We (as humans) are getting more strict about losing people's life. We don't allow genocide, we don't allow colonization and enslavement, at least the majority of nations agree that this is not acceptable.
So it is NOT like before. And the logical conclusion, as those drones get better and more widely adopted, is that war will be nothing more a video game with real economics and supply chain. So we basically made the cost of genocide or colonization too high to absorb. Previous wars, people got away with it.
The majority of nations? majority of people on earth? We are going to a multilateral world and to win a war you need secure the appeal of majority. If the majority think your war is illegal they can cut you off from the world economy.
It is a distributed consensus-based algorithm, and the young people who are writing those algorithms will shape the future of governance.
You are arguing today. This is the first kind of wars we are seeing of this nature.
But Iran is hitting exactly where it hurts, global supply chain, and now the US will be pressured by the global economy to either retreat or commit a genocide.
And if all the war was drones and anti-drones today (which is not) we would have saved many lives. Look at UAE/Iran, UAE lost no live despite being hammered with drones/missiles, this is an example of drones/anti-drones future. The reason why we don't have this with the US, is because the US needs a defeat for the legacy system to die, and it seems they will get that defeat soon. Actually they are already defeated, Trump said he is retreating in 3 weeks while achieving nothing but destruction.
Your casual usage of the word “genocide” doesn’t apply to Iran.
Iranians are dramatically in favor of removing the theocratic Islamic regime. Iranian expats the world over celebrated Khamenei’s death.
My Iranian mother-in-law living in Tehran has literally been saying “get the mullahs out” every time we’ve spoken for the last year. Millions of Iranians inside Iran are thankful that the US (and even Israel despite the complicated relationship) is attacking the regime.
This is a regime, after all, that killed thousands of its own people. That requires girls to fully cover themselves. That doesn’t allow singing or dancing in the street.
Achieved nothing? Go talk to a real Iranian, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Iranians the world over have felt hope for the first time in over 40 years that they may get their country back. And we absolutely should not stop trying to help them.
Yeah, I grew up in Iraq, under more ruthless dictator that fought Iran. You are naive if you thank Israel/US are here to free Iran.
A government won't last that long if there were to genuine supports. The fact you are outside of Iran and have some people there, doesn't make you more knowledgeable, it makes you westernized and you voted to leave with your own feet.
From my conversations, Iranians don’t really care if Israel/US are specifically there to “free Iran”. Iranians are pragmatic, they understand that US/Israel have their own motives.
As long as the regime is being destroyed, that’s a win. And that’s happening, big time. That’s why Iranians danced in the street when Khamenei was killed.
What this had to with with my arguments regarding the nature of future warfare, the emerging world economical order?
There is no point in history where we had such connected economies and this kind of autonomous war technology. All previous wars were fought by human bodies. We are witnessing the first generation of wars that becoming completely autonomous.
Where is the assumptions? it is not just world. It is a world ruled by constrains and for better or worse human nature.
There is no people involved at all, in fact my argument is that there will be no people involved in wars..I'm just extrapolating on the what we are seeing today. Also nobody really understands reality fully not predict the future. We are just speculating here on what might happen. You surely don't understand reality and you said you can't imagine anything else.
Alright, so in your mind the world and future war will stay the same, regardless of drones, robotics and AI. Frankly, I don't understand what your argument is other than saying fantasy and doesn't match the reality that somehow you know more.
Of course the goal of the war is to make others to submit by force and pain. That's obvious
But you missing my point.
If in the near future multilateral system, governed by AI, drones and robotics. A war is nothing more than a war of attrition between economies, then in a global interconnected economy with scarce energy, it will become an absurd proposition because one nation can't cause significant bleed in other without bleeding itself.
Without human involvement and other players forces energy leakage in the global economy, it's not hard to see how. In fact we are seeing right now. It's why Trump is pulling back.
"Trump started the war to distract everyone" that is your opinion.
The war in middle east will not end soon, I agree with that. The question is whether the US will stay or not and how it will be rearranged. Trump is telling people he is will end it soon, but he will leave troops there. But the issue is Iran will keep hunting the economy, and he is now throwing the problem at the European. But what what will the European do? They have no option but to listen to Iran, and what does Iran want? end of the US bases to the region. So basically the US will retreat.
But with regards to the nature of the war itself. It is turning to drone vs drone wars, it is happens as we speak, and this is the first two wars of this scale we witnessing. I'm not sure why you think it is not happening? this is exactly what is happening. And the only reason why Iran is able to pull this off is because of the drones and guided missiles which is allowing them to bleed the globe economically, and an interconnected world, an AI driven speedboat hits a tankers near the shore of Iran, causes the tomato prices to raise at grocery store in California. And people will say, this has always been the case with war, and my argument is that we never had that level of interconnectedness before, we seen weapons that be produced cheaply at scale and can keep inflicting pressure on the other side and we have never lived in a multilateral global world order before. This is truly a new era in human history.
It is interesting that people give downvoting, so either they enjoy having the current wars continue and people physically killed, or they basically gave up on seeing a better future.
Ukrainian invasion was attempt at genocide and colonization. Israel did anoyher genocide last year. And then there is yemen which may not be genocide, I dunno, but has super high unchecked amount of victims. Saudi made sure no one is watching.
But my argument is for the future that we are starting to get a glimpses of. I'm not negating the currently genocides, I'm hoping for a future in which we don't have war at all due to the absurdly of it. And I'm arguing that there is a path forward and it is very realistic.
You missed my point, please read my other comments.
You either agree or disagree with the idea of genocide. And if you disagree with idea of genocide, then this is becoming closer to video games as more drones are deployed which is my thesis. But if you agree with the idea of genocide, then yes, wars can be won by total elimination (or major reduction) in the other people's population and loss of life.
So do you think genocide is acceptable in war or not?
Well, because they reject the idea of making a war a physical video games of drones, therefore, they would be advocating keeping the current system?
My point was that we are better off with abstracting away the war, so if you downvote that idea, then you want to keep the current system, and to win a war in the current system you need total surrender, which comes at a huge cost of life.
No, I downvoted your idea that somehow we "don't allow" genocide and yet Israel killed over 20k children in Gaza and literally nothing happened to anyone as a result - the downvote is on the blatantly untrue assumption that doesn't seem to relate to the real world at all.
I still don't understand why you think this implies that I support genocide, when the exact opposite is true?
You didn't understand my point. I said in the future (not now) the world might trend to having wars similar to those of playing video games. And I said this might be better because we just give politicians another medium for conflict resolution.
But you downvoted the idea, so you either don't like it or didn't understand. I assumed you understood it, but it seems you didn't
But that is what is happening now. Drones vs anti-drones, what happens when robots comes online? robots vs robots..and people/AI at the command centre managing war from a UI that looks like star craft.
>>We (as humans) are getting more strict about losing people's life. We don't allow genocide, we don't allow colonization and enslavement, at least the majority of nations agree that this is not acceptable.
I downvoted because I don't find this quoted sentence true, realistic or even remotely plausible. I will repeat for the 4th time now that I don't understand why you seem to think that downvoting you means supporting genocide - you seem to be very fixated on that idea.
>>But you downvoted the idea
I did not - I thought I made it clear in my last comment.
Regardless of whether or not anyone does or doesn't understand your point or position, you're being very obtuse about this.
There are many other possible scenarios that could play out, and disagreeing with the idea that "wars will turn into video games" doesn't mean someone is in favor of genocide.
That is how children argue; please hold yourself to a higher standard.
Also, if you put obviously incorrect information in the same comment (which you absolutely did), you should expect to be downvoted.
I think people are downvoting you because your post displays extreme disconnection from reality.
I will believe that it is possible to “fix” war immediately after we “fix” poverty, extreme inequality, hunger, deaths of despair, and crime, any of which should be immensely easier to solve than war.
This speculation in the future if this technology keeps being adopted and the world would have multiple strong players.
Would you rather keep the current system? how do you really think the war in Iran or Ukraine would end? It won't end until one side is completely destroyed, that is why it is called wars of attrition. But war of attrition means what when each side is using commercialized cheaply produced intelligent drones?
What system I would rather have is irrelevant. What system you would rather have is irrelevant. The system that we have, and the systems we will have in the future, are emergent properties of human nature mixed with economic reality (energy/resource availability vs regional economic needs). Voting will not change it, nor will revolution.
You’re welcome to try, but I will no longer waste my time on it. I have studied it for years and I don’t believe it can be changed short of an energy revolution (fusion).
Edit: actually, even if we get fusion, the AI boom has shown that our energy use will automatically expand to consume all economically available energy and resources. So even that would likely not solve the issue.
Regarding your commend on energy, I think it is actually an argument on my point that fighting wars is going to be even more absurd. If the world is running short of energy then fighting a war that further consumes energy without clear win will be viewed as absurd. If all wars will become a war of attrition between robots and economies, then fighting wars means no energy left for local economies to run across the globe. The future war will feel like bleeding, a leak in an already scarce system, you don't do water guns fight int the middle of the desert.
Yes, you are correct about the effects, much as the Sea Peoples destroyed multiple civilizations at the end of the Bronze Age and lowered the world’s overall level of development. Or how the Mongol conquests destroyed Mesopotamian irrigation networks and early organized Chinese societies. Or the Thirty Years’ War that devastated European civilizations.
World Wars I and II would have had similar effects if it weren’t for rapid global technological advancement and industrialization at this time, which enabled more rapid recovery. Much of the cheapest energy has been extracted by now, so the next serious global war will reduce global carrying capacity. With all that entails.
You don't think the absurdity of drone vs drone economic warfare coupled with the reduction in global energy will reduce the probability of future wars?
I actually think it will.
Because in the examples you gave, the world was not as connected. But look at what happening now, an economic bleed in one nation is impact the global economy in way that nobody even understands let alone predicts. You wage a war in Iran? alright, few weeks later people in Brazil can't have food because of shortage in fertilizer..US farmers increase prices by 40% because of the shortage, that causes riots in the US..we live in an extremely interconnected word and nothing short of a third global war would tear that system down.
We had nothing like this in the past, not the tech, nor the economies and the information system, that allows us to see what is happening.
The argument you are making is that it happened in the past with all these semi isolated empires therefore it would happen again. But the world we live is vastly different from the past. And I don't think your assertion hold into the future frankly, it is poorly defended.
If you understood history well, you would know that the Bronze Age collapse was actually very similar to what is happening today. Bronze Age empires relied on the tin supply chain, with much of it produced in Afghanistan. The tin trade was enormous and profitable for all involved, but a series of constant disruptions caused the supply chain to break down, ending economical bronze production. The crisis was initiated by natural disasters and climate change, while The Sea Peoples, internal civil conflicts, and the dawn of chariot warfare were the final straws that unraveled the trade networks. The rulers of the various Bronze Age civilizations were in communication and were aware of what was happening, but they were unable to coordinate to stop it.
You have too much confidence in people’s ability to identify a crisis across cultures and coordinate a collective response while accepting the often unequal costs that such a response would impose.
I think we reached the end of your arguments because we are repeating.
As I said, I don't think this is the same as the past, not even close. You can't assume the same results from a very different preconditions, yet you keep doing this.
The second point, you don't need to see far to understand, especially after this war with Iran, that the world economy is one organism, and you can't shoot the feet and hope to run happily by the other.
It doesn’t matter that it is one organism, there are those who benefit from this arrangement and those who do not. Those who do not would often prefer to tear it down even at the cost of their own lives. This is human nature and cannot be changed.
The increasing complexity of the supply chain comes with extreme fragility, and a series of cascading shocks could unravel it as in the Bronze Age. Over a sufficient time frame this is almost certain to occur.
Regardless, I agree that we are done, I understand your perspective as I once believed as you do. Good luck, and hopefully you are correct, for everyone’s sake.
I don't want to appear argumentative but it ironic that you said that you once believe as I do, because I also once believed as you do.
What changed my mind is technology and not human nature.
1) Advancement in AI/Robotics/Drones that enabled asymmetric warfare
2) And this is the point that I don't think you are seeing, is that I don't think the future governance will actually be done by humans. Maybe "older" folks here would think it is fantasy/sci-fi, but I think as AI improve, the world gets more complex, and human brain show more limitation nations will gradually opt to using AI to make key decisions. Eventually, I think the entire economy will be managed by some sort of AI or a network of AIs. And I think it is the new generation that will be building those systems, the ones currently growing with AI.
I don't think you thought about that, because your point is that human nature is flawed, which I agree with, given that we are chimps with bigger brains. But that slight brain advantage gave us better technologies, and it seems to me it would either be the thing that completely destroy us or govern us to a better future (one would hope). The last point I want to add, humanity has walking on a very thin rope, and I think if we see a path forward, regardless of how narrow, we should aim for it. You keep your eyes on the rope when you know you can easily fall..and you certainly do not look back.
That assumes that war will "evolve" into drone vs. drone. I don't think it will. Sure, drones will be used more and more, but there will always be people involved, even if they are "merely" civilians who get caught in the crossfire.
Most wars aren't fought in completely uninhabited areas. Drones will always have people to kill, and their controllers will always aim them at people.
You can't assume what you want, the facts on the ground are clear, we are moving to drones, AI, robots. And the nations who don't move that direction will not have a chance to fight any war due to the asymmetry in the cost. It would be like fighting guns with arrows.
Regarding the second point, UAE had 2400 projectiles on them with 10 causalities. This is a war of economies, not aim for people. So your second point doesn't also hold on the ground given the current systems let alone the system 50 years from now.
I actually have zero believe in the rationality of the leaders, you only need to listen to one speech to see the irrationality.
However, systems don't care about people irrationality, it will force them to behave in certain ways. We are seeing things unfold in front of our eyes clearly pertaining to the global energy.
Iran blocked the world supply forcing the global empire to retreat, it does't matter what Trump wants, at the end of the day, he is left with a dichotomy, either to escalate and further risk the global economy or retreat, and he had no option but to choose the later. He understood that destroying the world economy will be the end of his presidency and legacy.
If the future is merely a war of economies and drones, my point is that it would be closer to a video games than wars of the past. And this is a good thing!
I understand your pessimism, but with all due respect, your argument is weak.
I didn't say our preferences, voting, or opinions will change the system. I believe the system is being reshaped by new technology and a shifting world order—specifically AI, robotics, drone warfare, and a multilateral global structure. We are currently witnessing the first iteration of this kind of conflict: the MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
Think about it: Iran launched 2,400 projectiles at the UAE—a country of only 83,600 sq km—and caused only 10 casualties. Fifty years ago, if you had launched that many, you would have destroyed the entire country. Why the difference? Because it is literally robots fighting robots.
The reality is that these drones, missiles, and anti-missile systems require a global supply chain. To produce them, you need access to intelligence, GPS components, microprocessors, piston engines, aluminium, and more. No single country possesses all of these resources; in a war of attrition, if your supply chain is cut, you have already lost.
In a few years, we will see mass-produced robots and drones that are even more intelligent, all powered by AI. You can study the entirety of human history and you won't find any precedent for what is coming. The best analogy I can think of is a video game.
Do you have a good suggestion for how to get the next superpower to agree to that kind of thing? I think the most likely outcome is that their allies will be allowed to do genocides where they want, and boycotts and blockades will only work on their enemies, probably.
I think will it will emerge as we get into multilateral world order. Given that those drones depends on global supply chains, satellite images, natural resources across the world, we could imagine that a in multilateral world, if the bigger players decide to pull the plug on the economic supply and/or supply drones themselves, the war is over for the smaller players. Therefore, we either have a global war or a mechanism of conflict resolution that we never seen before or we only saw in sci-fi movies and video games.
We (as humans) are getting more strict about losing people's life. We don't allow genocide, we don't allow colonization and enslavement, at least the majority of nations agree that this is not acceptable.
So it is NOT like before. And the logical conclusion, as those drones get better and more widely adopted, is that war will be nothing more a video game with real economics and supply chain. So we basically made the cost of genocide or colonization too high to absorb. Previous wars, people got away with it.