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If you could press a button and all the guns in the world...

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Would you press the button?

  • Yes, I would press it

  • No, I wouldn't press it.


Results are only viewable after voting.
It won't make a difference, Humans are a preditory species that prey's even on itself. A lot of people who believe before guns existed that people didn't kill each other. That's dead wrong. They just used other weapons.

Its human nature. If they didn't have guns, then they would use swords and knives, if they didn't have knives they would throw rocks at each other and stone people to death. Its just the way things are and always have been.
 
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It won't make a difference, Humans are a preditory species that prey's even on itself. A lot of people who believe before guns existed that people didn't kill each other. That's dead wrong. They just used other weapons.

Its human nature. If they didn't have guns, then they would use swords and knives, if they didn't have knives they would throw rocks at each other and stone people to death. Its just the way things are and always have been.

Your right, But dont forget that weapons and jets and explosives = more deadly,
At least, when there is a war , like in gaza , they cant target a neighborhood with a sword or knife , they just kill the person they would need ,
But with guns and jets , they just dont care, they bomb an entire neighborhood killing kids and innocents just to target one person...
 
Your right, But dont forget that weapons and jets and explosives = more deadly,
At least, when there is a war , like in gaza , they cant target a neighborhood with a sword or knife , they just kill the person they would need ,
But with guns and jets , they just dont care, they bomb an entire neighborhood killing kids and innocents just to target one person...

Yes, but this minimizes casualities for the attacking force and quite possibly also for the opposing force. Case in point, how much longer would World War 2 have went on and how many more deaths would have went on had we not dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

When people went to war back in ancient times, it was a take no prisoners attitude. There is no way of stopping this mindset other then to stop it in one's self. People get along due to necessity not due to people likeing one another(this is why couple's tend to argue).
 
Hal is a bit of a moron, if he were in charge he would actually press the button. He would be horrified at the fact that everyone would kill each other anyway, probably at an even faster clip than before. The relationship between weapon killing power and population is really the better weapons we have the more we are forced to get along.

Of course when his simplistic master plan an 8 year old would create ends up failing he would not understand and just blame who knows what. What he would blame it on would actually be interesting. Definitely not himself though.
 
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Hal is a bit of a moron, if he were in charge he would actually press the button. He would be horrified at the fact that everyone would kill each other anyway, probably at an even faster clip than before. The relationship between weapon killing power and population is really the better weapons we have the more we are forced to get along.

Of course when his simplistic master plan an 8 year old would create ends up failing he would not understand and just blame who knows what. What he would blame it on would actually be interesting. Definitely not himself though.

Exactly!
 
Stopped working, permanently. All weapons from handguns up to nuclear missiles, bombes included would stop working, no new ones would work if built. Would you press it?

The only downside I can see is that people in those industries would be out of jobs and we'd have to learn to use bows and arrows again...?

If not, why not?
Sure, I'd press it. Because Tasers aren't a gun, and neither are chemical and bacterial weapons. And just because a tank can't first a weapon doesn't mean it cannot breach a barrier and run over dumb people.
 
Yes, but this minimizes casualities for the attacking force and quite possibly also for the opposing force. Case in point, how much longer would World War 2 have went on and how many more deaths would have went on had we not dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
I figure many American and Japanese lives would have been saved since there would have been no aircraft carriers, no strategic need for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, and little incentive for USA to enter a messy far-away land war if unprovoked.
 
I figure many American and Japanese lives would have been saved since there would have been no aircraft carriers, no strategic need for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, and little incentive for USA to enter a messy far-away land war if unprovoked.

How is that a good thing, unchecked genocide? No, give counties the means in which to defend themselves or defend others.
 
How is that a good thing, unchecked genocide? No, give counties the means in which to defend themselves or defend others.

I didn't call it a good thing, merely pointed out jmarti445's mistake in suggesting that the presence of weapons technology saved US and Japanese lives. Few things are just "good" or "bad" even for a loose definition of those words.
 
It appears that modern weapons have actually prevented more violence than caused violence. Historically, people's at the world were constantly at war with someone. It would have been rare for a human on Earth to have grown up, never having been at war with someone. Now, generations in many countries haven't directly known war. Like it or not, there aren't rebellions in many areas simply because people know what the repercussions are. No repercussions, and here and there, chaos is going to break out.
 
A lot of stuff - social arrangements, institutions, strategy - that we can make work now would not have worked in the past because we didn't have the necessary precursors, freedom of thought or social flexibility.

With how the economy works these days, I simply do not see civilized countries sliding back to warring with each other. There's so much to lose and so little to gain. Heavy weaponry has been necessary, but that doesn't mean it will remain so.

The real problem of armed power is how to minimize it (and put the resources towards something more productive) so that equilibrium is not disturbed and no one stands to gain from using it offensively. The fantasy this thread is based on essentially equals eliminating most of offensive capability overnight. Any power imbalances that would cause, we could fix in our parts of the world. The end result would be more stable because there would be no way to recreate most of the offensive capabilities.
 
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