Every time someone brings up any sort of even half utopian vision (read: a world where people aren't actively trying to kill each other), communism for example, people are sure to bring up "but how will technological/societal/human progress be driven without conflict? Wouldn't humanity stagnate like the fatasses aboard the space ship in WALL-E?"
I've never agreed with this, and though I'm obviously not a sociopolitical theorist, I have some vague justifications of my stance:
First of all, human curiosity and desire to create are intrinsic to our species and does not require conflict. There are enough makers slapping together half baked DIY projects in their garage that do a whole lot of nothing aside from being fun to prove that, with many enjoying the process of making the thing more than the thing itself, but sometimes those pet projects do turn into real products that solve real problems. As are the scientists that research the weirdest things just for the hell of it, and surprise surprise decades later it turns out to actually be useful. Astronomers studying exoplanets and cosmic gas clouds are another example, they're never going to visit those things, certainly won't be colonizing them anytime in their or our lifetime, and it's not like there's an obvious path from that to any sort of weapon. Are they doing it specifically because there might be a war soon? When Galileo fought tooth and nail for his heliocentric theory, he never expected it to physically affect existence on Earth, nor could he have conceived any way of using said theory in battle, but he still advocated it simply because he believed it was the truth about the nature of our universe.
Also, things like radar, nuclear fission, or any of the things commonly associated with war were not initially discovered because of war. The mechanisms of action were discovered by physicists probing and trying to understand the universe, simple as that. The Chinese developed the first forms of gunpowder, and they used it for fireworks at first, guns came much later with the European colonization of East Asia.
Also also, in times of peace, art flourishes. Any period known as the golden age of a given culture or society are almost always in times of relative peace. Can't do much art if you're being raided from the neighbouring empire can you?
Another thing, just because there are no longer external geopolitical conflict doesn't mean there are no conflicts period. Illness, mortality, minor inconvenience, hell even being bored are all conflicts that people have worked very hard to defeat. And there are sci-fi sounding things that can be explored even after all of that is solved. Transhumanism, transphysics, mind uploading, telepathy, faster than light travel, time travel, seeing into or visiting other universes or higher dimensions, do other universes or higher dimensions even exist? We genuinely do not know if these things are possible or what they can do for us, so do they not warrant exploration? Or, instead of exploring outer space, how about exploring inner space? The nature of life and consciousness, emotion, love, and attachment, higher and higher orders of mathematics and logic, do living things truly have spirits or life force within or are we just complicated, mostly self contained chemical reactions? Plenty to chew on in a post conflict world, no?
Finally, one must consider, is no change or advancement really stagnation? Why do we need infinite advancement? Why can't we just focus on being human, living, and enjoying what we have now? This reminds me of the excuses European colonists made for the forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples, that, "well they aren't actively trying to build empires or advance themselves, we're doing them a favour by bring them our way of life because they were never going to achieve anything their way" meanwhile many Indigenous people believed that simply living life has intrinsic value, that being human and enjoying all the things that come with that is enough.
IDK, what do you think of all this?
What are you talking about? The US definitely doesn't have a child murder problem, and don't you know cLiMaTe cHaNgE is Chinese propaganda?