“War is progress, peace is stagnation”

BenJepheneT

Light Up Gold - Parquet Courts
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why must struggle be violent? not seeing progress in that at all. why not struggle for your fellow beings instead of against them? and the ages of rome and america being decadent... are the ages of greater expansion. how far did rome's borders expand after the death of Kaesar and the abolution of the republic? how many innocents have america bombed in this millennium alone? Rome was not in peace when it fell, it merely had delegated its defense to mainly non-romans along with a plethora of other factors. peace and gluttony are called decadent... i see it as a species having no concern for hunger, no worry of their neighbor stabbing them in the back and therefore rest is warranted. bombing a school, pumping mustard gas into the trenches, taking women as sex slaves... that's not decadent? war's not decadent? At times you have to defend what's yours, but that's not noble, that's practical. but to set out and attack another nation, another people, wholesale massacre, taking out of eyes, smashing babies against concrete.... how is that something our species needs to 'progress?' All i see in scenarios like that are chimps hunting each other through the forest.
Therein lies the paradox, isn't there? Subjects can lay in dormancy under peace, but when said subjects are human, that's impossible.

Humans are ambitious creatures. When we're at rock bottom, we long for the surface. When we're at the surface, we want to reach the skies. When we reach the skies, we wish to rocket to the moon. When we're at the moon, all there's left is to reach the stars. It's not as simple as worry not about hunger; when hunger is no issue, we'd normally gravitate towards eating MORE food. With the advent of getting more food, the possibility of your neighbor WANTING your food to be his food grows, and thus we sleep behind locked doors in case Uncle Jeff gets funny ideas.

Rome fell because it grew too big for itself, and with its absolution it paved way to bigger systems to accommodate for a greater population. America dropped the sun twice on the innocents because had they didn't, it would've been their innocents. See a pattern here? War happens not for war, but out of necessity, or at least perceived necessity.

I agree with OP's phrase, not as a mission, but as an inevitability. Progress is mandatory, it's what keeps us humans human. It's the path of said progression that leads to war. WWII is because not everyone is on board with Cracker Barrel as an ethnostate. Cold War because of ideological differences threatening one another. WMDs because people wanted more oil and resources for further technological advancements, be it for corporate or public gain. Our species doesn't want this, but our species grew too big for ourselves. We didn't throw mustard gas down trenches because we wanted to. We did it because the other team would've done the same to us. When the other team lost, we progressed on their graves to make sure they wouldn't rise again.

War is inevitable. When there's 7 billion of the same fuckheads on the same rock, conflict is bound to uappen. Progress in war isn't the goal, it's the outcome, and the necessary step to winning said war.

And you've mentioned struggling for your fellow men? Well shit, they've struggled pretty well for themselves in the streets of Minneapolis/on January 6th, and it's all for their "fellow men". In a way, no one was fighting for progress. They were fighting because the other team represented degeneracy.

Your idea of peace worked when civilization was just twenty dudes in a village working on a farm. As with human nature, two of the twenty dudes fucked and bred one child who had a different idea of peace in mind. You COULD systematically educate said child and the rest of the children to instate your idea of 'peace', but some guys with cool uniforms and rad moustaches tried that and guess how that turned out.
 

Lloyd

Professional Writer
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why must struggle be violent? not seeing progress in that at all. why not struggle for your fellow beings instead of against them? and the ages of rome and america being decadent... are the ages of greater expansion. how far did rome's borders expand after the death of Kaesar and the abolution of the republic? how many innocents have america bombed in this millennium alone? Rome was not in peace when it fell, it merely had delegated its defense to mainly non-romans along with a plethora of other factors. peace and gluttony are called decadent... i see it as a species having no concern for hunger, no worry of their neighbor stabbing them in the back and therefore rest is warranted. bombing a school, pumping mustard gas into the trenches, taking women as sex slaves... that's not decadent? war's not decadent? At times you have to defend what's yours, but that's not noble, that's practical. but to set out and attack another nation, another people, wholesale massacre, taking out of eyes, smashing babies against concrete.... how is that something our species needs to 'progress?' All i see in scenarios like that are chimps hunting each other through the forest.
Lol
 

TheEldritchGod

A Cloud Of Pure Spite And Eyes
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Population is progress.
It's a simple numbers game. Take 1000 people, you got one genius.
Take 1000 Geniuses, you get one super genius.
Etc Etc Etc.

It's why this "we need to decrease the world's population" crap is bullshit. We could most likely support 40 billion on the planet if we needed to, but chances are we're gonna top out at 9 billion, then we will never see these population levels again. As the population crashes, you are going to see society fall into stagnation as more and more resources are devoted to dealing with the aging population.

Hope you enjoyed living in Humanity's golden age.

War... Peace... doesn't matter. That was always an illusion.

And before you go "What about Africa? Large populations but they didn't get any smarter!"

Actually, they did, but we have created a situation with illegal immigration to basically "brain drain" 3rd world countries so the developed countries can turn the best and brightest in the developing world into our brain slaves.
 

SakeVision

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yeah, love me some progress

*looks at ruined buildings and corpse piles in the neighboring country*
Add some nuclear leak to that
 

Oreo

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Also, going a bit off topic, did the guy above just "Boo!" the abolishment of slavery? I get it that you want to be edgy and "cool" on the interwebs or whatnot, but wtf dude?
Dude just spend 1 week in Texas.
 

Amok

grblbrbl
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@BenJepheneT

evolution my dude. we don't know what humans will be like in a million years, if we still exist.

i know how war works, what reality is, and yes you're right. i understand the reasons behind war and the utility of violence. what i'm saying is.... you saying my idea is only actionable within a group of primitives. i'm saying that despite our technological progress our reasons for waging war have become more absurd, more primitive in many ways. i understand a tribe attacking another tribe in drought season. tell me how dying in the trenches for an empire, just a scratch on paper, leaving a family behind, and for no reason other than that you emperor decided lebensruam is required is more noble? i know what humans are, what i'm talking about here is what humans can become.

i can go on. with our current tech level we can provide for most humans on earth. petty political and bureaucratic distinctions, this fetish for government over community, hampers our species. nuclear weapons have heralded an age of relative peace, but what use is a safe village if one surrounds it with chained lions? and the tribe with most lions can use that threat alone to conquer and subdue another... my ideas are utopian, and i doubt wholly whether i will see such a world in my life. but is it possible? with a few basic shifts in thinking the situation on this planet can be changed in equitable ways. petty reasons for squabbling and killing and maiming can be set aside.

and i despise being political. when i'm saying struggle for your fellow being i mean help them, be kind, do right and protect.

but no cos rats and lions and elephants kill each other we must too.
 

ElliePorter

Crimson Queen Of The Night
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CarburetorThompson

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Seeing as the internet which we are communicating on was created by DARPA for military communication I’d say it’s pretty accurate.
 

Ilikewaterkusa

You have to take out their families...
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War is good for progress, that is why Syria is the most prosperous land on Earth.

Or the Balkans. Or Afghanistan. Or South America. You know. All very prosperous places.

War isn't good for progress. Millions died in World War I, and then everybody in Europe was dirt poor afterwards. But hey, they got tanks, right?

Millions died in World War II, and then everyone in Europe was dirt poor again. But hey, they adopted technologies that were already being developed before the war happened, so those 80 million dead people can be happy that they died because of an incompetent Charlie Chaplin impersonator!

Hard times create traumatized men. Going to war is a pretty hard time, and those who return from it don't return any stronger. Soldiers instead return with psychological problems and have problems being a productive member of society again. Abuse breeds more abuse, not strength.


Also, going a bit off topic, did the guy above just "Boo!" the abolishment of slavery? I get it that you want to be edgy and "cool" on the interwebs or whatnot, but wtf dude?
Slavery was a pretty good deal for the enslaved people. Unironically. The conditions of the slaves after abolition were a lot worse and they were more exploited. Slavery was akin to the Roman patron system of old and was a relationship that slaves could get out off
 

Oreo

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On unrelated note, human zoo was a thing back before WWII started. Ironically, a certain Austrian Painter was the first person to demolish them.
 

Macha

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On unrelated note, human zoo was a thing back before WWII started. Ironically, a certain Austrian Painter was the first person to demolish them.

And the first person to realize the danger of smoking.

 

Vladarius

Tis but a scratch. Tis but a flesh wound.
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Overall I would say that the concept depends on the understanding of the catalyst towards wars. First of all wars all happened due to resources and either greed for more, desperation to survive, or another more complex reason, and so usually the problem comes from the leading figures declaring war, but looking at wars they did help our society develop into the thing it is today.

It's thanks to conflict that people at the higher end of wisdom and intelligence had no choice but to create newer inventions to either ease or solve problems that have rarely been asked in times of peace, and due to that we might think that wars are truly the way humanity could progress even further, but while its true that wars are a very huge contributor to the progress society made till now its also true that wars have always had the epilogue as the true sight, Peace.

Peace was always the time where the inventions created in wars have been polished and upgraded even more, and it's thanks to those times of relief that humanity has also reached such a technological peak.

In conclusion, wars are the catalyst towards innovation, but its peace that makes humanity further develop and polish the once shabby and imperfect blade.
 

Ilikewaterkusa

You have to take out their families...
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Right, tell that to the millions that died under slavery. Being paid nothing for their labor is totally not exploitative.

Anyways, I have better things to do in my life, and those better things don't include shouting at a metaphorical wall in an online forum. I'll just stop posting here and let you people shout "based" or whatever in peace.
This is only in consideration of the white sourthern slavery. The confederates not the Ay-rabs who ran a sex slave trade and cut off one hundred million black dick and balls.
 

BearlyAlive

Certfied Super Secret Final Secret Final Boss
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As proven by the arguments that started here: War is NOT progress.

Progress that isn't bigger death-sticks is only made in peaceful times before or after impending wars.

Now if you would say "fear is progress" then I'd totally agree. At least for our species of tech-monkee
 

TheEldritchGod

A Cloud Of Pure Spite And Eyes
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Right, tell that to the millions that died under slavery. Being paid nothing for their labor is totally not exploitative.

Define slavery. Define Paid. Define which form of slavery. Which institution? Which Government? What Time Period?

Such a sweeping and broad stroke statement is useless. Technically the US government arrests people and then they can work in prison. Is that slavery? In an age where prisons didn't exist, slavery was the alternative to death penalty. They were 'paid' in the forgiving of the debt they owed society.

I have to eat to survive. I need money to pay for food. I really don't have a choice but to make money and I do this with my job. Am I a slave?

Communists would argue I am. I would state I have a choice and therefore do not. Are the prisoners slaves? They made the choice to commit a crime, they took a risk and broke the social contract. Except when they didn't and simply made a mistake, or they were innocent, or when...

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I really don't see how slavery has anything to do with the conversation or why you dislike the topic of conversation. THIS IS A WRITERS FORUM. Most of us WRITE STORIES and these very concepts can be fuel for said stories. Sorry you dislike the conclusions of others, but some of us prefer a more nuanced view of the world.

We can only be as good as the world allows us to be.

We might want a world of justice and to save everyone, but some problems cannot be solved easily. It is the un-nuanced view that resulted in the murder of Muammar Gaddafi and the collapse of Libya and thus the result of OPEN SLAVE MARTS VISIBLE FROM ORBIT in that country. as he a terrible person? By the US standards, yes, but in "fixing" that "evil" we created a much greater evil that we as a country are unwilling to admit to, much less FIX.

Fixing complex problems requires complex solutions and that requires complex thought and understanding.
 
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