Humanity has found lots of excuses to go to war with itself. We’ve fought over countries, religions, money and ideologies. In 1900 the British Empire fought the Ashanti Empire over a Golden Stool, the Battle of Karánsebes entirely in fighting between Habsburg troops when the cavalry would not share schnapps with the infantry. Two days later the Ottoman army rocked up and easily captured Karánsebes. In 1739 the British Empire fought the Spanish Empire in the War of Jenkins’ Ear. We don’t even need a good reason to fight. We’ll fight.
Will this always be the case?
Last year, Geek Native had a copy of The Lost Fleet: Corsair to giveaway in a competition. To enter the competitions, readers had to say whether they considered themselves to be geeks or not and whether humanity would ever unite in the future.
This approach does not produce a scientifically robust survey, as it had about 100 respondents, and they were trying to win a free graphic novel. However, it’s better than a show of hands in the pub.
Most people don’t think humanity will ever unite. We’ll be stuck in warring factions.
54.69% of people did not think humanity would unite.
45.31% of people thought humanity would.
Geeks are more optimistic about a united future
There’s a difference in responses from geeks and those people who don’t consider themselves to be geeks. Why were non-geeks on Geek Native trying to win a graphic novel about sci-fi conflict between factions of humanity in the far future? People like to win stuff.
51.1% of geeks did not think humanity would unite in the future.
But 48.9% of geeks thought humanity might unite.
These figures compare to those non-geeks where only 36/8% of them thought humanity would pull together.
In a related survey, geeks were also more likely to say that a ‘United Earth Government‘ was a good idea compared to non-geeks but as a whole were against the idea.
What do you think?
Will humanity unite in the future? The chance to win The Lost Fleet: Corsair is over but you can still vote in this new, live, poll.
Creative Commons credit: Orbital Battle by Theme Finland.
