It’s fair to say that the twentieth century saw quite the remarkable leap forward in terms of technology and how we all live, and I’d suggest that a massive force behind such change was coming from the two world wars that took place.
Bi-planes to the first jets in 30 years is pretty amazing stuff. Chuck in the tint extra detail of the atom bomb during the latter part of that same period and you get a really bright picture of the strides taken.
So why should it always come down to war being such an engine?
It boils down to need.
If your nation is involved in a massive planet spanning conflict, every possible advantage you can glean becomes vital. More spending on these topics means more brains on the case and advancements can happen more swiftly. After the conflict comes to an end, those who made said advancements could then make some money out of them by using them for the public. Arguably, the same situation came out of the vaccination program during COVID. The need was enormous so more resources went into finding the vaccine.
So why wait for the terrible thing to happen before we do anything?
There’s always work going on in labs all over the place doing important scientific research but if there’s no impending risk like a war, the need isn’t anywhere near high enough to justify the work increase. It’s not that the work isn’t being done, it’s just that it’s taking longer. When that need appears, it’s all hands to the pumps.
Think of it akin to not answering your phone when it isn’t ringing. You don’t need to.
And that brings me to my thought for the week.
It occurred to me a while ago that what the human race really needed to help us make the step forwards to more readily work together would be a shared, external foe, like an alien arrival / invasion / first contact. War of the Worlds springs easily to mind when considering the attack from outside but even the film Independence Day has everyone putting away their previous problems to fight the shared enemy. Tally Ho and all that!
But why should we only consider the idea of working collectively when there is the bigger external pressure?
We collectively only make the big choices when we have to which is understandable, but only ever doing something positive because we’re effectively being pushed into it seems to be where ‘we’ fall down.
There’ve been stories in the UK recently about comments being made by someone with political connections making racist and sexist remarks and seeing the powers that be do anything they can to avoid saying that they were racist, sexist, AND wrong has been remarkable. The desire not to admit to what was perfectly clear to everyone else was laughable when you know that the person in question was a donor to the party.
Maybe the point should be that ‘we’ should always be thinking in terms of humanity not the ever dwindling groups we find ourselves separated into?
If everyone were to work towards the same end goals wouldn’t that mean that we all just get there quicker? If rather than everyone doing their own thing and bugger everyone else, we look around us and see what’s going on? Imagine a whole continent of countries all working together to share the strengths around and lessen the burdens of those under the most stress? You could go anywhere in the shared group and there’d be shared knowledge and prosperity. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?
The issues tend to arise when people get involved, and start pulling apart rather than together.
I hope one day that we find ourselves in a world where we’re all going the same way but I fear that it’ll take the arrival of aliens to really do it and even then, there’ll be someone shouting that they won’t join in with everyone else because why should they?
Stay safe all.
Owen Elgie 