I love war, having studied it for the past 11 years. I also once said "The greatest tragedy of World War 2 was that I wasn't there to enjoy it.". Yes I know war is only glorious to those who have never been there but I can never go to war until the U.S. military stops discriminating.
Poll: War good or not
- Thread starter willic767
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Of course it is good. The dispose of hundreds up to millions of human life and the resources spent can't be anything but good, right?
willic767 said:
I think you don't understand what you're talking about.
People die in wars. Those people have children. They get sniped. Heads burst, brains splatter, or they slowly bleed to death. Bombs are dropped on innocents, by accident or on purpose. Most people involved in wars wouldn't even be there if they had the choice. War is terribly expensive for any country, and leaves marks on the local economies for years after.
The people who die are like you and me. They tried for years to grow a beard. They've had girlfriends in the past. They hope to own a house of their own one day. They might be in love. In the more developed towns, they might've read some of the same books you read. They too get up at night to feed the baby, and softly rock it 'till it falls asleep again.
I'm not even going to answer the poll itself. Just realize that what you're discussing is the concept of war, but you're missing the reality of it.
It's not my war, after all.
Ok, that was just apathetic.
But what kinda thread is this?
Seriously, how can war be good? Even the technological improvements that constant fighting among humans brought with itself either serve war itself (weponz), or would've been invented a lot earlier (useful ones) if it wasn't for humanity fucking itself in the arse.
Ok, that was just apathetic.
But what kinda thread is this?
Seriously, how can war be good? Even the technological improvements that constant fighting among humans brought with itself either serve war itself (weponz), or would've been invented a lot earlier (useful ones) if it wasn't for humanity fucking itself in the arse.
On the whole, war is almost uniformly bad.
Materially, it often has advantages for the winning side, in that they can claim an awful lot from the losers to make good the costs and turn a tidy profit. (And let's face it, making a profit has probably been the greatest cause of war in history by a long, long margin). On the other hand, any advantages the winners get are taken from the losers, plus the losses of the war itself, so the total whole is a loss.
In terms of life, dead people don't come back, and as a rule the average person who dies in war will be no better or worse a human being than the survivors, so it's hard to see it as a good thing. Plus you've got deal with people who are injured and traumatised.
There are some situations - very few ones - where war may improve things. If a bunch of people are thoroughly nasty, murderous and destructive enough, the cost of war in life and material getting rid of them may be better than letting them continue.
Finally, just having to be ready to fight costs. Most Western countries spend about 2-5% of their GDP on the military, even without a shot fired in anger. That's a lot of money that could be spent on infrastructure, subsidising industrial production, or not taxed out of the population's pockets in the first place.
Materially, it often has advantages for the winning side, in that they can claim an awful lot from the losers to make good the costs and turn a tidy profit. (And let's face it, making a profit has probably been the greatest cause of war in history by a long, long margin). On the other hand, any advantages the winners get are taken from the losers, plus the losses of the war itself, so the total whole is a loss.
In terms of life, dead people don't come back, and as a rule the average person who dies in war will be no better or worse a human being than the survivors, so it's hard to see it as a good thing. Plus you've got deal with people who are injured and traumatised.
There are some situations - very few ones - where war may improve things. If a bunch of people are thoroughly nasty, murderous and destructive enough, the cost of war in life and material getting rid of them may be better than letting them continue.
Finally, just having to be ready to fight costs. Most Western countries spend about 2-5% of their GDP on the military, even without a shot fired in anger. That's a lot of money that could be spent on infrastructure, subsidising industrial production, or not taxed out of the population's pockets in the first place.
It's very ironic that everyone is condemning war in its entirety on an internet message board - which wouldn't exist if war didn't.
Yes, war is a terrible thing but it is not universally terrible. Plenty of things would have never happened if it weren't for war, both in terms of politics and technology and frankly, war lets us do terrible things for our gain while taking a small fraction of the responsibility.
Yes, war is a terrible thing but it is not universally terrible. Plenty of things would have never happened if it weren't for war, both in terms of politics and technology and frankly, war lets us do terrible things for our gain while taking a small fraction of the responsibility.
War is a necessary evil. The very idea is wrong, but sometimes some third world warlord needs to be put in his place.
I like history class and learning about wars and pretty much every good video game was inspired to some extent by war so in that way yes it's good. Then I think about how people actually die and then my perspective changed. I think we should go the way of star wars and have clones with no families and robots do all the fighting.
and you are a champ at missing the pointVeX1le said:
im talking about what issues matter to you more than animal rights and as i have done over and over on this thread get you to say that the issues you care about are more important than animal rights because you say they are
Wars, the reasons why they happen and the effect they have are so intricate and complex that I seriously doubt that we'll ever see the whole picture. Everyone has their own personal agenda, and even the war for a "good" reason has a cause. One can for example say that WW2 happened because the German people were oppressed after the Allies had won WW1, and that WW2 was a reaction to this oppression. Hitler came to power because of how the "Allies" (Can't remember if the winning side of WW1 had a name, like in WW2, but bear with me here) treated the German people. But that's just one side of it.
Asking if war is good or not isn't the question that ought to be asked - we should ask whether it is necessary or not. War unites, and divides. Nothing will bring people closer than a common enemy, and nothing will bring them further apart than being enemies.
What we really need are for aliens to invade us, and give us a global sense of unity.
50% joke, 50% sad truth.
Asking if war is good or not isn't the question that ought to be asked - we should ask whether it is necessary or not. War unites, and divides. Nothing will bring people closer than a common enemy, and nothing will bring them further apart than being enemies.
What we really need are for aliens to invade us, and give us a global sense of unity.
50% joke, 50% sad truth.
Soon, our weapons will become so advanced that using them could destroy the earth, we're going to have to scrap the idea sooner or later... Or just die from the radiation filled doom. Still, war is intresting (To me atleast <_<)I'll just hope that my apocolypse doesn't happen in my lifetime. ^_^Xrysthos said:
By this logic we should throw nukes around so the people who think "normal" war is bad sees what an issue actually is.IronDuke said:
We don't need to show PETA anything, they're fanatics and won't listen to anything, especially if it's sane or logical. We should just ignore them when they rant about stupid stuff and punish them when they do criminal stuff.
A catchy song, to be sure, but to say that War does nothing for the world is a bit short sighted. Thanks to war we have penecillin, GPS, rocketry, space travel and modern airplanes with the jet engines, armor which protects the police back at home and a great assortment of nonlethal weaponry in the works. The weapons and armor of the soldiers today will become the high tech computers and building materials that make our lives as civillians safer and more efficient tomorrow. Strife creates progress. It is one of the most basic principles of evolution and the natural world in general. As creatures with no natural predators humanity developed war and became its own predetor and as thus driven progress forward.VeX1le said:
Are there tribes of people in Africa who have lived fine without war, seperated from strife and who work together? I bet there are a few. But when our world is someday threatened by a comet or a supernova it won't be the tribals I look to to save my ass, it will be the fruits of strife and bloodshed earned by the martyrs whose causes are long forgotten through the ages but whose benefits and technologies we enjoy today.
My vote is for Both: emotionally, war is terrible but logically it does great good for humanity.