As we all age, we accumulate experience, observations, learnings that begin to shape a view of the world and the human condition. One characteristic that strikes me most strongly about human history is the waste of resources, financial and human. Imagine if you will over the last 3000 years the total resources utilized in “defense” and war. Just in the last century think of the trillions of dollars spent on all manner of methods and equipment devoted to killing other humans and destroying the works of civilized society. Now imagine if instead all those resources had been devoted to science, to education, to innovation, to health, to improving the living standards of all humans.
And consider the human waste of conflict and preparation for conflict. Each human is a potential source of invention, creativity, comfort for others; each human is a potential contributor to the improvement of life for all humans. And when those lives are lost in war or are devoted to military purposes instead of alternatives, the loss is enormous.
So why isn’t our very top priority at all times finding a way to create a world where conflicts are solved peacefully, where militaries and military spending disappear and those resources are redirected. Why does that rarely even get talked about in our elections and political discussions? Maybe Elon Musk is right, we have to get off of the Earth and find places where we can build different societies, perhaps avoid violent conflicts.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at 
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“So why isn’t our very top priority at all times finding a way to create a world where conflicts are solved peacefully, where militaries and military spending disappear and those resources are redirected.”
Because we live in an imperfect world, full of sinners. To truly abolish war would probably require a world government that will likely become tyrannical. There will always be humans who seek to impose their will on others. Some of them will use violence if they think they can get away with it. Man’s inhumanity to man is not about to vanish.
What we can do is to minimize war so that it is rare and that fewer resources are needed for national defense. We tried that with the League of Nations (failed miserably) and the UN (not much better). But regional pacts, like the EU have reduced war and military spending. I think that overall war has become less common and global military spending has shrunk relative to global GDP. But I don’t have the stats to back that up.
But we can’t just let all those demons go on living. The ones who see life differently than we do must be destroyed.