100 years of peace

[Gary]

I read a book some years ago and the idea was that a guy invented a truth machine ans as a result, crime stopped, the mess behind trials changed, nations became honest, politicians stopped lying and so on. As a result of this honesty, peace broke out across the world.

Now I wonder what might happen if in fact the world went 100 years without conflict. Progress and science would certainly slow down and there would be a huge shift in economies from military to civilian endevours.

So what do you guys think? What would the world be like? What if someone decided that a war was needed. What would it be like if 100 years from now, we had to dust off F-22's and Gripens and get them ready for war? What kinds of weapons would be developed? How would things go?

[B777LR]

For a starter, military aviation is only 97 years old 

[upnorth]

Well, if progress resulting from military based activity slows down, but computer technology progress does not, then you will have a whole bunch of dusty relics that can't be brought out of mothballs because they wouldn't be compatible, or at least be next to impossible to integrate, with 100 years of evolved computer technology.

I know a lot of computer technology progress comes from military developments, but with as ubiquitous as computers are in almost every aspect of our lives, I have my doubts that 100 years without war would slow down their progress and development to the point that a century old fighter jet could be brought to any acceptable level of integration with whatever computer systems will be the norm in a century.

Even if you could bring them out of mothballs, there would be a ton of training accidents while people tried to learn to operate them from manuals and simulators that were museum pieces. With no living person left who had any personal experience with operating the gear, there would be a lot of guesswork and trial and error going on to learn how to use them.

Basically, If we went a century without war, we would likely have to develop most of the technology from scratch and train a viable number of people on it. As that would take some time, I think the first wars after a century of peace would probably not be terribly high tech affairs. I would wager it might bear more of a resemblance to WWI, with most of the fighting being infantry and artilery based on the ground and aircraft not playing nearly as major a role in the conflict as they do today. Perhaps the only things in the air to begin with might be UAVs in a recce roll.

[GTX]

I read a book some years ago and the idea was that a guy invented a truth machine ans as a result, crime stopped, the mess behind trials changed, nations became honest, politicians stopped lying and so on. As a result of this honesty, peace broke out across the world.

Weel, to start with, I don't think this would result in 100yrs of peace - sometimes, telling lies will help peace.  Imagine if you had to tell the truth about what you thought of some people!!!

Anyway, the idea of 100 years of peace is interesting enough.  For one, the money/technology normally put towards weapons might be put towards civilian applications.  I guess the result might look like some of the Utopian visions around.

Regards,

Greg

[Rafael]

But still, we'd have to find something to do with the "si vis pace para bellum" crowd. What about them?, would we suppress them?

Rafa

[pyro-manic]

It would depend on the type of war that broke out (is it a vicious little brush-fire war in the third world, or a confrontation between major powers?), but I think that very little fighting would be done directly by people - everything would be computer-controlled, with lots of super-smart missiles, UAVs etc. being used. If computer technology continues progressing at anything like the rate it has done so far, then a century from now computers will be very, very advanced (if not actually self-aware!) - and capable weapons would be able to be designed rather quickly, applying knowledge from other fields. I think you'd see lots of drones being used, so manned combat aircraft would not be wanted (they have extra design requirements that would make them more expensive and less capable than their computer-controlled equivalents) - the closest thing might be missile/drone carriers developed from existing cargo aircraft.

[Excalibur]

If peace did break out, sure military equipment would be redundant (unless the powers that be felt at risk from Aliens  ) but  transportation in general would still be around and being improved so if war broke out it wouldn't take much to sling dumb bombs and rockets under sports planes or convert passenger aircraft. Same goes with arming ships and land vehicles. This would be easier than trying to update century old war planes. Of course this might depend on the new mentality of the people who haven't known violence for a generation, even a war between major powers could be a fairly subdued affair with minimal casualties. The pyschological aspects are fascinating - if they don't believe in telling lies than spying is going to be difficult!

It might be a Napoleonic style war where armies line up and it's all very gentlemanly.

[sotoolslinger]

Well as a technological example look at our efforts to return to the moon. We have phones with more calculating capability than the Apollo capsule but we can't build a comparable machine to accomplish the same task

[upnorth]

Well as a technological example look at our efforts to return to the moon. We have phones with more calculating capability than the Apollo capsule but we can't build a comparable machine to accomplish the same task

That's sort of my point too.

However, the space program and apparent inability to get back on the moon isn't so tied up in the state of technology as it is in the current state of leadership and administration of the overseeing organization itself. Basically that's a people problem.

[Hobbes]

Money is a factor as well. In the 1960s, NASA basically had carte blanche; these days they're on a shoestring budget by comparison.

As for returning to war after 100 years: there's no way current aircraft can be taken from a museum after 100 years and be made flyable again. Electronics are likely dead. Replacing them means reverse engineering the entire design of the electronics and software, which is doable if all of the original design data is available (doubtful after 100 years, even more doubtful if the original company has gone bankrupt which is likely for a defence contractor in a peaceful world).
You'd have to start from scratch in a number of fields. Weapons for instance (bombs are a bit more complicated than the dynamite used for demolition), but also e.g. aerodynamics (current fighters are unstable, commercial aircraft have no need for such technology). 

[pyro-manic]

So are we assuming an actual loss of knowledge, as opposed to just the end of development and research?

[Excalibur]

So are we assuming an actual loss of knowledge, as opposed to just the end of development and research?

It's like alot of things in our timeline, knowledge does get lost (or atleast rare) when it isn't used often. Look at all the craftsman skills that were once common place but are now rare and even actually lost. If people really were manipulated into being honest and peaceful via a machine as the original post suggests therefore marking a major shift in human nature. I imagine all weapons may very well become a thing of the past, relegating the knowledge of weaponry to the history books. This scenario is a little like the Stallone film "Demolition Man" where people were very sanitised and delicate. I think the very thought of weapons would be too much for them.

[NARSES2]

Slightly off subject, but one of the best examples of lost knowledge I've seen was in Crete. If you look at the quality of the artefacts from Minoan times then the best quality is to be seen about half way through the period, after that the quality of the objects declines remarkably. Not to do with lost knowledge as such but the way the knowledge was "protected" by guilds and secret societies. The knowledge of how to do something was concentrated in fewre and fewer hands in order to protect "their" status and eventually when disaster struck it was to thinly spread to survive ?

[Maverick]

Realistically, does anyone really believe that such a scenario is even remotely possible?  If such a machine existed, the politicians would no doubt legislate ways around its use, ensuring that the common man would be the only citizens who would be at the machine's mercy.

100 years of peace is a utopian pipe dream.  Human beings are one of the only species on the planet that actively predates on their own kind and I can't see a machine changing that anytime soon.

Given the number of conflicts currently engaged in along religious and political grounds, what chance peace?  Allegedly 'good guys' don't mind treating their fellow men with contempt, how would that change?

The author was obviously on some really good stuff or wrote the thing for a joke.

Regards,

Mav

[Gary]

All science fiction is highly improbable. Warp field generators  etc. However it's an idea and perhaps not without merit. If not for the Star Trek gang, the doors at the local supermarket wouldn't open for me automatically.

The author was writing from the standpoint of a child who lost a parent due to a violent crime and the courts let the guy go on a technicality. The fact that he committed the crime wasn't the point anymore. So as a child he determined to make a machine that would make people accountable for their actions, period. The machine became successful but there were spin off applications and one of those applications was diplomatic.

War is what happens when there are no diplomatic options available, if in fact there ever was a diplomatic issue there in the first place. Lets not delve into history here but in a fictious future world, when diplomats come to the table and a truth machine is present, their intentions would be clear from the get go. That's the premise, not reality.

I think there are a heck of a lot of great ideas here guys. Sort of a seed for a GB. I love the idea about how someone would tackle plugging a self aware organic computer into a Raptor or SuperFlanker. Love the Crete reference too. Must look up. Thanks Guys