An alternative to war - a Geneva Convention on paintball

[walfin]

Or maybe tasers.

I know this will not work, but...

Wouldn't it be far more enlightened?

The benefits are:

• It preserves the tradition of war
• Nobody dies
• Due to its finality, it can be used for the determination of political disputes where negotiation goes nowhere
• A competition may be a more efficient decision mechanism than the interpretation of any type of law which is inherently subjective
• It's a team sport in which the participating numbers do not necessarily have to be regulated (in that way it can be just like real war)
• It might still spur the development of more technology just like war does (think energy-efficient paintball rockets or whatever)
• Everybody, up to the whole nation, can participate in a paintball battle, it's not such a "distilled" sport

 

[Etheri]

So then if I become the best paintball player in the world, I can also be world dictator?

Thanks, that kinda helps me out on my world domination plan!

 

[Montresor]

Can I just say this would not work because what tends to happen with inexperienced paintball players is they panic and break the rules (i.e. shoot people in the back of the head after they're out) out of pure stinking bitch-ass fear.

It's betrayal in its most raw form and feels bad, therefore I do not recommend you subject the world's leaders to a paintball match with each other lest they develop unshakable feelings of having been deeply betrayed by the others.

 

[Hadoblado]

Welcome to the summoners rift...

 

[Pyropyro]

I prefer giant robots smashing each other silly like Robot Jox (for the oldies out there) or G Gundam.

Of course, said robots can be remote controlled and the weapons modded (no nukes, chemical weapons etc.)

It has all the the benefits of OP's rationale plus the following:
* Giant robots are expensive enough to make countries divert large military costs that supposed to use to make more killing machine.
* Action figures, Computer sims, TV and film adaptations and the like can become a cottage industry. Thus helping us create jobs for creatives and artisans. Michael Bay will win the Nobel Prize for Peace
* NT's will have something to sate their world domination urges with whether to invent, refine or boast about the most badass robots out there.
* It's giant robots smashing each other's faces.

 

[walfin]

So then if I become the best paintball player in the world, I can also be world dictator?

Thanks, that kinda helps me out on my world domination plan!

It's a team game, there are gonna be paintball planes strafing you too!

 

[Jason43]

Just abolish governments, no more war. War is too expensive and is impossible without an armed power source forcing the poor fight for them. Its also too expensive to do for long without taxation/confiscation of property. I'd say that just abolishing government education would decrease the probability of war. In the absence of government, we would also have to abolish organized religion. Imaginary beings and "eternal life" being the other thing people in power hold over the poor and uneducated in order to get them to fight for them.

Its really that simple to end war forever.

 

[DelusiveNinja]

Comma Gun WAR. Shoots out needles at enemies that inject a substance that causes the victim to have a comma. Bomb people with Sleeping/laughing gas and take them into custody.
i don't know.

 

[Cognisant]

I can't remember the exact quote or who it's from but basically it's "there can be no negotiation between a man and a sword" or simply "swords don't negotiate" the point being that diplomacy is an alternative to fighting that only occurs because both sides would prefer not to fight.

But you don't get that in modern wars, either it's asymmetric warfare (in which whoever comes to the negotiation table first loses) or industrial nations trying to grind each other down through economic and/or political actions, the only time you get outright war is when things have gotten so bad there's nobody to negotiate with, like the Syrian rebel forces or Hamas, a militia without a clear command structure won't stop fighting until they can't fight anymore.

Then again I suppose there was those border disputes between China and Japan over some privately sold islands, rather than risking direct confrontation in a situation like that where little other than pride is at stake I could see a competition being useful.

 

[ummidk]

Just abolish governments, no more war. War is too expensive and is impossible without an armed power source forcing the poor fight for them. Its also too expensive to do for long without taxation/confiscation of property. I'd say that just abolishing government education would decrease the probability of war. In the absence of government, we would also have to abolish organized religion. Imaginary beings and "eternal life" being the other thing people in power hold over the poor and uneducated in order to get them to fight for them.

Its really that simple to end war forever.

So abolish any group from organizing, ever....simple.

 

[Cognisant]

Rule the entire world with an iron fist!

 

[Jason43]

So abolish any group from organizing, ever....simple.

Well no, theres no other groups who really profit from death like those two. You dont see the salvation army and goodwill arming their employees and killing each other. Even corporations like Apple and Microsoft would go bankrupt within months if they declared 'war' on each other.

If those two were gone, you would have occasionally have family feuds and whatnot like the hatfields and mccoys, but you would never have warfare on the scale of Iraq or WWII. People would resist this shit, but because they can just print the money or take out loans, no one has to immediately pay for it except for higher prices from the accompanying inflation, which people just blame on greedy corporations because they dont know how any of this shit works...

The problem with removing the state without removing religion, is that historically when one collapses, the other steps in to fill the void. I'm really not into humanity having to go through another dark ages when the economy/government collapses. Convincing a bunch of stupid and poor people that they are inherently evil and that by going on a crusade or fighting a wars like all the ones in Europe in the 16th-17th centuries, that they will have an eternity of bliss is the worst kind of evil.

While forcibly making people stop believing or overthrowing various governments is impossible, knowing what the problem is and explaining it to people is at least a start.

 

[ummidk]

This is how the OP's idea would work to me, a powerful country loses, decides it doesn't want to do what it agreed to, says fuck that what are you gonna do challenge me to another paintball match? Militaries are re-formed and real war begins.

The problem with removing the state without removing religion, is that historically when one collapses, the other steps in to fill the void. I'm really not into humanity having to go through another dark ages when the economy/government collapses.

Well basically this is the point I was making, except I don't think power vaccums will be filled by only current governments or religions.

Convincing a bunch of stupid and poor people that they are inherently evil and that by going on a crusade or fighting a wars like all the ones in Europe in the 16th-17th centuries, that they will have an eternity of bliss is the worst kind of evil.

Maybe....

Maybe giving people unrealistic hope during a time when very few people had any real hope for a better future, helped those people lead happier and more fulfilling lifes.

Maybe it contributed a large amount to the most prosperous economic time in human history, however one could argue this is not what humanity even wants.

Little bit random, but for the wars in Europe, I think the USA has just been gifted, people in the US forget how much shit usually goes down in a 50-200 year period(Europe's 20th century) in most other parts of the world. I'd contribute a part of this to the power lock the USA has had on the western hemisphere, allowing no real contender to even think about fuckin around for over 100 years.

 

[B.C.P.]

If countries can't accept the defeat of their team at the Olympics without allegations of cheating, what makes us think they will start behaving differently in regards to paintball?