As far as i know, no, it cannot. It seems to be in human nature to fight and in human nature to gather in groups. Enter war.
agreed - interpret “human nature” however you like, it’s still true
yes, world peace is attainable…
kill every person who wants your stuff…
kill every person who thinks they are entitled to your stuff and your labor…
-Imp
so then is this even worth discussing or have i wasted yet another forum?
you haven’t wasted anything…
when all your enemies are dead, there is peace.
it is a question of getting there however…
-Imp
When there is nothing worth fighting for.
Is that really valid reasoning? The observation of how it is to the universalization not only to how it will always be, but to how it has to be? Nope, it’s not, the latter do not follow from the former. Yet, It’s supposed to be sort of realist argument, like it’s a fact, but really it’s just an expression of something else, of a deeper worldveiw. Not to mention the tacit assumption that humans are extremely simple and immediately understandable creatures.
Is world peace possible? I don’t know, but I do know that the current power structures do their best to prevent it, and that fact is neither a meditation on human nature nor fundamental human behavior.
A question to ask is what motivates war. Lacking motivation for war, I can see world peace attainable.
So what does motivate war? Need of resources. Want of power. Ideals. These few things immediately come to mind, and I don’t see mankind running out of any of those things any time soon.
what sort of deeper worldview? an expression expressed by whom? it is a realist argument. The fact is humans disagree and fight about it, kill for it - we always have. If there were a world without dogma, predjudice, rage, partisanship, collective pride, jealousy or material disparities of any sort then there might be a world at peace - but that wouldn’t seem a very human world to me.
in some ways humans are immediately understandable creatures, yes - there’s no reason to assume that’s a tacit claim of intellectual superiority or a hidden contention that humanity is “simple”, however. Humanity quite evidently is not simple, merely in certain ways predictable.
The two latter points are true, and the argument that world peace is unattainable is not necessarily an argument FOR conflict, it’s simply a evidential claim - Conflict appears inevitable, world peace appears a fantasy and it’s a safer wager that there will be violence than that there will not.
Tho i suppose in an ultimate sense no one can predict the future - so you do have that on your side. That, and the spreading popular bias against any viewpoint in any way classifiable as cynical.
I believe that population management and natural resource management, together, can combine to greatly reduce the situations that lead to war.
If our culture contained social mores that emphasized the need for negative population growth via smaller families to eventually arrive at a more manageable number of people …
… And if our socio-economic philosophy respected the human rights of all, opposing natural resource rape …
… Then I believe peace would be attainable for longer periods of time.
It is only our nature to fight … when we feel threatened.
Perhaps we have long overlooked the reality that unmanageable numbers of people combined with a neurotically competitive dog-eat-dog socio-economic philosophy creates real threats … that compel us to fight for our very lives.
I don’t know what else to say, you just repeated the line of thought that I criticized, only in a different way. So what, you see murder and rape and all sorts of fucked up shit, but that does not and never will mean that “human nature” is violent or that peace is a fantasy. What it does mean is that under the current power structures and social mores humans many times resort to violence.
This is the illusion of realism, you get to reference all the violence in the world when you argue that war is inevitable, and call it fact, but what you reference does not prove in the slightest what the claim is. Yet, the facts are not irrelevant, they just happen to require a whole bunch of other shit in conjunction with them to get the claims being made by “realists”. For starters, the claim needs to be made that the current set of human conditions are representative of all possible human conditions, or that humans act the same in all sets of conditions. Neither of those claims make sense, unless ofcourse humans “appear simple”.
might be a world at peace - but that wouldn’t seem a very human world to me.
Conflict appears inevitable, world peace appears a fantasy
The one evidenced by these statements and others like them.
it has nothing to do with humans appearing simple, it has to do with what’s likely and what it’s pragmatic to expect of the future. i don’t see why the claim that humans are in certain ways predictible is getting translated as they are simple. that doesn’t follow. you can say there’s this or that small chance that world peace is still possible despite human behavior as we’ve come to know it throughout history, but all you’re saying in effect is that you can’t prove what’s going to happen in the future, which is already given. again, it’s a question of likelihood and it’s not an argument FOR violence or strife.
Was that post for me? If it was you’ve changed the discussion into something that I don’t find the least bit interesting - the claim that violence is likely to occur in the future is extremely vague, and really doesn’t connect to your previous rhetoric nor my criticisms.
I’m saying nothing of the sort, nor have I implied that that is the impetus of my position, nor would I have said that given the discussion. The only thing I have in common with that point is that me and it both deny the inevitability of conflict. It is interesting to see it misinterpreted this way though, undoubtedly something to do with you seeing your argument as realist fact.
I can see the reasoning exactly as it went on in your head.
Humans are murders and rapers and there is no changing this. But since this is fact and everyone knows it, how could he possibly deny it without seeming outright dense. Oh, the future cannot be proven. Remarkable straw-man
actually world peace is attainable
if we look at humankind as more important than any religion
if you look closely it is religion which devides us
then why don’t you deign to clarify your “criticisms” ? or is it simply enough for you to say: oh, well you’re thinking like a realist, and that means your thinking is flawed, so i don’t find this discussion interesting anymore?
and how about this nonesense about the implicit assumption that humans are simple - i see you cast that aside pretty abruptly.
really, could you be any haughtier?
that’s some good circular reasoning, btw
“your statements are merely reflective of a deeper worldview”
“what worldview”
“the one reflected by your statements”
What is at issue is that the “realist” argument you have offered does not reasonably entail the conclusion, despite you claiming that it does. Yet, since the position is seen as realist you consider it manifest, which is evidenced by your last characterization of my post. Since you see it as realist you cannot accept criticism, and apparently cannot understand it either. So
the only way for me to progress the discussion at this point, is to point out that it uses previously value laden or “loaded” assumptions. What those assumptions, deeper beliefs. or conceptual schemes are doesn’t really matter at this point, and it’s abusive to ask me to speculate about why you actually believe what you believe.
What matters is that they are there, and I gave you to passages that clearly and undeniably express them. Ergo not realism, and the discussion and progress.
[/quote]
You’re reinterpreting my non-realist conclusions as realist conclusions. This requires you to change my premises and arguments as well as apply assumptions to me that I am expressly denying. This has generated a remarkable straw man. Rather than argue for a straw-man and something that I do not give a damn about, I pointed out the mistake. If this is haughty then Haughtiness is unavoidable.
it’s the induction argument- one cannot say for certain that like causes will always have like effects (if the statement leads to any more substantial claim than that, i admit i’m at a loss to determine what it is and it just might behoove you to admit that you have failed to make it clear) - the induction argument is given, but for practical purposes it remains reasonable to make presumptions about what will happen based on past and present events - hence the realist’s citations of the “facts” of violence as it has manifest and presently manifests itself in the world - it is not a logical proof, but it is a reasonable induction from the evidence - and the only “deeper worldview” that it is reflective of is the one that says we can make such practical inductions and discuss them as reasonable propositions - if that’s flawed reasoning, then i’ll take it despite the fact.
one cannot prove the realist’s claim in regard to violence, you’ve already made that point whether it was the one you intended to make or not, but it’s hardly central enough to the argument to be interesting, as you yourself have admitted
one needen’t say that present human conditions are representative of all possible human conditions - that’s a strictly logical point and this is the proving the future argument again - one need only say that certain patterns of human behavior are likely to obtain for the indefinite future - that claim makes pefect sense, whether you agree with it or not. There is, after all, a glut of evidence to support it - and it does not imply that either humans or their behavior patterns are simple, that simply does not follow.
so again, i have to wonder exactly what you are trying to say apart from the fact that the future is not logically provable . . . if that inference from your statements is a strawman, then the strawman is unavoidable.
and i have done no such thing - you have made it clear that you are not a realist and i have not applied any realist assumptions or premises to your argument, merely arrived at a neutral interpretation of what that argument actually states with regard to the realist premise it was intended to challenge. Further, the only other assumption you have “expressly denied” is that conflict is inevitable and i certainly have not attributed any such statement to you.
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) perhaps. 
If there’s no more people there’s no more liberals. 
The more people there are the more conflict there will be no matter how like minded they are at first. The only solution then is extinction.
War is inevitable as long as people are obsessed with stuff being very important. War I think will always be present unless stuff becomes attainable by everyone at any time, or we have a pardigm shift and human nature becomes less acquisitive, or we transcend our physical form, all being unlikely but not impossible I suppose.
It’s pretty peaceful here in my world.