Will we ever evolve beyond wars and other evil doings
 

Earlier I saw some episode of a series on Disc. Science

Alien Encounter

In one of the episode a scientist said

Maybe they(the aliens) have evolved to a peaceful society and maybe they have been where we are today thousand of years back.
(can't remember every word, this was what he mostly said)

This made me thinking

Will we ever evolve beyond wars and other evil doings ?

I'm very doubtful, If I have to be honest.

Markus

I have doubts whether what they call "human" will have a chance, not because of those evil aliens but rather of a kind of internal devolution.
Any sentient may study this mess but better gives a wide berth around getting involved; see it as a variation of the "Star Trek non-interference directive".

I doubt the state of humanity evolves. All the main theories and ideas have been long thought, written and were not followed. Instead there is the same rise of nationalist potentates everywhere like since millenia. China, Russia, even in the so called civilized countries.

It seems that just like those eight-armed marine friends, people die too early before they can really make use of their quarter-pound of grey matter, and the offspring just repeats the mistakes of the elders.

Potential no doubt, but too much laziness, stupidity, hubris and pure lust for domination and wars.

In one of the coming evenings I will finish my third re-reading of this nice (and thick) trilogy by Brian W. Aldiss, "Helliconia". Recommended. Winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (USA) for best novel of the year 1982, of the Award of the British Science Fiction Association for best novel of the year 1982, and of the Kurt Laßwitz Award in Germany for best foreign novel of the year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helliconia
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/26/b...e-fiction.html


Puts our normal understanding of history into relation a bit.

In short, no.

If anything, war is what lets societies and political systems assert themselves. If they don't another political system that does will roll over them eventually. That is why there are no societies that don't have military, all the societies that didn't have one where wiped out long ago. It's natural selection.

I have no reason to believe alien societies wouldn't follow a similar pattern, and continue that pattern extra-planetary.

In a word, NO.

Interesting question.

War and evil are pretty expansive words and i'm not sure we can discuss their removal without narrowing the definitions.

I am assuming that you mean War as in the shooting kind, versus a "War on Poverty" or similar call to public action. But even shooting wars themselves can be evil or good things depending on the point of view of the protagonists. For example a soldier fighting to defend his home and family from an invader sacking his town is not going to believe he is evil for doing it. On the other hand a soldier ordered to torch that village may feel his apparent evil act is necessary to achieve a greater good. One or both may be wrong, one or both may be right but even that is all just the opinion of others who weren't there.

Evil is far harder to define as it can be anything. Any human action or inaction, desire or dislike, intention or even the end result of any action (or inaction) including accidental ones. It's basically a societal opinion and one with a fair amount of variance between human cultures too.

There is something in all this about pavement choices for hells highway, but only in the opinion of future generations who are nearly always just trying to use (twist) the event for their own contemporary purposes :doh: