Our vision of the future typically consists of a vast blighted landscape decimated by nuclear bombs or killer robot drones or battles to control the dwindling supply of water or oil, but a group of Norwegian researchers claim that warfare will become less and less common in coming decades. Could their simulations of a peaceful tomorrow be accurate, or is humanity doomed by aggressive urges? Via TIME:
Global conflicts have in fact been on a downward trend for the last half-century. And a group of researchers in Norway says their data indicates that the future could be even more peaceful.
In a paper soon to be published in International Studies Quarterly, Håvard Hegre, a professor of political science at the University of Oslo, claims that the number of ongoing conflicts will be halved by 2050 — with the greatest decrease coming in the Middle East.
Hegre, along with his colleagues at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, put together a statistical model that took into account factors such as infant mortality, education, youth population, ethnic make-up and conflict history.
