What will the future bring: war or peace?

Question from the Internet:

“How do you feel about the future of world peace? Will things get worse, or do you still hold onto hope that we can move forward?”

As your question suggests, we are at a very sensitive crossroads.

We can easily move forward toward a nuclear Third World War and annihilate ourselves. But we also have the chance to prevent further wars and start building human society on very different foundations, leading to real peace and prosperity for all.

Which way we will go depends on a very important recognition.

Everything depends on whether we recognize our inherently egocentric, subjective, exploitative nature behind historical and contemporary conflicts and wars. Everything depends on whether we accept that it is not only certain people, groups of people, certain parties, nations or religions that thrive on controlling, manipulating and exploiting others, but that we are all born with the same cancer-like inner software.

If it was only a few specific people, they could not easily incite, provoke and lead the masses to recurring conflicts and wars, and we would not elect them into office and repeat their propaganda. Moreover, we have the necessary psychological and social experiments (like the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, for example) to show that in the “right conditions”, anybody can turn to a dictator and torturer of others.

If we reached this honest and humbling recognition that we are all behind the helplessly recurring conflicts and wars and all the arguments and the ruthless, exclusive competition in society, then we could start the true remedy: all of us, willingly, consciously and purposefully changing and further developing ourselves and the way we relate to others.

True and lasting peace — instead of a Third and Fourth World War — will come when we all change and rebuild human society based on Nature’s finely balanced and mutually integrated template — above and against our inherent nature.

It does not have to happen to 8 billion people all at once. If a critical minority of people — that is more sensitive and willing than others — starts this process, they can pull the rest (that are gradually softened and “convinced” by increasing suffering and threats all around the world) towards safety through their positive and practical example.