I read one of those One Hundred Years Ago prediction articles earlier today. They’re fun to check out, if only for the “Dear God, we were so wrong. Why do we ever listen to predictions?” aspect of them. One of the predictions from 1924 was that in 2024 there would be no war. Humanity will surely have done away with that idiotic practice by then.
It’s naively beautiful, isn’t it?
The predictionistas didn’t anticipate the prominence of the Military Industrial Complex, and never saw how those purveyors of pain would gain so much power that they could direct U.S. foreign policy.
Then again, the predictors are almost always wrong. Do not listen to them, whether they’re trying to scare you about the economy, politics, the environment, technology. They’re mainly just trying to scare you. But apparently that wasn’t the case one hundred years ago.
Since it doesn’t look like war is going anywhere any time soon, I have a realistically hopeful suggestion that could, theoretically, be a decent compromise.
We have an above-board Space Force now. I assume that China and Russia do too. If not today, they will tomorrow. Since these are two countries we will inevitably fight at some point not too far down the road, why don’t we just fight Space Wars with unmanned spacecraft?
Seriously.
on “Take Your Child to Work Day”
If our robots beat your robots, we win. If yours beat ours, you win. Also, nobody dies. Also, the weaponry barons will still get to soak us and sell their bullshit wares. Also, it’ll still give us the national pride that wars often do. Also, the wounded veterans from these Space Wars will only be smashed technology and teenagers with sprained video game fingers. We could still hold parades for our patriotic gamers. We could still designate holidays for our obese veterans with their wounded digits and their lack of social skills. They could still dip breathless girls and kiss them, even if they are technically Japanese sex robots.
I’m not even kidding here. Unless we’re willing to actually evolve past the point of fighting wars, and sadly we’re not, this is probably a pretty decent compromise.