Are wars actually as pointless as they seem?

So, I’ve been chewing on this idea for a bit, and I think I’ve landed on a specific conclusion. It seems to me that nature—which is constantly being squeezed by the relentless expansion of the human population—has essentially found a way to check our species' monopoly over the planet.
Given that modern medical breakthroughs are constantly extending human lifespans, which places massive pressure on the entire ecosystem, it feels like warfare has evolved to take the place that diseases used to occupy.
Do you all think that wars are just another mechanism through which nature manages us? In other words, we're just animals, and we're the ones most threatening the balance.
If that logic holds up, then it follows that war isn't necessarily an absolute evil.🤷

Look, I know, I know—don't go labeling me some kind of heartless monster or start throwing examples from the American Civil War in my face. But if you really step back and think about it, this is just nature playing its hand against us.
I can already hear people saying that war has always existed, but let's be honest: we have never seen weaponry this devastating, and we have certainly never seen death tolls on this scale.
I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

Malthusian principles—that whole messy intersection where geometric population growth meets the arithmetic reality of food supply—have been sounding the alarm on this exact danger for ages. These theorists have actually been quite vocal lately regarding population surges; they’ve even started drawing lines between demographic shifts and terrorism, though plenty of people argue that particular connection is a bit of a stretch.

If we don't rein in this unchecked population explosion, it could very well trigger massive wars—but let's be honest, the wars we see today aren't usually about overpopulation; they're about power and who gets to hold it.
And frankly, war is a wrecking ball for a nation's mental health—it leaves behind a trail of depression, instability, and deep-seated grief. You simply can't expect an unhappy nation to function with any sense of logic or productivity.

A more humane alternative to warfare would be leaning into contraception—think birth control pills, better access to various methods, abstinence, or perhaps just moving away from treating the Bible as if it were a literal scientific textbook. Even things like a general decline in libido might play a part. I mean, if we stopped breeding like locusts, the situation would improve drastically, giving us more time and resources to actually focus on the children we *do* have and ensuring their progress. To me, that matters way more than raw numbers, because children ultimately dictate the direction of their generation. But, of course, we Americans have always tended to worship at the altar of selfishness.

swiftdriver11 said:So, I’ve been chewing on this idea for a bit, and I think I’ve landed on a specific conclusion. It seems to me that nature—which is constantly being squeezed by the relentless expansion of the human population—has essentially found a way to check our species' monopoly over the planet.
Given that modern medical breakthroughs are constantly extending human lifespans, which places massive pressure on the entire ecosystem, it feels like warfare has evolved to take the place that diseases used to occupy.
Do you all think that wars are just another mechanism through which nature manages us? In other words, we're just animals, and we're the ones most threatening the balance.
If that logic holds up, then it follows that war isn't necessarily an absolute evil.🤷

Look, I know, I know—don't go labeling me some kind of heartless monster or start throwing examples from the American Civil War in my face. But if you really step back and think about it, this is just nature playing its hand against us.
I can already hear people saying that war has always existed, but let's be honest: we have never seen weaponry this devastating, and we have certainly never seen death tolls on this scale.
I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

But seriously, how exactly does nature trigger people to go to war? 😕 Does it just echo from a mountain peak somewhere: "Get out there and fight!"...🤔

rustymaker5 said:But seriously, how exactly does nature trigger people to go to war? 😕 Does it just echo from a mountain peak somewhere: "Get out there and fight!"...🤔

To put it simply, self-destruction is just part of the human condition...
I wouldn't say war is a necessity, but that's just how things work; everything moves in cycles of creation and destruction.

In order to build a new house, you have to tear down the old one...

I’d say wars are just part of being human—it’s that aggressive streak that tends to flare up when you cram too many people into one tight space. It’s interesting how areas with high birth rates often overlap with those volatile regions where conflict keeps popping up; that’s definitely a factor. Then there’s the other point already mentioned: the whole cycle of history repeating itself.
I wouldn't go as far as saying war is necessary, but it feels "natural" once things reach a breaking point through overextension or deep-seated frustration—and let's be honest, those two usually go hand in hand.

blueheron62 said:I’d say wars are just part of being human—it’s that aggressive streak that tends to flare up when you cram too many people into one tight space. It’s interesting how areas with high birth rates often overlap with those volatile regions where conflict keeps popping up; that’s definitely a factor. Then there’s the other point already mentioned: the whole cycle of history repeating itself.
I wouldn't go as far as saying war is necessary, but it feels "natural" once things reach a breaking point through overextension or deep-seated frustration—and let's be honest, those two usually go hand in hand.

Personally, I’m convinced that wars are fought strictly to grab economic control and social dominance—it's all about power plays orchestrated by sociopaths and bad actors at the top, and honestly, I don't see any connection to balancing population numbers whatsoever. So, I'd argue they aren't "natural" events at all, nor are they required, especially since only a tiny fraction of people actually profit from them while the vast majority are left dealing with nothing but suffering, misery, and a deep sense of disillusionment regardless of whether the conflict ends in a win or a loss...
At our core, humans are fundamentally good, not evil, which makes the state of war something completely unnatural, a condition forced upon us by malicious forces...

rustymaker5 said:Personally, I’m convinced that wars are fought strictly to grab economic control and social dominance—it's all about power plays orchestrated by sociopaths and bad actors at the top, and honestly, I don't see any connection to balancing population numbers whatsoever. So, I'd argue they aren't "natural" events at all, nor are they required, especially since only a tiny fraction of people actually profit from them while the vast majority are left dealing with nothing but suffering, misery, and a deep sense of disillusionment regardless of whether the conflict ends in a win or a loss...
At our core, humans are fundamentally good, not evil, which makes the state of war something completely unnatural, a condition forced upon us by malicious forces...

It’s way easier to pull the strings on people who are frustrated and unhappy.
But my take (and I'm not claiming this as fact, just my opinion🙂) is that people aren't born good or evil. It all depends on their environment, how they were raised, the influences they face, manipulation, and all sorts of other factors.
You'll find it much easier to manipulate a group of people who feel dissatisfied, lack education, and act as a monolith, rather than a community made up of individuals who value their independence and avoid getting swept up in things like religious, national, or racial identities.

High birth rates are often linked to lower education levels and a heavy emphasis on tradition and "community." That's where I see the connection to potential war... it's not a rule, obviously, but there's a higher chance of conflict breaking out between two groups like that.

I agree that the USA is overcrowded and we really need to focus on controlling population growth. But I’m not buying the idea that war is a necessary tool to get there. Surely we can do better than that. Besides, wars aren't just inherently terrible; they haven't actually worked as a method for population control either. They haven't exactly been "successful." Despite all the fighting in history, the population just keeps climbing regardless. So, if they wanted to actually increase their "efficiency"—meaning lethality—they’d have to be way more brutal than anything we've seen in the past. 😢

blueheron62 said:It’s way easier to pull the strings on people who are frustrated and unhappy.
But my take (and I'm not claiming this as fact, just my opinion🙂) is that people aren't born good or evil. It all depends on their environment, how they were raised, the influences they face, manipulation, and all sorts of other factors.
You'll find it much easier to manipulate a group of people who feel dissatisfied, lack education, and act as a monolith, rather than a community made up of individuals who value their independence and avoid getting swept up in things like religious, national, or racial identities.

High birth rates are often linked to lower education levels and a heavy emphasis on tradition and "community." That's where I see the connection to potential war... it's not a rule, obviously, but there's a higher chance of conflict breaking out between two groups like that.

You're right that we're talking about manipulation, and that's exactly my point. But then again, there are certain people you simply cannot goad into participating in violence or killing others, which basically disproves the idea that aggression and warfare are some kind of "natural" human state...

When it comes to the relationship between birth rates and education, there are plenty of ways to address those issues constructively, but the thing is, the warmongers don't care about that. In fact, they actively weaponize these issues to serve their own destructive, selfish agendas, which never actually align with the interests of the general public who end up paying the price for the wars they start...

swiftdriver11 said:So, I’ve been chewing on this idea for a bit, and I think I’ve landed on a specific conclusion. It seems to me that nature—which is constantly being squeezed by the relentless expansion of the human population—has essentially found a way to check our species' monopoly over the planet.
Given that modern medical breakthroughs are constantly extending human lifespans, which places massive pressure on the entire ecosystem, it feels like warfare has evolved to take the place that diseases used to occupy.
Do you all think that wars are just another mechanism through which nature manages us? In other words, we're just animals, and we're the ones most threatening the balance.
If that logic holds up, then it follows that war isn't necessarily an absolute evil.🤷

Look, I know, I know—don't go labeling me some kind of heartless monster or start throwing examples from the American Civil War in my face. But if you really step back and think about it, this is just nature playing its hand against us.
I can already hear people saying that war has always existed, but let's be honest: we have never seen weaponry this devastating, and we have certainly never seen death tolls on this scale.
I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

First off, that is a very interesting perspective.
As for my take, I don't believe nature is directly responsible for war, though it certainly plays an indirect role. We are human beings, and as such, we are part of nature itself. If our development causes us to expand our influence, thereby altering our environment, then that environment will inevitably react to us. Consider the depletion of fresh water. Humanity hasn't evolved enough to solve these crises peacefully; our primal instincts tell us that seizing resources is the only way to survive.
I hope that makes sense.
To put it briefly: in my view, nature is responsible for war because we are a component of the natural world, and we haven't quite evolved enough to resolve our conflicts through peaceful means. (Unfortunately)

Humanity isn't an extension of nature, and nature doesn't care one bit about warfare.

I can't say for certain whether people are inherently good or evil,
but I firmly believe that being peaceful is our "natural" state—after all, the vast majority of us just want to live in peace.

Wars are always driven by those in power acting out of self-interest for their own people (or others).
They first have to convince the public—or at least the influential groups—that an enemy is threatening them.
Of course, this enemy is almost always a fabrication. We are constantly told we need to defend ourselves against some manufactured threat.
If nobody ever struck first, wars wouldn't exist. In that sense, "defense" is nothing more than a farce.

Take the USA, for instance; they spend most of their time "defending" themselves on the complete opposite side of the globe.
They possess such a massive arsenal of weaponry (supposedly for defense 😁) that if we redirected that immense wealth
(its actual value), we could solve nearly every economic issue on the planet.

Instead, they "protect" us: they protect a Vietnamese person from a Vietnamese person, or an Iraqi person from an Iraqi person, and so on.
This also ties into the issue of overpopulation in certain regions. Sometimes, when there is a surplus of labor,
a war or a local conflict is orchestrated simply to deal with that unwanted excess.

Millions of lives are lost just so profit margins can keep climbing exactly as they did before.

Here’s how I see it...
War is inherently horrific because of the sheer amount of suffering involved—mostly innocent victims enduring far too much pain.
But if you look at the long game, the world actually moves forward through these conflicts; war is a brutal, natural process through which humanity learns its lessons. Billions might have to die before we finally grasp how futile killing truly is. For us, we needed World War I and II, and for the Japanese, the atomic bomb was the turning point, but because of those tragedies, both America and Japan have learned their lessons. We are now looking toward a brighter, more unified future where we work together.
The truth is, we’re still essentially animals fighting over territory. We are just in a messy stage of growing up and learning the hard way. It’s a painful, drawn-out process, but that’s just how it works. If it weren't this way, it wouldn't be happening. Still, humanity keeps progressing because that’s a universal law, and I genuinely believe the end result will be positive—that we will eventually outgrow our fears and our primal urge for violence. The fact that our sense of justice is stronger today than at any other point in history says a lot about where we're headed.

That is such an incredibly moronic way of looking at things. I’m speaking clinically here—what is, is what is. Of course some people are born as "natural-born killers," but it isn't everyone. It's specific individuals, almost like fate. Everyone is born with a certain disposition, which inevitably intertwines with other life factors. So, calling this logic sound is idiotic because when a person lacks the capacity to change themselves, they attempt to compensate by taking it out on others. Logically, that ends in tragedy every single time—firstly for the individual making those reckless outbursts, and even more tragically for the innocent people dragged into that mess. Honestly, the person who started this thread is either putting on an act or is just a complete moron. If you had actually experienced the horrors of combat firsthand and understood the sheer psychological devastation war inflicts on a person and the lasting scars left on society, I highly doubt you'd be sitting here acting like such a genius. You would either be a hardened veteran lost to the machine, undergoing intensive psychiatric treatment, or, like a friend of mine who moved out to a remote part of Alaska to raise sheep and go fishing, you'd be trying to find some semblance of peace far away from it all.🙂

I certainly do not hold the optimistic view that civilization is trending toward some brighter future. To suggest such a thing is simply impossible. The world is shifting, and those shifts will be radical—but don't mistake that for progress driven by some tech-savvy genius poking an antenna into the atmosphere to broadcast ideas through the internet until our consciousness is nothing more than a wandering ghost lost between zeros and ones. No, the transformation is far more fundamental; we are witnessing a profound transmutation of matter itself. You can either grasp this reality, or you can remain nothing more than a lifeless mineral🙂
trapped on a silicon chip.

I would like to offer my apologies if my previous tone was overly abrasive. Occasionally, I allow myself to become somewhat carried away by the heat of the moment.😁

blueheron62 said:I’d say wars are just part of being human—it’s that aggressive streak that tends to flare up when you cram too many people into one tight space. It’s interesting how areas with high birth rates often overlap with those volatile regions where conflict keeps popping up; that’s definitely a factor. Then there’s the other point already mentioned: the whole cycle of history repeating itself.
I wouldn't go as far as saying war is necessary, but it feels "natural" once things reach a breaking point through overextension or deep-seated frustration—and let's be honest, those two usually go hand in hand.

Man, I'd love to see some actual data on that. Either way, that massive boom in the population across Europe during the late 1800s and early 1900s lined up perfectly with the bloodiest wars in European history. Then you look at the last fifty years, where population growth in Europe has basically flatlined, and coincidentally, we haven't seen those kinds of massive wars lately.

Honestly, it’s a losing battle trying to manage population growth when the numbers are just too damn small to matter.

mistyfox812 said:Man, I'd love to see some actual data on that. Either way, that massive boom in the population across Europe during the late 1800s and early 1900s lined up perfectly with the bloodiest wars in European history. Then you look at the last fifty years, where population growth in Europe has basically flatlined, and coincidentally, we haven't seen those kinds of massive wars lately.

Yeah...
you can definitely draw some conclusions from that. I've looked into some sociology studies on the subject, though they were pretty vague. They basically circle back to what I mentioned earlier—high birth rates usually tie into other factors that make conflict more likely. We're talking everything from social disparities to just an increased potential for widespread discontent that can be mobilized for darker purposes. A dissatisfied crowd is incredibly easy to manipulate; they become volatile, and most sociological analyses focus on those exact correlations.

rustymaker5 said:Personally, I’m convinced that wars are fought strictly to grab economic control and social dominance—it's all about power plays orchestrated by sociopaths and bad actors at the top, and honestly, I don't see any connection to balancing population numbers whatsoever. So, I'd argue they aren't "natural" events at all, nor are they required, especially since only a tiny fraction of people actually profit from them while the vast majority are left dealing with nothing but suffering, misery, and a deep sense of disillusionment regardless of whether the conflict ends in a win or a loss...
At our core, humans are fundamentally good, not evil, which makes the state of war something completely unnatural, a condition forced upon us by malicious forces...

Look, let me put it this way. I believe all those economic and political justifications are merely the immediate excuses used to trigger these conflicts. I suspect the true cause—if you can even call it that—is some kind of biological chip nature has embedded into our subconscious.
I’ll give you a clear example of how this works in the wild. For instance, if humans wipe out a sparrow population, the byproduct is an explosion in the worm population (which they eat). The following year, you'll see a much larger surge in the sparrow population than usual, simply because nature demands that balance be restored.
Could something similar be happening with humans?🤷

swiftdriver11 said:Look, let me put it this way. I believe all those economic and political justifications are merely the immediate excuses used to trigger these conflicts. I suspect the true cause—if you can even call it that—is some kind of biological chip nature has embedded into our subconscious.
I’ll give you a clear example of how this works in the wild. For instance, if humans wipe out a sparrow population, the byproduct is an explosion in the worm population (which they eat). The following year, you'll see a much larger surge in the sparrow population than usual, simply because nature demands that balance be restored.
Could something similar be happening with humans?🤷

I highly doubt it. Because nature regulates itself, you know, it establishes its own equilibrium... you can still see that in those rare, untouched spots where humans haven't messed things up yet.
But humans have disconnected themselves from nature, and even worse, they've disconnected themselves from their own true nature. You can tell by the way we exterminate entire species and irrationally strip-mine every single natural resource—hoping, I guess, that nature will just magically replenish itself—but we do it at such a frantic pace and in such insane quantities that nature can't keep up with the rhythm we've forced upon it without "responding" with some sort of catastrophe. That disconnect is also proven by the very way people think about things like "hardwired chips," innate aggression, or the supposed biological necessity of warfare...
....Anyway, I’m just throwing my thoughts out there like everyone else, not trying to claim I'm anything special.
Everything we’re going through, which is probably what happened to all the ancient civilizations before us, is likely just the fallout from the gap between our technological advancement and the basic awareness that we are all, fundamentally, stuck on this planet together... it’s just that we have such a hard time grasping or accepting that reality. But I suppose that's just our karma...