There're still a ton of government-spurred development going on. The stealth thing brought alot of consumer products. Government military laser research is bound to have wonderful civilian applications (like zapping your neighbor for being an asshole). Nanotechnology, human biological enhancement (super soldiers), plus I believe the government is still the biggest funder of fusion technology. And everyone wants a fusion reactor. I know I do.

Anyway, yes, the civilian sector is doing great things, but I think the government still has a big role to play due to just the massive amount of money it has. Plus the inertia. If a company funds something for 2 years and only sees losses and no major strides forward, it'll probably axe the project. The government is such a beaurocatic, political monstrosity that a really expensive project can stretch for a decade with no major progress and tons of funding. But after that 10 years, it may result in massive breakthroughs, or at least lay the foundation for future investigation.

Anyway, I never thought I'd call beaurocracy an asset, but I think the private sector lacks the staying power for alot of projects that the government does.

Wouldnt that be a shame...(sarcasm). Id gladly pay this price!!!

meh...then the aliens invade and we all get pwned because we have no weapons. :p

Personally, I don't want war to be eliminated. Just contained.

Heh...as a child of my time, this inevitably reminds me of the Halloween special in which Kang and Kodos take over earth (at world peace) with a sling and a board with a nail through it.

lol @ Ox's Simpsons quote. Classic.

@ Satis, i think the chances of us humans coming into contact with aliens at any point in out existence is highly negligible. So i wouldnt lose any sleep over worrying about alien invaders.

nah, I wasn't serious about aliens.

Eliminating warfare is unlikely, though. To remove warfare, you'd have to remove man's competitive nature. That may very well be possible, but I'm not willing to make that sacrifice. There will always be 'weapons of war', too, since many civilian items can be turned into weapons pretty easily.

So...anyway...viva la revolucion!

And the idea of nationalism. War is power to quote the archaeologists and anthropologists.

There is plenty of chance to compete without war. Just think of sports games or plain old kapitalism.

Why not?

if we give up our urge to compete, we give up a big piece of being human. The urge to competition is the only reason that the human race has risen to dominance over this planet, imo. Without the competitive urge, we would have probably become extinct.

Just because we are in command of the world doesn't mean we should stop competing. I believe that competition drives all of our advancement. Without that urge, we become content, decadent, and eventually slide into oblivion.

At least, that's my opinion. Besides, it sounds like castration.

As for competition without war...I think there will always be someone, somewhere that will want to force their ideas down someone else's throat, more than likely "for their own good". Unavoidable, I think.

Off course, I don't think we'll ever be without war, but war is not something to long for, just so that we can be competitive. I'm not so naive to believe that war can always be avoided, in some cases you have to act.

that's fine. I don't mind it being minimized. I'm just not willing to sacrifice that portion of my humanity. Basically, if I had to choose between a world without war and a world with, I'd choose the world with.

Preferably without us wiping ourselves out, of course.

It would be nice to see the world without tho.

... I disagree. Some war is healthy.

No, competition is healthy.