Scientist uses statistics to predict when World War 3 will begin
It has been 70 years since the last world war, and for decades some believed that we’d entered an era of peace, and such bloodshed wouldn’t be repeated.
But is that actually true?
Computer scientist Aaron Clauset of the University of Colorado has used statistics to analyse 95 wars in the period 1823 to 2003 – to see if we really are in a unique, new period of peace.
Futurism reports that what Clauset found is that we’re not in a unique period of peace – in fact, for the current period to be remarkable, it would need to continue for 100-140 years.
Trends and fluctuations in the severity of interstate wars by @aaronclauset https://t.co/Jo8eUpNpUz pic.twitter.com/zCkFxp6XXa
— Alessandro Vespignani (@alexvespi) February 22, 2018
Clauset says, ‘These results imply that the current peace may be substantially more fragile than proponents believe,
‘In a purely statistical accounting sense, the long peace has simply balanced the books relative to the great violence.’
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Clauset says that the danger of a very large war remains ‘constant’.
Clauset also analysed the probability of a war, big enough to end civilisation.
While he suggests that this may be ‘unknowable’, he estimates that such a war might happen anywhere between 383 to 11,489 years from now: the median estimate is 1,339 years.
Clauset says, ‘The prospect of a civilization-ending conflict in the next 13 centuries is sobering.’