Why are wars less and less frequent?

[Essenia]

People in many places are. The world is not a safe place if you live in Baghdad, or Kandahar, or Colombia, or Somalia, or a lot of other places – in many cases much less safe than at other times in the past. You have a very West-centric view if you think it is particularly safe just now.

This is just wrong; what is seen as bad violence was relatively commonplace in the past, again what has happened is that our standards have risen so fast that we see violence today as being aberrant in a negative sense, when it is really the other way around.

[Tiggah]

To be fair, warchests are already leading to that problem. Or, if you do knock someone down a lot, they just bounce right back after the war is over. This is why I hate the imposed necessity of building massive warchests and think that some of the mechanics should be changed to somehow curb that.

Inflation is pretty effective in real life to keep nations spending/in debt. An inflationary system where infra generates more income and costs more to upkeep over time would probably make warchests a poor economic decision and eliminate them pretty effectively.

[Byron Orpheus]

I read the second paragraph (I guess because I hate myself). Ugh. Yes, as atheism spreads war will become a distant memory. A game played by children but not really known or understood by anyone anymore. People definitely won't go to war over resources like they never did.

Thank you for saving me the trouble of saying it.

[Byron Orpheus]

Are you currently fighting for your life?

The world is a much safer place, the safest it has ever been. The fact that we have reasons to fight besides simple survival is a long way from the animal kingdom.

If you are a white American, then you are right, I suppose. Otherwise you sound terribly ignorant and ethnocentric (which is my redundant way of calling you ignorant twice).

[Starcraftmazter]

To OP, i don't like your "religion IRL causes war" agenda, and you should not have brought it up to discuss the game.

[Andrew425]

If you are a white American, then you are right, I suppose. Otherwise you sound terribly ignorant and ethnocentric (which is my redundant way of calling you ignorant twice).

Link

Humans by Era, Average Lifespan (in years)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* Neanderthal, 20

* Neolithic, 20

* Classical Greece, 28

* Classical Rome, 28

* Medieval England, 33

* End of 18th Century, 37

* Early 20th Century, 50

* Circa 1940, 65

* Current (in the West), 77-81

So here it shows that humans have been living longer, which probably correlates to lesser violence

Sure, areas are bad, but humans as a whole have been getting kinder over the years

[New Frontier]

Link

Humans by Era, Average Lifespan (in years)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* Neanderthal, 20

* Neolithic, 20

* Classical Greece, 28

* Classical Rome, 28

* Medieval England, 33

* End of 18th Century, 37

* Early 20th Century, 50

* Circa 1940, 65

* Current (in the West), 77-81

So here it shows that humans have been living longer, which probably correlates to lesser violence

Sure, areas are bad, but humans as a whole have been getting kinder over the years

A lot of that has to do with advances in medical science and food preparation.

[Dochartaigh]

I agree that TPF wasn't ever in an eternal war, and they were foolish to do what they did. However, they obviously felt eternal war was threatened, both to themselves and NPO- and much of the community seemed to agree.

false. only TPF and possibly their allies may have felt this to be true. that is not "much of the community" at all.

As far as reps go- as I said, it's not that NPO doesn't deserve it. I'm simply stating that those heavy punitive reps are part of a pattern where the main players on the losing side are damaged extraordinarily, meaning that people refuse to go into a war they might lose. That could have been changed by not just getting retribution but by perhaps trying to be more generous than the NPO themselves in handing out reps, but with all the different alliances fighting them and all the grudges and fears that was never going to happen.

the Karma war was not fought for peace, it was fought for retribution. the terms Pacifica have are part of the punishment. in any war, sides can be damaged extraordinarily and people have almost always refused to go into a war they will lose. we have seen very few alliances that have actually joined the losing side of a war willingly.

And if nothing else, the Blue Balls War showed that people will show up for their allies. It may not have seemed like it with the ridiculous waiting, but they came in the end- and then SC left because they weren't sure about being able to win, not because of allies necessarily but because of the numbers at the top being close. And so they left, not because either sides' allies weren't sticking with them but because it was too dangerous to be caught on the losing side.

CC sure did come in the end, with a bunch of more words and that was about it. the war declarations really were not up to par at all. i highly doubt SG was worried they would not win given that SG also had a coalition behind it. SG left because they had already offered white peace and felt that the few war declarations by CC did not warrant a longer war as TPF had already lost 1/3 of their NS and thus been punished more than enough.

in fact, CC had the opportunity of continuing the war by once again rejecting the white peace offer but they accepted. so which side truly ran?

Correction; We paid a very small amount of reps to OV. That was about it.

thank you for the correction.

Link

Humans by Era, Average Lifespan (in years)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* Neanderthal, 20

* Neolithic, 20

* Classical Greece, 28

* Classical Rome, 28

* Medieval England, 33

* End of 18th Century, 37

* Early 20th Century, 50

* Circa 1940, 65

* Current (in the West), 77-81

So here it shows that humans have been living longer, which probably correlates to lesser violence

Sure, areas are bad, but humans as a whole have been getting kinder over the years

you do realize that almost all of that is western views and countries. (including Japan who since WWII is essentially a western country.)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/th...r/2102rank.html

humans have not been getting kinder. as Chey (New Frontier) said medicine is a whole lot better now than ever before. considering the fact that at one point, many diseases were thought to be demonic or magical in nature

or if leeching/bloodletting and amputation were considered the most effective forms of medicine. it was not until the 20th century that germs were even discovered.

so no, humans are by far not "kinder" than ever before, it is that medicine is far more effective. in fact, given that the wars of the 20th century were amongst the bloodiest ever known in the world i can honestly state that we are not kinder at all. in fact, we have invented ways to pretty much destroy all life on earth, something inconceivable back in the Roman/Greek times or even medieval times.

[Tomcat]

Everybody wants to have war but nobody wants to be on the losing side of it.

[ChairmanHal]

In the Real World, wars have gone on forever. There have been wars since the dawn of Religion. Basically, it has been "My god told me to kill you", "Oh yeah? My god is better than your god"

Things are starting to settle out, Aethiesm is spreading and people are fighting less and less over religions. Other causes of war can be for territory, or a pre-mature strike on a nation whom was "allegedly" going to attack you.

I think you mean secularism is spreading. Secularism is NOT atheism. Secularism does account for fewer religious wars as we entered the Modern Era, however the frequency of warfare in human terms is probably about the same until the 20th century and even then wars got bigger and more destructive.

Cybernations, on the other hand, has never had religion. Instead, we have morality, which in the real world is defined by religion. In the game, we just fight about what is "truly" moral. Land is not a factor in the game. Very few times wars are started because one side thought the other was going to attack them, so they attacked first.

I believe Admin thought of all this, when he made the game and introduced team colors. If I were Admin, I would have been proud of the NPO for dominating a sphere. I think that should be every alliance's goal, some kind of domination. Otherwise, the game will settle down into a peaceful place where any alliance can be founded on any sphere.

Much of the moral outrage in CN at the alliance level is sadly, phony, save when the OOC/IC line is breached in some hideous way. It is at the nation level you see more moralism in action. As for NPO, it was empire building and ultimately paid a price for it.

Somehow, team colors need to play a bigger factor into wars. Somehow, when a black alliance attacks an aqua alliance, there needs to be something that gets fellow aqua alliances to back up the defender, and fellow black alliances to back up the aggressor. This creates rivalries and schemes for revenge, that make the game so much more interesting. However, I am at a loss to what such a factor would be.

You see that generally on Aqua now. Also increasingly, Purple. Perhaps you will one day get the world you seek simply by watching it happen.

[Dagrr]

If look at the wiki like a previous poster stated, you can see that there hasn't really been a lack of large wars. We finished up the Karma War in July. There was about a year long gap between the Unjust and the War of the Coalition if I remember correctly. There's always the smattering of beat downs between the big conflicts which, setting aside half baked arguments, we just experienced recently. If you are in the right place at the right time, you could always get involved in one of those wars. If I had to guess, we are due for another big war this summer at the latest. Someone will have entirely too much time on their hands and may start some !@#$ before then I reckon.

Anyway, I'll agree that the forums and alliances in general have become less "aggressive" over the past year or so. My theory on that is most of the outright warmongers have either left the game or have realized that playing it out smarter over a longer period of time, eventually culminating in a short burst of focused violence, would achieve their aims more effectively. That and a majority of the influential CN players have just older. They've been playing 2 to 4 years. When you get older you have to budget your time and deal a lot more with that pesky RL. Warmongering everyday isn't practical for some people anymore.

[Byron Orpheus]

Link

Humans by Era, Average Lifespan (in years)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* Neanderthal, 20

* Neolithic, 20

* Classical Greece, 28

* Classical Rome, 28

* Medieval England, 33

* End of 18th Century, 37

* Early 20th Century, 50

* Circa 1940, 65

* Current (in the West), 77-81

So here it shows that humans have been living longer, which probably correlates to lesser violence

Sure, areas are bad, but humans as a whole have been getting kinder over the years

As others have said, that is mostly due to advances in medicine, and I'm not sure I believe in those statistics in the first place (unless they are weighted down by lots of infant death). Regardless, it has nothing to do with war-- the Early 20th century, which you cite as having a life expectancy of 50 (and circa 1940, 65), was more violent than all of the previous centuries combined-- WWI and WWII certainly took their tolls, yet the average life expectancy increased-- and that is, again, just including the West. You seem to conveniently ignore the other continents.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html

What a peaceful world.

[Dochartaigh]

Everybody wants to have war but nobody wants to be on the losing side of it.

i would not say nobody. honestly i have done it twice since i have joined CN. tis pretty fun actually.

[Arminius]

It also seems to me that TE has helped to pacify Planet Bob. With an outlet for all our warlike needs, without any real losses occurring, TE has become the place for all the raiders and warmongers to vent their fumes.

This comment is very insightful. I agree that CNTE has become something of a safety valve. That, coupled with the stagnation that comes from having older and stronger nations dominating the alliances. But who knows? Maybe Planet Bob has achieved a balance of power.

Edited January 18, 2010 by Arminius

[Prime minister Johns]

This comment is very insightful. I agree that CNTE has become something of a safety valve. That, coupled with the stagnation that comes from having older and stronger nations dominating the alliances. But who knows? Maybe Planet Bob has achieved a balance of power.

I very much doubt that, not while there is still the prize of absolute power and hegemony to be had. As long as this exists alliances will strive for it and there will be more and bloodier wars as a cycle of retribution heaped on retribution leads to more record breaking reps being levied on the losers as revenge for having the same thing being done to them because ... (well you get the picture).

Planet Bob will never be truly stable.

Edited January 20, 2010 by Prime minister Johns

[Fireandthepassion]

Even those real life wars based on religion had an economic reason behind them. No this isn't a conspiracy. Economic gain is what fuels all war.