War and Peace - and reef Sharks

Watching World at War.

So, I started to watch the World at war series on YouTube again. It has been a major source of my WW2 knowledge. I am not sure I particularly enjoy seeing dead humans by the roads while victorious armies casually march down the roads, in black and white reels. Yet, it shows how humans would behave when everyone is in survival mode. Ethics are suppressed by dictators of good and evil. And the modern version of the same human behaviour I have seen on top of Mount Everest when hundreds walk past a dying individual, as nobody dares to gamble with their own lives trying to save another, which is likely to be dead anyway.

But that is not the point I am going to make. I am going to show you the less obvious good side of world war 2. To do that I am going to drop down all my prejudices about a war, and look at it as a concept. Do not label me at the end of it, as I am not a supporter of any cruelty or violence to either humans or animals. Let's get to our discussion.

WW2: https://unsplash.com/@britishlibrary

Benifits of War. The Peace

How about the fact that ww2 has halted the progression of population growth. It is likely at least it dragged the population growth a few years back and now we are on a track. We are not talking about direct deaths. Vast majority are indirect due to poverty and famine. Maybe it is not a good argument to start with. As it may be the same reason why we have a surge in population now.

The era of peace and prosperity, up until globalisation is another good consequence. To colonial countries, they got the freedom they deserve, while the hard learned lessons of war like bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki reminded us about peace even today. And I can see the true eyewitnesses are perishing one by one, yet due to globalisation I can casually watch ww2 on my smart TV shipped from Korea, with chips from Silicon valley. And I would not trade my comfort with pre pre-smartphone era, no matter what. So how about you? Do you not appreciate that equality, democracy that you experience today is due to international laws put forward during the post ww2 era?  Do you think technology would flourish if we did not have that peaceful gap to think about ourselves critically?

As you can see I can write positive aspects of world war. One by one from aviation to development of nuclear energy. And this is not new wisdom either. We take for granted the "world peace". Did you hear the Elon Musk's opinion on this? "Be careful what you wish for" is his advice on this. It's not obvious at first but to have so-called global peace first we might have to campaign to suppress the opposition, dictators and everyone else who do not wish to collaborate. This could mean a ww3. Have we learned anything from the past? So, maybe we might just be ok, trying to keep the current level of peace, and hand over the batton to the future generation to continue this. In Fact the same concept I have discussed over in the article on peace and war, as the peace only prevails due to the war. 

Sharks: https://unsplash.com/@bergoglio

Reef sharks of great Barrier reef.

I am going to stop after giving you one more example from nature to show that war and cruelty, although unacceptable to a moral society, is just a part of nature. And this comes from the great barrier reef. The top predators of this ecosystem are mainly sharks. And due to excessive hunting these reef sharks are now reducing in numbers and this has its own effects in tipping the balance of some parts of coral to extinction. As sharks have been eating larger fish, who in turn eat small grazers. These grazers which remove the parasitic animals in coral are reduced in numbers as shark populations decline. Bottom line is it is complex in nature. Even predators like sharks are necessary, even wars necessary to keep the peace. If we are expecting eternal peace, maybe it will come after an eternal war.

So, as we can see, peace is not easy like a great speech by Greta Thumberg. There are things at stake. And these stakes are high. 

And I have nothing to do with this as I am just a little grazer in my coral home.