Will there be a 'World War Three' before 2050?

1.2kṀ18k

2049

25%

chance

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From https://www.metaculus.com/questions/2534/will-there-be-a-world-war-three-before-2050/ Expected to resolve around Dec 31, 2049. Closes 5 years prior. Close date updated to 2049-12-30 11:59 pm

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sold Ṁ33 YES

Making profits on this market is depressing.

@MaxMorehead consider it hedging?

Being optimistic, I think humanity has learned global warfare is not the solution to conflicts between world powers.

Compared to the first two world wars, we have far superior international negotiation, and the ability to exterminate billions within hours. Also, bloodthirsty Europe isn’t the center of the world anymore.

@thepurplebull

humanity has learned global warfare

You need just one big rogue actor to decide to fight the world for a global war to start. The fact that majority is peacefull does not matter, they will not be able to do anything other than fight back, because such pro-war actor would not care about anything other than a win.

The psychology of European elites leading into World War I is almost unimaginable to Americans, even those that supported (for example) the Iraq war. Simplifying dramatically, World War II was significantly related to World War I.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that 1v1 India versus China would qualify, and judging by the Ukraine war, I don’t for see a bunch of other countries, eagerly, jumping in the way that they did to start World War I.

So nothing is certain, but I think this is even less likely than 26%

@MatthewRitter The July Crisis does seem like an unforced error that Germany did not help because of utterly bizarre ideas about "the Germanic peoples will fight the Slavic peoples eventually" and our growing understanding and concern for human rights in warfare since WW2. It just couldn't happen again and wasn't particularly likely to happen even then.

This question will resolve as Yes if, at any time between January 1, 2019 and January 1, 2050, both of these conditions are true:
There is a military conflict involving countries representing in totality at least 30% of world GDP in PPP or 50% of world population in any year in which the conflict is ongoing.
At least 10 million people (civillians or military personnel) have been killed in the conflict.