If perpetual war existed, how advanced would humanity be?

[-Fahrong-]

But we can make it as close as possible.

Nonsense - we'd have to become more progressive to do so.

We've got the poverty, tyranny, slavery, starvation, apathy of the upper classes, and religious radicalism poking it's nose where it shouldn't be, but at least the world of 40K had all that and gave a shit about space exploration, meanwhile here we are, fucking over NASA at any chance we get.

Speak for yourself. My country just built a new cosmodrome.

[Seylland]

Nonsense - we'd have to become more progressive to do so.

We've got the poverty, tyranny, slavery, starvation, apathy of the upper classes, and religious radicalism poking it's nose where it shouldn't be, but at least the world of 40K had all that and gave a shit about space exploration, meanwhile here we are, fucking over NASA at any chance we get.

Speak for yourself. My country just built a new cosmodrome.

needs more space monies

one new cosmodrome is not enough

[The first Galactic Republic]

Here you go OP.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... zation_ii/

[The Great Devourer of All]

If we take WMDs into account, the world would progress like an infant taking its first steps. It would rapidly develop new and more deadly WMDs, annihilate itself, and then start over from scratch for the rest of eternity, or until someone found away to permanently sterilize Earth.

Without WMDs, the world would get more and more advanced, perhaps even spreading into space to continue its warfare, until humanity ran out of resources. Based on science as we understand it, the largest area we could consume for resources and ravage with war before collapsing would be the Local Group, barring the discovery of wormholes or currently unknown methods of going faster than light. Yes, Alcubierre Drives would technically work, but the overall efficiency of travelling at 10-112 times the speed of light across intergalactic distances in massive war convoys just to claim more resources would be incredibly low.

[Northwest Slobovia]

If we take WMDs into account, the world would progress like an infant taking its first steps. It would rapidly develop new and more deadly WMDs, annihilate itself, and then start over from scratch for the rest of eternity, or until someone found away to permanently sterilize Earth.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

[Trollgaard]

Warhammer 40000 is not real life.

But it can be!

[New Axiom]

Here you go OP.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comment ... zation_ii/

This is awesome, I want that game now.

[New Axiom]

Okay, how about perpetual non nuclear war? Just a perpetual, conventional, WWI style war.

[Giovenith]

Okay, how about perpetual non nuclear war? Just a perpetual, conventional, WWI style war.

Why WWI? Why not 1860s?

1700s?

Medieval?

Fuck it, back to the spears and rocks we go! No tech, no tricks, no cheating, just raw strength and mettle put to the ultimate test!

[Ifreann]

Warhammer 40000 is not real life.

But it can be!

Even now I am cultivating fungi that I hope will one day become Orkz.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Fuck it, back to the spears and rocks we go! No tech, no tricks, no cheating, just raw strength and mettle put to the ultimate test!

We face each other as God intended. Sportsmanlike. No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone. *nods*

[Northwest Slobovia]

Okay, how about perpetual non nuclear war? Just a perpetual, conventional, WWI style war.

Yes, if you keep moving the goalposts, you'll be able to prove some utterly trivial version of your thesis....

[Giovenith]

Okay, how about perpetual non nuclear war? Just a perpetual, conventional, WWI style war.

Yes, if you keep moving the goalposts, you'll be able to prove some utterly trivial version of your thesis....

Especially considering the whole point is to see if war can make humanity more technologically advanced than it already is - forcing everyone to play a technological level lower than we actually are defeats the whole purpose. What, are we going to fight our way into becoming... right back where we started?

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Okay, so let's pretend the whole world is nationstates. Always at war with each other, always. Never a day of peace. Now, let's pretend that this doesn't have any effect on economy and stuff. If this scenario was real, how advanced would humans be?

I mean, space travel was first done with the V-2, a Nazi cruise missile.

It was a ballistic missile, not a cruise missile. And the V-2 was based on the technology pioneered by scientists Robert Goddard, who developed his rockets as a scientific endeavor.

The Internet was made as a military communication tool, as were radios.

Radio was invented as a civilian communication tool. Internet is a term that can be traced to many different starts, most of them civilian.

The Nazis pioneered many medical technologies, including the catheter, during horrendous war related experiments.

They also didn't invent a cure for polio.

The Nazis also developed the first jet fighter, designed for combat. Now we use jets in civilian ways too.

And the Wright Brothers invented heavier-than-air flight.

[Len Hyet]

Okay, so let's pretend the whole world is nationstates. Always at war with each other, always. Never a day of peace. Now, let's pretend that this doesn't have any effect on economy and stuff. If this scenario was real, how advanced would humans be?

I mean, space travel was first done with the V-2, a Nazi cruise missile.

The Internet was made as a military communication tool, as were radios.

The Nazis pioneered many medical technologies, including the catheter, during horrendous war related experiments.

The Nazis also developed the first jet fighter, designed for combat. Now we use jets in civilian ways too.

So, if we were ways at war, would we gen more advanced or no?

I think we would be, becuase we would be under more pressure to develop better tech faster.

Thoughts, NSG?

We'd probably be stuck in a recurring loop of advancing roughly to the age of intercontinental ballistic missiles, then being dumped back in the stone age.

Y'know, about two or three times before Earth was too irradiated to support human life at which point we'd go extinct.

[Tinfect]

Advanced Decomposition.

[Diopolis]

Not very. Wars tend to accelerate development of any technologies that are already in the pipeline, while preventing the exploration of new or theoretical pipelines. For example, WWII accelerated the development of fission power into the bomb, but did not develop further into fusion bombs, and never would have, because thermonuclear fusion was not being explored at the time. The first jet engine was tested in 1938, but WWII developed the technology into one usable(albeit barely- it required hundreds of hours of maintainence for every hour of flighttime, whereas modern jets generally take less than thirty).
Wars also tend to put the kibosh on development of civilian technologies, even those useful for the war effort in many cases.
In other words, we would have the limits of technology according to the scientific understanding of the time the war broke out.

[Minivanistan]

We'd probably be stuck in a recurring loop of advancing roughly to the age of intercontinental ballistic missiles, then being dumped back in the stone age.
Y'know, about two or three times before Earth was too irradiated to support human life at which point we'd go extinct.

If the assumption is a reset to say the early Neolithic, considering the millenia required to advance from considering what is better to work with than rocks to building ICBMs, that should not really be a problem.

[Dahon]

If you can believe Orwell, perpetual war would be a perpetual waste of resources better spent on making people happy and comfortable -- which is precisely the point.

[Vlamistaatti]

Gundams, yes please.

[Neo Arcad]

Warhammer 40000 is not real life.

Actually, 40k suggests that endless war would create technological stagnation. Which you'd know if you'd read any of the sourcebooks.

[Minivanistan]

If you can believe Orwell, perpetual war would be a perpetual waste of resources better spent on making people happy and comfortable -- which is precisely the point.

Not quite.
The irony of the ideology represented in "1984" is that it is incapable of adequately producing and distributing resources to meet the objective standard of meritless comfort it originally aspires to.
So as alternative to complete failure, the perpetual war which is much cheaper to fund in comparison, serves as both instrument of distraction and culling, so the number of mouths to feed does not get out of hand, and the mouths do not think too much about how much they are being fed, and whether there could be more.

[Pandeeria]

If you can believe Orwell, perpetual war would be a perpetual waste of resources better spent on making people happy and comfortable -- which is precisely the point.

Not quite.
The irony of the ideology represented in "1984" is that it is incapable of adequately producing and distributing resources to meet the objective standard of meritless comfort it originally aspires to.
So as alternative to complete failure, the perpetual war which is much cheaper to fund in comparison, serves as both instrument of distraction and culling, so the number of mouths to feed does not get out of hand, and the mouths do not think too much about how much they are being fed, and whether there could be more.

The wars in 1984 are terrible at population control. In The Book by Emanuel Goldstein, he remarks that the fighting, when there is any, is carried out by a few, highly trained specialists. The wars in which millions of people would die in the matter of a few months or even weeks are not allowed to happen again.

See, in practice, the Party always under estimates the bare needs of the population. And it does this intentionally. The war also acts not merely to keep the morale of the aimless bottom masses, who are called the Proles, in line, but to keep the morale of the Party itself in line.

[The Great Devourer of All]

If we take WMDs into account, the world would progress like an infant taking its first steps. It would rapidly develop new and more deadly WMDs, annihilate itself, and then start over from scratch for the rest of eternity, or until someone found away to permanently sterilize Earth.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Einstein had very little to do with the Manhattan Project.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Einstein had very little to do with the Manhattan Project.

Picky, picky. You're correct: other than using his tremendous influence to push Roosevelt towards building nukes, he didn't play with the bombs. On the other hand, General Relativity explained where the energy in radioactivity was coming from, and suggested that, in principle, atomic power and weapons might be possible. Nobody knew how to do that at the time, though.