How the world would be if WWI and WWII did not happen?

The chance that WWI did not happen is very slim, given that, in fact, everyone wished it.

But what if ?

What if our business, political, military leaders had curbed their infinite greed? What if the scientific advances of the 20th century would have been spread out over two or, even better three centuries?

Having the time to process the implications of what we were doing, before getting slammed with the next round of reality shattering discoveries and advances of the past century.

What if we’d have learned about our planet’s evolution and today’s *{well yesteryears} Earth’s biosphere and the intimate connections between all life on Earth, (we wouldn’t be here without fungus, and all sorts of marvels like that)?

What if we’d of learned to respect Earth with an emotional passion/commitment, akin to what we reserve for our tribes and ancestors? So that when we consumed things, we actually thought about the consequences and allowed value judgements to be weighted against moral expectations, obligations.

What if we built things with future maintenance and decommissioning in mind. Original tire manufactures would have leased tires, to be returned and recycled by the people who understand the product the best (and so on in other industries).

What if our society had taken a wholistic view of economy, appreciating the long term future of humans and other creatures and recognizing destructive externalities and working to mitigate them?
Build an economy on something other than conspicuous consumptions and wanton waste for the haves and misery for the rest.

And so on and so forth. If we’d have made relatively small adjustments in attitudes and expectations, it would have been a cinch to work with our Earth’s natural systems, but when maximizing profits and disregarding harms is all that mattered to pretty near everyone, it was a fools dream.

Now we’ve awoken the monster, hyper-energized our global heat and moisture distribution engine, woulda, coulda, shoulda. :sweat:

The whole world would be different. Two things immediately come to mind:

Most of the empires of that era would have lasted longer.

The Middle East would be much different today.

I wonder if the monarchies would have survived? Industrial warfare ended many of them, and changed Britain’s role, would a modern peaceful world tolerate them? Or would socialism take over? And would that also dominate culture, blurring differences? Could be good or it could be a dystopian nightmare of gray clothing and central control by intelligentsia

I wonder what the world would look like if we used all the treasure spent on wars for social welfare.
What fantastic things could have been created?

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There was a sci-fi series a few years on Netflix. I think it was canceled. it had time travellers from the future coming here to fix the world because it was in bad shape in the future, but they had a super intelligent AI computer making all the decisions. The time travellers believed in it and did what it said. For the first season, this seemed good, but then you found out there were people from the future who didn’t like the AI and were fighting against the ones trying to “fix” the world.

So, a couple themes, one was what does the present owe to the future? It’s hard enough to care for living people we don’t know now, let alone ones that aren’t born. The other, what is the value of human thinking, and freedom? So what if the world is great for everybody, why should we give in to some calculation of “ultimate good”?

Someone who thinks like I do. :grinning:

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Very hypothetical.

If WWI and WWII had not happened, science would have progressed much more slowly.

And if the Russian revolution and the great depression of 1929 did not happen, social welfare would have been much less developed, less needed.

In fact, the welfare state is a result of WWII…

The welfare state is a natural social structure in many species. There is intrinsically nothing wrong with symbiotic interspecies and intraspecies cultures.

The pollinators have been extraordinarily successful and feed about 75% of the vegetarian species on earth. Humans cannot even feed all their own!

I don’t know, the Great Depression gave us FDR and his various social programs (Social Security and alike), which have long since been butchered by Repugs, but these programs, especially Social Security, have been well loved by the general public.

A powerful Japanese monarchy would have survived to the present. It does still exist and is revered, but it would be far more important than it is if WW2 never happened.

European monarchies are another story, as they were already slipping long before the war. However, the European empires would’ve lasted longer if it weren’t for the war.

Those monarchies have no real power anymore, other than the riches they inherit. Anyway, the closest we come to real non-war change are agriculture and medicine. What if either of those had advanced before the build up of weapons in the late 19th century?

When we figured out how to stop the Mexican famine in the 60s, when then exported that to countries surrounding China, possibly preventing their expansion. Medical advances are distributed to the poorest of the poor, and might be holding off the type of revolution that normally occurs due to a wealth gap. Combined, aid to developing countries keeps the authoritarians in check. And even though the rich countries are hated, often for good reason, it’s hard to rally troops against the people who are helping them.

And, I’m not ignoring the downsides. That’s actually my point. Food and medicine make a lot of people rich and put control of millions of lives in the hands of a few, an unelected few. Musk is doing it with the internet and space tech now. I think WWIII is happening now, it’s an information war. It’s less destructive and even productive for agriculture and industry, but if the authoritarians win this one, it will be a lot harder to win the world back. The egalitarians are doing pretty well for now, but the fight never ends when information is freely given and technology is shared. The control of power has to be done openly with reason and logic.