All that aside, I wish I could be around when we, as a species, reach the post-scarcity age (if we ever do). No more need for war, waste, poverty and suffering.
All those dreams I have of us ever attaining that sacred state come from reading too much Iain M. Banks!
That I can second too...
Then again coming from a military background I should perhaps add I have come to two realizations with the war aspect of things.
a) from personal experience, military, law enforcement, EMT, fire dept. and so on, are the professions you should never join unless you truly wish for never having to practice what you train to do.
b) from playing to much MMO looking at a macro economical perspective, the only time you can close the chapter of war in humankind's vocabulary is if you have one final huge war, send all military from all nations in there, and "incidentally" or "accidentally" set of a major nuke or bio weapon in the kill-zone to permanently remove all redundant personnel.
Why you say... well simple.
Could you imagine what it would do to the world economy having to lay of some 20-25 million service men and women from all nations, the mass unemployment, the excessive redundancy of equipment and resources, the masses or people running about not knowing what to do, having nothing, filling the poverty gap of the world above its fill and capacity for any social network system to manage.
Because I don't see it happening anytime soon, any mid level officer, captain through colonel stepping down to become a "bio degrading specialist" to disassemble military hardware for a living, over the next two or three generations to come.
I wish it wasn't so, but as long as we have stepped into the endless path of hostile behavior and aggression sustenance, we're pretty much dead set to have wars, no matter how much we dislike them.
I would LIKE to be able to place more hope in humankind,
but history has proven my hopes dead wrong so many times.
muhaahahaha )
