How would life change if there was no war or suffering?

[Reach]

Originally Posted by iironiic

I understand that life is a balance between good times and bad times but let's avoid reality for a bit and venture into an idealistic world. What if life was filled with trusted people whose purpose is of no harm and no greed? How would people spend their days in this given lifestyle. What would life be without crime, rape, and war? Discuss.

No crime, rape and war? It sounds like life would be wonderful. My life would remain relatively unchanged, since I don't experience these types of things very often, and our population as a whole would be better off being in a similar situation.


I find the fact that some of you seem to think that this would make life 'boring' a bit laughable. I mean.....seriously?

How many times do you wake up and experience crime, rape or war? Hopefully never. These are global issues that cause harm and destruction on a large scale that filters down into a smaller scale, but it thankfully doesn't end up affecting most of us.

Do you even know anyone that has experienced war? If so, do they have anything positive to say about it? Probably not. It isn't fun. It's terrifying. It's not something to glorify or think highly of. It's an abomination that causes widespread suffering; it should be avoided at all costs.

Crime too. How would the lack of crime do anything but improve your current life? Things would go on normally save for the fact that you would never have to worry about things like having your items stolen from you or being held at gunpoint. Can you seriously not amuse yourself in the absence of this? You get off in knowing that there are people out there that might rape your future daughter? It really wouldn't make your life better knowing that this never happens?



As for an absence of 'suffering'; this is significantly more ambiguous, so I won't even bother addressing it. If we're going to define it as something like torture, my answer is the same. If we're talking about experiencing pain or distress though, things are very different (I would like to point out that in order to remove these things, we would have to completely alter the human brain. Even in a 'perfect' world with no war, no crime or hatred, there will still be many challenges to face and there will certainly be pain and distress).

Forget about land and food supply, what is your 10billion+ population going to do once all the fossil fuels, metals, rare earth metals and so on are exhausted?

We're going to exhaust them either way, unless you plan on killing off everyone.


War and crime aren't limiting factors in our modern population anyway. People that experience more of these problems have more children. Advances in modern healthcare and technology are mostly responsible for our recent population growth. We know this because we have seen this boom in countries for some time now that begin to adopt modernized medicine and technology. Their populations eventually plateau though because as they rid themselves from systemic problems, their birthrates go down (see most of Europe for countries with no population growth). War is entirely unnecessary in this respect (at least currently. maybe it was in the past).

[cixOclock]

Originally Posted by Patashu

population going to do once all the fossil fuels, metals, rare earth metals and so on are exhausted?

So are you implying that humans are dependent on fossil fuels? When there are hundreds of viable different resources that can also create power?

For instance you can use the gas that is emitted from animal feces, garbage and other material's along with hydro for those that have human made dams, to create power.
As for metals, and rare metals there is always the grand idea of recycling, even though it is not nearly as effective as most of it turns into unusable waste, but also your old laptops and computers along with cellphones aswell as the metal from old unused buildings.

There are thousands of ideas out there all with possibilities, and if it really came down to it, man has survived for ages without electricity, gunpowder, and processed food.

Where there is a will there is a way, and if you think that the only possible good future is one that still has internet or one that still tries to run on fossil fuels, try and do some studying on how the Earth is able to keep producing these minerials and materials.
Its a little bit on the amazing side.

Man just needs to control his greed and we would already have a world without war and suffering.
A greed for sex turns into a rape, the greed for oil turns into a war in some country that just happens to have some under its soil.
However, that is all I desire to write about. Just figure it out.

[Patashu]

Originally Posted by cixOclock

So are you implying that humans are dependent on fossil fuels? When there are hundreds of viable different resources that can also create power?

Well, what do you think would happen if everyone woke up tomorrow to discover all the oil in the world had vanished? It wouldn't be pretty.

Recycling is a possibility, but it's never going to be more efficient than mining was without some kind of super advanced robot system sorting things.

Where there is a will there is a way, and if you think that the only possible good future is one that still has internet or one that still tries to run on fossil fuels, try and do some studying on how the Earth is able to keep producing these minerials and materials.

Can it produce them faster than on a geological scale?

[cixOclock]

Alright name how many people that would all of a sudden die just because fossil fuels gave out?

OMG!! People would have to walk?! :O
Trust me humans adapt and are made to adapt, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as Mad Max makes it out to be...

[ledwix]

No suffering implies no pain. Pain has already evolved as a mechanism to tell us when we are doing something that could potentially eliminate our existence, so to eliminate pain would seem almost magical. You would have to either reprogram our nervous systems or....just hypothetical conjure up a bunch of magical situations. It would be a world with no car accidents....no terrible accidents at all...and no one would be suicidal or jump off cliffs or anything. It would be impossible for anyone to make any huge mistakes, because we would all be too perfect for that.

Obviously a lot of occupations would have to shift. The existence of war and pain have created a lot of jobs. We would all be civilians doing jobs that exclusively support other civilians.

But overall, the world would be awesome, because awesomeness is pretty much the elimination of perceived bad things. It would be heaven. It seems almost robotic, but if our emotions were still intact, we would all be happy.

But what about death? How could you have a world without suffering if people still died, leaving behind their loved ones? The elimination of suffering would either mean that people didn't care too much about the death of their loved ones, or that people didn't die at all. Eternal life would make life pointless, so lack of suffering would imply that people didn't care when their loved ones died. And that seems like a robotic, emotionless world to me.

Overall, life is a competition totally driven by risk management and the attempted elimination of suffering. There is no plan for what we would do if there was no suffering. Suffering is a property of life, so taking it away seems like trying to make an apple pie without apples.

[Writhz]

I believe that if greed, harm, and rape were gone, it would have to be because the emotions which cause such acts would be nullified. We'd be without our natural instincts nor have a drive to succeed (after all that's what prompts rape and greed, right?). In other words, unless an outside force prompted us to get anything done, such as reproduction or the bettering of society, we as a race would wither away.

And our everyday life wouldn't necessarily be better. Without our core instincts, nobody would care whether we were living hand to mouth or in a life of luxury. And because of that, we'd probably all resort back to a nomadic lifestyle. We'd lose all our infrastructure, and the whole population can't survive as nomads. What I'm getting at is that, even though we wouldn't be killing each other nor mean harm to each other with the purpose of betterment, we would cause harm to each other in our apathy.

[Silver Sky]

Originally Posted by Writhz

I believe that if greed, harm, and rape were gone, it would have to be because the emotions which cause such acts would be nullified. We'd be without our natural instincts nor have a drive to succeed (after all that's what prompts rape and greed, right?). In other words, unless an outside force prompted us to get anything done, such as reproduction or the bettering of society, we as a race would wither away.

And our everyday life wouldn't necessarily be better. Without our core instincts, nobody would care whether we were living hand to mouth or in a life of luxury. And because of that, we'd probably all resort back to a nomadic lifestyle. We'd lose all our infrastructure, and the whole population can't survive as nomads. What I'm getting at is that, even though we wouldn't be killing each other nor mean harm to each other with the purpose of betterment, we would cause harm to each other in our apathy.

Try this world would be a lot better without war and suffering. Peace on earth. No suffering as sickness and all? I guess you would be referring to. Life would be grand. We would actually have an economy. Not wasting billions of dollars on war efforts spiraling into debt. Everything would be better. People who are driven to war and suffering should check into a mental institute. They need help. lol

[Emithith]

There really wouldn't be much.
Almost all of our inventions are from war, and some form of suffering. If there wasn't any of that we wouldn't have stairs, we wouldn't have the wheel, we probably wouldn't even have jumped out of the tree thinking "I'm sick of lice and fleas!"

edit: half of zero looks like this (

edit2: you guys seem to be looking at this in a way of if YOU didn't have to. But what about on a larger scale: If it never existed in the first place. There is probably a chance alot of us wouldn't even have been born, due to things being so radically different.

[Writhz]

Originally Posted by Emithith

you guys seem to be looking at this in a way of if YOU didn't have to. But what about on a larger scale: If it never existed in the first place. There is probably a chance alot of us wouldn't even have been born, due to things being so radically different.

Assuming you believe in all aspects of evolution, not only would none of us exist, but I don't think animals would have developed as they did. I mean, you can't have carnivores if eating another creature causes it harm.

Originally Posted by Silver Sky

Try this world would be a lot better without war and suffering. Peace on earth. No suffering as sickness and all? I guess you would be referring to. Life would be grand. We would actually have an economy. Not wasting billions of dollars on war efforts spiraling into debt. Everything would be better. People who are driven to war and suffering should check into a mental institute. They need help. lol

I don't really know how this is a response to my post, but it's not as simple as there is no human-caused suffering thus there is world peace. The original question didn't mention sickness, so I assume it's still plausible as well as famine and societal decay. Also, if there was no greed, then there would be no "economy." Most likely we would only gather enough resources to provide for our survival. But, if I took a step back and thought, "Well what if there was an economy," I'd say it would be pretty lacking since war and greed are what drive the economy to get the most done.

[ffraxis]

Life without suffering or war would be just like Eden, paradise.

of course you would have to give up "knowledge" and all sorts of things.

[TehWhack]

Life would cease to exist (as some people have already suggested).

I don't like making generalized statements like that, but for a generalized question it seems all but fitting. As you said, you can't have good without the bad, this includes varying degrees in between.

Consider: Suffering can be viewed as extreme as a third-world child staving from famine to as miniscule as a first-world child being fed a few minutes late from his or her feeding time.

When you see the implications of suffering, you realize everything that makes you human constitutes suffering. The unpleasant, but necessary process of cell death and cell adaptation, whether it is from a noticeable injury or the continuous regeneration of single, dieing cells.

There is no life without death.

[Emithith]

Originally Posted by Writhz

Assuming you believe in all aspects of evolution, not only would none of us exist, but I don't think animals would have developed as they did. I mean, you can't have carnivores if eating another creature causes it harm.

You bring up an excellent point, but I wasn't going that far. Though, I do mean from like sitting in the tree I guess. xD I don't know now.
If you were to go farther than that, we wouldn't even have life on earth.

Oh well, you know the saying: To make an omelet you need to crack a few eggs.

[Silver Sky]

Writhz:I don't really know how this is a response to my post, but it's not as simple as there is no human-caused suffering thus there is world peace. The original question didn't mention sickness, so I assume it's still plausible as well as famine and societal decay. Also, if there was no greed, then there would be no "economy." Most likely we would only gather enough resources to provide for our survival. But, if I took a step back and thought, "Well what if there was an economy," I'd say it would be pretty lacking since war and greed are what drive the economy to get the most done.[/quote]

Well just think about if everyone actually got along. Even shared. No actual greed. Then that being the case is what I meant. We actually wouldn't have problems. Sorry did go off topic some. You can build so much onto that question. lol I mean shoot, we wouldn't need an economy. We wouldn't have to worry about survival of the fittest. It is possible. But greed has gone so far that there is no affection for one another. The love has gone. And therefore things will only get worse before they get better.

[Writhz]

Originally Posted by Silver Sky

Well just think about if everyone actually got along. Even shared. No actual greed. Then that being the case is what I meant. We actually wouldn't have problems. Sorry did go off topic some. You can build so much onto that question. lol I mean shoot, we wouldn't need an economy. We wouldn't have to worry about survival of the fittest. It is possible. But greed has gone so far that there is no affection for one another. The love has gone. And therefore things will only get worse before they get better.

I don't see how we wouldn't have to worry about survival of the fittest. Survival isn't completely dependent on your fellow men, but on living conditions and your genetics as well. A child born with a severe medical condition can still die because the doctors were incapable of saving him. Same for a someone who lives to be 30 and then develops a terminal cancer. That's not human cruelty, just a harsh reality.

And I know you were more talking about if everyone was good and shared. I guess I was taking isolation more into consideration. A man who isolates himself and lives out his life in solitude has no intention of causing others pain. However, if all of society become/remain ignorant of his fellow men's struggles, nobody can be blamed for the hardships, despite being indirectly the cause of it. I find that aspect of this prompt especially interesting. At the very least, it's something to consider before saying automatically "Man isn't going to war and being greedy? World is fixed!" And don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from; a lot of our societal issues are centered around greed and violence. If you really wanted, you could argue that living a life of isolation or ignorance is self-centered.

Still, this doesn't really affect my original opinion that removing greed and war from the human race would break some natural instinct. I mean, greed is born from self-preservation. Without self-preservation we wouldn't care whether we lived or died, that's ascertained. What we don't know is if you can have a world without greed, but still have self-preservation.

[Silver Sky]

Originally Posted by Writhz

I don't see how we wouldn't have to worry about survival of the fittest. Survival isn't completely dependent on your fellow men, but on living conditions and your genetics as well. A child born with a severe medical condition can still die because the doctors were incapable of saving him. Same for a someone who lives to be 30 and then develops a terminal cancer. That's not human cruelty, just a harsh reality.

And I know you were more talking about if everyone was good and shared. I guess I was taking isolation more into consideration. A man who isolates himself and lives out his life in solitude has no intention of causing others pain. However, if all of society become/remain ignorant of his fellow men's struggles, nobody can be blamed for the hardships, despite being indirectly the cause of it. I find that aspect of this prompt especially interesting. At the very least, it's something to consider before saying automatically "Man isn't going to war and being greedy? World is fixed!" And don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from; a lot of our societal issues are centered around greed and violence. If you really wanted, you could argue that living a life of isolation or ignorance is self-centered.

Still, this doesn't really affect my original opinion that removing greed and war from the human race would break some natural instinct. I mean, greed is born from self-preservation. Without self-preservation we wouldn't care whether we lived or died, that's ascertained. What we don't know is if you can have a world without greed, but still have self-preservation.

I understand what you mean. I mean if you got rid of one thing another would pop up. It's bound to happen one way or another. Hence why were imperfect. It's in our genes.

[Squares, the Cube]

I can't answer this question just yet. Is the question referring to an entirely different world were these things don't exist? Or is it referring to this world? (In a sense that one day we woke up and got along.)

[Rocrocket]

Well, what I have to say about this is a bit awkward sounding but if there was no suffering or death...wouldn't that cause more pain in a way? If there is no death then a problem of population control would erupt. But if there was a situation where no one felt pain or suffering and this world was perfectly populated so that everyone was fed, people would either have to be invincible and not reproduce or people would have to some how disappeare out of no where like to fade away at some point in there life as if they were chosen by an outside force in order to keep a proper number of people in a given area.

Some researchers say that there are multiple worlds in an assortment of vibrational frequencies and maybe the perfect world is just on the other side. Like when we die, billions of people say that we go into an alternate universe, different vibrational field, or even get reincarnated in a more peaceful place depending on who they were in a previous lifetime. This really is just common knowledge or a simular way of thinking between religous and non-religous populations around the globe.

[cornmaker]

life would change in a good and bad way. like for example, good way that some innocent people will not suffer anymore and bad way that bad people will not pay for what wrong things they have done.

[Spenner]

siq bump

There wouldn't be any bad people if there happened to be no suffering or war causing thugs.

I think if we NEVER had to endure pain and suffering, we'd probably be a bunch of hippies sitting down tripping on psychedelic substances to fuel our creative drive for new ideas. But I agree that many of our inventions exist today as a result of someone finding a solution to a problem that involved some form of suffering. Whether or not we'd NEED those inventions in a world without suffering is debatable, seeing how much they've evolved and turned simply into convenience devices seen today, such as a wireless phone. Whereas back in WWII it was used for necessary communication on the battlefield.

That being said someone might think "oh, I can feel the vibrations of sound coming from your body, i wonder if we can harness this energy into a device~~~dood~~" and perhaps they'd eventually stumble on the same thing. But indeed there wouldn't be the same drive for it.

I don't think it would be a bad world at all, but then again I'm just going to be sitting around doing art all my life so it wouldn't really make a difference!!!

[stargroup100]

I hate it when people use the "life would be boring" excuse. This only applies to the "what if heaven existed" argument because that is eternal. I, for one, would love a life that is free of suffering.

This argument is as simple as it gets. It would be nice if life was that simple. Too bad it isn't and can't be.

You also can't directly answer the question "how would life change" because such a world is impossible. It's like saying "how would life change if time travel was possible" and the answers are unpredictable because such a scenario can't plausibly happen. (A world with no suffering is technically plausible, but it's so unrealistic that for the purposes of my argument it's the same deal.)