now i'm the type of person who believes that war will never disappear from the world, but i will make a hypothetical topic anyway.


for about a month i believed in something i heard "if the world where to stop all wars around the world, each country were to declare peace and all military projects were discontinued, disbanded and stop in all ways the the world would have enough money to concentrate on making the world better. solving world hunger, curing all deseases, finding that special alternate source of energy we're looking for". after all, billions are being spent by each country on their respective militaries. but one fellow i know said that even if wars did stop for some reason the money left would be concentrated on the space project, to explore and colonize the galaxy, even finding alternate fossil feuls on other planets with only engineers and mining crews stationed there.

an interesting prospect, even if it'll never happen

Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way. Politicians would find some way to keep that money for themselves instead of letting it leave their circle of power. If research would be put into your aforementioned catagories, it would be worthwhile, but I can't see it as ever coming about.

Like you said, its an interesting theory.

too bad eh?. do you think this is true?

there are presidential candidates, lets say there are 2 called, Kevin and Larry. Larry wants to bring the world into a brighter future where there is less pollution and better stability for developing countries. Kevin on the other hand wants to give what 99% of people in the states want, food, fuel and safety. supporters and advisers rally to Kevin, he gets more money, better political advice, more advertisments and whatever other benifits there may be. Larry relies on his own funds and fails to get any real attention and realises the truth, the people say they want a better world but each of the people that voted for Kevin is thinking "it's not like i'm having a huge impact on the world on my own".

Kevin has existed for longer than any of us remember, in many forms, such as the Tycoon, War Monger and the figure who pays for the atom bomb.

people are stupid and ureliable in the big picture. they understand what's happening but do nothing to fix it. protesting won't work, riots won't work. the only thing that will work is to vote for Larry, though you probaly wouldn't even know he existed in the first place.

but they will never vote for him

It isn't just military that gets the money either. There's a lot of other avenues that it gets wasted, instead of letting people keep it for their families or spending it on useful things.

typical western culture families take everything they have for granted anyway. if there were lower taxes the people would think it's nice but will end up thinking they deserved it anyway.

take a poor person out of a cold winter and give him warmth and food will make him happy. middle class people think that 10 times more stuff means 10 times more happiness, which is wrong. once they get what they want they'll forget that they didn't have it just yesterday. then they want more

though I'm not saying I'm not one of them

and here i was thinking that people hated wars, but secretly were thinking "now we have enough oil to last through my lifetime at least".

where else is money being spent? alternate energy sources, genetically engineered food, schools, entertainment (such as stadiums), discovering worlds beyond ours, crime prevention, helping those who can't help themselves, international aid, healthcare. isn't the whole point of being a republican country to not use money in ways all the people disagree on

but politicians do take alot of money for themselves, but that's a perk of the job. you'ld probaly be greedy too if you had so much money at your disposal. thinking "just because I buy a house and a car dosen't mean people are going to die

Meh, the thing with that I see, is that with colonizing the solar system (and beyond) is that would cause a war for new land again, like what happened when Europeans tried to colonize the "New World", along with areas like Africa and Australia.

there were no wars in Australia, maybe a skirmish with the native but it never came to an all out war. Australia natives didn't even have wars with each other, because every loss is a lost hunter

wars on another planet, maybe. but we have better forms of communication, but a war would only start because one country is greedy and doesn't want to share, i wonder which country is the greediest, oh wait, i already know, it's the country that uses up the most oil per person, the country with an incredible obesity problem, the country that has a president that everyone hates, the country that thinks they're the best but are oblivious of the power of European and Asian armies, the country that has the lowest average out of all western cultures when it come to academic grades, the country that believed it was okay for them to fire a missle but it's not the same for other countries, the country that decided to use the 'human wave' tactic during the world wars. guess which country would cause the most problems on a new world.

this probaly belongs in another topic

Well, I meant that Australia had no real human activity until the Europeans or whoever colonized it.

As long as we have an active topic in this dead dump, It's fine.

*shrugs* So you have a problem with America, what else is new? I can't say that life here is perfect, or that we as her citizens make (many/any?) right choices, but hey, it's the place I was born. I doubt that anyone can say differently, no matter where they happen to reside.

You are right in saying that "More stuff does not equal More happiness". I've seen it too often with some of my family and friends not to realize that material wealth is no guarantee of being happy.

You mention that we are a 'Republic'. It's a nice theory, I suppose. Thing is, we run ourselves more like a democracy than a republic, so the money flows wherever. "All things from order to disorder."

As for the rant on armies, where do you pull the 'oblivious to the power of European and Asian armies' bit? I find it rather inconceivable that you would think that we don't try to keep a measure of those who could one day become opponents. Trust in today's world doesn't run that far, not even in one's superiority.

i meant the civilians didn't know how powerful everyone else is. like one fellow on this site said that japan has a military count of about 2000 people. Japan has a population of 127,463,611 total, their military is 5% of their total (highest percent in the world) so their military would be around 6,373,180. but lets say 4,000,000 to be extra safe

america on the other hand has a population of 298,444,215 with 1,426,713 being military personel with 1,259,000 in the reserves. could you have even guessed the number were stacked that far

does the american military ever march?. i would imagine that they're pulled from many different places to manage a single march

course, i could be wrong

Japan is a really bad example. Japan isn't allowed to have an army large enough to be an offensive force. Neither is Germany. And for the sake of actually keeping them under control, the US has bases in both countries. Just thought I'd let you know...

I doubt the money spent on wars could solve everything. And with stuff like space projects and alternative energy sources, success is never guaranteed, it's incredibly misleading to say otherwise. But obviously, if we were able to stop people organizing to kill each other, it would help other efforts immensely.

Neh, I don't think so, world powers today mostly don't compete militarily. Even during the cold war, conflicts between the USSR and the US were only fought by proxy, with troops from the two countries never coming into direct conflict.

Globalization and world trade, which have really started to develop since the end of WWII, mean that european nations (for example) aren't interested in killing each other for colonial land. Rarely is any larger country going to try to improve its economy at the expense of every other nation, because larger countries depend on other countries. Smaller nations probably wouldn't even have a 'voice' in taking over territory.

Not to mention that since it's space, I'd imagine there'd be a wealth of resources to go around and little need for conflict as long as people weren't dumb enough to go looking for wars despite low profit opportunity.

Rather, a sort of democratic-republic capitalist/socialist meld. Because we have representatives who make most/all decisions, we're more of a republic than a democracy, but AFAIK republic doesn't require voting, and so we're democratic in that sense.

I doubt those numbers are in any way authentic. The Japan self-defense force - which is the only military they're allowed to have - numbered 240 thousand (or so) in 2005. If it had increased, people would've noted that.

i don't think you realise the billions that are being spent on the war fund, people ask for donations for a whole heap of things, with no massive military activity going on there would be enough spare money to satasfy so many of them, maybe all of them. we have a low poverty line over here so if our military was to disband we could certainly remove the poverty line, or make it unnoticable anyway.

i'm not to sure how many poor/deseased people you have over there, where ever you live

The military is often a solution to people who have nothing else to do. Many people below the poverty line join the military to make something of their lives.

i didn't know so many people want to go to a battle field where they think that every shot fired (when there are thousands) could potentially result in their death. but i guess they don't realise that. the army reserves training is only temporary, like a year or two. plus only fit people can join anyway. and don't forget the people who can't even get to an enlistment office. just because you might join the reserve (i bet you wouldn't join the main army) in desperate times and you think it's a good idea dosen't mean that other people would or can at all