The relentless attempts by we humans to try to obtain something for nothing, is, quite literally, the root of all evil.

Torture is illegal by international law and any thugs in US or other governments that condone its use should be removed from office and punished severely.

We can stop glamorizing and sanitizing massive use of force where there is nothing real to gain. That would help quite a bit. But more importantly we need enough people that stand up for real inalienable based in reality rights and hold their own and all governments and groups accountable only when and as they violate them.

I have no quarrel with a complete idiot or even an extremely evil person as long as they have no ability to initiate force against me. I wouldn't have anything to do with them but I am not going to lose sleep that they exist.

I sometimes thing, and this is dreaming as I don't see how to work out the obvious much less hidden kinks, that..
1) all government limited ONLY to protecting legitimate rights.
2) all initiation of force in all forms strictly forbidden
3) perfect surveillance nipping any and all initiation of force, even by government, in the bud.

(3) is for better or worse almost inevitable as technology improves in any case. It isn't very survivable without the other two.

And our society rewards them for their failures!

I'll take a shot at an answer, but I'm by no means an expert. People more versed in this than I am, feel free to jump in and correct my errors. Lets call this part 1 to my answer, since the posts have limits.


Peaceful conflict resolution is going to require fundamental changes in world philosophy and morality derived from philosophy.


Most societies and cultures and their underlying philosophies in our world claim to promote the individual. At the same time holding sacrifice for others as the highest virtue. A fundamental contradiction that cannot be resolved since they are in opposition and only one of the two can have primacy.

If history shows us anything, it shows us that sacrifice to others, in the person of the state rather than individuals, has controlled. The only real difference between most societies has been in how the state was controlled. We have or have had, Monarchy, Democracy, Republic, Totalitarianism, Communism, Socialism, Democratic Republics, etc. You get the picture, almost anything we can think of has been tried at some point.

A primary failing of every society, including ours sadly enough, is in protection of individual rights. Of particular significance fundamentally are property rights. Why focus on property rights? Because of all other rights this is the one that can be measured and quantified fairly easily.

Consider this:
If states or individuals do not respect your property rights, why would they respect any other of your rights as an individual??
They won't, as history has also shown, over and over and over. Every war you research has had economic causes at base. Always over property and rights to it in some form. To end conflict, the drivers for conflict have to be stopped.

Let me give two examples:
The crusades to the middle east, all of them. If you go through the historical record there is a single drumbeat underlying all of them. Land and income for younger sons of nobility. Under common law throughout Europe at the time, and upheld by the Church, was that property inheritance passed down to the eldest son exclusively. Beyond that initial grant the inheritor could distribute to siblings. Most distributions from the new noble were to buy their brother(s) as spot in the church to take them out of line of succession. That way they no longer had motive to remove their elder sibling.

Or on a smaller scale, and current. Look at the rioting and looting in Baltimore. Did looting stores have anything to do with the incident that sparked the riot? Nope, but the Mayor ordered the police to back off and allow the looting. I don't know about you, but I would sell any property I had and leave. When the local government gives random thugs more right to your property than you have, you have no protections at all.

Objectivism addresses this at a fundamental level by resolving the contradiction of individual Vs sacrifice. Sacrifice of yourself is not a virtue, it is the opposite of virtue. Evil makes a good word for it if we can agree to use the word independent of Theism.

So at a fundamental level individual rights have to be the base upon which society rests.

After all the reverse of giving is taking, and if you don't give enough the state comes in to take. States protect rights on a limited basis, even in America.

Hit that on the head, Mama.

Yes, but we keep producing them. I don't think nurture is going to overwhelm the absence of rationality is some until they're faced with their own failures.

I agree Zen that "our species is hard wired toward getting things and not sharing", and I think that is normal and good. That isn't what causes conflict. Conflict is caused by the people who want what they have not earned and have no right to.

I think we've been trying one way or the other since the dawn of our kind on the planet, without much luck. I think it boils down to who has and who doesn't along with just plain old status and power achievement. Then once it's obtained, another conflict arises in order to hang on to whatever.

I'm firmly convinced that our species is hard wired towards getting things and not sharing unless we see an advantage in doing so. Inherent in even Objectivism is the right of self defense of self and private property.

Well said Mama.

We can't. Not as long as there are people who crave power over others. Conflict is not caused by cultural differences. Those differences are used to manipulate and cause conflict, whereby certain individuals gain power and control.