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Your Idea: A Weapon that creates Peace
Let's face it; War is a business.
How, then, do we create a product of war, that doesn't hurt, maim, or kill, but rather does the opposite and heals, prevents, and stops conflict that a corporate company can patent and therefore make money from, keeping not only innocent people from being harmed, but also feeds the corporate companies' bottom line of keeping investors happy?!?
The idea is simple in effect, and promotes peace whilst still increasing worth.
I just have little idea on what the war product could be, so I'm crowd-sourcing from you, fellow TEDsters, to help build the perfect weapon: A weapon of peace.
Should it be just one weapon of peace, or, just as there are many weapons of war, perhaps there should be multiple weapons of peace that can each be patented by the companies listed here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_armament_manufacturers and allow such companies to make money from peace?
as always, I'm awaiting your thoughts.....
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Robert Winner 50+
The problem is that even educated people can be seduced. war, hate, and greed are part and parcel of who we are. Until the Viet Nam war we stood as a country and backed our troops. When Hanoi Jane Fonda defied the United states and committed acts of treason in aiding and abeting our enemy and was not punished for it all of the rules were rewritten. The truth about Bengasi is very important. It will determine what the people will and will not accept from our leaders and statesmen.
As a combat veteran I would love to see your idea evolve.
All the best. Bob.
griffin tucker 10+
from a land down under it would seem my idea is very upside down.
this is in effect the idea, actually, to turn a _profitable_ weapon that also creates peace, perhaps by means of trade or business.
this idea has been evolving slowly since my last posts about war and coalescence and fragmentation of war scenarios with displacement of attacks.
if there is coalescence, protesters and potential attackers are grouped together, the attacks are more frequent, but not as many people get hurt or killed. where as with fragmentation, protesters and potential attackers have been spending a lot of time alone (or, at least, more time in smaller groups) due to events such as curfews or other political events that are designed to change the course of the war, and the attacks are more organised which means more people get hurt or killed, but the frequency of the attacks is lessened.
it seems the more you try to control a mob, the more they will revolt, but if you let them protest so much so that they are out of control, the more chaos is endured.
i am in just the same position as the new zealander physicist sean gourley, where i do not know if it would be better to create an artificial political event to promote coalescence to the point of temporary chaos, or a different artificial political event to promote fragmentation to the point of living in fear and not knowing when the next attack will happen, but knowing that it will be huge.
on top of that, sometimes an expectation of one way of coalescence, or to the other, fragmentation has the opposite effect in what are supposedly predictable events of coalescence or fragmentation outcomes.
http://www.ted.com/talks/sean_gourley_on_the_mathematics_of_war.html
there is a pattern. i believe with enough data, and enough number crunching, wars can be stopped with not exactly education, but somewhat, and not exactly propaganda, but somewhat, but more importantly, truth at hand.
i believe transparency of decisions is key.
pat gilbert 50+
My take is that things are the way they are because people agree to the way things are. So to makes changes the changes have to center around agreement. The coalescence of this agreement is the culture. There are subversives who do unethical things for self gain. The culture has to be educated into vigilance against such specious ideas.
griffin tucker 10+
do these individuals hate what they have become? do they hate how 'dumb' the general population is? do they target an 'enemy' country for national pride?
personally, i don't know.
pat gilbert 50+
No they are unaware of what they have become. They are indifferent. They target an enemy for personal gain.
griffin tucker 10+
fear campaigns would be the last resort for getting to stop a potential fraudster.
however, fear campaigns would _not_ work on everyone, and it has been proven that positive reinforcement has a longer-lasting impact than negative or fear-based reinforcement.
it saddens me that these kind of fraudsters are indifferent.
Colleen Steen 500+
You are presenting an old paradigm.
You say..."The problem is that even educated people can be seduced. war, hate, and greed are part and parcel of who we are".
Perhaps those are some of the traits we have chosen to focus on as humans. However, respect, acceptance, compassion and empathy are also traits that we share as humans. What might happen in our world if we focus on some of those more beneficial traits?
You also say..."As a combat veteran I would love to see your idea evolve."
As the wife, sister and daughter of combat veterans, I would also like to see peace evolve in our world. To do this, we must take the very first step, and truly believe it is possible.