What If Humanity Stopped Going To War? | Unveiled

What If Humanity Stopped Going to War?

For as long as there have been humans on Earth, it seems there’s also been war. As we’ve progressed socially and technologically, the nature and scope of those wars has drastically changed… but physical, deadly conflict has, unfortunately, remained. Could it ever happen, then, that we’d stop fighting each other? And what would that world look like if we did?

This is Unveiled and today we’re answering the extraordinary question: what if humanity stopped going to war?

It’s thought the earliest wars between humans date back thousands of years, popping up in different regions across the world map. It’s believed that there was often major conflict between ancient hunter-gatherer groups, and it’s often suggested that motivation for these first wars was usually the pursuit of territory, or of food and other resources.

As humans have since settled down and created larger, more complex societies, however, and particularly since the agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago, the specific motivations for war have evolved. Although, even in the modern world, we still see those same broad themes of territory and resources, we can add prejudice, distrust, and xenophobia into the equation. The twentieth century is widely remembered as the deadliest century in human history, with two world wars plus various other major conflicts causing a total death toll estimated to be somewhere just shy of 200 million people. Since then, it might be argued that humans have trended towards waging fewer wars and maintaining peace… but still new forms of warfare are being experimented with, and no-one truly knows the scale or type of conflict that might be next on the horizon.

There is at least one hypothetical here that isn’t all doom and gloom, though. Because, despite our long and bloody history to this point, what would happen if we didn’t have to spend so much time killing each other? What would the world look like if we finally took our shared humanity seriously and achieved true peace? To say this development would significantly change our lives would, of course, be a huge understatement. And, really, it’s almost impossible to predict all the ways a global ceasefire would alter our existence in the short and long-term, simply because such an event has never happened in the history of humankind. It would be truly unprecedented. But there are some possibilities.

To start, we can look at various aspects of war and consider what would change if they were no longer there. For instance, money. According to the leading think tank, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the total amount of money spent worldwide on the military rose to almost two trillion dollars in the year 2020. Of course, not every dollar spent on military goes directly to war, but at its simplest think broadly of where it could go instead… toward curing disease, developing technology to beat climate change, or solving world hunger, for example. Stopping war perhaps couldn’t remove all the world’s problems overnight, but a potential two-trillion-dollar cash injection toward any alternative (and positive) cause could really push humans forward.

Naturally, though, beyond economics there’d also be a huge social and cultural change. The world map is currently divided into different countries and cultures, each with their own values, traditions, and ways of life. As a global community we’ve made tremendous progress in learning how to accept and celebrate these cultural differences, but prejudice and prejudgment can still interfere with our ability to learn from each other. It’s been suggested that to some extent this problem with otherness could even be built into our DNA, but it’s also argued that it’s the current and continual threat of war and violence that plays a large part in our seeming inability to view others as part of the same human family. Often, rather than working together, groups of humans view other groups of humans as something to compete with and potentially overpower. If we found a way to eliminate war, however, the mutual fear and distrust that can inhibit national, social, and cultural relationships may be eliminated as well. And then could come opportunities for significant growth within our species overall.

But, as great as it all sounds, could this hypothetical ever actually become a reality? Given the seeming ubiquity of war, many have speculated that large scale conflict might simply be an innate part of human nature, but not everyone agrees. The good news is that, even though war has always been around, humans are generally considered to be pro-social beings. This means that we should be naturally empathetic of each other’s needs and desires, and that we should like to engage in behaviour that promotes the well-being of our fellow humans. At the same time, there’s the instinctive fear and violence that we’ve already covered. These have often been deemed part of our nature, too. And this kind of genetic baggage, while it may have helped our hunter-gatherer ancestors get along in a world full of unfamiliar tribes, doesn’t at all suit our peaceful objectives in the now global community.

Fortunately, though, these problems needn’t inevitably lead to war. First, and ideally (from the human point of view), it should theoretically be possible to expand the size of our “tribe” so that it includes all of humanity. And, hopefully, we are already making progress here. As the world becomes more interconnected, through transport and technology especially, we’re already beginning to view members of other cultures as not outgroups, but simply subgroups of the same ingroup. The global rise of humanism over the last few decades, a philosophy that unifies humanity and advocates for the wellbeing of all humans, suggests that it’s possible to eliminate social division (and potentially, therefore, war) by changing our collective understanding of who is in our group.

Another reason why current social and psychological issues shouldn’t inevitably lead to war is that human beings have the capacity to use rational thinking. Among other things, this means that we should be able to not act on our every impulse - including impulses to fight, invade, overpower, and conquer. Unlike many other animal species that mindlessly follow their instincts, we humans can interrupt our instant emotional responses with rational thought - or, at least, we should be able to - before sometimes acting in a different manner than our emotions might suggest. A fairer, kinder, safer, and less violent manner, perhaps.

For example, if someone sees a member of a perceived outgroup and instinctively feels fearful and/or aggressive towards them, then it is still possible for that someone to curb those fearful and/or aggressive tendencies. It doesn’t always happen, but it is possible. What’s more, science has shown that humans (and other primates) will choose not to engage in aggressive behaviour if the individual doesn’t believe it to be in its own self-interest. So, it theoretically follows that if we could convince most of humanity that war never serves their best interests, then we could theoretically eliminate it. For many, the existence of large-scale peaceful organizations like the European Union supports the idea that we can unify huge numbers of humans into one peaceful group like this... but we’re still far from unifying the entire world.

And that’s really the crux of the bad news. Because, even if our species is theoretically capable of abolishing war, it certainly won’t be easy. And might even still be impossible. For one, it’s no secret that the planet is currently packed with incredibly powerful weapons. Removing the possibility of war would require us, then, to destroy all those weapons… and, unfortunately, no country is likely to want to do that until they know that all the other countries have done it first. Those themes of fear and competition rear their heads again.

Another major problem for anyone wishing this hypothetical to come true, however, is that it seems that not everyone even wants to eliminate war in the first place. Yes, humanism has been on the rise in recent years, but it’s still far from a majority philosophy… and there are various other powerful groups which operate according to other moral frameworks. Including some which value specific types of human above others, specific races, or religions. Groups that are only concerned with maximizing their own well-being and will still go to war against anyone they perceive to be in the way of those goals. Or against anyone they perceive to have the resources they need. Or territory. Those same motivations for war haven’t yet disappeared.

Suffice to say, the elimination of war is an admirable but lofty goal for humankind. But, in the twenty-first century, it’s potentially more than just a hopeful fantasy. For many, as we look to expand beyond our home planet in the coming years, true global unity will be key. Although, it could also be argued that maintaining some form of military will be of utmost importance, too. If we ever expect to cross paths with an intelligent extraterrestrial species, for example, what then? At that point we’d be faced with the same moral conundrums, again. Only the “other” this time wouldn’t be other human groups, but other planetary groups. Should we, in that scenario, proceed with peaceful intentions? Or prepare for battle, Earth against the rest of space? It’s surely a question for another video but, in the meantime, that’s what would happen if humanity stopped going to war.