RE: Motorcycle Travel Series by @velimir 'Zagorje' (Part #181)
Great intelligence here @velimir. Exceptional post. I learnt a lot from here. You made really huge points i must say. I agree with you that the greatest world's inventions were by-products of war industry. We should thank Harry Brearley for steel which doesn't rust or corrode.
He had discovered the secret of stainless steel. In WW1 it was used in some of the new-fangled aero-engines - but it really came into its own as knives and forks and spoons and the innumerable medical instruments on which hospitals depend and thats what we use today.
The gun we have today was used to improve on gaming for hunters. Most hunters agree that it is easy to kill a large animal because of the enormous force provided by a handgun compared to when they use other weapons. Hunters do not need to run around chasing their game but only need to shoot from a distance.
Weapons also had its importance back then especially nuclear ones. Negotiation becomes the first weapon of choice. This nuclear weapond made other nations to think twice before launching an attack on a nuclear-armed country. So when there are conflicts that need to be resolved, both nations would first resort to negotiating to reach an agreement or compromise as a way to avoid massive destruction. This should be the mindset of people having weapons. Not as a source of destruction, but to make sure it gives room for dialogue and it had been working till date. We are all one irrespective of race, tribe or religion. Thank you for the educative and brilliant post. Looking forward to more.
I understand how it is. The balance of insanity threatening the whole species. But, see the point is that it would be way better to negotiate without a finger on a trigger. That trigger might one day happen to be under a very shaky or mentally unstable finger... I'd prefer a world free of weapons. But that's only my lunacy... cheers!
Haha. I get your point @velimir.
A world without weapons would be a world without humans.
A large part of how humans evolved from an ancestor perhaps somewhat like some of the modern apes is because we started to use weapons, thought up by our larger brains.
These weapons, likely started out by throwing rocks instead of faeces as chimps do. When it was seen that rocks worked better than faeces, an arms race started that would have involved big sticks and bones. With that the proto-humans could have fought off larger predators instead of just running and climbing and hoping none of them got caught.
All the rest of the discoveries and inventions would have followed after that because having weapons meant that less time would have been needed for guarding the group and running, more time would have been available for eating.
Weapons also provided meat which is higher in protein than vegetable matter. That in turn allowed for more brain development and more evolution towards modern man.
Without weapons, none of it would have been possible.
The problem now is that those weapons are used not just for defending and hunting, but also for war and murder.
I really understand how you see it. You made very remarkable points.
The first time humans came up with weapons were for hunting animals, not for killing each other or raiding and pillaging but for hunting. So it would be impossible to see a world without weapons.
Even if we found another alternative to hunting with weapons we would still invent weapons because some lustfull jealous guy is going to attack someones family and they need to protect themselves. So it is entirely impossible not to have weapons. I mean we turned our body, rocks, tree branches, plants and even water into a weapon, (drowning someone or something for those who are wondering).
Great one @velimir. I really like your view point. Only if the majority of the world could see this.
Many weapons have other uses, so unclear if those things wouldn’t exist. For instance, driving a truck into a crowd is using the truck as a weapon, so would your world have trucks? Would it have stones? Knives? Dynamite has significant civil uses.
But to your question. The police would have no weapons. No guns, no batons. To apprehend people, the police would have to be faster, bigger and stronger than the assailant. They’d have to corner an assailant, because without being able to threaten to shoot, the assailant would run away. The assailants would not have guns, but there’s still likely be a lot more crime. Prison escapes would be more common, or prisons would have to be a lot more locked down. No risk of being shot if you climb the fence.
It’d be much harder to protect the President because without weapons, if people for instance swarmed the President on stage, it could get very messy very quickly as the Presidential protectors would need to literally engage in fisticuffs with the attackers.
Theft would likely be more common, particularly by larger groups of people who would ransack a place and run.
War is where things get somewhat murky with your question, because it’s unclear exactly what weapons would no longer exist. Would blockades be more common (and literally blockades, where ships would probably ram each other?). Invading bands of people might simply create fires everywhere.
As I said guys... Without a change in collective mindset, we are where we are. And will stay there for quite a while :D