserve it and keep it safe longer? War. Some of our biggest advances in Medicine? War.

I'm not saying war hasn't pushed technology, but rather am wondering why the stress of war has to be the spark to ignite the flame of inspiration. The ocean flooding our cities, running out of non-renewable resources, shouldn't scientists be more focused on issues of self-preservation, rather than self-defense, let alone attack?

Its the idea of competition. In war we strive to be the winners, the survivors, the conquerors.
The inspiration comes from the idea of the other side getting their first, beating us.
It will drive us to new extremes to make absolutely sure that our side will make it there before they can.
And inspiration does come from other things as well.
But war, war drives us to new measures that other things cant. The idea of BEING conquered, taken over, and beaten FORCES us to come up with new methods, new ways.
EDIT: Merged accidental double post.

[DBag]

You also need to remember that countries thrive on wars. Look back to WWI. This was a time of hardships but if you were to look closer more jobs opened up to create weaponry, preserved food,ect, that is needed to fun a long standing war. this also it allowed us for a short while to export these things to both parties of the war until we entered in. right after the war ended prosperity and then decline. WWII brought us out of this. It is the worlds inability to work together as a whole to promote a more prosperous lifestyle for everyone, instead they see war as a way to boost the economy of their country. Now this is not always the case but I do think I make a fair point. Please if you see any holes or misinformation let me know. It has been a while since looking into this sort of thing.

[oobla37]

    First of all, the media focus on the Syrian nerve gas attacks was blown out of proportion. In all, chemical weapons in Syria have killed, at most, 1200 people. The entirety of the war, which has received little to no media attention since it's beginning in March 2011 up until the use of chemical weapons, has felled no less then 100,000 people. In the last 3 and a half months, another 10,000 thousand have died, bringing the total up to 110,000.
    Why has this gone unnoticed? Because the worlds media acts in a state of calm regardless of the situation. Warfare exists to get shit done that won't get done with words. The only time that warfare becomes "worth" reporting on, is when global warfare rules start getting broken. War has a striking lack of care for human worth, and the media reflects that perfectly. The American system of war is just as messed up, when we hardly care about other human beings, until someone starts killing out of these imaginary guidelines we set in the first place, (well, the UN, but whatever).
    Regardless, if these chemical attacks are so atrocious, why don't we do something? This brings us back to the media not caring about people's lives until these cute little lines start being crossed. We could bash some people over the head with missiles, but why? Surely a couple thousand deaths by our hands would stop the killing? No, and we have our tie(s) in the Middle East stopping us. If we did anything to Syria, they would take a giant dump all over Israel's day. Kiss that nice little bit of land goodbye, Israelis. The media, of course, would be ALL OVER the couple hundred deaths in Israel.


War is controlled by media, regardless of actions taken in the war itself. In the end, someone has to play victim. Might as well be the one with bigger guns, but doesn't fire them out of the goodness in their hearts. Bullshit.

EDIT: realized there was a necro. My apologies. Figured this was a new thread, I never saw it.

[Old Crow]

No necro that I see, so continue.

[Sniper no Sniping]

No necro that I see, so continue.

A bit off topic, but wasn't it agreed that Debate Threads can't be necrod?