Haloface

Ello, little drive-by posting here, as I do miss me old flaming chums from time to time.
Myself and my old toot-and-fruit Kivorn were discussing something which couldn't be more fitting for this forum.
When ya look at history, it's completely built around war, changing and shaping the world. Dominant countries/empires come and go, countries change, states emerge, boundaries decrease or increase.. A time line of history shows an ever-changing world, chiefly through acts of war.

But here we are now. Extreme, unceasing advances in technology, modern warfare capabilities, atomic capabilities, world growing smaller in a communication and economic sense.. Through all this, can we assume the world will stop changing now? Has it finally evolved through all the years (mainly AD) and we are now living in the final product?
Surely, when you think about it, war, at least on a scale to change the make-up of countries and regions, can never be achieved now. Not with such an inter-woven world, especially with Western intervention from the UN and America. This sense of global-policing has never before been achieved, only by large empires, but that was never adopted on a global scale.
So is the world set in stone? That was my point of view.
But Kiv gave another perspective, in that the world is ever-changing, maybe not on a macro-grand-scale, but nonetheless it's changing. African states, for example, through toil and war have, and are, changing considerably. The Middle East, for certain. Recent decades have seen changes around Israel and the Gulf that has even lead rise to new countries in themselves.
But will all of this ever lead to change on a scale the past has seen? Or will war and change remain on a micro scale?
But it's hard to percieve change, especially as we are today. Will America be here in 150 years? Will Europe remain so diverse and seperate? Will Russia fragment and dissolve? How many new countries will arise? How many will vanish?
Who knows. It's interesting to think of the change. Is this how it will be from now on?

Or is this all just another note in history?
Will Bulgaria be an American-like power in 500 years (don't ask me why Bulgaria)?

Interesting thought. Ok.. the few beers have made it seem so. And Kiv isn't exactly a conversationalist, for christsake!
And boy, browsing around these forums.. they sure seem dull. There's hardly any Euro-bashing anymore! Hell, there's hardly any Euro's anymore.

Shewdogg

History is not built around war.
It is built around relationships.
When relationships go bad, you have war.

Now since its history, I would love to give a big long schpeil, but the weather at night is fucking perfect in southern california for the first time in forever now, so I'm going to take advantage of it.

Willgatus Airslasher

Seeing things from the current situation... at some point in the near future, China will go through a massive economic depression and attempt to expand by force. There will be a second Cold War at best, a prompt thermonuclear fireworks display at worst.

Of course, a small change triggers a vast series of changes. Something else - maybe equally dismal - will probably happen before then.

mirdorr

We're all screwed.

mirdorr

It's a valid train of thought, but I'm not sure we'll ever be done changing until some sort of Star Trek like "we've got unlimited energy so we're all happy" type of thing happens.

20 years ago, people probably thought the world was set. Then the Soviet Union broke up.

What's going to happen in the MidEast when the oil runs out? Perhaps several countries could band together into one?

Malcor

I would have to agree, it doesn't take a war. One good disease can work wonders for the world population. Supposedly the Black plague wiped out 40% of the world population, upwards to 60% in some areas, and destroyed entire city populations in a short span of what 10 to 15 years? This was only with the disease supposedly spreading through shipping and trade routes of the time. With globalization, could we really stop an epidemic like this from spreading like wild fire? Who says we are not putting out little fires with these bird flu and SARS cases that could explode into a pandemic catastrophy. Granted we have quite a few more advancements than those of the middle ages, but we also still have the cold and AIDS viruses around that our technology can not get cured.

Sanchek

We also wash our hands more than once a month, take showers, have soap, don't let rats share our pantries with us, don't share unpurified water with the entire community we're in, etc.

Things will change though. Anyone who thinks 2004 is how it will be in 3004 (or even 3104 probably) hasn't learned a damn thing from history.

Anterak

1/6th of the world yeah.

But anyway, you can't rationnality think that world is "set in stone". There are so many things that can/will or are changing, and with them will change the world we will live that's impossible to see how it will change, so to think it will remains the same because there is no "wars"...
Mars exploration/exploitation, China rising, end of oil (100 hundred years?), 4th age people spreading, African AIDS massive problem (how it will solve, if it does). And many many more that I can't list because I don't know them, I don't know their impact or they didn't happen already.

Our world is changing, faster than ever.

Haloface

Naturally.
But it's hard to believe. It's hard to percieve, especially from our current perspective. But I guess the most forseeable changes would come through the downfall/change of America, unification of Europe, expanding China, aggressive N.Korea.. perhaps even a new world Empire.

British Empire: Strikes Back.
Got a nice ring to it I think :P

Nydia Ywalmoriel

I know that somewhere deep in your limey heart you would love to see a significant loss of American power, Halo , but it's not likely to happen soon, for the simple reason that the USA is sitting on an enormous stockpile of non-substitutable resources, namely arable cropland and minerals. We are experiencing population pressure to be sure, but not on the scale that most of the rest of the world is. Even if America's relationships with most of the rest of the world were to go incredibly sour, we have that base to rely on should we ever be forced into isolation, and to draw upon in times of war, something that the British Empire, relying on far-flung colonies to supply much of its needs, didn't have. The EU stands a far better chance of hanging in there over an extended period of time as an economic entity...

Being the biologist that I am, I tend to see social events involving humanity as largely a reflex response to selective pressures (in the biological sense). I do expect that the next major realignments will involve the economic collapse of the Middle East once the oil is gone (they have little else in the way of a resource base), and a major communicable disease pandemic (By the way, polio, nearly eradicated just 10 years ago, is running rampant in sub-Saharan Africa at the moment. When WHO doctors tried to bring a vaccination program into Nigeria this year they were refused by the Nigerian president, his rationale being that he knew that they were part of an American plot to sterilize and spread AIDS among Muslim Africans...). It's time for lecture so I don't have time to respond further at the moment, but nice to see you pop in...

Regards,
Nydia Ywalmoriel
Autonomous Collective